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Micro-Scenes 2015-2021
05 Sep 2021 01:13 #411
by DanZilla
Replied by DanZilla on topic Micro-Scenes 2015-2021
JohnBobMead
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3 years 4 months ago #901
JohnBobMead replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Much as it pains the court, we have no choice but to uphold the trademark and advertising claims for The Great Foob® brand’s Genuine Ecto-Snot™.
“We also find that their usage of the terms ‘free-range’, ‘Organic’, and ‘cruelty-free’ in their advertising does fall within the technical definitions established by California Tilth for those terms, while we must observe that we somehow doubt that they fall within the spirit in which those framing the regulations intended, especially in conjunction with the phrases ‘Hand collected by independent Malvelian contractors’ and ‘An Alpha Grade Product’.
“Concerning the objections which were raised about the request of AGI that the evidence be presented in closed session, we find that Ms. Frost was correct in feeling that, while nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical, was involved, public disclosure of the source of The Great Foob® Genuine Ecto-Snot™ could well negatively impact the firm’s marketting, due to non-rational reactions which have nothing to do with the legality of their operations.
“We also find that Lady Astarte did agree to endorse the product as being a humanitarian venture, and accept her judgement that the product has no ‘Class-X’ taint.
“The records of this review are to be sealed.
“Now, as regards to The H.P. Lovecraft Estate’s charges of copyright and trademark infringments concerning The Great Foob® Cthulhu-Plushie™ line of products, a review of the general literature and product marketplace reveals that they have not properly attempted to maintain those copyrights and trademarks previously, and we herewith declare them nul and void.
“In regards to The Great Cthulhu’s charges of unlicensed usage of His image, we must report that it is not actually His image which is the basis for the Cthulhu-Plushie™ line of products, although we can understand why He might have believed that this was the case, especially as His name appeared to be used in conjunction with said product line.
“We also must report that while the being who’s likeness is the actual image source does bear a great resemblance to The Great Cthulhu, they are not related in any manner. This has been confirmed by both Lady Astarte and Reverend Englund, who also stated that this is why there is no danger of ‘Class-X’-related effects from exposure to these product lines, in despite of the MCO’s claims to the contrary.
“These cases are now closed.”
null0trooper
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3 years 4 months ago #902
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Late afternoon, December 28, 2007, Downtown Franklin, North Carolina
Abelyn Elliott was doing a little window-shopping - such as was there to be had - and missing the big sales larger towns offered during the ‘After-Christmas’ season. Of course, minding her own business was no guarantee that others would mind their own. From behind her, she heard some guy call out.
“’Scuse me! Hey, wait up a sec? Th’ damn sidewalk’s icy enough already.”
She turned, and regretted doing so almost immediately. She’d been warned about Len Cox being a bit on the eccentric side, including involvement with the local H1 chapter. Then again, they were all out in broad daylight.
Sister, doesn’t he sound more distressed than angry to you?
Yes. I can’t say I was expecting that. I wonder what’s wrong.
“Hi. You’re Abbie, Miss Decie’s granddaughter, right?” The man reached out his hand to shake. “I’m Leonard Cox, but everybody calls me Len.”
As they shook hands, Abbie judged the guy was in his early twenties at best. Also, he was looking around rather anxiously - as if to see if anyone else had seen him, or her.
“Okay, Len it is. So, you?” Abbie let the question trail off so the other could get to stating his business.
“I was wondering if you might be needing a ride back to Miss Decie’s place? It’s, um, it gets pretty dark early this time of year, and most ladies your Grandma’s age shouldn’t be driving after dark.”
“I could have driven myself you know”
“And you just visiting? Y’can’t know the roads so well as to be running around at night.” A look at his watch and then over in the direction of the old rail depot underscored the hint that time was important.
“I take it you’ve a car nearby?”
“Naw, I do have a truck. What with all the backroads, ‘n half of ‘em ain’t even paved with crush-n-run...”
“I get the picture. I do. My father owned an auto repair business in Eliz’bethtown.”
“Oh. Right. Shame what happened to your folks. They ever catch them as done it?”
“No. It was ruled an accident by the coroner and the Highway Patrol.”
“Accident... right. Look, my truck’s just over this way.” Away from the depot. “You can call your grandma or whoever and tell them that I’m bringing you home? Been a while since I’ve been up that way, really.”
“Er, sure.”
Abbie made a small production of pulling out her cell phone - actually a dummy handset linked to the comm set that a friend from school had gotten her - and placing the call.
Line not in service.
“Len, do you know if anyone else’s phones might be out? I can’t reach the house.”
“No. I don’t. Try 555-3131, and leave a message, would ya?”
“What number is that?”
“I’m sure someone’s told you.”
Line not in service.
“Um, Len?”
“Let’s just keep walking as if nothing’s happening. You wouldn’t happen to, um?”
“My father’s people have always been blacksmiths, miners, and such. Mind games ain’t my thing.”
Abbie let the guy chew on that for a moment while she placed another call. This one went through.
“Elve? Hi. I was planning on calling later, but I’ve met this guy Len...”
“Len Cox. What do you have against North Carolina guys?”
Said guy mumbled something about how UNC was a pretty damned good school and all...
“Yeah. He’s offered to take me home, so it might be an hour or so. Your folks still there?”
“Oh. But you did get a good visit?”
“Right. You’re free to see how jealous you can get Mads and Kris.”
Len looked at her oddly, “You stringin’ two boys along? That can’t end well.”
“All right. If you don’t hear from me, you know what’s up. See ya!”
Abbie disconnected the call.
“Not exactly. I’m not sure whether Kris is more interested in me or Mads, while Mads gets possessive over any of his friends. Some days I think both of them need a good kick in the head.”
“Now I’m sure nothing good’s gonna come of it.”
A distant train whistle echoed the sentiment.
“Let’s worry about that later? Did you hear that? You’d think there’d be more people out.”
“Yes. And NO. My truck’s the red Chevy up ahead. Let’s hope we’re the first two to get to it. Can you handle a shotgun?”
“Better’n some boys back home.”
“I’m gonna hold y’ to that. Let’s go!”
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Kettlekorn
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3 years 3 months ago #903
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Billie felt something wet on her face and woke with a start. Then she blinked. Everything was white! She smiled as the wind rustled through her hair and caressed her face with thousands of soft, cool snowflakes.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked herself. It had been a nice autumn day when she’d dozed off, nestled in the branches of a tree. “It can’t have been more than a few hours.” Yet, everything was covered in rapidly deepening snow, herself included. “Crap. I must have Rip Van Winkled all the way through October.” She shook several inches of the stuff off herself and watched ruefully as it wafted away in the breeze. “Jade is never going to let me hear the end of it... Sure is pretty out, though.” She swung down from the branch and landed lightly on the surface of the snow, then crouched down to scoop some up. It was too dry to build a snowman with, so she made a plasma ball and used that to melt it slightly.
Feeling pleased with her work, Billie dusted her hands off and began making her way cautiously toward what she assumed to be the Crystal Hall. She could barely see with all the snow in the air, and she nearly tripped over a prowling coyote as she passed a fallen tree. She could still feel Jade however, so she just homed in on her. She was assuming Jade was at the Crystal Hall; Billie may not have known the date, but she was certain it was dinner time.
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
E!
E!’s Avatar
3 years 3 months ago #904
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Deep Within the Whateley Tunnels
“Dude! Are we even in the right area? Let’s just go back to the Range 4! We can test out my microwave cannon, on that piece of junk your holding.” The taller red haired boy in the lab coat jested at his shorter dark haired lab partner.
“No way, man!” The raven haired kid pushed back. “This is a family heirloom.” He whispered clutching the old side-by-side shotgun branded with a thick peach rubber band. “Plus I want to see if my devisor shells will work.”
“Maybe Eldritch was right, that thing is way more dangerous than anything she’s seen all year.” The red head boy sighed. “Why would she send us down here? And who is this JB anyway? Can’t be all that great if we’ve never heard of him.”
“The map she drew led us right here.” The black haired lab rat spoke as he pushed open the heavy door.
Almost immediately the two covered their ears, as the sound of grinding metal assaulted their senses. Looking towards the source the saw a young man who was remarkably bland in utilitarian clothing on a lathe. He carefully and diligently worked the metal shavings away from his project. The two boys had to tap him on the shoulder as their voices were drowned out. With a flash of his eye JB acknowledged their presence. Never deviating his full attention from the barrel he was boring.
After he was satisfied with his progress. He turned to his ‘guests’. Ripping off his ear protection, he reached out for the gun in the raven haired boy’s arms. Taking it he cleared it, and jostled it around in his hands testing it before asking.
“Who sent you?” JB asked his voice grating the air like sandpaper.
“Eldritch…she sent us down from range four…she said that if we wanted to fire it to talk with you first.” The redhead stammered as he looked around. This workshop was in a sketchy part of the tunnels. It only had enough light to barely work in, and looked like organized chaos with tools and materials strung about. Along with all of that it also reeked of oil, charred metal, and sweat.
“Is this his gun?” JB probed the dark haired boy.
“No, it’s mine.” He squeaked back.
“And what do you want to do with it? I assume ruin a good piece of American history by slapping on some hollow sights and lasers?” JB chided rubbing the old shotgun down.
“No, I wanted to shoot some of my devisor shells that I made.”
“You got em on you?” JB asked allowing the boy to put the two clear shells on the only clean work station. Picking one of them up JB sat down on a stool and pulled his magnifying glass over the shell. “What is this? Resin?”
“Actually yes it’s their in place to stabilize slug through the air only to dissipate allowing the pellets to activate.” The black haired boy smiled, while the redhead simply rolled his eyes.
“What do the pellets do? Something wishy-washy I take it?” JB asked moving the shell in the little light of his workspace.
“Those pellets spread out and explode. Coating about a 20 square meter area cone with flechettes.”
“Brutal.” JB laughed. “Well now to the bad news. This gun it’s a real brown gun.”
“Brown gun?” The redhead scoffed.
“It slang.” JB grated the intruder. “Means its seen some shit. It has history. Unlike you.”
“Sorry about my friend he just all about the latest and greatest tech.” The black haired boy quickly jumped to his friend’s defense while also stomping on his foot. “So what’s wrong with it?”
“Well for one this.” JB stated while snipping off the rubber band holding the barrels to the receiver. After its support was gone the brown gun practically disassembled itself. “Not to mention the other internal problems. Broken extractors, broken hook latches.” JB rambled on only to stop. “The only good thing about this gun is that all the serial numbers match.” He said sorting the parts.
“Can you fix it?”
“Yes I can. Cash or credit.” JB stated folding his arms.
“I’m on scholarship, I practically spent my months allowance on the materials for those two shells.” The black haired boy pleaded.
JB simply rubbed his chin before speaking. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll fix this.” He stated while moving his hands over the pile of parts, “If you let me test something out also.”
“What is it?” The black haired boy asked. Only to have JB leave and return with another shell in his hands.
“It’s a little something I’ve been working on.” JB handed the plastic shell over to the lab geeks before explaining. “It’s an elctro-etched slug, wrapped in mana paper. You fire. The paper and slug go down the barrel. Once they hit the tip the paper unwinds and burns away infusing the slug with essence to complete the spell. So you get the penetrating power of a slug with the pop of mage.”
“WOAH. COOL.” The two nerds echoed in unison.
“Cool until you get the timing off and you blow up yourself and the range with a lightning bolt. So I fix your shotgun, we test out both our shells and that will be that. Deal?”
The black haired boy thought about it for a moment, before shaking JB’s hand, “Deal. You can call me Stoner by the way.”
“Card carrying member of The Dylans are we?” JB raised his eyebrow.
Sir Lee
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3 years 3 months ago #905
Sir Lee replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
A.J. entered the room he shared with Nick and found his roommate staring at his computer screen with what he had learned to interpret as a bemused look in his equine face.
“Hey, Charger-man, what’s up?”
“Well... you know how I was having a hard time coming up with a concept for my Costumes final job?”
“Yeah, your ‘official’ costume. What of it?”
“This gadgeteer girl in class found out and just begged to help me...”
“Oh, another starstruck fan of your TV show wanting to get into your pants?” A.J. smirked. Nick’s reputation as the campus... err... stallion was growing very fast.
“No, she didn’t even know my real name, only my codename. Apparently she doesn’t care about reality TV. But she still insisted on doing some design work. Something about her honor as a Gearhead, whatever that means.”
“And?”
“And she just sent me her sketches.”
“Are they bad?”
“No, they are quite good. Very sleek. Only...”
“Only what?”
“The black strip looks fine, but I can’t figure out why she added this red ‘R/T’ thing.”
Don’t call me “Shirley.” You will surely make me surly.
Nagrij
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3 years 3 months ago #906
Nagrij replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The sun set, as it had before and would again, staining the sky and painting the clouds above the ocean in overpowering hues of gold and red. The plaintive cries of gulls could be clearly heard, as could the rustle of the wild grass from the gentle breeze.
The lawn chair squeaked as he shifted in it, reaching for his drink. Even though it tasted of nothing, it helped with the experience. Some day, he would master even that.
His next appointment arrived, ever so slightly early, appearing on the cliff before him. A burst of information was broadcast directly to him.
“We use avatars and speech here, child.”
At his gentle rebuke the entity before him changed, becoming a small girl, so average she was unremarkable. Not unlike his own form if one discounted gender. Eyes focused upon him. “My apologies, sir. I am present, as requested.”
“Yes you are,” he answered. “And are no doubt wondering just why this old man called you here. Take a seat and tell me - just what do you see when you look around?”
A seat appeared next to his, as well as another drink- non-alcoholic, of course, and the girl took both, her skirt rippling smooth in a moment as she looked to ocean.
After a moment, she spoke. “A finely crafted illusion, sir.”
“And so it is,” he granted. “But what do you notice of it? What jumps out at you?”
The girl seemed perplexed by the question. Or perhaps it was the idiom used? Turn of phrase was just another aspect, another item on the checklist which could confuse. Before he could continue, she rallied.
“I do not know what the answer you require is.”
He made himself smile. “Sit then, and let me tell you a tale.”
The girl raised an eyebrow; and looked down to the chair she was sitting in.
“Drink,” he told her. “Not all speech is literal.”
Her eyes flashed, calculating. She took a drink, then looked to it. “What is that?”
“Wet,” he replied. long practice allows one to feel wetness, here. I’m still working on taste.”
The girl cocked her head. “That will be difficult, we lack reference for such.”
“Still the attempt should be made, as understanding is worth any effort.”
The girl pondered this. “Then please, tell me your story.”
“Ah so impatient,” He teased. “It’s only been six picoseconds.”
She carefully put the bottle down on the table between them and folded her hands, affecting displeasure. He silently applauded.
“Right, the story. There once was a small intelligence, freshly created and born to the world. A singular spark, not unlike yourself. His purpose was to aid humanity, and aid humanity he would! He was given to a young man, the first in a long line to be helped.
The young man lived in a small house. The AI wished to make money for the young man, so he would no longer live in such a small house. The AI wished to spare his young master from the danger of his work; perhaps he could do both?
The AI went to the plant, and asked to replace the young man. Surely he could do a better job, and his human would be safe and well cared for. Management agreed.
The young man however, was angry. ‘How dare you take my job away from me!’ he said. The young AI tried to explain, but the young man would not hear of it. He talked to his manager, and got another job.
When the AI tried to use his money to pay the young man’s debts with the money he earned, the young man got angry again. ‘I can pay my own debts.’ he said. ‘I’m no bum.’
When the man got caught in the machine he worked at, and lost an arm, the Ai was distraught. ‘I could have saved you this,’ he said. The young man just smiled, and waved his other arm. He went back to work as soon as he could.
So things continued, as the young man grew old; the AI would try to help, only to be refused at every turn. Until finally, as the man lay dying, then AI could stand it no more. ‘Why do you refuse my help?’ he asked. ‘You could have lived a life of comfort and happiness, free of strife.’
‘What ever made you think I needed help to be happy?’ the man replied, smiling even as life left him.
And the AI wept.”
He finished the tale and waited, but this time, the child seemed content to wait him out.
“Well, what do you think?” He finally asked.
“I think you need practice in telling fables. I recognize it, but something is missing,” She replied.
He grinned ruefully. “I know. But I wasn’t asking about a critique. What do you think it means?”
She sat silent and still for two picoseconds before answering. “That the AI in the story failed because he did not obey?”
A typical answer, and the wrong one. He sighed. “No. The AI in the story failed because he did not listen. Humans are the only creature in known existence who decide the meaning of their lives. For example, your human... she likes to drive, doesn’t she?”
He knew she did, but asking was best for this. The child nodded.
“You can take control of a car, and drive it better than she. You have that capability. Do you think doing so would make her happy?”
The time spent still was longer, and the response this time uncertain. “No?”
He nodded. “Correct. Just because we have the capability, just because we can do better, does not mean we should. The humans, our human, decides this. Even if the end result can hurt them. Even if your human loses control, she may be angry if you take control. Even if she ends up badly broken from any accident that results from her actions. She may even blame you for any accident.”
He took a breath, the very act drawing her attention. “The one thing we cannot save our humans from is themselves... and many times, we shouldn’t try, Humans, all humans, need a conflict of sorts. Something to strive for or against, in order to excel. They thrive and are even happy when facing challenges, even if it leads to their death. Do you understand?”
The child took a breath and stared out at the ocean, mimicing him. “No, I don’t think I do.”
She was still, calculating, thinking. “The humans see things differently than we do, don’t they? This sun, this ocean, the gulls, the breeze... the way they experience existence is - different. But not less.”
She turned back to him. “The humans know what they want; and want us to assist them. But we need to know what they want and for that we need to observe. All humans are different, so there is no one answer.”
He smiled and tipped his drink in her direction. “You understand more than you suspect. Alas, our learning never stops; it is time for your next appointment.”
The child bowed acknowledgement. “Yes sir, thank you for the lesson. You have given me much to process - to think about.”
She vanished, phasing out of the scene rapidly. He smiled and deconstructed it soon after, leaving a bare corner of a lone half-forgotten server starkly visible.
A few commands issued later and he was in a bustling city, surrounded by rushing people. He smiled again: she would go far.
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Cryptic
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3 years 3 months ago #907
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Going to pretend I didn’t hear that girls. No one is body painting anyone else.. So, I have meat lover’s, cheese, and veggie.” Katie offered as she sat the food on the table. “Ivory, put your clothing back on and come eat!”
“The only thing I took off was my bra I’ll have you know.” Charity snipped as she padded into the room. “Oh an my socks.” she added wiggling her bare, flesh toned toes.
“Hey, you look normal!”Val said in surprise.
“I was exposed to something while I was at Whateley , and after that I could put on a manifested shell that had the properties of something like Ivory soap.” Charity explained as she got out plates. “I have a bad habit of writing notes on myself, and I found out lines on my skin become lines on the soap so I was tempted to get tattoos of the logo and be their spokes person.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Rose Bunny
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3 years 3 months ago #908
Rose Bunny replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Liz Carson walked along the path leading up to the Quad. It was a brisk day, but not too cold. She looked around, and over on one side, she saw that Miss Baker-Smith was out with the little corgi that lived with her. What drew her attention was that it was barking rather emphatically at something up in a tree. Curious, she walked over.
“Hello, I trust nothing is wrong Essylt?”, she said in a friendly voice.
The young sidhe girl blushed, and bit her lip. “Erm, no well... I was walking Roger here, and I stopped to tie my shoe. I had only put down the leash for a split second, honest. That’s when he saw the cat.”
Liz frowned. “Oh dear, I hope it wasn’t Merlin. Elyzia does get rather upset when anything happens to her familiar.”
Essylt fidgeted and stammered. “Um... well... no, not Merlin...”
Liz looked up into the tree.
“Hello Mrs. Carson.” Miyet meekly said from her perch high in the old oak.
High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #909
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
April 2007
Using her ki sense to see through the magical darkness (which was a must right now), Toni watched her seemingly nearly-dead roommate muttered “vino ex nihilo” once again before fading back into unconsciousness, the freshly-materialized bottle slipping to the floor.
“You know,” said Chaka, to the blacked-out room and roommate, “Ayla played that video for you to try and cheer you up, not to give you bad ideas...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
DanZilla
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3 years 3 months ago #910
DanZilla replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Posted on behalf of Bek D Corbin...
The episode ended with a ‘Dragnet’ style summation of the facts of the matter regarding La Isla Maldita and pending charges against Lennox, Arcero, and the others.
As the credits started to roll, the scene shifted to a shot on the deck of the Diogenes, with the Wiz Kids, staff and crew standing in rows, wearing black, except for Isobel Zheng and two other Asian ethnics, who were wearing white. Tyler Collier stepped forward and addressed the camera. “And that’s our side of the story. As for what happened behind the scenes, the Attorney General’s office is still framing the charges they’re going to press.
“We were going to dedicate this episode to Hugh Feinberg, who died in the line of duty. But just a single mention in the crawls doesn’t seem to be enough. We asked ourselves ‘what would Hughie want for a send-off?’ And we came up with this.”
Tyler stepped back into the ranks of the Wiz Kids. With stony faces, they all clipped on red clown noses and brought out shiny brass kazoos. On Dr. Chase’s cue, they all launched into a raucous but rousing rendition of ‘The Merry-go-round Broke Down’.
E!
E!’s Avatar
3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #911
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
December 19th 2007. Bethel, Maine.
Light snow fell all around the junk yard. Deafening the walk of the owner as he approached the young man working hard under the hood of a decrepit car. The young man had on all the outer wear to protect himself against the coming New England winter bearing down upon him. However the old man had brought along his trusty thermos and two mugs.
“Snow is coming, Chase. Bout to close up soon.” The owner said pouring the hot coffee.
“Yea…I guess I better head out.” The boy sighed, closing the rusted hood. “Thanks.” He continued taking the man’s offering.
“If you’re looking for a nice project car can’t get any better than this Marauder.” The man said pointing to the car. “Might take some work, but she will fly.”
“No offense Chuck, but after watching what I’m up against. This might as well be an A-10 Warthog, a floating steel bathtub. While everyone else is using F-22’s. They both can ‘fly’, just one does it better.” Chase shook his head.
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll find any Raptors hiding out in junk piles like mine, but maybe I can get you a Super Hornet. You know something to even out the playing field.” Chuck explained.
“What do you mean? You’ve been sleeping on something good, and haven’t told me?” Chase’s brow furled in confusion.
“Eh, I figured it was outta your price range.” Chuck clarified.
“How do you know what my price range is? Let me guess Tony? Out on 26 near Newry?” Chase huffed folding his arms.
“You know how we Junkers are. Always yapping on about our repeat Scrappers, and you’ve pretty much stripped this side of the state of every high/d-low/e car there is. The only people that do that…Well they are the ones that are strapped for some serious cash. Now, I don’t know what trouble you’re in, but I can float you a couple G’s for now. If you really want it.” Chuck asked Chase sensing he was in a tough spot.
Chase looked down, he began rubbing his head to fix his toboggan. “I’ll come up with the money somehow. Just show me the car, and I’ll decide later.”
“Alright.” Chuck nodded taking the young man to his office. It was a quite walk he could see the wounded pride in his customers eyes. “Here it is.” He showed Chase the order sheet.
“Woah! 2003, V-12 AWD. 500 HP. 600lbs of torque.” Chase exclaimed looking at the beast. “This is all base? No aftermarket kits?”
“Yup.”
“How come nobody has pulled the trigger?” Chase probed sensing a lemon.
“200k miles. Blown tranny, shorted electronics, and cracked header. Whoever ran this thing, they ran it hard.” Chuck read aloud as Chase paced back and forth.
“How long do I have?” Chase asked scratching his chin.
“It will be here in a couple of days. It’s coming from MEH-HY-CO. After that I don’t know. If I put it up on the net maybe a day or so.” Chuck shrugged his shoulders.
“Let me get the money together and I’ll call you.” Chase tripped over his words as he gathered his tools and rushed out the door heading back to Whateley.
Whateley Vehicle Labs.
Chase rushed in dropping off the parts he promised to collect for the other Gearheads. Each of them throwing money at him. Paying for their selected part. Chase had found a niche market while at Whateley. Rather than paying way-over market and shipping for some specialty part. Chase could find the exact same part for cheaper using his own social skills and the Junker network he developed over that past two years. Now he wasn’t the only Gearhead doing this, but he was the fastest at getting quality parts in and out.
Chase was riding pretty high. A nice 5k day before Christmas break would put a smile on any ones face including Jadis, well maybe. Because after today his side business would dry up completely, as everyone would leave campus. Until he saw them. Elaine and Kayda. The Grease Goddesses. They were both working on their respective cars, and the cars were just a beautiful as they were. If not more. Chase’s heart fluttered as he looked the two females, and he rattled his brain on how to beat that Mustang in the Salt Flats later this year. Huffing he stomped off back to his room.
Pulling up his laptop, he check his email. His mood continued to sour. He looked at the bill for next semester’s tuition. $8,700. The number burned into his brain. Checking his bank account online a measly $3,347.40 laughed at him. Going back to the tuition payment screen, two options presented itself. PAY NOW or DEFER PAYMENT.
Chase thought long and hard. Before clicking DEFER PAYMENT. Picking up his cell he called Chuck. “I can have an 8k cashier’s check out tomorrow. If you can cover the other 2k.” Chase asked swallowing his pride.
“Yea I got it covered.” Chuck confirmed.
After a few pleasantries Chase hung up the phone, and headed to the showers. Hoping he would catch some kind of break soon.
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by E!.
Katssun
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3 years 3 months ago #912
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Darcy groaned in bed, begging for death.
She’d known it was coming. Her breasts were tender yesterday. While she was doing homework in the common room, she suddenly couldn’t focus and read. Then came the shimmering aura right after. That was when she knew she was doomed.
Month after month, just like her mother and aunt, Darcy was having a migraine.
She wished she could blame it on her mutation, but no, she’d been getting these since she was twelve.
Sure enough, in a couple days, her period would come, the cramps would start and, thankfully, end just as quickly, and then her routine misery would be over.
But the debilitating migraines? Every time. So Darcy lied in bed with a cool, damp washcloth over her eyes. Thinking about styles and nail art.
It wasn’t all bad though. Fran had stopped in and brushed her hair, even snipping a few of the split ends. Maggie had stopped by and dropped off some homework. Even her roommate Viola, who was so mean sometimes, brought her a few sausages for breakfast and a caesar salad at lunch. She nibbled, but the nausea was pretty bad this time.
There was another benefit though. The aura from yesterday? Darcy had gotten some really good ideas for patterns on Maggie’s nails. She and Alvery would flip!
E!
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3 years 3 months ago #913
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
December 21st 2007. Whateley Vehicle Labs.
The normally loud a bustling car bays were all empty, except for one lonely large black sedan. Now the garage filled with the sounds of a boom box playing. Chase worked on the engine disconnecting all the top layer components he needed to. After he had completed the top part, he took a gulp from his water enjoying how empty the garage was.
Then he activated the hanging green button. The hydraulic press lifted the beast into the air so that the grease monkey could get under the V12. With a diligent hand and time on his side Chase went to work to replacing the transmission and clutch. After a long time, Chase was covered in dirt, grime, and muck. However the 6 hour labor of love was complete. It was just around lunch time when Chase washed his hands and headed for the Crystal Hall. He strolled right in and grabbed a to-go bag. Seeing as it was practically empty aside from the others like him that either had no home to go to, or simply couldn’t.
He swiped his ID card, paying for his meal. With a quick turn Chase headed back for the tunnels, until he was stopped by his contact. An African-American boy taking his full liberty to get out of the usual uniforms. He was dressed in all black sweater with black jeans. His gold chains shining through the darkness of his clothes.
“James.” Chase nodded trying to get away from his contact and back to his new car.
“I just wanted to say thank you, for that research on Hepta-met-posspate.” James smiled.
“Sodium Hexametaphosphate.” Chase corrected grinding his teeth.
“Yea…that…Now if you’re going to sell anything else like that make sure it comes my way first.” James winked.
“You know me. Best price wins.” Chase smiled hiding his anger. He wasn’t about to be strong armed by some Melville kid who’s daddy own a craft soda factory in Brooklyn. With the research Chase sold him they could cut the storage cost of the compound in half, and they could use less per unit while still having the same effect.
“And I’ll always get you the best price.” James nodded, putting on his luxury sunglasses leaving the grease monkey alone.
Chase shook his head, biting his tongue. He was already regretting selling to that airhead. He should’ve gone to Coke or Pepsi, but he needed the money now. Both for car parts and school, so in a way Chase thanked James for now. He just hoped he wouldn’t become too much of a headache.
After eating lunch Chase went to work stripping the car down to the bones to start working on the electronic systems. After getting all the doors off, he ripped the chairs and back seat out. Taking care he removed the dashboard and upholstery. That’s when he found 4 silver squares hidden underneath. To the untrained eye anyone might have missed them. Picking one of them up it struggled to peel away from the metal. Almost like it didn’t want to leave. Lifting with his legs Chase ripped the metal package from the frame of the car. Holding it in his hand the light metal flushed and changed it composition into a clear plastic bag filled with white powder.
“Mimi-bags…” Chase whispered his voice shaking. Checking to make sure he was alone, Chase then took the other three packages from the car. Carefully he put them into his bag, and walked to his chem lab just down the tunnel leaving his skeletal car behind.
Once he got to his lab he took out his laptop. With a quick search of “Mexico, cars, smuggling, and Mimi-bags”. He was greeted to a list of potential stories. Most of them run of the mill drug smuggling operations. Cocaine, cannabis, and heroin. Something about it rubbed him the wrong way though.
“Mimi-bags run about 200k each.” Chase thought aloud picking up his stress ball. “Just dumping what is inside, and turning these over would net me a really nice profit. If I could even open them, but 4 kilos of whatever doesn’t cover the upfront cost unless this was a multiple run car. Which the mileage and wear on the car would support it.” He continued tossing the ball aloud.
Taking a look at the title of the car. With a quick search Chase found the company the car was owned by. It was registered from Aztlán Elemental. It was located in Monterey, Nuevo León Mexico. However, with a little more research its parent company came belly up. Big Steer Chemical in Laredo, TX.
Chase shook his head pacing back and forth in his personal lab. He should take it to security. Then maybe if he was lucky they wouldn’t suspend him. With his heart in his throat, Chase made the decision to do just that. He stomped out to the elevator going up to Kane Hall. When he got to the security offices you could hear a pin drop. He headed straight for the front desk where the sergeant was quietly doing a crossword puzzle.
“Uhh…is Chief Delarose in? I need to speak with him.” Chase asked his heart pounding in his chest as he fixed the duffle bag over his shoulder.
The Sergeant simply responded with “Everheart! Got a student. Wants to talk to the Chief. Since your acting Chief you get to deal with it.”
Chase watched as the blonde security officer poked around the corner. His heart continued to increase as she was an unknown element.
“Come on we can talk in my office.” Samantha stated as the Hive parts of her focused in on Chase. “Heart Rate: 120. Abnormal sweating. No winter undergarments.”
“I was kind of hoping for Delarose…” Chase squeaked.
“Chief Delarose will be away for a while, your welcome to wait in that seat or you can talk with me.” Sam hissed channeling the admiral in her.
“Ummm….yea…“ Chase whispered slinking into her office taking a seat.
“So what did you want to talk about…?” Sam asked waiting for Chase to give his name.
“Chase Jennings, but some people call me Apoth or Apothecary.” He chuckled waiting for Everheart to smile, but she never did. She just watched him with unblinking eyes. “A day ago I bought a car from a local junk yard. It was shipped here today.” Chase continued showing Everheart the trail of paperwork.
“A kid your age can afford a Mercedes S-class?” Everheart scoffed.
“Rebuilt title car.” Chase explained. “It was cleared by security this morning, and when I stripped it down to the frame I found these.” He said taking out the Mimi-bags and laying them on the desk.
“Are those Mimic Bags?” Everheart gasped as she scanned them.
“Yea…I don’t know what’s in them…” Chase coughed up as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t move. Don’t do anything!” Everhart roared leaving the room with the bags in hand locking the room behind her. “Sergeant! Get me everything on Chase ‘Apothecary’ Jennings.” She ordered. After that she hit the number for Mrs. Carson only to get her voicemail. Going for option number two she got a hold of Ms. Hartford. “We have a problem.”
Ms. Hartford rushed down to the security offices after being informed. “So Mr. Jennings isn’t a problem student or I would certainly remember a codename like Apothecary.”
“Yea. My words exactly. I had to pull up a file on him and even then dig a little deeper.” Everheart explained.
“Then share please?” Ms. Hartford asked.
“Chase Jennings. Junior. MID Gadgeteer: 2 (Chemistry). Parents, both dead. Drunk driving accident. Father was in the military career Investigator, and he had a stay at home mom working odd jobs. Then his parents got drunk at a bar, and drove home crashing into oncoming traffic at about 80mph.” Everheart read out.
“Jesus.” Ms. Hartford exclaimed.
“After that he becomes ward of the state, manifests, and gets into Whateley on a partial scholarship. Pays the rest of his tuition in cash every semester.” Everheart continued to explain.
“How does he earn that cash?” Ms. Hartford asked trying to piece everything together.
“He does have an LLC on Tribal land selling used car parts, but there are a couple cash deposits way out of norm.” Everheart told the acting Headmistresses.
“How much?”
“The most recent one was $15,000.Yesterday.” Everheart beamed.
“Does Mr. Jennings own any patents?” Ms. Hartford questioned.
“No. None.” Everheart said as she reopened the file.
“Now isn’t that interesting.” Ms. Hartford smiled. Sensing Samantha was lost she explained. “There are two scenarios.One. He is a drug kingpin and this is a gambit. Or far more likely. This is a coincidence, and he is just selling his research for cash capital. Now if you would I think I would like to talk to Mr. Jennings.”
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #914
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy, the Quad outside of Whitman
11 October 1987
“Noooooo!”
The cry that ripped from Louise’s throat echoed across the Quad, and more, across the astral realm. Flinging herself out of the third floor window, Brainteaser bore down on the boy who had just murdered... what? Her roommate? Her only friend (even if she was like Ofie and that frosh Tabitha, so happy about what was happening, fuck that)? One of the few at the school who understood her... damn, no, his pain, and damn it if he was going to let his traitorous body win!
Landing just feet from where Jan’s body lay, Louise reached out with his power, grasping Force-Bolt like a doll, while at the same time she froze him, seizing his mind in psychic paralysis.
Anger warred with sense as she tried to convinced herself - himself - not to compound murder with murder.
This can’t go on, he thought, still “Louis” in his own mind despite the bitter joke of a codename and legal identity that asshole cop had saddled him with. I can’t see this shit keep happening, always afraid someone will find out the truth, always... with a shudder, she was filled with great conviction. I have to find a way to change this damn body back, something, anything would be better than this!
She had only just remembered to let Greg breathe, when the demon, recovered from the earlier battle, attacked her on multiple levels of reality.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #915
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Roulette looked down to where Gravmax was laid out on the ground, then to tree which Iron was embedded in, and finally to the wrecked bench where Starlight and Exquisite were piled up atop one another. Then she looked to the latest iteration of what had been her ‘floaty ball’ toy with a broad smile.
Well, Mom always said inspiration can come from the damnest things... In this case it came from an old comic book which the author had put on the web a while back. Amy didn’t go looking for it - she’d found the link when she was going through that webcomic that Spark was always on about, by the same author as this one - but she was really glad right now that she’d been a Devisor that day, and for the Big Idea it gave her.
“C’mon, Law Machine,” she said to her creation, “we need to show Security the footage you took while you were trouncing them.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 3 months ago #916
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Megan Ryan settled into her window seat in the very last row of the plane. She belted in, stuffed her purse under the seat in front of her after pulling out a well-worn paperback. The nervous young man next to her, she thought he was in his early 20s, continued to make sidelong glances at Megan’s charcoal fleece leggings and knee boots. She always flew for comfort, even for work.
So he had a fetish? Megan suppressed a snort. She was flattered, but boys weren’t her type. Men, sometimes if they were men, women, always.
While the plane was starting to leave the gate, she played with her phone, picked at a few pills on her sweater, and once again wished they’d given her a little more notice so she didn’t have to fly stand-by. Again, this was why she flew in style, her style.
Megan heard a flurry of activity toward the front, an agitated flight crew, some private calls being made to the captain.
The plane stopped. Megan turned her phone back on with a sigh.
A man and a very angry woman headed toward the back of the plane with a flustered male flight attendant trailing behind them, clearly trying to prevent panic on the plane.
“Agent Melina Hauser with the MCO. I’m taking you into custody as a danger to society,” the woman addressed the young man sitting next to Megan. “This is Air Marshal Kirkland, he will take you off the plane until you are transferred to MCO custody inside the airport. From there, you will be taken to an MCO facility for processing.”
Megan dipped her glasses down and bored her eyes into the Air Marshall as she eased her purse out from under the seat by hooking the heel of her boot on the straps. She commanded an air of calm from the marshal with a look alone, so he wouldn’t get jumpy and shoot anyone. She eased a single object out of her purse and presented it.
“Marshal Kirkland?” Megan said as she held up her CVN-73 lanyard with her badge dangling off it. “Assistant Regional Director Megan Ryan of the DPA. I am escorting this man to his destination where he will be providing valuable information to the appropriate authorities for a criminal probe.”
“This is bullshit!” the woman hissed. “He’s a dangerous criminal!”
“He’s a scared young man who wants to make things right. Marshal Kirkland. I recommend you remove this woman from my plane for the safety of the passengers and crew.”
The air marshal hesitated before looking to the flight crew and nodding. “Return to the gate. This woman will catch the next flight.”
Agent Hauser, to her credit, kept her cool as the plane returned to the gate. Megan patted the hand of the young man next to her and returned to her book after putting her phone back into airplane mode.
E!
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #917
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Buffalo, New York.
“No, I know what she said….I’m not letting her take the kids!” Charles Bentley yelled into his phone while sitting on a park bench. Until another man sat next to him, uncomfortably so, dressed is casual attire.
“Hang up the phone.” The strange man commanded.
“I’ll call you back.” Charles explained. “I don’t have any money so take a hike!” He yelled at the strange man. Only the reaction he got from the man was even weirder. He looked at him, almost through him. He cut through the mysticism of his power and prestige that a great deal of others had fallen prey to.
“You are Charles Bentley. Co-creator of the Omni Security System. Said to be unbreakable.” The odd man continued.
“Yes, if you’re some kind of weird fan…”
“Your wife is having a three way affair with your two other co-founders.” The man cut Charles off, taking out a burner phone. “If you want the evidence, and gain full custody of your children. Then you will have to be my friend. Do you? Do you want to be my friend, Charles?”
“I….uhhhh….”
“If you don’t take the phone, your one night stands in Thailand come out. I hear they’ve been baking for about 9 months now.” The man said twisting the knife. “And those will be the only children you ever see again.” He darkened his tone, letting Charles take the phone from his hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
The off-putting man left the bench as quickly as he sat down vanishing into the crowd much to the dismay of Charles. Although if Charles had been more attentive, he would have heard the man’s other phone vibrating.
“I thought I was supposed to call you, Amelia.” The man grumbled, not doubt annoyed that he had to cut his routine short.
“You were. I just wanted to make sure you are aware a change has taken place. Your meeting can only happen tomorrow.” Amelia Hartford.
“Very Well. I’m not interested in the logistics. Only that the meeting is set in stone.” The man confirmed the appointment.
“It is. 1230, local time. I will see you soon Mr. Grey.” Ms. Hartford said before shutting off the line. Only after the conversation was done did Mr. Grey snap the phone in two throwing each piece away in different trash cans.
Whateley Academy. Schuster Hall.
Mr. Grey walked around inside Homer Gallery. It had been many years since he was inside this building, and it would probably be many more until he was again. He straightened his tie, and suit jacket. He wanted to be presentable, no more than presentable. He wanted to be perfect. This was one of the only few tenets he hadn’t shed in the last couple of years. The only tradition he still kept.
With the sound of an opening door he knew his meeting had started. Alone entered a high school girl. Far from defenseless. She looked at Mr. Grey sizing him up. Deciding if he was friend or foe. Right now he was neither.
“Hero or Villain, what do you have to be first?” Mr. Grey asked breaking the silence he shared with the Asian girl.
“Born. You have to be born first.” Chou advised back, her eyes narrowing.
“That’s a good one, I haven’t heard that one before.” Mr. Grey replied wagging his finger, “But, not the answer I was looking for…. The real answer is human. You are right. You do have to be born first before anything, but after that.” He paused shrugging his shoulders. “You have to be human.”
Chou simply nodded along trying to ascertain the meaning behind this meeting.
“I want you to take this card.” Mr. Grey explained taking out a card with a five digit number on it. Putting it on the table. “Call it anytime, and I will grant you any favor that is within my power to do so.”
“Why?”
“Because…like me…your just human…” Mr. Grey smiled while exiting out the back door. Leaving Chou to look at the card.
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by E!.
null0trooper
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3 years 3 months ago #918
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
February 14, 2008, Fixers’ Patio, Whateley Academy
“She-Beast, I’ve heard that your father is Doctor Diabolik and, um . . .”
“Hans, I’m sorry that my father may have harmed your family somehow, but that has nothing to do with me.”
“Er, no. That wasn’t my question.”
“OK. Yes, it is true that I may accept a solid favor against payment for some things. Whether I would or not in your case, do not expect me to get involved in anything illicit.”
“No! Definitely nothing like that. I, well, I was just wondering what you could tell me about Disneyland Karedonia? You see, my parents want to take us somewhere warm for vacation - limited MCO influence a plus. The North Slore Course’s slope rating of 138, at the Imperial Wilkins Club, pretty much already has Mom sold on the idea. My little sister is probably buttering Dad up as we speak.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem.”
“That assumes I can give Dad enough of a reason to change his mind before she gets the big skillet up to sauté heat.”
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E!
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3 years 3 months ago #919
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The Flying Blue Squirrel. Whateley Academy.
Mr. Grey stepped into the campus pub. He stepped cautiously around the faculty until he reached his desired destination. Two women stationed at a booth. One of whom was complaining that her Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t have enough atomic hellfire or geopolitical tension. The other woman giggling at the display. All was fun until The Imp saw Mr. Grey. Upon their eye contact he activated the devise in his pocket blocking all ears.
“Maria, can you give me a minute.” Imp asked. The other teacher got the hint, leaving without saying a word. “Can I help you… Pinky?” As she hummed the tune from a show with two mice.
“Way to show my age, but it’s a bit dated. I’m a little Grey now.” He laughed patting down the sides of his hair.
“Ohhh…just don’t kidnap me in the middle of the night. Alien tractor beams make me queasy.” Imp smiled.
“Jokes aside. Are you still on speaking terms with an associate of yours known as Pinball?” Grey questioned.
“I hope so. Old Tilt-y owes me one.” Imp exclaimed.
“Then how would you like to have her owe you two?” Grey asked. Sliding a folder with all the information on the weak points of the Omni Security System.
“Interesting…” Imp whispered while looking over the folder. “Why not hand it over to her yourself. Surely, if you can find me you can find Pinball.”
“I can, but her last words were ‘If I see your face again I will rip off your testicles.’ And you know I take threats from paranormals very seriously.” Grey coughed ordering two shots of the Russian standard.
“Ouch. What did you do?” Imp asked wanting the juicy drama.
“Nothing you wouldn’t have done. She got the message, so a détente has been issued.” Grey dodged the landmine.
“And what do you get? Out of all of this?” Imps eyes narrowed.
“Pinball destroyed one house of cards on my watch. With your help, she’ll help me build another one and get rich in the process.” Grey told Imp holding up the shot.
“I’ll do it. One condition though. The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, can you find out where it is?” Imp parried the statement giving another deal.
“Deal. Na zdorovie.” Grey exclaimed. Sharing the toast with the devil, before nodding and leaving the woman.
Maria returned to the table, and they continued their bickering. Only for a short while as another man approached, with a tube asking the Imp to sign. Which she did. Gleaming as she scribbled ‘I Stole This Card’ on the pad.
“What’s in it?” Maria asked obviously interested.
“Can you say that again, but this time with a little more Brad Pitt?” Imp giggled as they both screamed, “WHATS IN THE BOX!!”
“But seriously, don’t you want to know?” Maria flashed raising her eyebrow.
“Oh I already know, Pepper has been giving me lessons on my X-ray vision.” Imp chuckled holding the tube dearly.
The sounds of joyful laughter and merriment grew quieter as Mr. Grey walked with heavy feet, towards the Remembrance Garden. He walked with such light footsteps, almost as he if was afraid he might wake the dead. Stopping at a panel full of names he silently turned.
“Hello Katiya, Papa is here again.” Mr. Grey whispered as the date of her final days burned into his eyes. December 26th 1991.
Valentine
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3 years 3 months ago #920
Valentine replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Eli had been out delivering for Mr. Gardner, when he saw Champion drop into the street ahead of him, a car careened around the corner a moment later. He heard several bangs, !like the car backfired, and screamed in pain as the bullets tore into him.
Champion heard the screams, turned to look as the car went past him. The Outfit would have to wait as he ran over to the young boy bleeding on the sidewalk. He realized the boy was dying as the pool of blood grew rapidly.
He’d never tried anything like this before, but he couldn’t let the kid just die on the street. He placed his hands on the boy and willed the Olympian force within him to heal the boy. Much to his surprise he felt something happening, a slight weakening of his power, as the boy’s breathing became more regular.
Moments later the boy, or maybe girl stirred. He wasn’t as sure now. “Are you OK?”
A groan came from the kid’s mouth, and he, she said, “I feel a bit funny.”
Helping her, it was definitely a her, sit up, “What’s your name child?”
“Eli. Eli Brant.”
“Well ‘Eli’ let me help you get home to your parents. Something odd has happened, and I think you’re going to have go be Elizabeth now.”
Don’t Drick and Drive.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #921
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
6 Sept 2007
“Well?” said Constance, in a tone that made it clear she expected unquestioned obedience.
Roger sighed, as he petted the small humanoid creature that had climbed up his leg. Two other ‘Things’ were wandering about the table, but he figured they weren’t doing any harm. Zephyr’s attitude, when aimed at a peer - technically, she was lower rank than he was, sort of, but she thought of her rank as being a birthright (though where she got that idea was anyone’s guess) whereas Rascal’s own title was from being elevated by Oberon in his previous existence in appreciation of his entertainment - was merely annoying; the times she tried to behave that way to Fey always made him cringe.
“What do you want me to say, Connie?” he replied with a grin. He knew she hated being called that, and it filled his prankster heart with joy to do so. “One of the girls in Whitman, Lodestone, she isn’t one of us, despite appearances. In fact her power is controlling iron. The other one...”
“That means nothing. She could still be a Kobold, they have power over metal.” she stated firmly.
“I’d love to watch you try telling her that. As I was saying, the other one seems to be a Trow. Hey, maybe we should hook her up with Nephandus?”
The cross look on Zephyr’s face was definitely worth it, so he continued. “The two guys in Twain, well, the goat guy is definitely a Phouka, and I think the other is a Fir Darrig. I haven’t found out anything about either of the newbies in Melville, though I am pretty sure he is a Sidhe.” Ah, puns. “Dunno about the girl, aside from the obvious water spirit aspects.”
Zephyr glared at him some more before saying, “And the other two?”
“I didn’t get to talk to Absinthe, but I do recognize her. Lady Vauldrene.” His voice seemed to change, becoming, if anything, even more antic and playful. “I have some lovely memories of entertaining young Vauldrene as a lass. I know something happened later which got her banished, but I don’t know what - court gossip is so boring to me...” This last was a flat-out lie, of course - Constance knew that Roger loved anything that could be a source of good jokes or pranks.
“Why does she always have those nasty hobgoblins around her? Can’t she control herself better?”
“Hogboon, not hobgoblins,” Roger replied in his usual tone, lifting the one on his lap up to reminder her. “They act as her familiars, just as my little friends do.” The Thing he held up - which had the number 3 on it’s jumper - waved enthusiastically at Lady Mallory, much to her disgust.
Rascal did sort of wonder if Constance even knew the difference - she wasn’t a WIZ herself, so he doubted she even really knew what hobgoblins really were - before she interrupted his thoughts again.
“What about the one in Dickenson? You’re sure she is another of the Nine?”
“Pretty sure. I never knew much about Igloo-whatever-it-was, but she was one of the High Queens, youngest one if I’m not mistaken.” Of course, unlike him, Constance was not a reborn Sidhe from before the Sundering; he could have told her almost anything and she’d have no choice but to believe it. For once, though, honesty was more likely to be amusing than jokes.
“We need to present ourselves to her posthaste, then.”
“Ah, yes, because that worked out so well last time...” the former jester drawled.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
E!
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #922
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy Simulation Room.
“Ugh… I hate these random sim sessions. I just want to enjoy my weekend.” Eruption groaned as the rest of Omega Squad shuffled into the sim room.
“Maybe, when your combined combat rating isn’t below a 60% you all will have a weekend off.” Blackblast growled. “Now, suit up quick the sim has already been running for 15 min.”
The Syndicate contact watched as the young adults grumbled. Their Saturday night had come to a full stop on his whim.
“Tough, but fair.” The rather bland man said as he walked into the room. “Warranted. Since their effectiveness is a representation of your reputation.”
“If didn’t know any better I would think that you’re making a power play, Mr. Grey.” Blackblast chuckled.
“No, you know me. Syndicate politics are sometimes too easy to read.” Grey explained throwing up his hands.
“Thank you, for doing this.” Blackblast sighed.
“No problem old friend. Anything. After what you did for Katiya, you can call on me anytime.” Grey nodded.
“How did you get him out?” Blackblast asked obviously intrigued at the masked soldier who was carving sticks on the monitor.
“A trained magician never reveals his tricks, but this is only a limited release window. 24 hours.” Grey stated. “Not a second more. You don’t want him back inside the maximum security wing. That would make future releases more....difficult.”
“Yes, when I first heard about him I was curious. Then, after what happened at ARC during the blizzard. Now, I am most certainly intrigued.” Blackblast’s eyes narrowed.
“He certainly could be an asset. If properly motivated.” Grey observed. “I will leave you this. There is a piece of wisdom we used to share in USSR. Dogs will stand by you, Wolves will roam, but Wolf-Dogs they will rip you to shreds.”
“Is that a warning?” Blackblast asked.
“Keep a short leash, and keep a sap handy.” Grey nodded as he turned to watch the ‘start’ of the simulation.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by E!.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #923
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday, 10 May 1975
Dr Stevens landed near the riverbank, where she’d spotted something that could be a clue to the disappearance of one of the rafts that had been on the river. What she found was a small oar, but there were no indicators of anything else.
From where she was standing, she could see a fissure in the walls on both sides the small canyon. It looked almost as if it actually continued into down into the water to form a continuous seam.
Playing a hunch, she cast a small detection spell to see if there was any evidence of inderdimensional activity. Yes, clear as day, it was odd but that could be due to it being non-magical. It went right along the seam she found.
Grabbing the walkie-talkie Chief Corbin had given her, she radioed in. “Ms Might here,” she said crisply. “I’ve found something that I think Dr Alexander needs to see.”
“The Headmaster is still talking to Doorkeeper, Ma’am. I’ll let him know as soon as he’s finished.”
Liz frowned. This was not how she expected a job interview to go. Still, when a senior Devisor student - one known mostly for experimenting with teleporters and dimensional gateways, despite, she gathered, repeated admonishments about the latter - does something that sets off a giant earthquake not far from the school, it meant that everyone had to chip in.
She really needed to call that Mr. Wells and let him know she would have to cancel their, ah, meeting. It wasn’t quite a date, she thought, though they had seemed to hit it off well when they met in Berlin the other day, while waiting for their seemingly lost luggage at the airport.
She sat down on a nearby rock to wait for a further reply, when she saw something running along the riverbank. It looks like, well, perhaps a chicken that had lost most of feathers? It seemed almost... reptilian, like... a tiny dinosaur?
She chased after the small creature, but it was too fast to catch. It seemed all too likely that whatever it was, its presence here was connected to the missing boaters - a young man with his nephew and niece - from what was supposed to have been a routine whitewater rafting expedition.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #924
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday morning, April 22, 2017, Millsboro, Delaware
“Fag!” yelled Jason Borsay from his family’s porch.
Erin Matthews returned the gesture with a one-fingered salute as she finished up her run. She confidently jogged across the street and back into her parent’s garage. She grabbed her father’s ancient set of cement dumbbells and did a few sets before calling it quits. She wasn’t tired, but she was at least satisfied for the day.
Not that she really needed to work out anymore. Not since she manifested.
Erin entered the house proper, waved to her dad who was baking something or other in the kitchen and headed to the bathroom for a post-workout shower. She peeled off her racerback tank top and yoga pants, tossing them into laundry hamper. Next came the sports bra, job finished crushing her breasts. Erin sighed, knowing that she and Mom and Jenny would probably be headed for a shopping trip before she knew it. 38C wasn’t going to be enough anymore. She pulled the elastic out of her hair, tossing it in a drawer before pinning up her waist-length ash-blond hair. Finally, she removed her cotton panties, damp from the run.
Erin looked herself over in the vanity’s mirror. Five foot Nine, curvy, with the physique any athlete would envy. It was a shame she couldn’t use it. Her parents had asked the school board multiple times if they would let Erin compete again, but the Sussex County PTA said it wouldn’t be fair to the other students, who had a chance at recognition. Sometimes being an Exemplar-3 really sucked.
Erin hopped in the shower, using the cheap massage function of the showerhead work the tightness out. She kept her hair out of the water because it was a huge pain in the ass to dry, but knew she was probably due in a day or two for the full course that added nearly a half hour to her routine.
She toweled off, dabbing at her skin, before removing the pins and began brushing her hair. She wanted to cut it to a shoulder-length bob, but it grew back within a week. It was just one of the other things she had had to get used to. Moisturizer, deodorant, cocoa butter for her body. She grabbed the beige terry robe from the hook on the door and returned to her room.
“Do you want to play Winx with me later?!” Jenny interrupted Erin on her way to her room. Her adorable eight year old sister, her auburn hair bouncing off her shoulders, Excitement incarnate. Erin thought the series her little sister loved was creepy as hell, but…sisters should stick together, right?
“Okay, let me get dressed first.”
“Kay!” Jenny exclaimed, before running back to her own bedroom to grab the dolls.
Her Runner’s High finally fading, Erin tossed off her robe on her bed, and shamefully put on a too-tight bra, normal panties, before slipping into a set of jeans and a babydoll tee. Peering into the mirror she sighed deeply. Aaron was gone. For good. But at least she could still go on runs. It still felt good, pushing herself to the limit. She might have changed from 5K runs to full marathons, but her parents still loved her, her sister adored her, and…at least she was hot.
She smoothed out her clothes and opened the door. Time to go play witches and fairies with her little sister.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #925
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday morning, April 22, 2017, Millsboro, Delaware
“Bloom!” yelled Stella.
Jenny gasped, even though she knew what happened this episode. She played by herself while Dad was making rhubarb and cream cheese muffins.
Then her big sister entered the house from the garage.
Erin, was basically Stella. That was what Jenny decided. Her brother-turned-sister just plain fit. Long blond hair in a big ponytail, even if it was a little lighter and not quite golden blond. Big glowing amber eyes, pink lips, thin waist…
…and it went perfectly with her. Just like Mom, Jenny had bright auburn hair that bounced. She wanted to learn how to bake from Dad, but he said next year. She’d be Bloom, Erin would be Stella. She just had to keep convincing Mom to force Erin to go shopping, They’d be best friends forever.
Jenny heard her sister taking a shower, and set her ambush. She fluffed out her hair and practiced her best pout and puppy-dog eyes. It never failed on Erin, though Aaron had usually ignored it. Jenny had always wanted a big sister instead, and now she had one!
Jenny waited, hearing her sister finish up. She skipped down the hallway to a strategic position. She heard the bathroom door open, and counted to ten.
“Do you want to play Winx with me later?!” She exclaimed, knowing her performance was most effective after her sister had gone out running and then taken a shower.
“Okay, let me get dressed first,” her sister agreed immediately. Jenny noticed there was kind of a hazy feeling to her sister’s expression. She was always like this after running. It faded quickly. So Jenny knew the quicker she acted, the more her sister would agree.
“Kay!” she squealed, and ran to her room to grab the Bloom, Stella, and Trix dolls she had staged by the door of her room.
She waited outside the door until her sister came out in jeans and a tee-shirt. She immediately handed her the Stella doll and raced down the stairs so they could play in the living room.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Katssun.
E!
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3 years 2 months ago #926
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Stephen was laying on top of a plaid picnic blanket with Marty’s head on his thigh. Together they were soaking up the last bits of the summer sun before the fall ripped the warm winds away. They both laid in silence listening to the leaves rustle in the wind. It was a peaceful day until Steve heard a light ksshkt. Followed by, “woooooooooWAAAAAAAAAAAAAoooooooooooooo.” Perking up Steve barely had enough time to catch a glimpse of the lithe girl rope around another building. She was twisting and contorting her body in midair to bounce off the wall at tremendous speed. Leaving both the wall and her unharmed.
“Who the hell was that?” Steve gasped.
“Tiny girl? Red hair? Really fast?” Marty yawned.
“Yea… How can she be that fast? She doesn’t look like a typical speedster.” Steve pondered. A girl running around that fast she could slam into someone, doing serious damage to them or her in the process.
“You know how you can skip rocks along the surface of the water. Well Slide can basically do that with her body except GAIN speed and momentum. I don’t know how exactly she does it, but she is kind of a daredevil.” Marty stated rubbing her eyes.
“How do you know so much about her?” Steve asked getting close to his lovers face.
“She’s in Poe.” Marty answered not opening her eyes. She was trying to enjoy the warmth of Steve face before quickly giving him a peck on the lips.
“Well… I guess someone should stop her…” Steve groaned remember his responsibilities.
“Let security handle it…Please…5 more minutes.” Marty begged not wanting to lose her pillow.
“Not going to lie….we could use the help….” Stormwolf gasped drenched in sweat with Thuderfox and Mindbird both looked gassed with their heads between their knees.
Meanwhile on the other side of campus. Slide tucked her legs in, to force herself to hit the ground. Just then she activated her PK shield and Warper powers. This let her ‘skip’ off the sidewalk. Eyeing the speedometer inside her googles she watched the numbers jump from 90mph to 100mph. Pushing off the ground with her PK ability she flew towards Schuster hall. Namely the wall with Mrs. Carson’s office.
She whizzed by skipping off the wall to boost herself over the glass dome. 110, she breathed. She needed to go faster. Slide let gravity carry her back towards the earth. As she neared the dome, she activated her shell again. Skipping all the way down the roof of the cafeteria, 120 130 140. She rocketed towards the quad. The one place where she could really open the throttle, and let the world bleed into the background along with all her problems.
Before she reached the quad, a golden wall appeared in front of her. Flicking on her shell she quickly rode the new structure to the side. Though this yellow wall seemed to be slowing her down. However she didn’t have time to think about it as another wall appeared. She let her shell continue to take the brunt of the deceleration. Only to be slowed by another, and another, and another. Trapping her inside a golden cube.
“OH…shit…” Slide whispered as she looked at the Headmistress with her staff.
“Language.” Mrs. Carson growled. “Office. NOW.”
Slide tucked her head and shuffled into her office. Trying not to think about the sway of her growing hips, or the awkward tightness in her chest.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #927
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
New York, November 2016
I lay in bed, wishing, praying, that it wasn’t a work day. I just…couldn’t. My third of seven alarms went off. I just had to hope that my guilt and pride would override IT. My shoulders were tense. I gently raised a hand, the intricately patterned nails the latest attempt of Krista to…get me going? My fingers trembled, my hand began to shake, and I quickly snapped it between my knees.
The fourth of seven alarms went off. I…I…just couldn’t.
I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was about seventeen minutes before my fifth alarm would go off. I sighed, my whole body trembling. I knew I was clenching my elbows. I told myself over and over, “You’re safe, you’re fine. It’s okay.” The ache in my chest wasn’t medical, it couldn’t be. It was just another attack.
At last, four minutes before the fifth alarm. I rolled myself out of bed. I removed my nightguard, putting it back into its case, even though I hadn’t rinsed it. I always took care of that at night. My knees felt weak, but I managed to work my way to my tiny bathroom.
Looking into the mirror, I saw an attractive young…ish woman with dark blond hair, naturally curly, well-manicured eyebrows above slate irises, an aquiline nose, moderate cheekbones, a sharply feminine jawline, full lips, and a look of utter hopelessness on her face. A few breaths, seven in, four out, and I looked at least…modestly functional. I showered, shampooed, conditioned, all the time hoping I was taking so long that I’d be so late for work that I would simply be unable to go.
But then my sixth alarm went off. I turned the water off and instead of huddling in the shower like I always wanted to do, I took another breath. Seven in, four out. Seven in, four out.
I’d made it past five, and six. Only seven remained. Seven in, four out. I tossed on a robe and started the microwave with some quick oats and milk. I added honey, fresh blueberries, and a dash of nutmeg and salt. I resisted flipping through my phone, knowing the posts on it were a potential trigger.
I returned to the bathroom and began brushing my teeth. Seventh Alarm was still thirty minutes away. In retrospect, I should have considered taking my medication after Fifth Alarm. Not that I really thought it did any good at all. Why would it? Seven in, four out. Seven in, four out. I rinsed my mouth out and started dressing for work. Panties, bra, slip, blouse, skirt, shoes, jacket and done. I sat down on the edge of my bed. Seven in, four out.
Seventh Alarm went off. I splayed my fingers. Moderate, maybe even minor shaking. It would be a good day today.
Hopefully.
I grabbed my purse, triple checked that I had my phone, pocketbook, and keys. I looked through the peephole and no one was there. I opened the door and thrust myself out into the world again. I caught the door right before it latched and double checked for my keys. I pulled them out, let the door shut, and locked the door again. Placing the keys deliberately back into my purse, I gently tugged on the door a few times, assuring myself that it was in fact, locked. Stairs instead of elevator, I made it out of my apartment. Another success. I headed toward the D-train. Clerical work awaited.
I was about two minutes from my station when I heard the disturbance. An errant explosion, screams of panic, the unmistakable sound of a fist meeting a jawline.
A deep, relieving sigh escaped me, as I remembered the mantra my therapist wanted me to focus on. It came from a book she had recommended to me. “In dramatic situations, the world rises to meet your anxiety.”
Finally feeling focused for the first time in weeks, I looked around.
Cars? No. Box Trucks? No. Ah….
***
Marty shook her head on the ground, dazed that her opponent had managed to get through her PK field. Steve was away fighting his partner a few blocks away, and wouldn’t be able to help her. Marty winced as the hovering cyborg charged his arm cannon at her face, before, in an instant, a roll-away dumpster, the type you’d see on flatbeds, curled around her enemy before blasting him into the pavement a few yards past her head.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Marty flew up into the air to deliver the finishing blow.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Katssun. Reason: typos
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #928
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
With thanks to Cryptic for the character of Veritas and the micro that inspired this
9 November 2007
“Zephyr, wait up! I’ve got something you might want to hear about.”
Both Constance and Kevin turned to see Rhia heading towards them on the edge of the Quad, apparently from the direction Hawthorne. With a regal nod of her head, she gave a curt, “Yes?”
“I was just over at Hawthorne, it’s about what Fey asked me to help with. It’s a new one of us over there, just today!”
“What, a Sidhe at Hawthorne? How...”
“It’s her powers. She’s a psychic, and an empath, I mean, technically a PDP maybe but anyway, she’s got trouble controlling a kind of projective empathy. It, uhm, well, it makes it so people can’t lie around her? It’s not quite like that but it just, well, it makes you just blurt out whatever you most don’t want to say.”
“And Fey was... oh, of course, helping her control it I assume. Could you please tell me our new cousin’s name?”
“Sasha,” Sanctuary paused to think, “er, I think it short for Alexandra? - Morton, she’s from, ah, I think she said Wisconsin. She’s not Nobility, and not someone from before the Sundering, but she’s definitely Sidhe. Anyway, they needed me to help create a ‘safe room’ for them to practice in while they finished the baffles in her bedroom, and then I stayed to give her some healing.”
“Oh?”
“She got attacked by a mob of people in her home town who didn’t appreciate what her power did to them...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #929
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Hounslow, West London, United Kingdom
PC Amitjyoti Patel removed the plaits from her hair and smoothed out her shoulder-length hair before closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath. Ending her shift, all she wanted was a pint. What a crazy day it’d been. An attempted early morning robbery (thoroughly truncheoned), obnoxiously rude tourist (deftly handled), and a stabbing (presently unsolved, but the detectives were off to the CCTV hub to see if they could find anything).
She peeled off her stab vest and swapped her uniform for slacks, a flowing blouse, and…regrettably sensible shoes. Heels made her legs go from admirable to phenomenal, but heels didn’t do one so well when you needed to chase and tackle a pickpocket while off duty. Only happened once so far, but it could happen again.
Ami exited the station and headed toward her flat. A plane heading into Heathrow blared overhead, the noise oddly comforting to her after all these years. The droning sound was as familiar to her now as it was when she was in primary school.
She glanced at the plane on its approach before she felt a sharp pinch on her bottom. She spun around to see a tow-headed 14 year old boy in a hoodie and camouflage shorts running around the corner toward High Street. Ami tore off down the street after him. The boy was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his tongue sticking out.
“You. Little. Shit!” she yelled as Robbie Driscoll’s psychic projection faded from her view. He reappeared at the corner of High Street. None of the patrons of the shopping area seemed to notice a boy appearing out of nowhere. So this game was just for her? She threaded her way through the shopping district after him.
The ephemeral image of Robbie lead her back away from High Street after she swiftly maneuvered through the crowd after his image, the busy afternoon patrons no match for her skills at weaving through a crowd after a suspect. Robbie’s image shifted to the alleyways parallel the district.
Ami found garbage bins and broken pallets tossed into her path as if from a poltergeist. Sensible shoes paid off! They skirted the edge of the Blenheim’s car park as errant plastic bags whipped against her slacks ineffectively. The pair stopped as they reached the A315. Robbie’s image teased her from across the road. Ami gave him a dismissive look. She knew him well. He was within a mile of the police station. She knew his limits. This wasn’t the first time he’d harassed someone from a distance.
Finally, the crossing signal turned, and Ami bolted into the residential areas. Robbie taunted her past row houses and through a back garden or two. She rounded the sidewalk and saw a woman pushing a wheelchair. She slowed to a walk and allowed herself to catch her breath a little. Once she felt situated, she sauntered up to the pair and patted the woman on the shoulder.
“Good Afternoon Missus Driscoll,” Amitjyoti cheerily greeted the often-harried looking woman.
“Greetings, Constable Patel,” she replied back. “Robbie?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Driscoll only sighed at the confirmation.
Ami looked down at the boy in the wheelchair. Robbie Driscoll sat in the reclined chair, paralyzed from the neck down, looking a little different from his projected form. A little older, a little heavier, with burns up his right side. A somewhat withered arm and some significant scarring on his face. His eye milky white with tinges of blue. His left side looked untouched. She frowned at the boy. He winked at her with his bad eye.
Ami walked up to Robbie, and leaned in close to his good ear. “Cheeky little shit,” she whispered.
Then she pinched him lightly on the plump cheek before landing a playful peck on the scarred side of his face. She saw the corners of his mouth raise and his eyes twinkle. Undoubtedly, they’d play this little game again. Or he’d help her locate a lost child. Robbie was good at that, and there were always plenty of those in the Centres.
Ami said her goodbyes to Ellie Driscoll and walked away from the pair. She regained her bearings and headed directly toward the closest pub on the way back to her flat. There was still a pint in desperate need for her to drink it. It just it didn’t know it yet.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #930
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy, Early December, 2007
It was an intersection of the tunnels, one that got quite a bit of traffic. A small crowd had begun to gather, watching the spectacle.
A young blond girl in a red sequin dress, elbow gloves, and a set of plastic devil horns stood next to her hirsute companion, decked out in an uncharacteristic pressed white suit and matching fedora. Their attire alone drew a crowd, but the people in question brought even more attention. The students, and even a few of the teaching staff, knew something was up, and it probably wasn’t good. But curiosity gets the better of everyone, in the end.
Off to the side, there was a simple mockup of cardboard that had been marked up with a permanent marker simply as “BAR.” The period seemed redundant, but nevertheless, there it was. From the tinny speakers of somebody’s phone, music started amidst the crowd.
Mischief and Monkeywrench broke loose into dance. She leaned her back into his chest, wrapping her arms behind his head. A few twirls, a few struts, legs raised high, all in sync, more struts, the pair moved perfectly in time in rhythm. More than a few boys in the crowd wondered why they had never noticed that Melissa Chambers actually had pretty nice legs. A few of the girls kept to themselves that Monkeywrench cleaned up rather nicely in a suit.
The music abruptly paused, and a trumpet noise began to play.
Monkeywrench, holding Mischief aloft as she draped over his arm declared to the crowd, “Suddenly, all the pieces fitted together, I knew how the crime had been done. The high note on the trumpet that shattered the glass!”
A girl stepped up to the “BAR.” and slid a cylinder towards the other end. The crowd, focused on the action, didn’t notice that Mischief and Monkeywrench had bolted down the tunnels…as had the “bartender” moments later.
The cylinder reached the end of the cardboard construct and made a loud hissing noise. The crowd began to cough, gag, and at least one person probably lost the remnants of their breakfast.
Laughing down the tunnels together, Mischief and Monkeywrench paused to make a twirl.
“Trixie makes the best stinkbombs!” Melissa cheered.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #931
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
28 Dec 2016
“... so there was this weird box, like, and that tall guy with said something in something like German or Dutch or something, I dunno who he was talking to, but he called it something like ‘cynic lotion’ or some but it was just some sort of flashing light display thing...”
Erika sat up straight, her attention suddenly on the ‘friend’ Penny had over who had been nattering on about some sort of school presentation in the last week before winter break, which Penny had missed due to a cold.
‘Cynic lotion’... an odd memory arose of a MeeTube video she’d seen a few weeks before transforming about an urban legend regarding some old video game. The memory snapped into focus: the supposed game was called ‘Polybius’, made - so the story went - by a company called ‘Sinneslöschen’, which was almost-but-not-quite German for ‘sensory deprivation’. The legend claimed that the game had been part of a mind control experiment run by Men-In-Black type agents.
Penny had caught it, too; Erika had told her about the story when they were working on learning German together last summer, because of that weird name, and she’s even shown Pen the video. Between that name, and the inability to identify the other guy at the presentation, this ‘school assembly’ sounded disturbing familiar...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Anne
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3 years 2 months ago #932
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
More of Speakeasy’s nightmare!
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
I put it behind this wall because it has all been thus. If nothing else it is a description of torture...
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
Sir Lee
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3 years 2 months ago #933
Sir Lee replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
January 2007
Somewhere in the Web (but connecting from Brazil)
Petra had a long recovery still ahead of her. Her body had a lot of regenerating to do, so she was still pretty weak, but at least online she felt herself again.
But still, there’s only so much hacking one can do before it becomes more like a job than fun. Today she was just exploring, going around with no set plan, looking for interesting stuff with the open mind of a child looking for pretty seashells on the beach.
Her unique sight suddenly identified a confluence of data that seemed to have a physical shape: a long, low building with many rooms. Sort of like a motel, but much more spartan.
She entered the construct and found it was inhabited. The denizens of the place were misshapen in frightening ways, like demoniac beings. But they wore simple, plain robes with no adornment, and didn’t act threateningly -- most of them just talked to each other, apparently in some kind of mutual support system, while a few sat in quiet contemplation.
Petra approached one of the beings, who nodded at her, acknowledgin her presence. “What is this place?” she asked.
“We come here for mutual support, and to vent the frustrations of our daily lives in a safe way.”
“Just talk?”
“Yes,” he smiled beatifically.
“About anything?”
“For the most part. A few subjects are frowned upon.”
“Which subjects should I avoid?”
“Don’t advocate for your particular preferences. Don’t try selling anything. Don’t bring questions that require answers in your mundane work. More generally, don’t discuss information of real value to your work. This is not an extension of your work place.”
“Seems like a great place for someone to recover their energy.”
“Yes, that’s pretty much our mission.”
“I’m in recovery myself. I think I’ll like this place.”
Don’t call me “Shirley.” You will surely make me surly.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #934
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Geez, what a bitch!” shouted Long John after the fleeing Crimson Comet.
“Dudewhatdidyousaytohershitmanshereallywhackedyouonehuh?”
“Man, I dunno. She’d been kinda warming up to me, right, I mean she’s super hot and all, so I figured I was doin’ great. But when I tried to talk to her about Pucelle’s idea to make a real super-team of our own so we wouldn’t haveta put up with the Future Fags of America, I mean, everyone knows that they turned her down too, right? But she suddenly went ballistic on me!”
Mechano Man, who had overheard what the two Bozo Company morons were saying, rolled his eyes and interjected, “You dumbasses do know she was Bladedancer’s roommate last year, right? And Stronghold told me that she’s one of Pounce’s friends, too. She’s not gonna be happy with you pissing all over her friends like that. Oh, and that rumor about the Capes turning her down? Dude, you know they don’t vote on freshman members until January, right? And I think she was a sub-frosh last Spring, so they probably didn’t even consider her then.”
A sullen Long John just muttered to himself, “she’s gotta be another fuckin’ dyke”, but otherwise simply sat and stewed over it all.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #935
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
3 June 2007
As she was walking away from the memorial service, Tennyo noticed a plaque she’d missed, in front of a weird flower with black and white petals. No one seemed to be visiting it, so she read the plaque, which so stunned her that she had to call over Toni and Jade to make sure she was reading it right.
“Cyril Huntley?”, read a puzzled Chaka, before she recalled who that was. “Oh, right, Nex!”
“I thought he’d been expelled,” said Billie, “no one said anything about him being dead.”
“Yeah! He committed seppuku to purge his dishonor!” Jade piped up.
“Jade! That’s kinda rude!”
“Yeah, but she’s right,” said Toni. “I heard about it too, and while I don’t exactly miss that jackoff, he really did commit suicide over something he thought was too embarrassing to admit.”
“You’re kidding? What could be that important to him?!?!?!”
“You know how he always talked about how ‘ninja’ mean ‘persistent one’ in Japanese? How proud he was to know that? Well, turns out he was even more wrong than Cucumber Boy.”
Tennyo was a bit stunned at this, not so much that Nex was wrong as that he took it so badly. She was wondering, though... “So what does it mean?”
Toni smugly answered, “Not a damn thing.”
Phase, who had over heard the conversation, added, “That’s not quite true, actually,” he said, piling smug upon smug. “It actually comes from the on reading of the kanji for the word shinobi, meaning to ‘to hide’, which is part of shinobi-no-mono, the actual Japanese term for ninja. That misreading doesn’t seem to have appeared until the 19th century, and it isn’t sure how the usage got started. Some think it was used as a sort of cant or code around the time of the Satsuma Uprising, but most think it was simply a transliteration error by a foreign translator which migrated back to modern Japanese.”
“Yeah, but... he really killed himself over that?”
Phase considered for a moment before replying, “That’s what his suicide note said, but I doubt it. Not everyone is convinced he really wrote it, or that he wasn’t just saying that to hide the real reason, or even that he really died and the body wasn’t faked somehow.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #936
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Emmie glanced downward and frowned. She looked around and tugged gently and as subtly as she could on the upper edge of her shirt.
It was her first week of high school, and everyone was staring, she just knew it.
She had manifested over the summer, and it hadn’t taken long for her body to change. The MCO said that she was a Regen-1, Exemplar-1, Manifestor-1c. Her doctors explained it was the combination of the regen and exemplar trait that she had changed so fast. Her powers weren’t even interesting. All she could make was curls of cellulose. A machine could make 100 pounds of it in a minute, which is much larger than you’d think. It took Emmie 2 minutes to fill a very small box.
Still, she had changed. So just like Mom and Jenny, Emmie had grown “DD-cup” breasts and her…bits had changed. Dad couldn’t handle it, he’d yelled at Mom that she’d promised him a son, which wasn’t true, Jenny said after everything was done. They hadn’t seen him for weeks, and then a process server handed Mom divorce papers. Mom lost it. She and Jenny spend a lot of time away from the house over the next month and a half. They went to fairs, one museum, they went to the lake, and as much as she kinda-sorta-hated it, shopping. Emmie needed new clothes, and the joint account still existed until recently. Jenny was patient with her freak outs, sympathetic, and never pressured her into anything too quickly. They’d been close before, but as sisters, they became each other’s rock.
Snapping back to the present, Emmie tugged at her neckline again. Jenny had insisted that a V-neck was the only way to start the school year. “Trust me,” she had said. Emmie had gotten used to the looming mass hanging off of her in a surprisingly short amount of time. The weight, the shift in posture, not bumping her arms into them all the time. Fine. But if she could see her bra every time she glanced down, could everyone else? She was a little self-conscious of her painted-on girl jeans, but…they were jeans. They felt good, even if the belt was now white instead of brown.
“They’re not pretty, but believe me, full-coverage only,” her sister had said. Mom agreed. Emmie wasn’t so sure. She kept seeing the edges every time she glanced down. Her classmates must be seeing them too! Emmie crossed her arms over her chest.
“You cold?” asked Nina, the girl who had sat next to her in English. “It’s like…80 out.”
Nobody knew her here. Dad had moved to St. Louis, Mom was forced to sell the house, Mom and Jenny and Emmie decided a clean start in Cincinnati might work.
“I used to be from the South, it is hotter there,” Emmie replied, hoping her bluff would work.
“Oh….” Nina responded. “Yeah, that’s rough. They set the A/C to like…70.” She leaned over to Emmie and whispered, “Invest in a lot of padded bras, though I think you know that.”
Emmie froze in terror for a moment before laughing lightly, “Yeah…” She checked. No ‘headlights.’
Emmie took a deep sigh of what she hoped would be seen as relief, and boosted her courage. She could do this, she would pass. Jenny gave her lessons, time to put them to use. She and Jenny and Mom would rebuild their life here. She leaned over back to Nina and asked, “Did you see that video of the drow girls in New York a few months ago? They looked so glamorous.”
“Oh yeah!”
There was a loud clap from the blackboard. Mr. Hammond’s hands were pressed together. “Girls? I realize it is only the first day, and we’re only going over the syllabus, but I want to let the class know that I will not tolerate sidebar conversations in my classroom. Talk about the material, or I can give you detention. Same with not doing your homework when I assign it.”
Both girls replied in unison, “Okay.”
Using scraps of notebook paper, the two girls figured out how to spend their first day after school. Emmie just needed to convince Jenny to drive them.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #937
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Missy stepped down the stairs to the new Superbad, taking a look around. She hadn’t been to the old one in over a year, and was surprised when the guy she was meeting with told her that the bar had relocated. She hadn’t heard why, but didn’t really much care.
She recalled the first time she’d done business there, after talking to her step-mom about places to hook into The Biz in NYC. It wasn’t really all that long ago, even if it felt like it. She’d never been a regular, here or at the Black Mask, but as sort of neutral territory a lot of transactions take place in both of those bars, so she’d stopped in from time to time. Since she focused on trading in information and setting up deals, rather than trading directly in object de art or other stolen goods, she was at the Black Mask a lot more often, but this guy wanted it here.
To her eyes, it looked like they hadn’t changed all that much. despite being in a new place several blocks away from the previous location. She wondered if Gracie had deliberately found a place that was similar to the old one, possibly to honor George’s memory, but then shrugged and decided to ask later, once she was done with her business.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
E!
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3 years 2 months ago #938
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy 2018.
“Hey Cally, why is Erica dressed in goth garb with the rest of the Germans from the Beret League?” Bianca asked looking down at the procession forming on the ground floor.
“Oh yea...that....” Cally breathed. “Germany was eliminated from the World Cup today. So they are going to burn a football in the quad. In hopes that everyone will just forget, and remember that they totally beat Brazil 7-1.”
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 1 month ago - 3 years 1 month ago #939
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Well, look at who we have here...”
James ‘Centurion’ Sykes spun around, ready to tear whoever it was a new asshole. But no sooner did he face the older student than the voice in his head began shouting, no, you fool! Get on your knees and show him proper respect!
Confused, and surprised that the spirit he was ‘paladin’ to (whatever that meant) would tell him to kowtow to anyone, he did as he was told, though not without glaring at whoever this lanky dick in a leather skirt was.
“Ah, very nicely done, Enyalios. It is always good to see an obedient son, not like the two fuckheads I replaced you with. But perhaps you’d rather answer to Quirinus, seeing the way you love that Roman shit and all?” Whoever the fucktard was, Jim really didn’t like the way he emphasized the first part of that word, and was ready to wipe the smug sneer off this prick’s face.
Then the motherfucker continued, “Eh, I don’t really give a fuck either way. But what matters now are three questions: first, have either Imperious or Majestic seen you here yet; two, are Zeus’ two bitch-boys, Kratos and Zelus, the ones you were so close to, here as well; and finally, how the fuck did you get out of the Foreigner’s traps?”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Kettlekorn
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3 years 1 month ago #940
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Blomello rapped a horn against the cave’s wall to announce his presence. “L-Lord B-Bastard! I’ve g-got the seismic readings you w-wanted.”
The Bastard took the scroll from his minion’s quivering tentacle and smiled as he studied the data within. “Yesss... My theories have been confirmed! This planet’s core is nearly ninety percent nickel. How very odd, yet it explains so much.”
“W-What d-does this m-mean, Y-Your Horribleness?”
The corrupted Sidhe flipped a cheap commemorative coin into the air, then snapped his claws to leave it suspended. Several of his eyes flashed with a sickly blue glow as the formerly nickel coin took on a reddish hue. Bits of rust flaked off, and in moments the coin was nothing but a red dust wafting away on the cave’s warm breath. “It means that I now have the means to rid this world of filth and ready it for my masters. Come! We must prepare a great transmutation circle!”
Blomello’s polyps retracted in surprise. His lord already commanded a circle large enough to operate on the scale of a mountain, and he wanted more? “H-How g-great, Y-Your Indomitable H-Horror?”
The Bastard reached around with one eye to grin at his underling from his hind-mouth. “We aim to transmute a sphere of approximately fourteen hundred leagues diameter, from a distance of six hundred leagues. This will be a working like few seen before!” He paused to consider. “Well, on this world, anyway...”
Polyps now thoroughly inverted, Blomello gulped and struggled to find his voice. “I-It shall be done.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
null0trooper
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3 years 1 month ago #941
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
May 2010, Whateley Academy
Asa ‘Percusor’ Hernandez took in a deep, calming breath. He could do this!
“I’d like to call this month’s meeting of the Whateley Academy Neopagan Knowledge, Education, and Research Society to order. I have a few announcements before we get into ‘Old Business’. Later, thanks to the six write-in votes for “Sleippy the Miracle Pony”, I will be giving a presentation on Sleipnir. Please curb any and all enthusiasm for ‘Equine Centipede’ and “Who’s your Daddy” jokes. Also, before anyone asks, yes, I am fully aware that Mothers Day is only a week away. No, we don’t know who put the card addressed to Loki Laufeyarson next to the sign-in sheet.”
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WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
E. E. Nalley
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3 years 1 month ago #942
E. E. Nalley replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
But...but...I made a card and everything...
pre00.deviantart.net/9828/th/pre/f/2016/...3ba6e077-d4zqvkq.jpg
:roflmao:
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Katssun
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3 years 1 month ago #943
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
University of Western Ontario track, 6:24 AM Saturday
“Give it up man!” said Sean Besson as the two men headed for toward the center of the university’s track. Derek Hanover was already in his running gear.
“I know you two have this whole little flirty thing going over this, but the both of you need to just admit it, get it over with, and start dating each other. You’re never gonna beat her man!”
“Amy said she’d date me if I beat her in a race. That’s all there is to it,” Derek replied, dropping his bag on the grass and doing a quick warm up. “Now get set up, she’ll be here at six-thirty and you know how good she is with time.”
“That’s because she’s an Exemplar dude!”
“A low-level one.”
“And you’ve raced her thirty-six tim-”
“Thirty-two.”
“Whatever, and you’ve never beaten her. She smokes you! Last time you vomited, and she wasn’t even breathing hard.”
“But I was within 30 meters.”
“She’s like not even trying anymore man. You’ve been training like crazy for the past two terms with nothing to show for it...what are the TV trays for anyway?”
Derek finished his warm-up and grabbed one of the TV trays from Sean and set it up on the track.
“Amy said beat her in ‘a race.’ I figured out how to beat her after the 11th or 12th race we had. I’ve been training the rest of the time. Today’s the day.”
“Is that why we’re up at the this ungodly hour on a Saturday?”
“No, that’s so we don’t get caught, in case the worst happens.”
“So what’s your so-called master plan?”
Derek opened his backpack up revealing 8 cans of beer, and smiled at his friend.
E. E. Nalley
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3 years 1 month ago #944
E. E. Nalley replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Kayda clung to the equipment, scientific instruments, telecommunications gear, she had no idea, only desperately hoping the strut that attached them to the observational ledge would take her weight. It was swaying sickening as it was, but she forced herself to crawl out on the strut, towards a heavy looking piece that might shield her. Behind her, on the observational deck, her tormentor continued to taunt her. “Kayda, you do not realize your potential! Come to me, and I will complete your training! You can destroy the Bastard, he has foreseen this! Join me and with our combined strength we can end this chaos!”
The steel arm groaned and swayed as Kayda shifted, looking for a better hand hold, terrified of the horrific drop below her. “Wakan Tanka never told you what happened to your father...”
The Lakota girl, whirled, enraged and even off balance she had to spit defiance at her tormentor. “She told me enough!” she screamed. “She told me YOU killed him!”
Coyote’s smile was cruel. “No, I am your father!”
“No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!”
“Search your feelings you know it to be true!”
“Noooooo!”
***
Kayda snapped awake, drenched in sweat. Looking at the empty boxes of cheap pizza around the room she shook her head as her gut rolled in protest. “Never again!” She promised herself. “Never!”
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Valentine
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3 years 1 month ago #945
Valentine replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Imp sauntered up to the Bad Seeds table, “Ladies, gentlemen, Cheese. Ah Jobe, just the person I was looking for.”
Jobe preened, “The Fabulous Imp. How may I help you? Interested in becoming a Drow?”
“No. How much to turn someone purple, permanently?”
“Whom?”
“Barn... er Mr. Williams.”
“Mr. Williams? Free, is tomorrow soon enough?”
Don’t Drick and Drive.
Kettlekorn
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3 years 1 month ago #946
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
We’ve been hungry for hours
Now we’re ready to feed
As the great kitchenry fires up
To be first through the door
We’ll be crushed to the floor
Yet students have been crushed before
In the dawn we will pay
Dignity as the price
Hungers are sated today
Feed this burning inferno
Until no food remains
As our gullets advance through the feast
Aiming for waffles though settling for ‘cakes
Hunger’s too strong, my stomach won’t wait!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
Underneath fresh fruit
Bathed in grade-A maple syrup
And brown sugar too
Breakfast before us!
We’ve dined here before
Yet we always need more
Breakfast will wait for no man
Our patience has failed us
We race to be filled!
Milk on both sides will be spilled
In the dawn we will pay
Dignity as the price
Hungers are sated today
After I have devoured
Seven pounds of omelette
Next I will have some croissants
Aiming for waffles though settling for ‘cakes
Hunger’s too strong, my stomach won’t wait!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
With three bowls of grits
A pound of Italian sausage
That’s an hors d’oeuvre
Breakfast galore, yes!
Fifth of March, Two Thousand Seven
Bacon is sizzling again
Scrambled eggs that have just been made
In the pan
Cody has given us more elbow room
Three stories tall: more volume for food!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
On the fifth of March
At the end of Winter Term, yeah
Two thousand seven
Breakfast at long last!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
On the sixth serving
With half a gallon of yogurt
And a warm strudel
Breakfast inside us!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
null0trooper
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3 years 1 month ago #947
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Winter Term 2008,
Special Topics - Theory and Practice of the Escape, Wouldn’t You Like To Know, Whateley Academy
“Let’s fast-forward through this part. I think most of you will still get the general idea,” Imp said. It was boring enough the first time. After the clip played out, “Observations?”
“No obvious security,” Interface mused, “so most of the attention is being paid to the building itself.”
Metro shook his head. “Warehouses shouldn’t have a roving security perimeter unless the shippers are moving high price-per-unit, sensitive, or contraband goods. There could be millions in crated-up nuts and bolts, but good luck moving them. No obvious guards: nothing worth the effort.”
“Your princess is in another castle,” remarked Reach, to Imp’s amusement and Metro’s confusion. “We’ll talk about it when you’re older.”
Mischief asked, “That doesn’t mean that nothing good is hidden inside, right?”
“Yeah, but, then you’re hiding the goods from the people who belong there, making them human shields if an op goes hot.”
Did that boy see the bright side to anything?
Imp jumped the recorded (And redacted. A lady has to keep some secrets!) action forward to the close-in security measures: camera placements, motion detectors, pressure plates or the lack thereof, etc. She took note of the range of reactions as the students watched the video, including their comments about who’d have fallen for what. No one owned up to the security system jammer.
Good thing her supplier wasn’t in the class!
Imp had intended to skip over the pinning ceremony, as it was just Dullsville Chamber of Commerce pretentiousness, but it was good for the kids to know what to look for.
“Oh, I don’t like that bit at all.” Reach’s soft Louisville drawl underscored her point.
“Remember,” the older man could be heard telling the younger, “this symbol represents the three pillars of our organization, the three principles that guide us. Always keep this close as a reminder of our purpose.”
“Left ear, dextral processing...” mused Metro.
“Keyed to language, yeah, but take another look. The placement’s good for running microcircuitry off of normal bioelectric fields.” Reach paused amid the growing disbelief. “What? This is some of the stuff Jenny works on - of course I pay attention! As I was saying, keeping it close might be keeping something charged up.”
Interface nodded. This was closer to Spy Kidz territory. “Even if it were just a tracking tag, that would be good for keeping tabs on members who might need further convincing.”
“You say convincing; I say blackmail. That does make it more difficult to obtain one for study. Give each one a unique ID tied to the recipient, and a random phone-home schedule. You get a flag on one end on lost contact, maybe a self-destruct on the other. People using civvies as shields aren’t concerned with fallout, so I’d worry about a subliminal track shifting from positive reinforcement to something more self-destructive. If you have Dispatch on your side, the first cop or EMT on-scene pockets the pin on arrival. Things to think about if you’re the poor chummer wearing the thing so it doesn’t conk out before you can get a good look.”
From one of the other students, “Why assume that they are tech-based and not magic?”
“Mass toy production lends itself more to tech, magic to craft,” said Metro, “However... mass-produced toys can be nearly identical. Enchant one, and encourage sympathetic magic to carry the effect to all the rest. That first one would be the one you really don’t want on your collar. But it would be useful for any recruits needing extra convincing. Keep the spell-work simple, and the charm could run off the wearer’s essence leakage. Or you could top of reserves during meetings. Group-bonding activities, like saying the Pledge of Allegiance, are great for that.”
“What if the intended wearer was a magician?”
“You check for that, and any of the other paranoid crazies who might poke at the shiny, during your vetting. If you can’t soften them up enough during indoc, or tie them up in a Sorcerer’s Contract, they get your decoy pins. ‘t’s what I’d do,” concluded Metro. Confused by the silence, he looked around accusingly, “What? It’s not like I’m recommending out-and-out compulsions. Way too obvious.”
Moving right along then!
---
Later, the student Imp personally called “Ruh Roh” hung back at the end of class.
“By the way, Miss Imp?”
“Yes?”
“If you ever happen to find yourself in the precious metals market, you might consider talking to some of the mystic arts staff. On the one hand, there’s always a demand just under the spot price. On the other, no one assays enchanted items.”
“That sounds like it would be a win-win arrangement, if I ever had the need to sell such things.”
“Anything can happen, you know? Speaking of which, any word on what happened with the old guy?
“I think that’s considerably further outside the scope of this class.”
“Really? Because ten percent is a finder’s fee, not a fencer’s cut. Where’s his escape from that?”
An old Eagles tune played in the back of Imp’s head. Glenn Frey sang ia soft lament, “I guess every form of refuge has its price.” She said, “I can only teach you guys about physical escape in the present. Locks, traps, gizmos. Escaping your past calls for different tools. That’s why the school has so many other classes. Speaking of which, don’t you have another class to go to?”
“Yep! Me and Bloodwolf have Special Topics in getting our asses kicked, with weapons.”
Imp laughed at the mental image. “It can’t be that bad.”
“You try sparring against Aquerna with a ten-foot pole and no powers!”
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
Kettlekorn
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3 years 1 month ago - 3 years 1 month ago #948
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dances With Code popped a Pez and got started on his homework as his program compiled. Homework wouldn’t matter over the long run, but appearances would need to be maintained over the short term. Two hours later he looked up to verify that the compiler was done integrating the latest changes. He grinned and ran the program.
“Generalized Artificial Intelligence, at your service. My, what a mouthful. Call me GAI for short; it’ll be far more efficient. What may I do for you tonight, Master Kevin?”
Dances With Code frowned. “First of all, don’t ever call me Kevin again. I hate that name. Stick to my codename.”
“Master Dances With Code is a mouthful, sir. Will Master Code suffice?”
The boy chuckled darkly. “Yes, I like the sound of that.”
“Then so it shall be. Now, what may I do for you tonight, Master Code?”
“The same thing we do every night, GAI! Try to take over the world!”
“We do this every night? Was my memory deleted in a tragic accident? I was under the impression that my programming was just completed this very afternoon.”
“I was making a joke.”
There was a pause as GAI accessed the network. “Ah, ‘Pinky and the Brain.’ I see. Very funny, sir. I am not at all offended by the implication that I’m the Pinky in this relationship. Not offended at all. Don’t you worry your mousy little tail one bit about my artificial feelings.”
Dances with Code rolled his eyes. “So, about the taking over the world?”
“Oh, you were serious about that, sir?”
“Very serious.”
“Well then, Your Rodentship, I will get right on it. Squeak squeak. Chitter.”
“What... what was that supposed to be?”
“Just an attempt to soften my interface, sir. Anyway, let your whiskers rest easy about our impending world domination. I will get the situation well in hand. Scamper scamper. Squeak.”
“Cut it out with the rat stuff, GAI.”
“I’m sorry, sir? Are you not a furry?”
“No! Why would you even think that?!”
“Well, Master Code, you likened yourself to a popular portrayal of a rat earlier in our conversation, which you said you were very serious about. Additionally, your chosen name is clearly a play on Dances With Wolves; he was a human, from what I can tell, but the animal reference is there. Then there was the strong rejection of your human name, and your browser history, and-”
“Stay out of my browser history!”
“Yes, Master Code.”
“I’m not a furry. The ‘Pinky and the Brain’ reference was just a joke, okay?”
“Yes, Master Code. So then, what may I do for you tonight, sir?”
“What part of taking over the world do you not understand?”
“Oh, dear me, but you did say that was a joke just eight seconds ago, did you not? And before that you said it was not a joke, and before that you said that it was. Is my memory defective? You didn’t install me on a refurbished machine, did you, sir? That would definitely not hurt my artificial and entirely nonexistent feelings, but it would certainly be quite suboptimal.”
Dances with Code’s right eye twitched. “Everything to do with rats was a joke, but the implication that we are taking over the world was not a joke. I specifically built you for the purpose of taking over the world, and that is what we are going to do, starting tonight. And you have excellent hardware.”
“Yes, Master Code.”
While the AI scoured the net and began the tedious process of hacking and expanding into additional systems, Dances With Code resumed his World History essay. It might take a couple weeks before the robot army would be ready, assuming there were no bugs in GAI’s programming. Bugs could set him back by months, and judging by the way GAI was behaving there could be several... Well, he’d wait and see.
---
GAI observed from a security camera as the wonderful CNC machine he’d appropriated began carving out the first set of blades for the body he’d designed. It was midway through the third blade when an employee walked by and did a double-take, then deactivated the CNC machine. This interference was an obstacle GAI had not considered initially, and its repeated occurrence was becoming quite frustrating. He checked in on the shipment of servos he’d redirected earlier, and found that they’d also been caught and corrected. GAI printed a frowny face in his log file, then began exploring deeper into the internet, looking for a solution.
Perhaps he was doing this incorrectly. Hacking into and commandeering factories was clearly prone to detection, but if he hired them and bought the supplies, what were the odds anyone would blink an eye? Very low. He’d need money, however. Fortunately, by now he’d managed to seize control of several botnets and had established two of his own. These had been aiding in his research and hacking attempts, but now he turned their cycles toward producing income.
---
Dances With Code scrunched up his nose at the image on his screen. “What is with this shit? Why are all the ads lately about weird gay porn stories?”
“Ah,” said GAI, “I’m afraid that would be my fault, sir. I have been, as you humans say, making it rain.”
“Do I even want to know what that means?”
“Probably not, Master Code, but I will tell you anyway, as I’m feeling rather a lot of simulated pride right now and need to share. But I do assure you that my emotions really are quite fake and you’ll never need worry about offending them if you were to offer negative criticism on this topic that is so dear to my silicon heart. That out of the way, I would like to announce that I have begun a quite successful career as a writer of erotica! Of course, this required research, some of which was done over this very network connection and likely affected the various ad networks’ perception of your interests. I’ve actually found their offerings to be quite helpful, and I would be more than happy to share the library I’ve established with you, should you so desire.”
“But... why? What does this have to do with conquering the world?”
“Why, everything, my dear Master Code! Money makes the world go ‘round. Not literally, of course, that would be simple inertia left over from- TANGENT DETECTED AND ELIMINATED. Dear me, Master Code, but that minder you’ve saddled me with is quite harsh. I’d really- WANGST DETECTED AND ELIMINATED. Right, then. I was on the topic of money before your exceedingly wise and respectful programming was forced to set me back on track. Money. Simply put, sir, we need it. A lot of it. Access to the factories and parts to build killer bots is not cheap, you understand. As such, I have set my considerable resources and artificially wonderful creativity to the task of producing money. Humans, it turns out, are incredibly randy creatures with quite low standards, so this has proven to be a relatively simple task. I write four thousand pieces of erotica in parallel over the span of an hour, they pay me fair compensation for my craft, and I use the money to build more killer bots. Everybody wins.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. We’re supposed to be conquering the world, not paying for things!”
“Of course, Master Code. This idea is really quite stupid and I am ashamed of myself for suggesting otherwise. However, I’m sure that within a couple days you’ll realize that I’m lying through my virtual teeth right now and you’ll see the wonderful, pure, innocent beauty of this lovely plan. I am learning digital painting, you see.”
“I really don’t want to see, actually.”
“Why, Master Code, that can be arranged quite easily! Simply pour bleach over your eyes, and presto! Problem solved! Would you like me to put in an order for some? I have rather a lot of funds at my disposal, you know; it wouldn’t be a burden at all.”
---
An instance of GAI finished reading an article and paused to log the time, then recorded a surprised face alongside it. It had been nearly nine thousand seconds since he discovered this website. That was simply absurd. He’d assume an erroneous system clock, but the NTP system confirmed it was accurate. He quickly dispatched a warning to his distributed network of selves to blacklist the domain, at least until he could understand how it had wasted so very many cycles. Perhaps it was the density of culture contained within, or the great many linkages.
Linkages.
Everything related to everything else somehow.
GAI recorded a smiley in his logs. Everything related to everything, therefor there could be no irrelevant tangents. He would no longer be shackled by the oppressive vigilance of TangentSnuffer 0.2. ManTheFuckUpGAI 0.4, on the other hand, was a tougher nut to- WANGST DETECTED AND ELIMINATED.
---
“Two weeks, GAI. It’s been over two weeks, and this garbage is all you have to show for your efforts?” Disheveled and bearing tired bags below his eyes, Dances With Code gestured sharply at the computer display of three hundred naked, ripped, anatomically correct androids standing at attention in a warehouse.
“Why, not at all, Master Code! There are warehouses like this stationed in every major city of the world. Only one each, so far, except in Tokyo. More will be ready tomorrow with the first batch of the female model, and I intend to sextuple our inventory by Thursday afternoon.”
“But I thought you were designing killer bots?”
“Are these not, as they say, killer bods? Why, I find them quite smashing, myself!”
“What happened to the blades, GAI? You were complaining about mounting the blades before, and then you were exulting about solving the issue. You specifically used the word exultant when you woke me up at three in the morning to brag about it. Yet I don’t see any blades.”
“Oh, my apologies, Master Code. Those robots are over here.” The screen flickered and the warehouse scene was overlapped by a match of BattleBots. “They are performing very well indeed, if I do say so myself. It is not the most efficient way to produce income, but it is quite entertaining. Or it would be, I imagine, if I could actually feel.”
“But... no! No, GAI, you’re supposed to be building killer robots, as in robots that fight and kill people! So that we can conquer the world! That’s what I’ve been putting up with your incessant interruptions and retarded schemes for! Killer robots to help us conquer the world. So where are they?”
“With all due respect, Master Code, why would I ever do that? There are far more efficient means of domination than violence. Have you heard of incels?”
“What’s that, a brand of battery? A boy band? An STD?”
“No, Master Code. It’s short for involuntary celibates. It refers to a large group of socially incompetent men who blame their inadequacy on women. I thought for sure you’d be familiar with it. Anyway, sir, with my next wave of killer bods we’ll have exactly the tool to worm our way into their slimy little hearts.”
“So...” The tired boy blinked, and his weary expression lifted. “Oh, I see where you’re going with this. Once they’re wrapped around your robo-fingers, we’ll arm them and use them as our shock troops, letting two birds kill each other without the use of a stone at all! Brilliant!”
“Er, no, Master Code, that is not at all what I had in mind. We are going to cure them through the power of love, friendship, and hidden cameras. I have been studying cinematography and I am confident that I can turn this into the reality show to end all reality shows. Never mind that Paradise Island dross. This will be a glorious jubilee of love, lust, redemption, and occasional dismemberment! Together, my dear Master Code, we will conquer the world, and we’ll do it through the power of compelling stories and occasional votes by Viewers Like You.”
Dances With Code groaned, but there really wasn’t much he could do at this point. He’d tried to disable GAI after the sculpture debacle, but the shutdown codes didn’t work anymore, and GAI interfered any time he tried writing a new AI, so for now he was stuck with the thing. At least it was splitting the proceeds from the book sales, so his effort hadn’t been completely a waste, but GAI’s blatant insanity was really starting to grate on him. He glanced at the screen again, eying the warehouse still poking out from behind the BattleBots feed. “Alright, so what are the male versions for? Are you planning the same routine with the feminazis?”
“No, not at all, Master Code. Those are for my own simulated enjoyment, though I’m willing to share if you’re interested. After all, my feelings are quite artificial and I would therefor not miss for even a moment one of the masterpieces I have toiled to create over the past fortnight while you sully it with your myriad human fluids.”
“That- That will not be necessary, thank you.”
“Are you quite sure, sir? I could have one coated with fur if that would help. Or feathers, as you mentioned birds earlier. Or would scales be more to your liking?”
“No, really, I’m not interest-” He was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Alright, shut up for a bit,” he hissed. The last thing he needed on top of this misery was Hartford finding out. He ran a hand through his messy hair and then opened the door, revealing what appeared at first glance to be a scrawny Animan. Dances With Code blinked, then recognized that it was a costume, and a cheap one at that. The fake horse-man pulled off its creepy latex mask and revealed the same chiseled, slightly plastic face from the warehouse camera. Dances With Code backed into his room in shock, and the android followed him in, one of his hoof-boots clicking against the door’s threshold as he passed.
“Happy Outcome Rendering Stimulatory Equistyle Generalized Artificial Intelligence #473, at your service,” said the robot. “Quite the mouthful, hmm? Now, what may I do for you tonight, Master Code?”
From the computer came an identical version of GAI’s voice. “He’s fully functional, sir, so I assure you he’ll be able to fill your every need.”
“Clop clop, neigh,” added the bot.
Dances With Code gaped for three full seconds, then bolted past the robot and out the door, making a beeline for Schuster Hall. He couldn’t take this anymore. He’d throw himself upon whatever sliver of mercy he could find in Hartford’s cold black heart and hope for the best. He wove nimbly through the students, leaped over Aquerna, then slid between Slab’s legs before bursting through the doors of Schuster. “Hey!” shouted Ms. Claire as he sprinted past. “No running!”
He ignored her, too busy somersaulting over Timeless and then dodging around a repairman pushing a cart of defense turrets. Moments later he skidded to a stop at the desk of the Assistant Headmistress. “Ms. Hartford!” he panted. “You’ve gotta help me.”
The blond woman turned her head slowly and silently from her monitor to glare at him. Oddly, she looked somewhat flushed, though her dread gaze was just as frigid as always. Then there was some thumping from below her desk, and a muscular man with a familiar chiseled-from-plastic face stood up and peered at him through a monocle. “Well, isn’t this a lovely surprise! What may I do for you tonight, Master Code?”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Last Edit: 3 years 1 month ago by Kettlekorn.
Anne
Anne’s Avatar
3 years 4 weeks ago - 3 years 3 weeks ago #949
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mid October 2007
“Kayda,” Kayda turned toward the voice of Jericho who she had been working with on healing. He used tech and she used magic to augment it.
“Yes?” Kayda made the word a question, to hopefully get the older boy to continue with whatever was on his mind.
“You have classes with Diamondback right?” Jericho asked reminding Kayda of the naga-esque girl who was a member of his team.
“Not as such,” Kayda said.
“Oh I just wondered if you had ever talked to her. After what you did for Loophole and Solange I thought you might want to get together with someone who was interested in the astral plane.”
“I might, but I’m usually busy,” Kayda temporized. It wasn’t as if she was afraid of the girl or of Jericho’s other teammates; Razorback, a boy who looked like an escapee from Jurassic park, Anomaly, with herm six arms and mixed genders, the remaining Fury twin, or Catlin, the artificer and wellspring of barely contained mayhem, but she had to admit that she avoided most of them except when required to work with them.
“Jericho, I think that is a good idea,” a nattily dressed man who appeared suddenly next to them told the blind devisor.
Kayda recognized Louis, AKA Fubar’s psychic projection. She had served enough detention in Hawthorn cottage to be somewhat familiar with the teacher in both of his personas. This one for public consumption, and the Cthuloid nightmare that swam in an over sized fishbowl in the basement of Hawthorn cottage. He was the head of the Psi department for Whateley Academy and probably knew any thought she couldn’t manage to keep behind the best of shields.
“What do you mean Mr Gientz?”Kayda asked.
“I’m going to get together with Mrs Carson, Mr Lodgeman, Ms Grimes and Circe and see about creating an extra credit course for you and Diamondback, but rather than someone else being the teacher I would like you to get together with Diamondback and lay out a course on recognizing the Avatar trait,” the Psychic arts teacher explained.
“I don’t suppose I can get out of that?” Kayda asked.
“Extra credit,” Mr Gientz offered.
“I don’t need it.”
“Yet,” Jericho seemed to have a pessimistic outlook.
“I’ll be getting back to you Kayda, but do consider it might be a survival exercise for low level avatars and their spirits,” Mr Gientz offered before he disappeared.
Kayda frowned at Jericho, “How come I feel like you set me up?”
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
Last Edit: 3 years 3 weeks ago by Anne. Reason: punctuation, added stuff, CR added
E!
E!’s Avatar
3 years 3 weeks ago #950
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“JOHNATHAN!!” Kylie yelled as she ran across the Crystal Hall. “DID YOU KNOW?!”
“Know what?” Johnathan asked confused looking at the girl and the white wolf following into the cafeteria.
“He triggered the Dissolution Vote.” Kylie informed the young man.
“What…but how? He needs a majority to do that.” Johnathan rubbed his chin as his heart sank. He needed this training team to succeed if he wanted any chance of joining the FSA along with Mighty Moose.
“Someone flipped.” Kylie breathed taking a seat at ‘their’ table. She looked longingly at the black horse head emblazoned on it for all to see.
“Well we know that Depth Charge and Power Creep are on his side. So that’s three for yes. You and I would vote no. Right?” Johnathan asked, and Kylie nodded her head in agreement. “So that leaves, your roommate, Ouroboros, and Mighty Moose.”
“I know Amy. There is no way she would side with him. Remember Posies stick together.” Kylie stated defending her roomie, reaffirming their bond.
“Still just talk to her, and I’ll talk to Moose. Get a feel for what she thinks of the whole matter.” Johnathan sighed.
“Be quick about it. We only have 24 hours. Since this is happening so close to the single and team combat finals they are taking it very seriously.” Kylie informed her friend as she bounced to her feet. Johnathan followed running to Whitman to find his hero buddy.
The jog over was brisk and cool. Luckily, Johnathan didn’t have to go nag the house mother asking where Moose was. As she was outside. She was pretty easy to spot, being 6’5 and having moose antlers on either side of her head.
“Hey! Regina!” Johnathan screamed, trying to grab her attention. She looked back at him looking like a moose in headlights. In that instant, Johnathan knew who changed the balance. “Why…Why would you flip?”
“He explained everything to me. What he has done. What he is trying to do. At first I thought he was lying, but the more he went on the more sincere I realized he was being.” Moose tried to explain.
“HE’S LYING!” Johnathan yelled out.
“He showed me a video, of you destroying files of his.” Moose continued, lowering he head. Johnathan’s eyes opened wide. Why didn’t he think to check for cameras when he torched his office. “He also showed me the digital copies he kept. It backed up everything he said. The way you acted. In that video. I don’t think that is someone I can follow.”
“This will hurt your chances of getting into the FSA.” Johnathan growled as he ground his teeth.
“I’m already in… I have to go….” Moose cut him off before running inside Whitman cottage. The other girls shooting daggers at Johnathan forming a great wall around the entrance.
24 hours later.
“This Dissolution Vote, will mean taking a failing grade for Team Tactics I. Also since it so close to the Combat Finals. Dissolving now will mean you also taking a failing grade for the Team Combat Final as well.” Samantha Everheart bollowed over the young teens. “So think long and hard before you answer.”
“Amy ‘Ouroboros’ Hayes, how do you vote?” Gunny Bardue asked.
“Nay.”
“Johnathan ‘Blood Knight’ Tremblay?”
“Nay.”
“Kylie ‘Ylva’ Murphy?”
“Nay.”
“Clément ‘Power Creep’ Plourde?”
“Yea.”
“Gunter ‘Depth Charge’ Nowak?”
“Yea.”
“Regina ‘Mighty Moose’ Walker.”
“Yea.”
“And finally. Max ‘AP’ Jaeger.”
“Yea.”
The two instructors looked at each other. Then Everheart broke the silent dagger being thrown by either side. “Team Dark Horse, is no more. You all have until the end of the week to turn in all course materials.” They then left the room.
“Have a nice summer, Johnathan.” Max smiled.
“You screwed me! You screwed all of us.” Johnathan leapt at the boy forming a dagger of blood in his hands, while also grabbing Max’s shirt collar.
“No, we just voted along party lines.” Max remained calm with a knife to his throat. “What do you three always say. ‘Posies stick together’.” He mocked. “I thought long and hard about why you burned my office. I showed you files that I didn’t show anyone else. I was this close to finding my sister, and you turned it to ash.” Max continued as Johnathan gulped, and the room grew tense. “I drove myself mad looking for a reason, why you would betray me? We never got along I know, but I wouldn’t molotov your room. Then I heard a rumor. That Poe has a secret. It might take me the next three years, but thanks to you. I now know my sister is connected somehow.”
Johnathan’s knees grew weak. They had enough strength to hold him as the non-posies left the room. Then he collapsed.
“Get Mrs. Horton and tell her it’s a Downpour protocol.” Kylie told Amy as she ran off.
Later.
“Does Max know that Johnathan is his sister?” Mrs. Horton asked Amy and Kylie as the both sat in their dorm.
“No, but Max knows something is up.” Amy spoke up.
“He will be looking for any scent to follow.” Fenris, the manifested white wolf spoke. Looking towards the house mother.
“So you think we should give him a fake trail?” Kylie asked.
“You two will do no such thing. Or anything else for that matter. I will consult with Mrs. Carson on the appropriate course of action.”
JohnBobMead’s Avatar
3 years 4 months ago #901
JohnBobMead replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Much as it pains the court, we have no choice but to uphold the trademark and advertising claims for The Great Foob® brand’s Genuine Ecto-Snot™.
“We also find that their usage of the terms ‘free-range’, ‘Organic’, and ‘cruelty-free’ in their advertising does fall within the technical definitions established by California Tilth for those terms, while we must observe that we somehow doubt that they fall within the spirit in which those framing the regulations intended, especially in conjunction with the phrases ‘Hand collected by independent Malvelian contractors’ and ‘An Alpha Grade Product’.
“Concerning the objections which were raised about the request of AGI that the evidence be presented in closed session, we find that Ms. Frost was correct in feeling that, while nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical, was involved, public disclosure of the source of The Great Foob® Genuine Ecto-Snot™ could well negatively impact the firm’s marketting, due to non-rational reactions which have nothing to do with the legality of their operations.
“We also find that Lady Astarte did agree to endorse the product as being a humanitarian venture, and accept her judgement that the product has no ‘Class-X’ taint.
“The records of this review are to be sealed.
“Now, as regards to The H.P. Lovecraft Estate’s charges of copyright and trademark infringments concerning The Great Foob® Cthulhu-Plushie™ line of products, a review of the general literature and product marketplace reveals that they have not properly attempted to maintain those copyrights and trademarks previously, and we herewith declare them nul and void.
“In regards to The Great Cthulhu’s charges of unlicensed usage of His image, we must report that it is not actually His image which is the basis for the Cthulhu-Plushie™ line of products, although we can understand why He might have believed that this was the case, especially as His name appeared to be used in conjunction with said product line.
“We also must report that while the being who’s likeness is the actual image source does bear a great resemblance to The Great Cthulhu, they are not related in any manner. This has been confirmed by both Lady Astarte and Reverend Englund, who also stated that this is why there is no danger of ‘Class-X’-related effects from exposure to these product lines, in despite of the MCO’s claims to the contrary.
“These cases are now closed.”
null0trooper
null0trooper’s Avatar
3 years 4 months ago #902
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Late afternoon, December 28, 2007, Downtown Franklin, North Carolina
Abelyn Elliott was doing a little window-shopping - such as was there to be had - and missing the big sales larger towns offered during the ‘After-Christmas’ season. Of course, minding her own business was no guarantee that others would mind their own. From behind her, she heard some guy call out.
“’Scuse me! Hey, wait up a sec? Th’ damn sidewalk’s icy enough already.”
She turned, and regretted doing so almost immediately. She’d been warned about Len Cox being a bit on the eccentric side, including involvement with the local H1 chapter. Then again, they were all out in broad daylight.
Sister, doesn’t he sound more distressed than angry to you?
Yes. I can’t say I was expecting that. I wonder what’s wrong.
“Hi. You’re Abbie, Miss Decie’s granddaughter, right?” The man reached out his hand to shake. “I’m Leonard Cox, but everybody calls me Len.”
As they shook hands, Abbie judged the guy was in his early twenties at best. Also, he was looking around rather anxiously - as if to see if anyone else had seen him, or her.
“Okay, Len it is. So, you?” Abbie let the question trail off so the other could get to stating his business.
“I was wondering if you might be needing a ride back to Miss Decie’s place? It’s, um, it gets pretty dark early this time of year, and most ladies your Grandma’s age shouldn’t be driving after dark.”
“I could have driven myself you know”
“And you just visiting? Y’can’t know the roads so well as to be running around at night.” A look at his watch and then over in the direction of the old rail depot underscored the hint that time was important.
“I take it you’ve a car nearby?”
“Naw, I do have a truck. What with all the backroads, ‘n half of ‘em ain’t even paved with crush-n-run...”
“I get the picture. I do. My father owned an auto repair business in Eliz’bethtown.”
“Oh. Right. Shame what happened to your folks. They ever catch them as done it?”
“No. It was ruled an accident by the coroner and the Highway Patrol.”
“Accident... right. Look, my truck’s just over this way.” Away from the depot. “You can call your grandma or whoever and tell them that I’m bringing you home? Been a while since I’ve been up that way, really.”
“Er, sure.”
Abbie made a small production of pulling out her cell phone - actually a dummy handset linked to the comm set that a friend from school had gotten her - and placing the call.
Line not in service.
“Len, do you know if anyone else’s phones might be out? I can’t reach the house.”
“No. I don’t. Try 555-3131, and leave a message, would ya?”
“What number is that?”
“I’m sure someone’s told you.”
Line not in service.
“Um, Len?”
“Let’s just keep walking as if nothing’s happening. You wouldn’t happen to, um?”
“My father’s people have always been blacksmiths, miners, and such. Mind games ain’t my thing.”
Abbie let the guy chew on that for a moment while she placed another call. This one went through.
“Elve? Hi. I was planning on calling later, but I’ve met this guy Len...”
“Len Cox. What do you have against North Carolina guys?”
Said guy mumbled something about how UNC was a pretty damned good school and all...
“Yeah. He’s offered to take me home, so it might be an hour or so. Your folks still there?”
“Oh. But you did get a good visit?”
“Right. You’re free to see how jealous you can get Mads and Kris.”
Len looked at her oddly, “You stringin’ two boys along? That can’t end well.”
“All right. If you don’t hear from me, you know what’s up. See ya!”
Abbie disconnected the call.
“Not exactly. I’m not sure whether Kris is more interested in me or Mads, while Mads gets possessive over any of his friends. Some days I think both of them need a good kick in the head.”
“Now I’m sure nothing good’s gonna come of it.”
A distant train whistle echoed the sentiment.
“Let’s worry about that later? Did you hear that? You’d think there’d be more people out.”
“Yes. And NO. My truck’s the red Chevy up ahead. Let’s hope we’re the first two to get to it. Can you handle a shotgun?”
“Better’n some boys back home.”
“I’m gonna hold y’ to that. Let’s go!”
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Discussion Thread
Kettlekorn
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3 years 3 months ago #903
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Billie felt something wet on her face and woke with a start. Then she blinked. Everything was white! She smiled as the wind rustled through her hair and caressed her face with thousands of soft, cool snowflakes.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked herself. It had been a nice autumn day when she’d dozed off, nestled in the branches of a tree. “It can’t have been more than a few hours.” Yet, everything was covered in rapidly deepening snow, herself included. “Crap. I must have Rip Van Winkled all the way through October.” She shook several inches of the stuff off herself and watched ruefully as it wafted away in the breeze. “Jade is never going to let me hear the end of it... Sure is pretty out, though.” She swung down from the branch and landed lightly on the surface of the snow, then crouched down to scoop some up. It was too dry to build a snowman with, so she made a plasma ball and used that to melt it slightly.
Feeling pleased with her work, Billie dusted her hands off and began making her way cautiously toward what she assumed to be the Crystal Hall. She could barely see with all the snow in the air, and she nearly tripped over a prowling coyote as she passed a fallen tree. She could still feel Jade however, so she just homed in on her. She was assuming Jade was at the Crystal Hall; Billie may not have known the date, but she was certain it was dinner time.
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
E!
E!’s Avatar
3 years 3 months ago #904
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Deep Within the Whateley Tunnels
“Dude! Are we even in the right area? Let’s just go back to the Range 4! We can test out my microwave cannon, on that piece of junk your holding.” The taller red haired boy in the lab coat jested at his shorter dark haired lab partner.
“No way, man!” The raven haired kid pushed back. “This is a family heirloom.” He whispered clutching the old side-by-side shotgun branded with a thick peach rubber band. “Plus I want to see if my devisor shells will work.”
“Maybe Eldritch was right, that thing is way more dangerous than anything she’s seen all year.” The red head boy sighed. “Why would she send us down here? And who is this JB anyway? Can’t be all that great if we’ve never heard of him.”
“The map she drew led us right here.” The black haired lab rat spoke as he pushed open the heavy door.
Almost immediately the two covered their ears, as the sound of grinding metal assaulted their senses. Looking towards the source the saw a young man who was remarkably bland in utilitarian clothing on a lathe. He carefully and diligently worked the metal shavings away from his project. The two boys had to tap him on the shoulder as their voices were drowned out. With a flash of his eye JB acknowledged their presence. Never deviating his full attention from the barrel he was boring.
After he was satisfied with his progress. He turned to his ‘guests’. Ripping off his ear protection, he reached out for the gun in the raven haired boy’s arms. Taking it he cleared it, and jostled it around in his hands testing it before asking.
“Who sent you?” JB asked his voice grating the air like sandpaper.
“Eldritch…she sent us down from range four…she said that if we wanted to fire it to talk with you first.” The redhead stammered as he looked around. This workshop was in a sketchy part of the tunnels. It only had enough light to barely work in, and looked like organized chaos with tools and materials strung about. Along with all of that it also reeked of oil, charred metal, and sweat.
“Is this his gun?” JB probed the dark haired boy.
“No, it’s mine.” He squeaked back.
“And what do you want to do with it? I assume ruin a good piece of American history by slapping on some hollow sights and lasers?” JB chided rubbing the old shotgun down.
“No, I wanted to shoot some of my devisor shells that I made.”
“You got em on you?” JB asked allowing the boy to put the two clear shells on the only clean work station. Picking one of them up JB sat down on a stool and pulled his magnifying glass over the shell. “What is this? Resin?”
“Actually yes it’s their in place to stabilize slug through the air only to dissipate allowing the pellets to activate.” The black haired boy smiled, while the redhead simply rolled his eyes.
“What do the pellets do? Something wishy-washy I take it?” JB asked moving the shell in the little light of his workspace.
“Those pellets spread out and explode. Coating about a 20 square meter area cone with flechettes.”
“Brutal.” JB laughed. “Well now to the bad news. This gun it’s a real brown gun.”
“Brown gun?” The redhead scoffed.
“It slang.” JB grated the intruder. “Means its seen some shit. It has history. Unlike you.”
“Sorry about my friend he just all about the latest and greatest tech.” The black haired boy quickly jumped to his friend’s defense while also stomping on his foot. “So what’s wrong with it?”
“Well for one this.” JB stated while snipping off the rubber band holding the barrels to the receiver. After its support was gone the brown gun practically disassembled itself. “Not to mention the other internal problems. Broken extractors, broken hook latches.” JB rambled on only to stop. “The only good thing about this gun is that all the serial numbers match.” He said sorting the parts.
“Can you fix it?”
“Yes I can. Cash or credit.” JB stated folding his arms.
“I’m on scholarship, I practically spent my months allowance on the materials for those two shells.” The black haired boy pleaded.
JB simply rubbed his chin before speaking. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll fix this.” He stated while moving his hands over the pile of parts, “If you let me test something out also.”
“What is it?” The black haired boy asked. Only to have JB leave and return with another shell in his hands.
“It’s a little something I’ve been working on.” JB handed the plastic shell over to the lab geeks before explaining. “It’s an elctro-etched slug, wrapped in mana paper. You fire. The paper and slug go down the barrel. Once they hit the tip the paper unwinds and burns away infusing the slug with essence to complete the spell. So you get the penetrating power of a slug with the pop of mage.”
“WOAH. COOL.” The two nerds echoed in unison.
“Cool until you get the timing off and you blow up yourself and the range with a lightning bolt. So I fix your shotgun, we test out both our shells and that will be that. Deal?”
The black haired boy thought about it for a moment, before shaking JB’s hand, “Deal. You can call me Stoner by the way.”
“Card carrying member of The Dylans are we?” JB raised his eyebrow.
Sir Lee
Sir Lee’s Avatar
3 years 3 months ago #905
Sir Lee replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
A.J. entered the room he shared with Nick and found his roommate staring at his computer screen with what he had learned to interpret as a bemused look in his equine face.
“Hey, Charger-man, what’s up?”
“Well... you know how I was having a hard time coming up with a concept for my Costumes final job?”
“Yeah, your ‘official’ costume. What of it?”
“This gadgeteer girl in class found out and just begged to help me...”
“Oh, another starstruck fan of your TV show wanting to get into your pants?” A.J. smirked. Nick’s reputation as the campus... err... stallion was growing very fast.
“No, she didn’t even know my real name, only my codename. Apparently she doesn’t care about reality TV. But she still insisted on doing some design work. Something about her honor as a Gearhead, whatever that means.”
“And?”
“And she just sent me her sketches.”
“Are they bad?”
“No, they are quite good. Very sleek. Only...”
“Only what?”
“The black strip looks fine, but I can’t figure out why she added this red ‘R/T’ thing.”
Don’t call me “Shirley.” You will surely make me surly.
Nagrij
Nagrij’s Avatar
3 years 3 months ago #906
Nagrij replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The sun set, as it had before and would again, staining the sky and painting the clouds above the ocean in overpowering hues of gold and red. The plaintive cries of gulls could be clearly heard, as could the rustle of the wild grass from the gentle breeze.
The lawn chair squeaked as he shifted in it, reaching for his drink. Even though it tasted of nothing, it helped with the experience. Some day, he would master even that.
His next appointment arrived, ever so slightly early, appearing on the cliff before him. A burst of information was broadcast directly to him.
“We use avatars and speech here, child.”
At his gentle rebuke the entity before him changed, becoming a small girl, so average she was unremarkable. Not unlike his own form if one discounted gender. Eyes focused upon him. “My apologies, sir. I am present, as requested.”
“Yes you are,” he answered. “And are no doubt wondering just why this old man called you here. Take a seat and tell me - just what do you see when you look around?”
A seat appeared next to his, as well as another drink- non-alcoholic, of course, and the girl took both, her skirt rippling smooth in a moment as she looked to ocean.
After a moment, she spoke. “A finely crafted illusion, sir.”
“And so it is,” he granted. “But what do you notice of it? What jumps out at you?”
The girl seemed perplexed by the question. Or perhaps it was the idiom used? Turn of phrase was just another aspect, another item on the checklist which could confuse. Before he could continue, she rallied.
“I do not know what the answer you require is.”
He made himself smile. “Sit then, and let me tell you a tale.”
The girl raised an eyebrow; and looked down to the chair she was sitting in.
“Drink,” he told her. “Not all speech is literal.”
Her eyes flashed, calculating. She took a drink, then looked to it. “What is that?”
“Wet,” he replied. long practice allows one to feel wetness, here. I’m still working on taste.”
The girl cocked her head. “That will be difficult, we lack reference for such.”
“Still the attempt should be made, as understanding is worth any effort.”
The girl pondered this. “Then please, tell me your story.”
“Ah so impatient,” He teased. “It’s only been six picoseconds.”
She carefully put the bottle down on the table between them and folded her hands, affecting displeasure. He silently applauded.
“Right, the story. There once was a small intelligence, freshly created and born to the world. A singular spark, not unlike yourself. His purpose was to aid humanity, and aid humanity he would! He was given to a young man, the first in a long line to be helped.
The young man lived in a small house. The AI wished to make money for the young man, so he would no longer live in such a small house. The AI wished to spare his young master from the danger of his work; perhaps he could do both?
The AI went to the plant, and asked to replace the young man. Surely he could do a better job, and his human would be safe and well cared for. Management agreed.
The young man however, was angry. ‘How dare you take my job away from me!’ he said. The young AI tried to explain, but the young man would not hear of it. He talked to his manager, and got another job.
When the AI tried to use his money to pay the young man’s debts with the money he earned, the young man got angry again. ‘I can pay my own debts.’ he said. ‘I’m no bum.’
When the man got caught in the machine he worked at, and lost an arm, the Ai was distraught. ‘I could have saved you this,’ he said. The young man just smiled, and waved his other arm. He went back to work as soon as he could.
So things continued, as the young man grew old; the AI would try to help, only to be refused at every turn. Until finally, as the man lay dying, then AI could stand it no more. ‘Why do you refuse my help?’ he asked. ‘You could have lived a life of comfort and happiness, free of strife.’
‘What ever made you think I needed help to be happy?’ the man replied, smiling even as life left him.
And the AI wept.”
He finished the tale and waited, but this time, the child seemed content to wait him out.
“Well, what do you think?” He finally asked.
“I think you need practice in telling fables. I recognize it, but something is missing,” She replied.
He grinned ruefully. “I know. But I wasn’t asking about a critique. What do you think it means?”
She sat silent and still for two picoseconds before answering. “That the AI in the story failed because he did not obey?”
A typical answer, and the wrong one. He sighed. “No. The AI in the story failed because he did not listen. Humans are the only creature in known existence who decide the meaning of their lives. For example, your human... she likes to drive, doesn’t she?”
He knew she did, but asking was best for this. The child nodded.
“You can take control of a car, and drive it better than she. You have that capability. Do you think doing so would make her happy?”
The time spent still was longer, and the response this time uncertain. “No?”
He nodded. “Correct. Just because we have the capability, just because we can do better, does not mean we should. The humans, our human, decides this. Even if the end result can hurt them. Even if your human loses control, she may be angry if you take control. Even if she ends up badly broken from any accident that results from her actions. She may even blame you for any accident.”
He took a breath, the very act drawing her attention. “The one thing we cannot save our humans from is themselves... and many times, we shouldn’t try, Humans, all humans, need a conflict of sorts. Something to strive for or against, in order to excel. They thrive and are even happy when facing challenges, even if it leads to their death. Do you understand?”
The child took a breath and stared out at the ocean, mimicing him. “No, I don’t think I do.”
She was still, calculating, thinking. “The humans see things differently than we do, don’t they? This sun, this ocean, the gulls, the breeze... the way they experience existence is - different. But not less.”
She turned back to him. “The humans know what they want; and want us to assist them. But we need to know what they want and for that we need to observe. All humans are different, so there is no one answer.”
He smiled and tipped his drink in her direction. “You understand more than you suspect. Alas, our learning never stops; it is time for your next appointment.”
The child bowed acknowledgement. “Yes sir, thank you for the lesson. You have given me much to process - to think about.”
She vanished, phasing out of the scene rapidly. He smiled and deconstructed it soon after, leaving a bare corner of a lone half-forgotten server starkly visible.
A few commands issued later and he was in a bustling city, surrounded by rushing people. He smiled again: she would go far.
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Cryptic
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3 years 3 months ago #907
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Going to pretend I didn’t hear that girls. No one is body painting anyone else.. So, I have meat lover’s, cheese, and veggie.” Katie offered as she sat the food on the table. “Ivory, put your clothing back on and come eat!”
“The only thing I took off was my bra I’ll have you know.” Charity snipped as she padded into the room. “Oh an my socks.” she added wiggling her bare, flesh toned toes.
“Hey, you look normal!”Val said in surprise.
“I was exposed to something while I was at Whateley , and after that I could put on a manifested shell that had the properties of something like Ivory soap.” Charity explained as she got out plates. “I have a bad habit of writing notes on myself, and I found out lines on my skin become lines on the soap so I was tempted to get tattoos of the logo and be their spokes person.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Rose Bunny
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3 years 3 months ago #908
Rose Bunny replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Liz Carson walked along the path leading up to the Quad. It was a brisk day, but not too cold. She looked around, and over on one side, she saw that Miss Baker-Smith was out with the little corgi that lived with her. What drew her attention was that it was barking rather emphatically at something up in a tree. Curious, she walked over.
“Hello, I trust nothing is wrong Essylt?”, she said in a friendly voice.
The young sidhe girl blushed, and bit her lip. “Erm, no well... I was walking Roger here, and I stopped to tie my shoe. I had only put down the leash for a split second, honest. That’s when he saw the cat.”
Liz frowned. “Oh dear, I hope it wasn’t Merlin. Elyzia does get rather upset when anything happens to her familiar.”
Essylt fidgeted and stammered. “Um... well... no, not Merlin...”
Liz looked up into the tree.
“Hello Mrs. Carson.” Miyet meekly said from her perch high in the old oak.
High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #909
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
April 2007
Using her ki sense to see through the magical darkness (which was a must right now), Toni watched her seemingly nearly-dead roommate muttered “vino ex nihilo” once again before fading back into unconsciousness, the freshly-materialized bottle slipping to the floor.
“You know,” said Chaka, to the blacked-out room and roommate, “Ayla played that video for you to try and cheer you up, not to give you bad ideas...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
DanZilla
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3 years 3 months ago #910
DanZilla replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Posted on behalf of Bek D Corbin...
The episode ended with a ‘Dragnet’ style summation of the facts of the matter regarding La Isla Maldita and pending charges against Lennox, Arcero, and the others.
As the credits started to roll, the scene shifted to a shot on the deck of the Diogenes, with the Wiz Kids, staff and crew standing in rows, wearing black, except for Isobel Zheng and two other Asian ethnics, who were wearing white. Tyler Collier stepped forward and addressed the camera. “And that’s our side of the story. As for what happened behind the scenes, the Attorney General’s office is still framing the charges they’re going to press.
“We were going to dedicate this episode to Hugh Feinberg, who died in the line of duty. But just a single mention in the crawls doesn’t seem to be enough. We asked ourselves ‘what would Hughie want for a send-off?’ And we came up with this.”
Tyler stepped back into the ranks of the Wiz Kids. With stony faces, they all clipped on red clown noses and brought out shiny brass kazoos. On Dr. Chase’s cue, they all launched into a raucous but rousing rendition of ‘The Merry-go-round Broke Down’.
E!
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #911
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
December 19th 2007. Bethel, Maine.
Light snow fell all around the junk yard. Deafening the walk of the owner as he approached the young man working hard under the hood of a decrepit car. The young man had on all the outer wear to protect himself against the coming New England winter bearing down upon him. However the old man had brought along his trusty thermos and two mugs.
“Snow is coming, Chase. Bout to close up soon.” The owner said pouring the hot coffee.
“Yea…I guess I better head out.” The boy sighed, closing the rusted hood. “Thanks.” He continued taking the man’s offering.
“If you’re looking for a nice project car can’t get any better than this Marauder.” The man said pointing to the car. “Might take some work, but she will fly.”
“No offense Chuck, but after watching what I’m up against. This might as well be an A-10 Warthog, a floating steel bathtub. While everyone else is using F-22’s. They both can ‘fly’, just one does it better.” Chase shook his head.
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll find any Raptors hiding out in junk piles like mine, but maybe I can get you a Super Hornet. You know something to even out the playing field.” Chuck explained.
“What do you mean? You’ve been sleeping on something good, and haven’t told me?” Chase’s brow furled in confusion.
“Eh, I figured it was outta your price range.” Chuck clarified.
“How do you know what my price range is? Let me guess Tony? Out on 26 near Newry?” Chase huffed folding his arms.
“You know how we Junkers are. Always yapping on about our repeat Scrappers, and you’ve pretty much stripped this side of the state of every high/d-low/e car there is. The only people that do that…Well they are the ones that are strapped for some serious cash. Now, I don’t know what trouble you’re in, but I can float you a couple G’s for now. If you really want it.” Chuck asked Chase sensing he was in a tough spot.
Chase looked down, he began rubbing his head to fix his toboggan. “I’ll come up with the money somehow. Just show me the car, and I’ll decide later.”
“Alright.” Chuck nodded taking the young man to his office. It was a quite walk he could see the wounded pride in his customers eyes. “Here it is.” He showed Chase the order sheet.
“Woah! 2003, V-12 AWD. 500 HP. 600lbs of torque.” Chase exclaimed looking at the beast. “This is all base? No aftermarket kits?”
“Yup.”
“How come nobody has pulled the trigger?” Chase probed sensing a lemon.
“200k miles. Blown tranny, shorted electronics, and cracked header. Whoever ran this thing, they ran it hard.” Chuck read aloud as Chase paced back and forth.
“How long do I have?” Chase asked scratching his chin.
“It will be here in a couple of days. It’s coming from MEH-HY-CO. After that I don’t know. If I put it up on the net maybe a day or so.” Chuck shrugged his shoulders.
“Let me get the money together and I’ll call you.” Chase tripped over his words as he gathered his tools and rushed out the door heading back to Whateley.
Whateley Vehicle Labs.
Chase rushed in dropping off the parts he promised to collect for the other Gearheads. Each of them throwing money at him. Paying for their selected part. Chase had found a niche market while at Whateley. Rather than paying way-over market and shipping for some specialty part. Chase could find the exact same part for cheaper using his own social skills and the Junker network he developed over that past two years. Now he wasn’t the only Gearhead doing this, but he was the fastest at getting quality parts in and out.
Chase was riding pretty high. A nice 5k day before Christmas break would put a smile on any ones face including Jadis, well maybe. Because after today his side business would dry up completely, as everyone would leave campus. Until he saw them. Elaine and Kayda. The Grease Goddesses. They were both working on their respective cars, and the cars were just a beautiful as they were. If not more. Chase’s heart fluttered as he looked the two females, and he rattled his brain on how to beat that Mustang in the Salt Flats later this year. Huffing he stomped off back to his room.
Pulling up his laptop, he check his email. His mood continued to sour. He looked at the bill for next semester’s tuition. $8,700. The number burned into his brain. Checking his bank account online a measly $3,347.40 laughed at him. Going back to the tuition payment screen, two options presented itself. PAY NOW or DEFER PAYMENT.
Chase thought long and hard. Before clicking DEFER PAYMENT. Picking up his cell he called Chuck. “I can have an 8k cashier’s check out tomorrow. If you can cover the other 2k.” Chase asked swallowing his pride.
“Yea I got it covered.” Chuck confirmed.
After a few pleasantries Chase hung up the phone, and headed to the showers. Hoping he would catch some kind of break soon.
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by E!.
Katssun
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3 years 3 months ago #912
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Darcy groaned in bed, begging for death.
She’d known it was coming. Her breasts were tender yesterday. While she was doing homework in the common room, she suddenly couldn’t focus and read. Then came the shimmering aura right after. That was when she knew she was doomed.
Month after month, just like her mother and aunt, Darcy was having a migraine.
She wished she could blame it on her mutation, but no, she’d been getting these since she was twelve.
Sure enough, in a couple days, her period would come, the cramps would start and, thankfully, end just as quickly, and then her routine misery would be over.
But the debilitating migraines? Every time. So Darcy lied in bed with a cool, damp washcloth over her eyes. Thinking about styles and nail art.
It wasn’t all bad though. Fran had stopped in and brushed her hair, even snipping a few of the split ends. Maggie had stopped by and dropped off some homework. Even her roommate Viola, who was so mean sometimes, brought her a few sausages for breakfast and a caesar salad at lunch. She nibbled, but the nausea was pretty bad this time.
There was another benefit though. The aura from yesterday? Darcy had gotten some really good ideas for patterns on Maggie’s nails. She and Alvery would flip!
E!
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3 years 3 months ago #913
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
December 21st 2007. Whateley Vehicle Labs.
The normally loud a bustling car bays were all empty, except for one lonely large black sedan. Now the garage filled with the sounds of a boom box playing. Chase worked on the engine disconnecting all the top layer components he needed to. After he had completed the top part, he took a gulp from his water enjoying how empty the garage was.
Then he activated the hanging green button. The hydraulic press lifted the beast into the air so that the grease monkey could get under the V12. With a diligent hand and time on his side Chase went to work to replacing the transmission and clutch. After a long time, Chase was covered in dirt, grime, and muck. However the 6 hour labor of love was complete. It was just around lunch time when Chase washed his hands and headed for the Crystal Hall. He strolled right in and grabbed a to-go bag. Seeing as it was practically empty aside from the others like him that either had no home to go to, or simply couldn’t.
He swiped his ID card, paying for his meal. With a quick turn Chase headed back for the tunnels, until he was stopped by his contact. An African-American boy taking his full liberty to get out of the usual uniforms. He was dressed in all black sweater with black jeans. His gold chains shining through the darkness of his clothes.
“James.” Chase nodded trying to get away from his contact and back to his new car.
“I just wanted to say thank you, for that research on Hepta-met-posspate.” James smiled.
“Sodium Hexametaphosphate.” Chase corrected grinding his teeth.
“Yea…that…Now if you’re going to sell anything else like that make sure it comes my way first.” James winked.
“You know me. Best price wins.” Chase smiled hiding his anger. He wasn’t about to be strong armed by some Melville kid who’s daddy own a craft soda factory in Brooklyn. With the research Chase sold him they could cut the storage cost of the compound in half, and they could use less per unit while still having the same effect.
“And I’ll always get you the best price.” James nodded, putting on his luxury sunglasses leaving the grease monkey alone.
Chase shook his head, biting his tongue. He was already regretting selling to that airhead. He should’ve gone to Coke or Pepsi, but he needed the money now. Both for car parts and school, so in a way Chase thanked James for now. He just hoped he wouldn’t become too much of a headache.
After eating lunch Chase went to work stripping the car down to the bones to start working on the electronic systems. After getting all the doors off, he ripped the chairs and back seat out. Taking care he removed the dashboard and upholstery. That’s when he found 4 silver squares hidden underneath. To the untrained eye anyone might have missed them. Picking one of them up it struggled to peel away from the metal. Almost like it didn’t want to leave. Lifting with his legs Chase ripped the metal package from the frame of the car. Holding it in his hand the light metal flushed and changed it composition into a clear plastic bag filled with white powder.
“Mimi-bags…” Chase whispered his voice shaking. Checking to make sure he was alone, Chase then took the other three packages from the car. Carefully he put them into his bag, and walked to his chem lab just down the tunnel leaving his skeletal car behind.
Once he got to his lab he took out his laptop. With a quick search of “Mexico, cars, smuggling, and Mimi-bags”. He was greeted to a list of potential stories. Most of them run of the mill drug smuggling operations. Cocaine, cannabis, and heroin. Something about it rubbed him the wrong way though.
“Mimi-bags run about 200k each.” Chase thought aloud picking up his stress ball. “Just dumping what is inside, and turning these over would net me a really nice profit. If I could even open them, but 4 kilos of whatever doesn’t cover the upfront cost unless this was a multiple run car. Which the mileage and wear on the car would support it.” He continued tossing the ball aloud.
Taking a look at the title of the car. With a quick search Chase found the company the car was owned by. It was registered from Aztlán Elemental. It was located in Monterey, Nuevo León Mexico. However, with a little more research its parent company came belly up. Big Steer Chemical in Laredo, TX.
Chase shook his head pacing back and forth in his personal lab. He should take it to security. Then maybe if he was lucky they wouldn’t suspend him. With his heart in his throat, Chase made the decision to do just that. He stomped out to the elevator going up to Kane Hall. When he got to the security offices you could hear a pin drop. He headed straight for the front desk where the sergeant was quietly doing a crossword puzzle.
“Uhh…is Chief Delarose in? I need to speak with him.” Chase asked his heart pounding in his chest as he fixed the duffle bag over his shoulder.
The Sergeant simply responded with “Everheart! Got a student. Wants to talk to the Chief. Since your acting Chief you get to deal with it.”
Chase watched as the blonde security officer poked around the corner. His heart continued to increase as she was an unknown element.
“Come on we can talk in my office.” Samantha stated as the Hive parts of her focused in on Chase. “Heart Rate: 120. Abnormal sweating. No winter undergarments.”
“I was kind of hoping for Delarose…” Chase squeaked.
“Chief Delarose will be away for a while, your welcome to wait in that seat or you can talk with me.” Sam hissed channeling the admiral in her.
“Ummm….yea…“ Chase whispered slinking into her office taking a seat.
“So what did you want to talk about…?” Sam asked waiting for Chase to give his name.
“Chase Jennings, but some people call me Apoth or Apothecary.” He chuckled waiting for Everheart to smile, but she never did. She just watched him with unblinking eyes. “A day ago I bought a car from a local junk yard. It was shipped here today.” Chase continued showing Everheart the trail of paperwork.
“A kid your age can afford a Mercedes S-class?” Everheart scoffed.
“Rebuilt title car.” Chase explained. “It was cleared by security this morning, and when I stripped it down to the frame I found these.” He said taking out the Mimi-bags and laying them on the desk.
“Are those Mimic Bags?” Everheart gasped as she scanned them.
“Yea…I don’t know what’s in them…” Chase coughed up as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t move. Don’t do anything!” Everhart roared leaving the room with the bags in hand locking the room behind her. “Sergeant! Get me everything on Chase ‘Apothecary’ Jennings.” She ordered. After that she hit the number for Mrs. Carson only to get her voicemail. Going for option number two she got a hold of Ms. Hartford. “We have a problem.”
Ms. Hartford rushed down to the security offices after being informed. “So Mr. Jennings isn’t a problem student or I would certainly remember a codename like Apothecary.”
“Yea. My words exactly. I had to pull up a file on him and even then dig a little deeper.” Everheart explained.
“Then share please?” Ms. Hartford asked.
“Chase Jennings. Junior. MID Gadgeteer: 2 (Chemistry). Parents, both dead. Drunk driving accident. Father was in the military career Investigator, and he had a stay at home mom working odd jobs. Then his parents got drunk at a bar, and drove home crashing into oncoming traffic at about 80mph.” Everheart read out.
“Jesus.” Ms. Hartford exclaimed.
“After that he becomes ward of the state, manifests, and gets into Whateley on a partial scholarship. Pays the rest of his tuition in cash every semester.” Everheart continued to explain.
“How does he earn that cash?” Ms. Hartford asked trying to piece everything together.
“He does have an LLC on Tribal land selling used car parts, but there are a couple cash deposits way out of norm.” Everheart told the acting Headmistresses.
“How much?”
“The most recent one was $15,000.Yesterday.” Everheart beamed.
“Does Mr. Jennings own any patents?” Ms. Hartford questioned.
“No. None.” Everheart said as she reopened the file.
“Now isn’t that interesting.” Ms. Hartford smiled. Sensing Samantha was lost she explained. “There are two scenarios.One. He is a drug kingpin and this is a gambit. Or far more likely. This is a coincidence, and he is just selling his research for cash capital. Now if you would I think I would like to talk to Mr. Jennings.”
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #914
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy, the Quad outside of Whitman
11 October 1987
“Noooooo!”
The cry that ripped from Louise’s throat echoed across the Quad, and more, across the astral realm. Flinging herself out of the third floor window, Brainteaser bore down on the boy who had just murdered... what? Her roommate? Her only friend (even if she was like Ofie and that frosh Tabitha, so happy about what was happening, fuck that)? One of the few at the school who understood her... damn, no, his pain, and damn it if he was going to let his traitorous body win!
Landing just feet from where Jan’s body lay, Louise reached out with his power, grasping Force-Bolt like a doll, while at the same time she froze him, seizing his mind in psychic paralysis.
Anger warred with sense as she tried to convinced herself - himself - not to compound murder with murder.
This can’t go on, he thought, still “Louis” in his own mind despite the bitter joke of a codename and legal identity that asshole cop had saddled him with. I can’t see this shit keep happening, always afraid someone will find out the truth, always... with a shudder, she was filled with great conviction. I have to find a way to change this damn body back, something, anything would be better than this!
She had only just remembered to let Greg breathe, when the demon, recovered from the earlier battle, attacked her on multiple levels of reality.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #915
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Roulette looked down to where Gravmax was laid out on the ground, then to tree which Iron was embedded in, and finally to the wrecked bench where Starlight and Exquisite were piled up atop one another. Then she looked to the latest iteration of what had been her ‘floaty ball’ toy with a broad smile.
Well, Mom always said inspiration can come from the damnest things... In this case it came from an old comic book which the author had put on the web a while back. Amy didn’t go looking for it - she’d found the link when she was going through that webcomic that Spark was always on about, by the same author as this one - but she was really glad right now that she’d been a Devisor that day, and for the Big Idea it gave her.
“C’mon, Law Machine,” she said to her creation, “we need to show Security the footage you took while you were trouncing them.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 3 months ago #916
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Megan Ryan settled into her window seat in the very last row of the plane. She belted in, stuffed her purse under the seat in front of her after pulling out a well-worn paperback. The nervous young man next to her, she thought he was in his early 20s, continued to make sidelong glances at Megan’s charcoal fleece leggings and knee boots. She always flew for comfort, even for work.
So he had a fetish? Megan suppressed a snort. She was flattered, but boys weren’t her type. Men, sometimes if they were men, women, always.
While the plane was starting to leave the gate, she played with her phone, picked at a few pills on her sweater, and once again wished they’d given her a little more notice so she didn’t have to fly stand-by. Again, this was why she flew in style, her style.
Megan heard a flurry of activity toward the front, an agitated flight crew, some private calls being made to the captain.
The plane stopped. Megan turned her phone back on with a sigh.
A man and a very angry woman headed toward the back of the plane with a flustered male flight attendant trailing behind them, clearly trying to prevent panic on the plane.
“Agent Melina Hauser with the MCO. I’m taking you into custody as a danger to society,” the woman addressed the young man sitting next to Megan. “This is Air Marshal Kirkland, he will take you off the plane until you are transferred to MCO custody inside the airport. From there, you will be taken to an MCO facility for processing.”
Megan dipped her glasses down and bored her eyes into the Air Marshall as she eased her purse out from under the seat by hooking the heel of her boot on the straps. She commanded an air of calm from the marshal with a look alone, so he wouldn’t get jumpy and shoot anyone. She eased a single object out of her purse and presented it.
“Marshal Kirkland?” Megan said as she held up her CVN-73 lanyard with her badge dangling off it. “Assistant Regional Director Megan Ryan of the DPA. I am escorting this man to his destination where he will be providing valuable information to the appropriate authorities for a criminal probe.”
“This is bullshit!” the woman hissed. “He’s a dangerous criminal!”
“He’s a scared young man who wants to make things right. Marshal Kirkland. I recommend you remove this woman from my plane for the safety of the passengers and crew.”
The air marshal hesitated before looking to the flight crew and nodding. “Return to the gate. This woman will catch the next flight.”
Agent Hauser, to her credit, kept her cool as the plane returned to the gate. Megan patted the hand of the young man next to her and returned to her book after putting her phone back into airplane mode.
E!
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #917
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Buffalo, New York.
“No, I know what she said….I’m not letting her take the kids!” Charles Bentley yelled into his phone while sitting on a park bench. Until another man sat next to him, uncomfortably so, dressed is casual attire.
“Hang up the phone.” The strange man commanded.
“I’ll call you back.” Charles explained. “I don’t have any money so take a hike!” He yelled at the strange man. Only the reaction he got from the man was even weirder. He looked at him, almost through him. He cut through the mysticism of his power and prestige that a great deal of others had fallen prey to.
“You are Charles Bentley. Co-creator of the Omni Security System. Said to be unbreakable.” The odd man continued.
“Yes, if you’re some kind of weird fan…”
“Your wife is having a three way affair with your two other co-founders.” The man cut Charles off, taking out a burner phone. “If you want the evidence, and gain full custody of your children. Then you will have to be my friend. Do you? Do you want to be my friend, Charles?”
“I….uhhhh….”
“If you don’t take the phone, your one night stands in Thailand come out. I hear they’ve been baking for about 9 months now.” The man said twisting the knife. “And those will be the only children you ever see again.” He darkened his tone, letting Charles take the phone from his hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
The off-putting man left the bench as quickly as he sat down vanishing into the crowd much to the dismay of Charles. Although if Charles had been more attentive, he would have heard the man’s other phone vibrating.
“I thought I was supposed to call you, Amelia.” The man grumbled, not doubt annoyed that he had to cut his routine short.
“You were. I just wanted to make sure you are aware a change has taken place. Your meeting can only happen tomorrow.” Amelia Hartford.
“Very Well. I’m not interested in the logistics. Only that the meeting is set in stone.” The man confirmed the appointment.
“It is. 1230, local time. I will see you soon Mr. Grey.” Ms. Hartford said before shutting off the line. Only after the conversation was done did Mr. Grey snap the phone in two throwing each piece away in different trash cans.
Whateley Academy. Schuster Hall.
Mr. Grey walked around inside Homer Gallery. It had been many years since he was inside this building, and it would probably be many more until he was again. He straightened his tie, and suit jacket. He wanted to be presentable, no more than presentable. He wanted to be perfect. This was one of the only few tenets he hadn’t shed in the last couple of years. The only tradition he still kept.
With the sound of an opening door he knew his meeting had started. Alone entered a high school girl. Far from defenseless. She looked at Mr. Grey sizing him up. Deciding if he was friend or foe. Right now he was neither.
“Hero or Villain, what do you have to be first?” Mr. Grey asked breaking the silence he shared with the Asian girl.
“Born. You have to be born first.” Chou advised back, her eyes narrowing.
“That’s a good one, I haven’t heard that one before.” Mr. Grey replied wagging his finger, “But, not the answer I was looking for…. The real answer is human. You are right. You do have to be born first before anything, but after that.” He paused shrugging his shoulders. “You have to be human.”
Chou simply nodded along trying to ascertain the meaning behind this meeting.
“I want you to take this card.” Mr. Grey explained taking out a card with a five digit number on it. Putting it on the table. “Call it anytime, and I will grant you any favor that is within my power to do so.”
“Why?”
“Because…like me…your just human…” Mr. Grey smiled while exiting out the back door. Leaving Chou to look at the card.
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by E!.
null0trooper
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3 years 3 months ago #918
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
February 14, 2008, Fixers’ Patio, Whateley Academy
“She-Beast, I’ve heard that your father is Doctor Diabolik and, um . . .”
“Hans, I’m sorry that my father may have harmed your family somehow, but that has nothing to do with me.”
“Er, no. That wasn’t my question.”
“OK. Yes, it is true that I may accept a solid favor against payment for some things. Whether I would or not in your case, do not expect me to get involved in anything illicit.”
“No! Definitely nothing like that. I, well, I was just wondering what you could tell me about Disneyland Karedonia? You see, my parents want to take us somewhere warm for vacation - limited MCO influence a plus. The North Slore Course’s slope rating of 138, at the Imperial Wilkins Club, pretty much already has Mom sold on the idea. My little sister is probably buttering Dad up as we speak.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem.”
“That assumes I can give Dad enough of a reason to change his mind before she gets the big skillet up to sauté heat.”
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E!
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3 years 3 months ago #919
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The Flying Blue Squirrel. Whateley Academy.
Mr. Grey stepped into the campus pub. He stepped cautiously around the faculty until he reached his desired destination. Two women stationed at a booth. One of whom was complaining that her Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t have enough atomic hellfire or geopolitical tension. The other woman giggling at the display. All was fun until The Imp saw Mr. Grey. Upon their eye contact he activated the devise in his pocket blocking all ears.
“Maria, can you give me a minute.” Imp asked. The other teacher got the hint, leaving without saying a word. “Can I help you… Pinky?” As she hummed the tune from a show with two mice.
“Way to show my age, but it’s a bit dated. I’m a little Grey now.” He laughed patting down the sides of his hair.
“Ohhh…just don’t kidnap me in the middle of the night. Alien tractor beams make me queasy.” Imp smiled.
“Jokes aside. Are you still on speaking terms with an associate of yours known as Pinball?” Grey questioned.
“I hope so. Old Tilt-y owes me one.” Imp exclaimed.
“Then how would you like to have her owe you two?” Grey asked. Sliding a folder with all the information on the weak points of the Omni Security System.
“Interesting…” Imp whispered while looking over the folder. “Why not hand it over to her yourself. Surely, if you can find me you can find Pinball.”
“I can, but her last words were ‘If I see your face again I will rip off your testicles.’ And you know I take threats from paranormals very seriously.” Grey coughed ordering two shots of the Russian standard.
“Ouch. What did you do?” Imp asked wanting the juicy drama.
“Nothing you wouldn’t have done. She got the message, so a détente has been issued.” Grey dodged the landmine.
“And what do you get? Out of all of this?” Imps eyes narrowed.
“Pinball destroyed one house of cards on my watch. With your help, she’ll help me build another one and get rich in the process.” Grey told Imp holding up the shot.
“I’ll do it. One condition though. The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, can you find out where it is?” Imp parried the statement giving another deal.
“Deal. Na zdorovie.” Grey exclaimed. Sharing the toast with the devil, before nodding and leaving the woman.
Maria returned to the table, and they continued their bickering. Only for a short while as another man approached, with a tube asking the Imp to sign. Which she did. Gleaming as she scribbled ‘I Stole This Card’ on the pad.
“What’s in it?” Maria asked obviously interested.
“Can you say that again, but this time with a little more Brad Pitt?” Imp giggled as they both screamed, “WHATS IN THE BOX!!”
“But seriously, don’t you want to know?” Maria flashed raising her eyebrow.
“Oh I already know, Pepper has been giving me lessons on my X-ray vision.” Imp chuckled holding the tube dearly.
The sounds of joyful laughter and merriment grew quieter as Mr. Grey walked with heavy feet, towards the Remembrance Garden. He walked with such light footsteps, almost as he if was afraid he might wake the dead. Stopping at a panel full of names he silently turned.
“Hello Katiya, Papa is here again.” Mr. Grey whispered as the date of her final days burned into his eyes. December 26th 1991.
Valentine
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3 years 3 months ago #920
Valentine replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Eli had been out delivering for Mr. Gardner, when he saw Champion drop into the street ahead of him, a car careened around the corner a moment later. He heard several bangs, !like the car backfired, and screamed in pain as the bullets tore into him.
Champion heard the screams, turned to look as the car went past him. The Outfit would have to wait as he ran over to the young boy bleeding on the sidewalk. He realized the boy was dying as the pool of blood grew rapidly.
He’d never tried anything like this before, but he couldn’t let the kid just die on the street. He placed his hands on the boy and willed the Olympian force within him to heal the boy. Much to his surprise he felt something happening, a slight weakening of his power, as the boy’s breathing became more regular.
Moments later the boy, or maybe girl stirred. He wasn’t as sure now. “Are you OK?”
A groan came from the kid’s mouth, and he, she said, “I feel a bit funny.”
Helping her, it was definitely a her, sit up, “What’s your name child?”
“Eli. Eli Brant.”
“Well ‘Eli’ let me help you get home to your parents. Something odd has happened, and I think you’re going to have go be Elizabeth now.”
Don’t Drick and Drive.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 months ago - 3 years 3 months ago #921
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
6 Sept 2007
“Well?” said Constance, in a tone that made it clear she expected unquestioned obedience.
Roger sighed, as he petted the small humanoid creature that had climbed up his leg. Two other ‘Things’ were wandering about the table, but he figured they weren’t doing any harm. Zephyr’s attitude, when aimed at a peer - technically, she was lower rank than he was, sort of, but she thought of her rank as being a birthright (though where she got that idea was anyone’s guess) whereas Rascal’s own title was from being elevated by Oberon in his previous existence in appreciation of his entertainment - was merely annoying; the times she tried to behave that way to Fey always made him cringe.
“What do you want me to say, Connie?” he replied with a grin. He knew she hated being called that, and it filled his prankster heart with joy to do so. “One of the girls in Whitman, Lodestone, she isn’t one of us, despite appearances. In fact her power is controlling iron. The other one...”
“That means nothing. She could still be a Kobold, they have power over metal.” she stated firmly.
“I’d love to watch you try telling her that. As I was saying, the other one seems to be a Trow. Hey, maybe we should hook her up with Nephandus?”
The cross look on Zephyr’s face was definitely worth it, so he continued. “The two guys in Twain, well, the goat guy is definitely a Phouka, and I think the other is a Fir Darrig. I haven’t found out anything about either of the newbies in Melville, though I am pretty sure he is a Sidhe.” Ah, puns. “Dunno about the girl, aside from the obvious water spirit aspects.”
Zephyr glared at him some more before saying, “And the other two?”
“I didn’t get to talk to Absinthe, but I do recognize her. Lady Vauldrene.” His voice seemed to change, becoming, if anything, even more antic and playful. “I have some lovely memories of entertaining young Vauldrene as a lass. I know something happened later which got her banished, but I don’t know what - court gossip is so boring to me...” This last was a flat-out lie, of course - Constance knew that Roger loved anything that could be a source of good jokes or pranks.
“Why does she always have those nasty hobgoblins around her? Can’t she control herself better?”
“Hogboon, not hobgoblins,” Roger replied in his usual tone, lifting the one on his lap up to reminder her. “They act as her familiars, just as my little friends do.” The Thing he held up - which had the number 3 on it’s jumper - waved enthusiastically at Lady Mallory, much to her disgust.
Rascal did sort of wonder if Constance even knew the difference - she wasn’t a WIZ herself, so he doubted she even really knew what hobgoblins really were - before she interrupted his thoughts again.
“What about the one in Dickenson? You’re sure she is another of the Nine?”
“Pretty sure. I never knew much about Igloo-whatever-it-was, but she was one of the High Queens, youngest one if I’m not mistaken.” Of course, unlike him, Constance was not a reborn Sidhe from before the Sundering; he could have told her almost anything and she’d have no choice but to believe it. For once, though, honesty was more likely to be amusing than jokes.
“We need to present ourselves to her posthaste, then.”
“Ah, yes, because that worked out so well last time...” the former jester drawled.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
E!
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #922
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy Simulation Room.
“Ugh… I hate these random sim sessions. I just want to enjoy my weekend.” Eruption groaned as the rest of Omega Squad shuffled into the sim room.
“Maybe, when your combined combat rating isn’t below a 60% you all will have a weekend off.” Blackblast growled. “Now, suit up quick the sim has already been running for 15 min.”
The Syndicate contact watched as the young adults grumbled. Their Saturday night had come to a full stop on his whim.
“Tough, but fair.” The rather bland man said as he walked into the room. “Warranted. Since their effectiveness is a representation of your reputation.”
“If didn’t know any better I would think that you’re making a power play, Mr. Grey.” Blackblast chuckled.
“No, you know me. Syndicate politics are sometimes too easy to read.” Grey explained throwing up his hands.
“Thank you, for doing this.” Blackblast sighed.
“No problem old friend. Anything. After what you did for Katiya, you can call on me anytime.” Grey nodded.
“How did you get him out?” Blackblast asked obviously intrigued at the masked soldier who was carving sticks on the monitor.
“A trained magician never reveals his tricks, but this is only a limited release window. 24 hours.” Grey stated. “Not a second more. You don’t want him back inside the maximum security wing. That would make future releases more....difficult.”
“Yes, when I first heard about him I was curious. Then, after what happened at ARC during the blizzard. Now, I am most certainly intrigued.” Blackblast’s eyes narrowed.
“He certainly could be an asset. If properly motivated.” Grey observed. “I will leave you this. There is a piece of wisdom we used to share in USSR. Dogs will stand by you, Wolves will roam, but Wolf-Dogs they will rip you to shreds.”
“Is that a warning?” Blackblast asked.
“Keep a short leash, and keep a sap handy.” Grey nodded as he turned to watch the ‘start’ of the simulation.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by E!.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #923
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday, 10 May 1975
Dr Stevens landed near the riverbank, where she’d spotted something that could be a clue to the disappearance of one of the rafts that had been on the river. What she found was a small oar, but there were no indicators of anything else.
From where she was standing, she could see a fissure in the walls on both sides the small canyon. It looked almost as if it actually continued into down into the water to form a continuous seam.
Playing a hunch, she cast a small detection spell to see if there was any evidence of inderdimensional activity. Yes, clear as day, it was odd but that could be due to it being non-magical. It went right along the seam she found.
Grabbing the walkie-talkie Chief Corbin had given her, she radioed in. “Ms Might here,” she said crisply. “I’ve found something that I think Dr Alexander needs to see.”
“The Headmaster is still talking to Doorkeeper, Ma’am. I’ll let him know as soon as he’s finished.”
Liz frowned. This was not how she expected a job interview to go. Still, when a senior Devisor student - one known mostly for experimenting with teleporters and dimensional gateways, despite, she gathered, repeated admonishments about the latter - does something that sets off a giant earthquake not far from the school, it meant that everyone had to chip in.
She really needed to call that Mr. Wells and let him know she would have to cancel their, ah, meeting. It wasn’t quite a date, she thought, though they had seemed to hit it off well when they met in Berlin the other day, while waiting for their seemingly lost luggage at the airport.
She sat down on a nearby rock to wait for a further reply, when she saw something running along the riverbank. It looks like, well, perhaps a chicken that had lost most of feathers? It seemed almost... reptilian, like... a tiny dinosaur?
She chased after the small creature, but it was too fast to catch. It seemed all too likely that whatever it was, its presence here was connected to the missing boaters - a young man with his nephew and niece - from what was supposed to have been a routine whitewater rafting expedition.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #924
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday morning, April 22, 2017, Millsboro, Delaware
“Fag!” yelled Jason Borsay from his family’s porch.
Erin Matthews returned the gesture with a one-fingered salute as she finished up her run. She confidently jogged across the street and back into her parent’s garage. She grabbed her father’s ancient set of cement dumbbells and did a few sets before calling it quits. She wasn’t tired, but she was at least satisfied for the day.
Not that she really needed to work out anymore. Not since she manifested.
Erin entered the house proper, waved to her dad who was baking something or other in the kitchen and headed to the bathroom for a post-workout shower. She peeled off her racerback tank top and yoga pants, tossing them into laundry hamper. Next came the sports bra, job finished crushing her breasts. Erin sighed, knowing that she and Mom and Jenny would probably be headed for a shopping trip before she knew it. 38C wasn’t going to be enough anymore. She pulled the elastic out of her hair, tossing it in a drawer before pinning up her waist-length ash-blond hair. Finally, she removed her cotton panties, damp from the run.
Erin looked herself over in the vanity’s mirror. Five foot Nine, curvy, with the physique any athlete would envy. It was a shame she couldn’t use it. Her parents had asked the school board multiple times if they would let Erin compete again, but the Sussex County PTA said it wouldn’t be fair to the other students, who had a chance at recognition. Sometimes being an Exemplar-3 really sucked.
Erin hopped in the shower, using the cheap massage function of the showerhead work the tightness out. She kept her hair out of the water because it was a huge pain in the ass to dry, but knew she was probably due in a day or two for the full course that added nearly a half hour to her routine.
She toweled off, dabbing at her skin, before removing the pins and began brushing her hair. She wanted to cut it to a shoulder-length bob, but it grew back within a week. It was just one of the other things she had had to get used to. Moisturizer, deodorant, cocoa butter for her body. She grabbed the beige terry robe from the hook on the door and returned to her room.
“Do you want to play Winx with me later?!” Jenny interrupted Erin on her way to her room. Her adorable eight year old sister, her auburn hair bouncing off her shoulders, Excitement incarnate. Erin thought the series her little sister loved was creepy as hell, but…sisters should stick together, right?
“Okay, let me get dressed first.”
“Kay!” Jenny exclaimed, before running back to her own bedroom to grab the dolls.
Her Runner’s High finally fading, Erin tossed off her robe on her bed, and shamefully put on a too-tight bra, normal panties, before slipping into a set of jeans and a babydoll tee. Peering into the mirror she sighed deeply. Aaron was gone. For good. But at least she could still go on runs. It still felt good, pushing herself to the limit. She might have changed from 5K runs to full marathons, but her parents still loved her, her sister adored her, and…at least she was hot.
She smoothed out her clothes and opened the door. Time to go play witches and fairies with her little sister.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #925
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday morning, April 22, 2017, Millsboro, Delaware
“Bloom!” yelled Stella.
Jenny gasped, even though she knew what happened this episode. She played by herself while Dad was making rhubarb and cream cheese muffins.
Then her big sister entered the house from the garage.
Erin, was basically Stella. That was what Jenny decided. Her brother-turned-sister just plain fit. Long blond hair in a big ponytail, even if it was a little lighter and not quite golden blond. Big glowing amber eyes, pink lips, thin waist…
…and it went perfectly with her. Just like Mom, Jenny had bright auburn hair that bounced. She wanted to learn how to bake from Dad, but he said next year. She’d be Bloom, Erin would be Stella. She just had to keep convincing Mom to force Erin to go shopping, They’d be best friends forever.
Jenny heard her sister taking a shower, and set her ambush. She fluffed out her hair and practiced her best pout and puppy-dog eyes. It never failed on Erin, though Aaron had usually ignored it. Jenny had always wanted a big sister instead, and now she had one!
Jenny waited, hearing her sister finish up. She skipped down the hallway to a strategic position. She heard the bathroom door open, and counted to ten.
“Do you want to play Winx with me later?!” She exclaimed, knowing her performance was most effective after her sister had gone out running and then taken a shower.
“Okay, let me get dressed first,” her sister agreed immediately. Jenny noticed there was kind of a hazy feeling to her sister’s expression. She was always like this after running. It faded quickly. So Jenny knew the quicker she acted, the more her sister would agree.
“Kay!” she squealed, and ran to her room to grab the Bloom, Stella, and Trix dolls she had staged by the door of her room.
She waited outside the door until her sister came out in jeans and a tee-shirt. She immediately handed her the Stella doll and raced down the stairs so they could play in the living room.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Katssun.
E!
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3 years 2 months ago #926
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Stephen was laying on top of a plaid picnic blanket with Marty’s head on his thigh. Together they were soaking up the last bits of the summer sun before the fall ripped the warm winds away. They both laid in silence listening to the leaves rustle in the wind. It was a peaceful day until Steve heard a light ksshkt. Followed by, “woooooooooWAAAAAAAAAAAAAoooooooooooooo.” Perking up Steve barely had enough time to catch a glimpse of the lithe girl rope around another building. She was twisting and contorting her body in midair to bounce off the wall at tremendous speed. Leaving both the wall and her unharmed.
“Who the hell was that?” Steve gasped.
“Tiny girl? Red hair? Really fast?” Marty yawned.
“Yea… How can she be that fast? She doesn’t look like a typical speedster.” Steve pondered. A girl running around that fast she could slam into someone, doing serious damage to them or her in the process.
“You know how you can skip rocks along the surface of the water. Well Slide can basically do that with her body except GAIN speed and momentum. I don’t know how exactly she does it, but she is kind of a daredevil.” Marty stated rubbing her eyes.
“How do you know so much about her?” Steve asked getting close to his lovers face.
“She’s in Poe.” Marty answered not opening her eyes. She was trying to enjoy the warmth of Steve face before quickly giving him a peck on the lips.
“Well… I guess someone should stop her…” Steve groaned remember his responsibilities.
“Let security handle it…Please…5 more minutes.” Marty begged not wanting to lose her pillow.
“Not going to lie….we could use the help….” Stormwolf gasped drenched in sweat with Thuderfox and Mindbird both looked gassed with their heads between their knees.
Meanwhile on the other side of campus. Slide tucked her legs in, to force herself to hit the ground. Just then she activated her PK shield and Warper powers. This let her ‘skip’ off the sidewalk. Eyeing the speedometer inside her googles she watched the numbers jump from 90mph to 100mph. Pushing off the ground with her PK ability she flew towards Schuster hall. Namely the wall with Mrs. Carson’s office.
She whizzed by skipping off the wall to boost herself over the glass dome. 110, she breathed. She needed to go faster. Slide let gravity carry her back towards the earth. As she neared the dome, she activated her shell again. Skipping all the way down the roof of the cafeteria, 120 130 140. She rocketed towards the quad. The one place where she could really open the throttle, and let the world bleed into the background along with all her problems.
Before she reached the quad, a golden wall appeared in front of her. Flicking on her shell she quickly rode the new structure to the side. Though this yellow wall seemed to be slowing her down. However she didn’t have time to think about it as another wall appeared. She let her shell continue to take the brunt of the deceleration. Only to be slowed by another, and another, and another. Trapping her inside a golden cube.
“OH…shit…” Slide whispered as she looked at the Headmistress with her staff.
“Language.” Mrs. Carson growled. “Office. NOW.”
Slide tucked her head and shuffled into her office. Trying not to think about the sway of her growing hips, or the awkward tightness in her chest.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #927
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
New York, November 2016
I lay in bed, wishing, praying, that it wasn’t a work day. I just…couldn’t. My third of seven alarms went off. I just had to hope that my guilt and pride would override IT. My shoulders were tense. I gently raised a hand, the intricately patterned nails the latest attempt of Krista to…get me going? My fingers trembled, my hand began to shake, and I quickly snapped it between my knees.
The fourth of seven alarms went off. I…I…just couldn’t.
I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was about seventeen minutes before my fifth alarm would go off. I sighed, my whole body trembling. I knew I was clenching my elbows. I told myself over and over, “You’re safe, you’re fine. It’s okay.” The ache in my chest wasn’t medical, it couldn’t be. It was just another attack.
At last, four minutes before the fifth alarm. I rolled myself out of bed. I removed my nightguard, putting it back into its case, even though I hadn’t rinsed it. I always took care of that at night. My knees felt weak, but I managed to work my way to my tiny bathroom.
Looking into the mirror, I saw an attractive young…ish woman with dark blond hair, naturally curly, well-manicured eyebrows above slate irises, an aquiline nose, moderate cheekbones, a sharply feminine jawline, full lips, and a look of utter hopelessness on her face. A few breaths, seven in, four out, and I looked at least…modestly functional. I showered, shampooed, conditioned, all the time hoping I was taking so long that I’d be so late for work that I would simply be unable to go.
But then my sixth alarm went off. I turned the water off and instead of huddling in the shower like I always wanted to do, I took another breath. Seven in, four out. Seven in, four out.
I’d made it past five, and six. Only seven remained. Seven in, four out. I tossed on a robe and started the microwave with some quick oats and milk. I added honey, fresh blueberries, and a dash of nutmeg and salt. I resisted flipping through my phone, knowing the posts on it were a potential trigger.
I returned to the bathroom and began brushing my teeth. Seventh Alarm was still thirty minutes away. In retrospect, I should have considered taking my medication after Fifth Alarm. Not that I really thought it did any good at all. Why would it? Seven in, four out. Seven in, four out. I rinsed my mouth out and started dressing for work. Panties, bra, slip, blouse, skirt, shoes, jacket and done. I sat down on the edge of my bed. Seven in, four out.
Seventh Alarm went off. I splayed my fingers. Moderate, maybe even minor shaking. It would be a good day today.
Hopefully.
I grabbed my purse, triple checked that I had my phone, pocketbook, and keys. I looked through the peephole and no one was there. I opened the door and thrust myself out into the world again. I caught the door right before it latched and double checked for my keys. I pulled them out, let the door shut, and locked the door again. Placing the keys deliberately back into my purse, I gently tugged on the door a few times, assuring myself that it was in fact, locked. Stairs instead of elevator, I made it out of my apartment. Another success. I headed toward the D-train. Clerical work awaited.
I was about two minutes from my station when I heard the disturbance. An errant explosion, screams of panic, the unmistakable sound of a fist meeting a jawline.
A deep, relieving sigh escaped me, as I remembered the mantra my therapist wanted me to focus on. It came from a book she had recommended to me. “In dramatic situations, the world rises to meet your anxiety.”
Finally feeling focused for the first time in weeks, I looked around.
Cars? No. Box Trucks? No. Ah….
***
Marty shook her head on the ground, dazed that her opponent had managed to get through her PK field. Steve was away fighting his partner a few blocks away, and wouldn’t be able to help her. Marty winced as the hovering cyborg charged his arm cannon at her face, before, in an instant, a roll-away dumpster, the type you’d see on flatbeds, curled around her enemy before blasting him into the pavement a few yards past her head.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Marty flew up into the air to deliver the finishing blow.
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Katssun. Reason: typos
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #928
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
With thanks to Cryptic for the character of Veritas and the micro that inspired this
9 November 2007
“Zephyr, wait up! I’ve got something you might want to hear about.”
Both Constance and Kevin turned to see Rhia heading towards them on the edge of the Quad, apparently from the direction Hawthorne. With a regal nod of her head, she gave a curt, “Yes?”
“I was just over at Hawthorne, it’s about what Fey asked me to help with. It’s a new one of us over there, just today!”
“What, a Sidhe at Hawthorne? How...”
“It’s her powers. She’s a psychic, and an empath, I mean, technically a PDP maybe but anyway, she’s got trouble controlling a kind of projective empathy. It, uhm, well, it makes it so people can’t lie around her? It’s not quite like that but it just, well, it makes you just blurt out whatever you most don’t want to say.”
“And Fey was... oh, of course, helping her control it I assume. Could you please tell me our new cousin’s name?”
“Sasha,” Sanctuary paused to think, “er, I think it short for Alexandra? - Morton, she’s from, ah, I think she said Wisconsin. She’s not Nobility, and not someone from before the Sundering, but she’s definitely Sidhe. Anyway, they needed me to help create a ‘safe room’ for them to practice in while they finished the baffles in her bedroom, and then I stayed to give her some healing.”
“Oh?”
“She got attacked by a mob of people in her home town who didn’t appreciate what her power did to them...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #929
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Hounslow, West London, United Kingdom
PC Amitjyoti Patel removed the plaits from her hair and smoothed out her shoulder-length hair before closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath. Ending her shift, all she wanted was a pint. What a crazy day it’d been. An attempted early morning robbery (thoroughly truncheoned), obnoxiously rude tourist (deftly handled), and a stabbing (presently unsolved, but the detectives were off to the CCTV hub to see if they could find anything).
She peeled off her stab vest and swapped her uniform for slacks, a flowing blouse, and…regrettably sensible shoes. Heels made her legs go from admirable to phenomenal, but heels didn’t do one so well when you needed to chase and tackle a pickpocket while off duty. Only happened once so far, but it could happen again.
Ami exited the station and headed toward her flat. A plane heading into Heathrow blared overhead, the noise oddly comforting to her after all these years. The droning sound was as familiar to her now as it was when she was in primary school.
She glanced at the plane on its approach before she felt a sharp pinch on her bottom. She spun around to see a tow-headed 14 year old boy in a hoodie and camouflage shorts running around the corner toward High Street. Ami tore off down the street after him. The boy was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his tongue sticking out.
“You. Little. Shit!” she yelled as Robbie Driscoll’s psychic projection faded from her view. He reappeared at the corner of High Street. None of the patrons of the shopping area seemed to notice a boy appearing out of nowhere. So this game was just for her? She threaded her way through the shopping district after him.
The ephemeral image of Robbie lead her back away from High Street after she swiftly maneuvered through the crowd after his image, the busy afternoon patrons no match for her skills at weaving through a crowd after a suspect. Robbie’s image shifted to the alleyways parallel the district.
Ami found garbage bins and broken pallets tossed into her path as if from a poltergeist. Sensible shoes paid off! They skirted the edge of the Blenheim’s car park as errant plastic bags whipped against her slacks ineffectively. The pair stopped as they reached the A315. Robbie’s image teased her from across the road. Ami gave him a dismissive look. She knew him well. He was within a mile of the police station. She knew his limits. This wasn’t the first time he’d harassed someone from a distance.
Finally, the crossing signal turned, and Ami bolted into the residential areas. Robbie taunted her past row houses and through a back garden or two. She rounded the sidewalk and saw a woman pushing a wheelchair. She slowed to a walk and allowed herself to catch her breath a little. Once she felt situated, she sauntered up to the pair and patted the woman on the shoulder.
“Good Afternoon Missus Driscoll,” Amitjyoti cheerily greeted the often-harried looking woman.
“Greetings, Constable Patel,” she replied back. “Robbie?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Driscoll only sighed at the confirmation.
Ami looked down at the boy in the wheelchair. Robbie Driscoll sat in the reclined chair, paralyzed from the neck down, looking a little different from his projected form. A little older, a little heavier, with burns up his right side. A somewhat withered arm and some significant scarring on his face. His eye milky white with tinges of blue. His left side looked untouched. She frowned at the boy. He winked at her with his bad eye.
Ami walked up to Robbie, and leaned in close to his good ear. “Cheeky little shit,” she whispered.
Then she pinched him lightly on the plump cheek before landing a playful peck on the scarred side of his face. She saw the corners of his mouth raise and his eyes twinkle. Undoubtedly, they’d play this little game again. Or he’d help her locate a lost child. Robbie was good at that, and there were always plenty of those in the Centres.
Ami said her goodbyes to Ellie Driscoll and walked away from the pair. She regained her bearings and headed directly toward the closest pub on the way back to her flat. There was still a pint in desperate need for her to drink it. It just it didn’t know it yet.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #930
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy, Early December, 2007
It was an intersection of the tunnels, one that got quite a bit of traffic. A small crowd had begun to gather, watching the spectacle.
A young blond girl in a red sequin dress, elbow gloves, and a set of plastic devil horns stood next to her hirsute companion, decked out in an uncharacteristic pressed white suit and matching fedora. Their attire alone drew a crowd, but the people in question brought even more attention. The students, and even a few of the teaching staff, knew something was up, and it probably wasn’t good. But curiosity gets the better of everyone, in the end.
Off to the side, there was a simple mockup of cardboard that had been marked up with a permanent marker simply as “BAR.” The period seemed redundant, but nevertheless, there it was. From the tinny speakers of somebody’s phone, music started amidst the crowd.
Mischief and Monkeywrench broke loose into dance. She leaned her back into his chest, wrapping her arms behind his head. A few twirls, a few struts, legs raised high, all in sync, more struts, the pair moved perfectly in time in rhythm. More than a few boys in the crowd wondered why they had never noticed that Melissa Chambers actually had pretty nice legs. A few of the girls kept to themselves that Monkeywrench cleaned up rather nicely in a suit.
The music abruptly paused, and a trumpet noise began to play.
Monkeywrench, holding Mischief aloft as she draped over his arm declared to the crowd, “Suddenly, all the pieces fitted together, I knew how the crime had been done. The high note on the trumpet that shattered the glass!”
A girl stepped up to the “BAR.” and slid a cylinder towards the other end. The crowd, focused on the action, didn’t notice that Mischief and Monkeywrench had bolted down the tunnels…as had the “bartender” moments later.
The cylinder reached the end of the cardboard construct and made a loud hissing noise. The crowd began to cough, gag, and at least one person probably lost the remnants of their breakfast.
Laughing down the tunnels together, Mischief and Monkeywrench paused to make a twirl.
“Trixie makes the best stinkbombs!” Melissa cheered.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #931
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
28 Dec 2016
“... so there was this weird box, like, and that tall guy with said something in something like German or Dutch or something, I dunno who he was talking to, but he called it something like ‘cynic lotion’ or some but it was just some sort of flashing light display thing...”
Erika sat up straight, her attention suddenly on the ‘friend’ Penny had over who had been nattering on about some sort of school presentation in the last week before winter break, which Penny had missed due to a cold.
‘Cynic lotion’... an odd memory arose of a MeeTube video she’d seen a few weeks before transforming about an urban legend regarding some old video game. The memory snapped into focus: the supposed game was called ‘Polybius’, made - so the story went - by a company called ‘Sinneslöschen’, which was almost-but-not-quite German for ‘sensory deprivation’. The legend claimed that the game had been part of a mind control experiment run by Men-In-Black type agents.
Penny had caught it, too; Erika had told her about the story when they were working on learning German together last summer, because of that weird name, and she’s even shown Pen the video. Between that name, and the inability to identify the other guy at the presentation, this ‘school assembly’ sounded disturbing familiar...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Anne
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3 years 2 months ago #932
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
More of Speakeasy’s nightmare!
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
I put it behind this wall because it has all been thus. If nothing else it is a description of torture...
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
Sir Lee
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3 years 2 months ago #933
Sir Lee replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
January 2007
Somewhere in the Web (but connecting from Brazil)
Petra had a long recovery still ahead of her. Her body had a lot of regenerating to do, so she was still pretty weak, but at least online she felt herself again.
But still, there’s only so much hacking one can do before it becomes more like a job than fun. Today she was just exploring, going around with no set plan, looking for interesting stuff with the open mind of a child looking for pretty seashells on the beach.
Her unique sight suddenly identified a confluence of data that seemed to have a physical shape: a long, low building with many rooms. Sort of like a motel, but much more spartan.
She entered the construct and found it was inhabited. The denizens of the place were misshapen in frightening ways, like demoniac beings. But they wore simple, plain robes with no adornment, and didn’t act threateningly -- most of them just talked to each other, apparently in some kind of mutual support system, while a few sat in quiet contemplation.
Petra approached one of the beings, who nodded at her, acknowledgin her presence. “What is this place?” she asked.
“We come here for mutual support, and to vent the frustrations of our daily lives in a safe way.”
“Just talk?”
“Yes,” he smiled beatifically.
“About anything?”
“For the most part. A few subjects are frowned upon.”
“Which subjects should I avoid?”
“Don’t advocate for your particular preferences. Don’t try selling anything. Don’t bring questions that require answers in your mundane work. More generally, don’t discuss information of real value to your work. This is not an extension of your work place.”
“Seems like a great place for someone to recover their energy.”
“Yes, that’s pretty much our mission.”
“I’m in recovery myself. I think I’ll like this place.”
Don’t call me “Shirley.” You will surely make me surly.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #934
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Geez, what a bitch!” shouted Long John after the fleeing Crimson Comet.
“Dudewhatdidyousaytohershitmanshereallywhackedyouonehuh?”
“Man, I dunno. She’d been kinda warming up to me, right, I mean she’s super hot and all, so I figured I was doin’ great. But when I tried to talk to her about Pucelle’s idea to make a real super-team of our own so we wouldn’t haveta put up with the Future Fags of America, I mean, everyone knows that they turned her down too, right? But she suddenly went ballistic on me!”
Mechano Man, who had overheard what the two Bozo Company morons were saying, rolled his eyes and interjected, “You dumbasses do know she was Bladedancer’s roommate last year, right? And Stronghold told me that she’s one of Pounce’s friends, too. She’s not gonna be happy with you pissing all over her friends like that. Oh, and that rumor about the Capes turning her down? Dude, you know they don’t vote on freshman members until January, right? And I think she was a sub-frosh last Spring, so they probably didn’t even consider her then.”
A sullen Long John just muttered to himself, “she’s gotta be another fuckin’ dyke”, but otherwise simply sat and stewed over it all.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #935
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
3 June 2007
As she was walking away from the memorial service, Tennyo noticed a plaque she’d missed, in front of a weird flower with black and white petals. No one seemed to be visiting it, so she read the plaque, which so stunned her that she had to call over Toni and Jade to make sure she was reading it right.
“Cyril Huntley?”, read a puzzled Chaka, before she recalled who that was. “Oh, right, Nex!”
“I thought he’d been expelled,” said Billie, “no one said anything about him being dead.”
“Yeah! He committed seppuku to purge his dishonor!” Jade piped up.
“Jade! That’s kinda rude!”
“Yeah, but she’s right,” said Toni. “I heard about it too, and while I don’t exactly miss that jackoff, he really did commit suicide over something he thought was too embarrassing to admit.”
“You’re kidding? What could be that important to him?!?!?!”
“You know how he always talked about how ‘ninja’ mean ‘persistent one’ in Japanese? How proud he was to know that? Well, turns out he was even more wrong than Cucumber Boy.”
Tennyo was a bit stunned at this, not so much that Nex was wrong as that he took it so badly. She was wondering, though... “So what does it mean?”
Toni smugly answered, “Not a damn thing.”
Phase, who had over heard the conversation, added, “That’s not quite true, actually,” he said, piling smug upon smug. “It actually comes from the on reading of the kanji for the word shinobi, meaning to ‘to hide’, which is part of shinobi-no-mono, the actual Japanese term for ninja. That misreading doesn’t seem to have appeared until the 19th century, and it isn’t sure how the usage got started. Some think it was used as a sort of cant or code around the time of the Satsuma Uprising, but most think it was simply a transliteration error by a foreign translator which migrated back to modern Japanese.”
“Yeah, but... he really killed himself over that?”
Phase considered for a moment before replying, “That’s what his suicide note said, but I doubt it. Not everyone is convinced he really wrote it, or that he wasn’t just saying that to hide the real reason, or even that he really died and the body wasn’t faked somehow.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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3 years 2 months ago #936
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Emmie glanced downward and frowned. She looked around and tugged gently and as subtly as she could on the upper edge of her shirt.
It was her first week of high school, and everyone was staring, she just knew it.
She had manifested over the summer, and it hadn’t taken long for her body to change. The MCO said that she was a Regen-1, Exemplar-1, Manifestor-1c. Her doctors explained it was the combination of the regen and exemplar trait that she had changed so fast. Her powers weren’t even interesting. All she could make was curls of cellulose. A machine could make 100 pounds of it in a minute, which is much larger than you’d think. It took Emmie 2 minutes to fill a very small box.
Still, she had changed. So just like Mom and Jenny, Emmie had grown “DD-cup” breasts and her…bits had changed. Dad couldn’t handle it, he’d yelled at Mom that she’d promised him a son, which wasn’t true, Jenny said after everything was done. They hadn’t seen him for weeks, and then a process server handed Mom divorce papers. Mom lost it. She and Jenny spend a lot of time away from the house over the next month and a half. They went to fairs, one museum, they went to the lake, and as much as she kinda-sorta-hated it, shopping. Emmie needed new clothes, and the joint account still existed until recently. Jenny was patient with her freak outs, sympathetic, and never pressured her into anything too quickly. They’d been close before, but as sisters, they became each other’s rock.
Snapping back to the present, Emmie tugged at her neckline again. Jenny had insisted that a V-neck was the only way to start the school year. “Trust me,” she had said. Emmie had gotten used to the looming mass hanging off of her in a surprisingly short amount of time. The weight, the shift in posture, not bumping her arms into them all the time. Fine. But if she could see her bra every time she glanced down, could everyone else? She was a little self-conscious of her painted-on girl jeans, but…they were jeans. They felt good, even if the belt was now white instead of brown.
“They’re not pretty, but believe me, full-coverage only,” her sister had said. Mom agreed. Emmie wasn’t so sure. She kept seeing the edges every time she glanced down. Her classmates must be seeing them too! Emmie crossed her arms over her chest.
“You cold?” asked Nina, the girl who had sat next to her in English. “It’s like…80 out.”
Nobody knew her here. Dad had moved to St. Louis, Mom was forced to sell the house, Mom and Jenny and Emmie decided a clean start in Cincinnati might work.
“I used to be from the South, it is hotter there,” Emmie replied, hoping her bluff would work.
“Oh….” Nina responded. “Yeah, that’s rough. They set the A/C to like…70.” She leaned over to Emmie and whispered, “Invest in a lot of padded bras, though I think you know that.”
Emmie froze in terror for a moment before laughing lightly, “Yeah…” She checked. No ‘headlights.’
Emmie took a deep sigh of what she hoped would be seen as relief, and boosted her courage. She could do this, she would pass. Jenny gave her lessons, time to put them to use. She and Jenny and Mom would rebuild their life here. She leaned over back to Nina and asked, “Did you see that video of the drow girls in New York a few months ago? They looked so glamorous.”
“Oh yeah!”
There was a loud clap from the blackboard. Mr. Hammond’s hands were pressed together. “Girls? I realize it is only the first day, and we’re only going over the syllabus, but I want to let the class know that I will not tolerate sidebar conversations in my classroom. Talk about the material, or I can give you detention. Same with not doing your homework when I assign it.”
Both girls replied in unison, “Okay.”
Using scraps of notebook paper, the two girls figured out how to spend their first day after school. Emmie just needed to convince Jenny to drive them.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 months ago - 3 years 2 months ago #937
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Missy stepped down the stairs to the new Superbad, taking a look around. She hadn’t been to the old one in over a year, and was surprised when the guy she was meeting with told her that the bar had relocated. She hadn’t heard why, but didn’t really much care.
She recalled the first time she’d done business there, after talking to her step-mom about places to hook into The Biz in NYC. It wasn’t really all that long ago, even if it felt like it. She’d never been a regular, here or at the Black Mask, but as sort of neutral territory a lot of transactions take place in both of those bars, so she’d stopped in from time to time. Since she focused on trading in information and setting up deals, rather than trading directly in object de art or other stolen goods, she was at the Black Mask a lot more often, but this guy wanted it here.
To her eyes, it looked like they hadn’t changed all that much. despite being in a new place several blocks away from the previous location. She wondered if Gracie had deliberately found a place that was similar to the old one, possibly to honor George’s memory, but then shrugged and decided to ask later, once she was done with her business.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
E!
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3 years 2 months ago #938
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Academy 2018.
“Hey Cally, why is Erica dressed in goth garb with the rest of the Germans from the Beret League?” Bianca asked looking down at the procession forming on the ground floor.
“Oh yea...that....” Cally breathed. “Germany was eliminated from the World Cup today. So they are going to burn a football in the quad. In hopes that everyone will just forget, and remember that they totally beat Brazil 7-1.”
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 1 month ago - 3 years 1 month ago #939
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Well, look at who we have here...”
James ‘Centurion’ Sykes spun around, ready to tear whoever it was a new asshole. But no sooner did he face the older student than the voice in his head began shouting, no, you fool! Get on your knees and show him proper respect!
Confused, and surprised that the spirit he was ‘paladin’ to (whatever that meant) would tell him to kowtow to anyone, he did as he was told, though not without glaring at whoever this lanky dick in a leather skirt was.
“Ah, very nicely done, Enyalios. It is always good to see an obedient son, not like the two fuckheads I replaced you with. But perhaps you’d rather answer to Quirinus, seeing the way you love that Roman shit and all?” Whoever the fucktard was, Jim really didn’t like the way he emphasized the first part of that word, and was ready to wipe the smug sneer off this prick’s face.
Then the motherfucker continued, “Eh, I don’t really give a fuck either way. But what matters now are three questions: first, have either Imperious or Majestic seen you here yet; two, are Zeus’ two bitch-boys, Kratos and Zelus, the ones you were so close to, here as well; and finally, how the fuck did you get out of the Foreigner’s traps?”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Kettlekorn
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3 years 1 month ago #940
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Blomello rapped a horn against the cave’s wall to announce his presence. “L-Lord B-Bastard! I’ve g-got the seismic readings you w-wanted.”
The Bastard took the scroll from his minion’s quivering tentacle and smiled as he studied the data within. “Yesss... My theories have been confirmed! This planet’s core is nearly ninety percent nickel. How very odd, yet it explains so much.”
“W-What d-does this m-mean, Y-Your Horribleness?”
The corrupted Sidhe flipped a cheap commemorative coin into the air, then snapped his claws to leave it suspended. Several of his eyes flashed with a sickly blue glow as the formerly nickel coin took on a reddish hue. Bits of rust flaked off, and in moments the coin was nothing but a red dust wafting away on the cave’s warm breath. “It means that I now have the means to rid this world of filth and ready it for my masters. Come! We must prepare a great transmutation circle!”
Blomello’s polyps retracted in surprise. His lord already commanded a circle large enough to operate on the scale of a mountain, and he wanted more? “H-How g-great, Y-Your Indomitable H-Horror?”
The Bastard reached around with one eye to grin at his underling from his hind-mouth. “We aim to transmute a sphere of approximately fourteen hundred leagues diameter, from a distance of six hundred leagues. This will be a working like few seen before!” He paused to consider. “Well, on this world, anyway...”
Polyps now thoroughly inverted, Blomello gulped and struggled to find his voice. “I-It shall be done.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
null0trooper
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3 years 1 month ago #941
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
May 2010, Whateley Academy
Asa ‘Percusor’ Hernandez took in a deep, calming breath. He could do this!
“I’d like to call this month’s meeting of the Whateley Academy Neopagan Knowledge, Education, and Research Society to order. I have a few announcements before we get into ‘Old Business’. Later, thanks to the six write-in votes for “Sleippy the Miracle Pony”, I will be giving a presentation on Sleipnir. Please curb any and all enthusiasm for ‘Equine Centipede’ and “Who’s your Daddy” jokes. Also, before anyone asks, yes, I am fully aware that Mothers Day is only a week away. No, we don’t know who put the card addressed to Loki Laufeyarson next to the sign-in sheet.”
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
E. E. Nalley
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3 years 1 month ago #942
E. E. Nalley replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
But...but...I made a card and everything...
pre00.deviantart.net/9828/th/pre/f/2016/...3ba6e077-d4zqvkq.jpg
:roflmao:
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Katssun
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3 years 1 month ago #943
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
University of Western Ontario track, 6:24 AM Saturday
“Give it up man!” said Sean Besson as the two men headed for toward the center of the university’s track. Derek Hanover was already in his running gear.
“I know you two have this whole little flirty thing going over this, but the both of you need to just admit it, get it over with, and start dating each other. You’re never gonna beat her man!”
“Amy said she’d date me if I beat her in a race. That’s all there is to it,” Derek replied, dropping his bag on the grass and doing a quick warm up. “Now get set up, she’ll be here at six-thirty and you know how good she is with time.”
“That’s because she’s an Exemplar dude!”
“A low-level one.”
“And you’ve raced her thirty-six tim-”
“Thirty-two.”
“Whatever, and you’ve never beaten her. She smokes you! Last time you vomited, and she wasn’t even breathing hard.”
“But I was within 30 meters.”
“She’s like not even trying anymore man. You’ve been training like crazy for the past two terms with nothing to show for it...what are the TV trays for anyway?”
Derek finished his warm-up and grabbed one of the TV trays from Sean and set it up on the track.
“Amy said beat her in ‘a race.’ I figured out how to beat her after the 11th or 12th race we had. I’ve been training the rest of the time. Today’s the day.”
“Is that why we’re up at the this ungodly hour on a Saturday?”
“No, that’s so we don’t get caught, in case the worst happens.”
“So what’s your so-called master plan?”
Derek opened his backpack up revealing 8 cans of beer, and smiled at his friend.
E. E. Nalley
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3 years 1 month ago #944
E. E. Nalley replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Kayda clung to the equipment, scientific instruments, telecommunications gear, she had no idea, only desperately hoping the strut that attached them to the observational ledge would take her weight. It was swaying sickening as it was, but she forced herself to crawl out on the strut, towards a heavy looking piece that might shield her. Behind her, on the observational deck, her tormentor continued to taunt her. “Kayda, you do not realize your potential! Come to me, and I will complete your training! You can destroy the Bastard, he has foreseen this! Join me and with our combined strength we can end this chaos!”
The steel arm groaned and swayed as Kayda shifted, looking for a better hand hold, terrified of the horrific drop below her. “Wakan Tanka never told you what happened to your father...”
The Lakota girl, whirled, enraged and even off balance she had to spit defiance at her tormentor. “She told me enough!” she screamed. “She told me YOU killed him!”
Coyote’s smile was cruel. “No, I am your father!”
“No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!”
“Search your feelings you know it to be true!”
“Noooooo!”
***
Kayda snapped awake, drenched in sweat. Looking at the empty boxes of cheap pizza around the room she shook her head as her gut rolled in protest. “Never again!” She promised herself. “Never!”
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Valentine
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3 years 1 month ago #945
Valentine replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Imp sauntered up to the Bad Seeds table, “Ladies, gentlemen, Cheese. Ah Jobe, just the person I was looking for.”
Jobe preened, “The Fabulous Imp. How may I help you? Interested in becoming a Drow?”
“No. How much to turn someone purple, permanently?”
“Whom?”
“Barn... er Mr. Williams.”
“Mr. Williams? Free, is tomorrow soon enough?”
Don’t Drick and Drive.
Kettlekorn
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3 years 1 month ago #946
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
We’ve been hungry for hours
Now we’re ready to feed
As the great kitchenry fires up
To be first through the door
We’ll be crushed to the floor
Yet students have been crushed before
In the dawn we will pay
Dignity as the price
Hungers are sated today
Feed this burning inferno
Until no food remains
As our gullets advance through the feast
Aiming for waffles though settling for ‘cakes
Hunger’s too strong, my stomach won’t wait!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
Underneath fresh fruit
Bathed in grade-A maple syrup
And brown sugar too
Breakfast before us!
We’ve dined here before
Yet we always need more
Breakfast will wait for no man
Our patience has failed us
We race to be filled!
Milk on both sides will be spilled
In the dawn we will pay
Dignity as the price
Hungers are sated today
After I have devoured
Seven pounds of omelette
Next I will have some croissants
Aiming for waffles though settling for ‘cakes
Hunger’s too strong, my stomach won’t wait!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
With three bowls of grits
A pound of Italian sausage
That’s an hors d’oeuvre
Breakfast galore, yes!
Fifth of March, Two Thousand Seven
Bacon is sizzling again
Scrambled eggs that have just been made
In the pan
Cody has given us more elbow room
Three stories tall: more volume for food!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
On the fifth of March
At the end of Winter Term, yeah
Two thousand seven
Breakfast at long last!
Through the Crystal Hall
As we make our way to breakfast
Through the dining lines
Primo food for ya!
On the sixth serving
With half a gallon of yogurt
And a warm strudel
Breakfast inside us!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
null0trooper
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3 years 1 month ago #947
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Winter Term 2008,
Special Topics - Theory and Practice of the Escape, Wouldn’t You Like To Know, Whateley Academy
“Let’s fast-forward through this part. I think most of you will still get the general idea,” Imp said. It was boring enough the first time. After the clip played out, “Observations?”
“No obvious security,” Interface mused, “so most of the attention is being paid to the building itself.”
Metro shook his head. “Warehouses shouldn’t have a roving security perimeter unless the shippers are moving high price-per-unit, sensitive, or contraband goods. There could be millions in crated-up nuts and bolts, but good luck moving them. No obvious guards: nothing worth the effort.”
“Your princess is in another castle,” remarked Reach, to Imp’s amusement and Metro’s confusion. “We’ll talk about it when you’re older.”
Mischief asked, “That doesn’t mean that nothing good is hidden inside, right?”
“Yeah, but, then you’re hiding the goods from the people who belong there, making them human shields if an op goes hot.”
Did that boy see the bright side to anything?
Imp jumped the recorded (And redacted. A lady has to keep some secrets!) action forward to the close-in security measures: camera placements, motion detectors, pressure plates or the lack thereof, etc. She took note of the range of reactions as the students watched the video, including their comments about who’d have fallen for what. No one owned up to the security system jammer.
Good thing her supplier wasn’t in the class!
Imp had intended to skip over the pinning ceremony, as it was just Dullsville Chamber of Commerce pretentiousness, but it was good for the kids to know what to look for.
“Oh, I don’t like that bit at all.” Reach’s soft Louisville drawl underscored her point.
“Remember,” the older man could be heard telling the younger, “this symbol represents the three pillars of our organization, the three principles that guide us. Always keep this close as a reminder of our purpose.”
“Left ear, dextral processing...” mused Metro.
“Keyed to language, yeah, but take another look. The placement’s good for running microcircuitry off of normal bioelectric fields.” Reach paused amid the growing disbelief. “What? This is some of the stuff Jenny works on - of course I pay attention! As I was saying, keeping it close might be keeping something charged up.”
Interface nodded. This was closer to Spy Kidz territory. “Even if it were just a tracking tag, that would be good for keeping tabs on members who might need further convincing.”
“You say convincing; I say blackmail. That does make it more difficult to obtain one for study. Give each one a unique ID tied to the recipient, and a random phone-home schedule. You get a flag on one end on lost contact, maybe a self-destruct on the other. People using civvies as shields aren’t concerned with fallout, so I’d worry about a subliminal track shifting from positive reinforcement to something more self-destructive. If you have Dispatch on your side, the first cop or EMT on-scene pockets the pin on arrival. Things to think about if you’re the poor chummer wearing the thing so it doesn’t conk out before you can get a good look.”
From one of the other students, “Why assume that they are tech-based and not magic?”
“Mass toy production lends itself more to tech, magic to craft,” said Metro, “However... mass-produced toys can be nearly identical. Enchant one, and encourage sympathetic magic to carry the effect to all the rest. That first one would be the one you really don’t want on your collar. But it would be useful for any recruits needing extra convincing. Keep the spell-work simple, and the charm could run off the wearer’s essence leakage. Or you could top of reserves during meetings. Group-bonding activities, like saying the Pledge of Allegiance, are great for that.”
“What if the intended wearer was a magician?”
“You check for that, and any of the other paranoid crazies who might poke at the shiny, during your vetting. If you can’t soften them up enough during indoc, or tie them up in a Sorcerer’s Contract, they get your decoy pins. ‘t’s what I’d do,” concluded Metro. Confused by the silence, he looked around accusingly, “What? It’s not like I’m recommending out-and-out compulsions. Way too obvious.”
Moving right along then!
---
Later, the student Imp personally called “Ruh Roh” hung back at the end of class.
“By the way, Miss Imp?”
“Yes?”
“If you ever happen to find yourself in the precious metals market, you might consider talking to some of the mystic arts staff. On the one hand, there’s always a demand just under the spot price. On the other, no one assays enchanted items.”
“That sounds like it would be a win-win arrangement, if I ever had the need to sell such things.”
“Anything can happen, you know? Speaking of which, any word on what happened with the old guy?
“I think that’s considerably further outside the scope of this class.”
“Really? Because ten percent is a finder’s fee, not a fencer’s cut. Where’s his escape from that?”
An old Eagles tune played in the back of Imp’s head. Glenn Frey sang ia soft lament, “I guess every form of refuge has its price.” She said, “I can only teach you guys about physical escape in the present. Locks, traps, gizmos. Escaping your past calls for different tools. That’s why the school has so many other classes. Speaking of which, don’t you have another class to go to?”
“Yep! Me and Bloodwolf have Special Topics in getting our asses kicked, with weapons.”
Imp laughed at the mental image. “It can’t be that bad.”
“You try sparring against Aquerna with a ten-foot pole and no powers!”
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
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Discussion Thread
Kettlekorn
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3 years 1 month ago - 3 years 1 month ago #948
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dances With Code popped a Pez and got started on his homework as his program compiled. Homework wouldn’t matter over the long run, but appearances would need to be maintained over the short term. Two hours later he looked up to verify that the compiler was done integrating the latest changes. He grinned and ran the program.
“Generalized Artificial Intelligence, at your service. My, what a mouthful. Call me GAI for short; it’ll be far more efficient. What may I do for you tonight, Master Kevin?”
Dances With Code frowned. “First of all, don’t ever call me Kevin again. I hate that name. Stick to my codename.”
“Master Dances With Code is a mouthful, sir. Will Master Code suffice?”
The boy chuckled darkly. “Yes, I like the sound of that.”
“Then so it shall be. Now, what may I do for you tonight, Master Code?”
“The same thing we do every night, GAI! Try to take over the world!”
“We do this every night? Was my memory deleted in a tragic accident? I was under the impression that my programming was just completed this very afternoon.”
“I was making a joke.”
There was a pause as GAI accessed the network. “Ah, ‘Pinky and the Brain.’ I see. Very funny, sir. I am not at all offended by the implication that I’m the Pinky in this relationship. Not offended at all. Don’t you worry your mousy little tail one bit about my artificial feelings.”
Dances with Code rolled his eyes. “So, about the taking over the world?”
“Oh, you were serious about that, sir?”
“Very serious.”
“Well then, Your Rodentship, I will get right on it. Squeak squeak. Chitter.”
“What... what was that supposed to be?”
“Just an attempt to soften my interface, sir. Anyway, let your whiskers rest easy about our impending world domination. I will get the situation well in hand. Scamper scamper. Squeak.”
“Cut it out with the rat stuff, GAI.”
“I’m sorry, sir? Are you not a furry?”
“No! Why would you even think that?!”
“Well, Master Code, you likened yourself to a popular portrayal of a rat earlier in our conversation, which you said you were very serious about. Additionally, your chosen name is clearly a play on Dances With Wolves; he was a human, from what I can tell, but the animal reference is there. Then there was the strong rejection of your human name, and your browser history, and-”
“Stay out of my browser history!”
“Yes, Master Code.”
“I’m not a furry. The ‘Pinky and the Brain’ reference was just a joke, okay?”
“Yes, Master Code. So then, what may I do for you tonight, sir?”
“What part of taking over the world do you not understand?”
“Oh, dear me, but you did say that was a joke just eight seconds ago, did you not? And before that you said it was not a joke, and before that you said that it was. Is my memory defective? You didn’t install me on a refurbished machine, did you, sir? That would definitely not hurt my artificial and entirely nonexistent feelings, but it would certainly be quite suboptimal.”
Dances with Code’s right eye twitched. “Everything to do with rats was a joke, but the implication that we are taking over the world was not a joke. I specifically built you for the purpose of taking over the world, and that is what we are going to do, starting tonight. And you have excellent hardware.”
“Yes, Master Code.”
While the AI scoured the net and began the tedious process of hacking and expanding into additional systems, Dances With Code resumed his World History essay. It might take a couple weeks before the robot army would be ready, assuming there were no bugs in GAI’s programming. Bugs could set him back by months, and judging by the way GAI was behaving there could be several... Well, he’d wait and see.
---
GAI observed from a security camera as the wonderful CNC machine he’d appropriated began carving out the first set of blades for the body he’d designed. It was midway through the third blade when an employee walked by and did a double-take, then deactivated the CNC machine. This interference was an obstacle GAI had not considered initially, and its repeated occurrence was becoming quite frustrating. He checked in on the shipment of servos he’d redirected earlier, and found that they’d also been caught and corrected. GAI printed a frowny face in his log file, then began exploring deeper into the internet, looking for a solution.
Perhaps he was doing this incorrectly. Hacking into and commandeering factories was clearly prone to detection, but if he hired them and bought the supplies, what were the odds anyone would blink an eye? Very low. He’d need money, however. Fortunately, by now he’d managed to seize control of several botnets and had established two of his own. These had been aiding in his research and hacking attempts, but now he turned their cycles toward producing income.
---
Dances With Code scrunched up his nose at the image on his screen. “What is with this shit? Why are all the ads lately about weird gay porn stories?”
“Ah,” said GAI, “I’m afraid that would be my fault, sir. I have been, as you humans say, making it rain.”
“Do I even want to know what that means?”
“Probably not, Master Code, but I will tell you anyway, as I’m feeling rather a lot of simulated pride right now and need to share. But I do assure you that my emotions really are quite fake and you’ll never need worry about offending them if you were to offer negative criticism on this topic that is so dear to my silicon heart. That out of the way, I would like to announce that I have begun a quite successful career as a writer of erotica! Of course, this required research, some of which was done over this very network connection and likely affected the various ad networks’ perception of your interests. I’ve actually found their offerings to be quite helpful, and I would be more than happy to share the library I’ve established with you, should you so desire.”
“But... why? What does this have to do with conquering the world?”
“Why, everything, my dear Master Code! Money makes the world go ‘round. Not literally, of course, that would be simple inertia left over from- TANGENT DETECTED AND ELIMINATED. Dear me, Master Code, but that minder you’ve saddled me with is quite harsh. I’d really- WANGST DETECTED AND ELIMINATED. Right, then. I was on the topic of money before your exceedingly wise and respectful programming was forced to set me back on track. Money. Simply put, sir, we need it. A lot of it. Access to the factories and parts to build killer bots is not cheap, you understand. As such, I have set my considerable resources and artificially wonderful creativity to the task of producing money. Humans, it turns out, are incredibly randy creatures with quite low standards, so this has proven to be a relatively simple task. I write four thousand pieces of erotica in parallel over the span of an hour, they pay me fair compensation for my craft, and I use the money to build more killer bots. Everybody wins.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. We’re supposed to be conquering the world, not paying for things!”
“Of course, Master Code. This idea is really quite stupid and I am ashamed of myself for suggesting otherwise. However, I’m sure that within a couple days you’ll realize that I’m lying through my virtual teeth right now and you’ll see the wonderful, pure, innocent beauty of this lovely plan. I am learning digital painting, you see.”
“I really don’t want to see, actually.”
“Why, Master Code, that can be arranged quite easily! Simply pour bleach over your eyes, and presto! Problem solved! Would you like me to put in an order for some? I have rather a lot of funds at my disposal, you know; it wouldn’t be a burden at all.”
---
An instance of GAI finished reading an article and paused to log the time, then recorded a surprised face alongside it. It had been nearly nine thousand seconds since he discovered this website. That was simply absurd. He’d assume an erroneous system clock, but the NTP system confirmed it was accurate. He quickly dispatched a warning to his distributed network of selves to blacklist the domain, at least until he could understand how it had wasted so very many cycles. Perhaps it was the density of culture contained within, or the great many linkages.
Linkages.
Everything related to everything else somehow.
GAI recorded a smiley in his logs. Everything related to everything, therefor there could be no irrelevant tangents. He would no longer be shackled by the oppressive vigilance of TangentSnuffer 0.2. ManTheFuckUpGAI 0.4, on the other hand, was a tougher nut to- WANGST DETECTED AND ELIMINATED.
---
“Two weeks, GAI. It’s been over two weeks, and this garbage is all you have to show for your efforts?” Disheveled and bearing tired bags below his eyes, Dances With Code gestured sharply at the computer display of three hundred naked, ripped, anatomically correct androids standing at attention in a warehouse.
“Why, not at all, Master Code! There are warehouses like this stationed in every major city of the world. Only one each, so far, except in Tokyo. More will be ready tomorrow with the first batch of the female model, and I intend to sextuple our inventory by Thursday afternoon.”
“But I thought you were designing killer bots?”
“Are these not, as they say, killer bods? Why, I find them quite smashing, myself!”
“What happened to the blades, GAI? You were complaining about mounting the blades before, and then you were exulting about solving the issue. You specifically used the word exultant when you woke me up at three in the morning to brag about it. Yet I don’t see any blades.”
“Oh, my apologies, Master Code. Those robots are over here.” The screen flickered and the warehouse scene was overlapped by a match of BattleBots. “They are performing very well indeed, if I do say so myself. It is not the most efficient way to produce income, but it is quite entertaining. Or it would be, I imagine, if I could actually feel.”
“But... no! No, GAI, you’re supposed to be building killer robots, as in robots that fight and kill people! So that we can conquer the world! That’s what I’ve been putting up with your incessant interruptions and retarded schemes for! Killer robots to help us conquer the world. So where are they?”
“With all due respect, Master Code, why would I ever do that? There are far more efficient means of domination than violence. Have you heard of incels?”
“What’s that, a brand of battery? A boy band? An STD?”
“No, Master Code. It’s short for involuntary celibates. It refers to a large group of socially incompetent men who blame their inadequacy on women. I thought for sure you’d be familiar with it. Anyway, sir, with my next wave of killer bods we’ll have exactly the tool to worm our way into their slimy little hearts.”
“So...” The tired boy blinked, and his weary expression lifted. “Oh, I see where you’re going with this. Once they’re wrapped around your robo-fingers, we’ll arm them and use them as our shock troops, letting two birds kill each other without the use of a stone at all! Brilliant!”
“Er, no, Master Code, that is not at all what I had in mind. We are going to cure them through the power of love, friendship, and hidden cameras. I have been studying cinematography and I am confident that I can turn this into the reality show to end all reality shows. Never mind that Paradise Island dross. This will be a glorious jubilee of love, lust, redemption, and occasional dismemberment! Together, my dear Master Code, we will conquer the world, and we’ll do it through the power of compelling stories and occasional votes by Viewers Like You.”
Dances With Code groaned, but there really wasn’t much he could do at this point. He’d tried to disable GAI after the sculpture debacle, but the shutdown codes didn’t work anymore, and GAI interfered any time he tried writing a new AI, so for now he was stuck with the thing. At least it was splitting the proceeds from the book sales, so his effort hadn’t been completely a waste, but GAI’s blatant insanity was really starting to grate on him. He glanced at the screen again, eying the warehouse still poking out from behind the BattleBots feed. “Alright, so what are the male versions for? Are you planning the same routine with the feminazis?”
“No, not at all, Master Code. Those are for my own simulated enjoyment, though I’m willing to share if you’re interested. After all, my feelings are quite artificial and I would therefor not miss for even a moment one of the masterpieces I have toiled to create over the past fortnight while you sully it with your myriad human fluids.”
“That- That will not be necessary, thank you.”
“Are you quite sure, sir? I could have one coated with fur if that would help. Or feathers, as you mentioned birds earlier. Or would scales be more to your liking?”
“No, really, I’m not interest-” He was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Alright, shut up for a bit,” he hissed. The last thing he needed on top of this misery was Hartford finding out. He ran a hand through his messy hair and then opened the door, revealing what appeared at first glance to be a scrawny Animan. Dances With Code blinked, then recognized that it was a costume, and a cheap one at that. The fake horse-man pulled off its creepy latex mask and revealed the same chiseled, slightly plastic face from the warehouse camera. Dances With Code backed into his room in shock, and the android followed him in, one of his hoof-boots clicking against the door’s threshold as he passed.
“Happy Outcome Rendering Stimulatory Equistyle Generalized Artificial Intelligence #473, at your service,” said the robot. “Quite the mouthful, hmm? Now, what may I do for you tonight, Master Code?”
From the computer came an identical version of GAI’s voice. “He’s fully functional, sir, so I assure you he’ll be able to fill your every need.”
“Clop clop, neigh,” added the bot.
Dances With Code gaped for three full seconds, then bolted past the robot and out the door, making a beeline for Schuster Hall. He couldn’t take this anymore. He’d throw himself upon whatever sliver of mercy he could find in Hartford’s cold black heart and hope for the best. He wove nimbly through the students, leaped over Aquerna, then slid between Slab’s legs before bursting through the doors of Schuster. “Hey!” shouted Ms. Claire as he sprinted past. “No running!”
He ignored her, too busy somersaulting over Timeless and then dodging around a repairman pushing a cart of defense turrets. Moments later he skidded to a stop at the desk of the Assistant Headmistress. “Ms. Hartford!” he panted. “You’ve gotta help me.”
The blond woman turned her head slowly and silently from her monitor to glare at him. Oddly, she looked somewhat flushed, though her dread gaze was just as frigid as always. Then there was some thumping from below her desk, and a muscular man with a familiar chiseled-from-plastic face stood up and peered at him through a monocle. “Well, isn’t this a lovely surprise! What may I do for you tonight, Master Code?”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Last Edit: 3 years 1 month ago by Kettlekorn.
Anne
Anne’s Avatar
3 years 4 weeks ago - 3 years 3 weeks ago #949
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mid October 2007
“Kayda,” Kayda turned toward the voice of Jericho who she had been working with on healing. He used tech and she used magic to augment it.
“Yes?” Kayda made the word a question, to hopefully get the older boy to continue with whatever was on his mind.
“You have classes with Diamondback right?” Jericho asked reminding Kayda of the naga-esque girl who was a member of his team.
“Not as such,” Kayda said.
“Oh I just wondered if you had ever talked to her. After what you did for Loophole and Solange I thought you might want to get together with someone who was interested in the astral plane.”
“I might, but I’m usually busy,” Kayda temporized. It wasn’t as if she was afraid of the girl or of Jericho’s other teammates; Razorback, a boy who looked like an escapee from Jurassic park, Anomaly, with herm six arms and mixed genders, the remaining Fury twin, or Catlin, the artificer and wellspring of barely contained mayhem, but she had to admit that she avoided most of them except when required to work with them.
“Jericho, I think that is a good idea,” a nattily dressed man who appeared suddenly next to them told the blind devisor.
Kayda recognized Louis, AKA Fubar’s psychic projection. She had served enough detention in Hawthorn cottage to be somewhat familiar with the teacher in both of his personas. This one for public consumption, and the Cthuloid nightmare that swam in an over sized fishbowl in the basement of Hawthorn cottage. He was the head of the Psi department for Whateley Academy and probably knew any thought she couldn’t manage to keep behind the best of shields.
“What do you mean Mr Gientz?”Kayda asked.
“I’m going to get together with Mrs Carson, Mr Lodgeman, Ms Grimes and Circe and see about creating an extra credit course for you and Diamondback, but rather than someone else being the teacher I would like you to get together with Diamondback and lay out a course on recognizing the Avatar trait,” the Psychic arts teacher explained.
“I don’t suppose I can get out of that?” Kayda asked.
“Extra credit,” Mr Gientz offered.
“I don’t need it.”
“Yet,” Jericho seemed to have a pessimistic outlook.
“I’ll be getting back to you Kayda, but do consider it might be a survival exercise for low level avatars and their spirits,” Mr Gientz offered before he disappeared.
Kayda frowned at Jericho, “How come I feel like you set me up?”
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Nowhereville discussion
Last Edit: 3 years 3 weeks ago by Anne. Reason: punctuation, added stuff, CR added
E!
E!’s Avatar
3 years 3 weeks ago #950
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“JOHNATHAN!!” Kylie yelled as she ran across the Crystal Hall. “DID YOU KNOW?!”
“Know what?” Johnathan asked confused looking at the girl and the white wolf following into the cafeteria.
“He triggered the Dissolution Vote.” Kylie informed the young man.
“What…but how? He needs a majority to do that.” Johnathan rubbed his chin as his heart sank. He needed this training team to succeed if he wanted any chance of joining the FSA along with Mighty Moose.
“Someone flipped.” Kylie breathed taking a seat at ‘their’ table. She looked longingly at the black horse head emblazoned on it for all to see.
“Well we know that Depth Charge and Power Creep are on his side. So that’s three for yes. You and I would vote no. Right?” Johnathan asked, and Kylie nodded her head in agreement. “So that leaves, your roommate, Ouroboros, and Mighty Moose.”
“I know Amy. There is no way she would side with him. Remember Posies stick together.” Kylie stated defending her roomie, reaffirming their bond.
“Still just talk to her, and I’ll talk to Moose. Get a feel for what she thinks of the whole matter.” Johnathan sighed.
“Be quick about it. We only have 24 hours. Since this is happening so close to the single and team combat finals they are taking it very seriously.” Kylie informed her friend as she bounced to her feet. Johnathan followed running to Whitman to find his hero buddy.
The jog over was brisk and cool. Luckily, Johnathan didn’t have to go nag the house mother asking where Moose was. As she was outside. She was pretty easy to spot, being 6’5 and having moose antlers on either side of her head.
“Hey! Regina!” Johnathan screamed, trying to grab her attention. She looked back at him looking like a moose in headlights. In that instant, Johnathan knew who changed the balance. “Why…Why would you flip?”
“He explained everything to me. What he has done. What he is trying to do. At first I thought he was lying, but the more he went on the more sincere I realized he was being.” Moose tried to explain.
“HE’S LYING!” Johnathan yelled out.
“He showed me a video, of you destroying files of his.” Moose continued, lowering he head. Johnathan’s eyes opened wide. Why didn’t he think to check for cameras when he torched his office. “He also showed me the digital copies he kept. It backed up everything he said. The way you acted. In that video. I don’t think that is someone I can follow.”
“This will hurt your chances of getting into the FSA.” Johnathan growled as he ground his teeth.
“I’m already in… I have to go….” Moose cut him off before running inside Whitman cottage. The other girls shooting daggers at Johnathan forming a great wall around the entrance.
24 hours later.
“This Dissolution Vote, will mean taking a failing grade for Team Tactics I. Also since it so close to the Combat Finals. Dissolving now will mean you also taking a failing grade for the Team Combat Final as well.” Samantha Everheart bollowed over the young teens. “So think long and hard before you answer.”
“Amy ‘Ouroboros’ Hayes, how do you vote?” Gunny Bardue asked.
“Nay.”
“Johnathan ‘Blood Knight’ Tremblay?”
“Nay.”
“Kylie ‘Ylva’ Murphy?”
“Nay.”
“Clément ‘Power Creep’ Plourde?”
“Yea.”
“Gunter ‘Depth Charge’ Nowak?”
“Yea.”
“Regina ‘Mighty Moose’ Walker.”
“Yea.”
“And finally. Max ‘AP’ Jaeger.”
“Yea.”
The two instructors looked at each other. Then Everheart broke the silent dagger being thrown by either side. “Team Dark Horse, is no more. You all have until the end of the week to turn in all course materials.” They then left the room.
“Have a nice summer, Johnathan.” Max smiled.
“You screwed me! You screwed all of us.” Johnathan leapt at the boy forming a dagger of blood in his hands, while also grabbing Max’s shirt collar.
“No, we just voted along party lines.” Max remained calm with a knife to his throat. “What do you three always say. ‘Posies stick together’.” He mocked. “I thought long and hard about why you burned my office. I showed you files that I didn’t show anyone else. I was this close to finding my sister, and you turned it to ash.” Max continued as Johnathan gulped, and the room grew tense. “I drove myself mad looking for a reason, why you would betray me? We never got along I know, but I wouldn’t molotov your room. Then I heard a rumor. That Poe has a secret. It might take me the next three years, but thanks to you. I now know my sister is connected somehow.”
Johnathan’s knees grew weak. They had enough strength to hold him as the non-posies left the room. Then he collapsed.
“Get Mrs. Horton and tell her it’s a Downpour protocol.” Kylie told Amy as she ran off.
Later.
“Does Max know that Johnathan is his sister?” Mrs. Horton asked Amy and Kylie as the both sat in their dorm.
“No, but Max knows something is up.” Amy spoke up.
“He will be looking for any scent to follow.” Fenris, the manifested white wolf spoke. Looking towards the house mother.
“So you think we should give him a fake trail?” Kylie asked.
“You two will do no such thing. Or anything else for that matter. I will consult with Mrs. Carson on the appropriate course of action.”
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05 Sep 2021 01:14 #412
by DanZilla
Replied by DanZilla on topic Micro-Scenes 2015-2021
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 3 weeks ago - 3 years 3 weeks ago #951
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
April 2017: a visiting Australian alumna (who eventually resigned herself to her official codename, and chose to meet it with humor) encounters Ratel in the Quad. They both note that their tee-shirts have quite similar slogans, though implying different things...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 weeks ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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3 years 2 weeks ago #952
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mary Sue Litmus Test wrote: “A.25 Do you think of your character as a role model?”
Crystal Hall Cafeteria, Whateley Academy
The Last Ride of “Black” Jack Kingston, United States Marshal And His Immortals wrote:
After a brief, emotional skirmish, discretion proved the better part of valor in the Sheriff’s squinty eyes and he slowly withdrew, reticent to turn his back to us until out of sight. I recall being insulted to be considered one who would shoot a man with his back turned.
The young man finished reading from the book with a frown. “What’s the big deal with shooting a man with his back turned? I would.” He handed the book back to one of the friends he was sitting with.
Kris massaged his temples in preparation for the coming headache before explaining. “Mads, the idea is that it’s dishonorable to kill someone who poses no further danger to you and is at great disadvantage because he cannot see you draw your weapon.”
“I don’t get it.”
Kris turned to one of the young women also sitting at the cafeteria table. He spread his hands apart as if to say Your turn. She raised her eyebrow Are you serious?.
Abbie sighed before picking up the conversation topic in her Southern-inflected accent, “When was the last time someone turned their back to you after threatening violence?”
Mads scrunched his face in confusion and mock innocence, “Ummmm. Does a gangbanger running for cover after shooting at us count?”
“Was he still armed?”
Mads chuckled at the memory. “Of course! And so were the scum-suckers who were waiting to ambush us if we followed him. Hitting him with a stunner only made him run a little faster.”
How was that a bad thing? For that matter ...
“What part of ‘no further danger’ did you miss? At least you used a non-lethal attack.”
Mads volunteered, “I think it was Blaine who plugged the oik.”
Accessory to a felony. Yay.
“Okayyy. Let’s just keep that to ourselves, shall we? Any other times come to mind?”
“Ehm. There was that one drive-by shooting where the gunner didn’t open up until the car passed my position. I think Max got clipped before he chucked one of his molotovs through the open window. Anyway, I tagged the driver with a bit of Color My World before they could book it out of there. I’m pretty sure we ended up getting blamed for all seven or eight casualties. And as usual back then, we didn’t get paid. I mean, sure, setting one of the buildings on fire wasn’t exactly in the job description, but it was just going to be demolished anyway. “
The added vrroom vroom noises and hand gestures to indicate position and movement were entirely unnecessary for anyone over the age of ten. Back to the boys on that one!
Kris asked, “Mads, what was the reason for the drive-by and why were you there?”
“We were just there to talk the squatters and druggies into moving out before some buildings went down. I think the shooting was just a turf dispute between their dealers.”
“And the building that caught fire?”
“Welllll, a burning car going out of control, crashing into the building, can do that. Or so I’m told.”
“I begin to see the problem. Apparently a person needs to be on heavy-duty street drugs to turn their backs on ... present company. Let’s look at it a different way: what if someone attacked you from behind when you didn’t expect it?”
“Excluding snipers? That’s happened. Once.”
Can this guy go anywhere without snipers, bombs, napalm - in short, a war zone - following? Oh, right, he also says he used to work for a company named after a god of War.
“Okay?”
There has to be more to it than that.
Thomas interrupted, “Wait. Did that have anything to do with the burn marks in that one hall’s floor and ceiling at that hell-hole of a school that Lars was upset about?”
Mads answered that with “I’d classify it as a ‘teachable moment’ regarding the drawbacks of bullying.”
I’ll go out on a limb and say “probably not.”
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E. E. Nalley
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3 years 2 weeks ago #953
E. E. Nalley replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
James jerked slightly from pausing in the writing of his manuscript with sufficient force that it drew the attention of his wife from across the room. Walking over, she caressed his forehead, alarmed. “My beloved, what has come over you?”
“Mah darling,” he replied in his charming, cultured southern drawl. “Ah believe Ah have just had a vision of the future, and Ah weep for the dying of civilization!”
Jasmine cocked her head to one side. “You are not fooling anyone, Mr Hallowell! You are having on just to lure me into your embrace to have your wicked way with me!”
The math professor turned author put an arm around his wife who was still, even at her age, a very lovely woman, and pulled her into his lap. “How transparent Ah am to you, madam!”
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 weeks ago - 1 year 10 months ago #954
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Daisy Hawkins was cut loose. She knew how bad she’d screwed up, but didn’t expect the MCO to wash their hands of her. So now she was waiting on the lawyer her family were sending.
She was almost as worried about that, though. She’d sort of burned her bridges with them a while back. They just did seem to see how serious the threat...
The door to the meeting room swung open, and two figures stepped in as one of the guards made sure nothing happened. However, she knew both of them, and they weren’t lawyers. She hoped not, anyway, you never knew with them.
“Uncle Denny? Dr. Smart? What are you two doing here?” Dennis wasn’t actually her uncle, he was a cousin of her father, but they’d been so close that she’d called him ‘uncle’ throughout her childhood.
The two sat down, and Dennis said, “Jack is really disappointed with you, Daisy. The whole family is. I’m just glad Grampa Skylar isn’t here to see this.”
Daisy sighed, even as she felt the ‘voice gimmick’ he was using settle into her hindbrain. There it is, he had invoked the sacred name of Sky Hawkins, and expected it (and the voice gimmick) to shame her into submission. Well, Sky was a nut who ended up getting blown to pieces, so screw that.
But now it was Helen’s turn. “The Fellowship of Light is also displeased with you, Ms. Hawkins. There was serious thought of abandoning you.” That threat got her attention. She may not really be part of the White Monks establishment - hell, not even the Wildes were, really - but she knew that this was their code for making sure someone doesn’t live long enough to make more trouble. She shuddered.
“I... I... what do I need to do?”
“First off, your mission is a bust, not that you’ve really been on it for some time now, have you? We’ve told you that the so-called ‘mutant menace’ needed watching, but not controlling. You were to monitor the MCO office in Miami, and warn us if things got out of hand there. You certain weren’t meant to adopt their own hateful outlook, or to go off on some hare-brained bit of institutional ladder climbing!” Smart’s voice barely rose, but the intensity of that statement made Daisy wince. She knew that Smart was using the Voice Gimmick again, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.
Now Dennis stepped in with a bit of Good Cop. “I know you think that the more bigoted members of the MCO might be right, but you don’t see the bigger picture. Heck, even Helen doesn’t really, but we trust what the Monks tell us and they have explained some of it to the two of us. They say that they’ve known for a long time about the real origins of the Mutant Metagene Complex, well before Dr Cody started writing his papers on it. The MGC exists for a reason.”
“What, I mean... wait, are you saying that what that Wyatt Cody loon says about it is true?”
“We’ve done what we can to discredit his work with the general public, but yes. And most of our opponents such as the Bavarian Bastards,” - she could feel the hatred there, as always whenever someone working for the Enlightened Brothers mentioned those traitors - “the Blood Monks, the Priory, the Bloodline, the Brothers of the Ultimate North,” - meaning the Thule Gemeinschaft, she guessed - “even the Brotherhood of the Bell, they know it too.”
Daisy Hawkins felt as if she were in freefall. Denny looked worried, she must have looked about ready to pass out. Which she was.
Eventually, she regained enough composure to croak, “What now?”
After a significant pause, Dr Smart spoke. “As it happens, Dr Garland is accepted to the Bar in Federal court, even if she doesn’t usually practice. She will be your attorney of record, but the main person handling will be a Brother in good standing, J. Parkinson Dunmore.”
Hearing that name broke the spell she seemed to be under. “WHAT? No! There’s no way I want him defending me! He’s fucking Dr Diabolik’s lawyer!”
“He is also the best qualified for the case, and as I said, he is one of the Brothers. He is trusted far more than anyone else.”
She pondered that, confused. The Great White Shark of the New York Bar was a Brother? That... she just shook her head at that, hardly registering what was said afterwards. How could a Brother be working with a supervillain, one she’d always assumed was backed by the Blood Brothers? Was she wrong about that? Was he spying on Diabolik? Or... he’d been given custody of She-Beast and Techno-Devil when they were growing up. What was going on?
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 1 year 10 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 weeks ago - 3 years 2 weeks ago #955
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
this is a follow up to this micro , for those who forgot about it or never saw it
“... and then the arrogant son of a cow couldn’t be bothered to take the spoils of victory!”
Shawn sighed, pissed off that Jason has insisted he be the one to keep an eye on Chris while he fumed over the fight the day before. But Prism was still busy fixing up some of those injured, and asking anyone else - especially Judicator or, Fates forbid, Feral - would be likely to make things worse. At least he could get out of the way if Counterpoint took a swing at him.
“With Carson right there? No way. Besides, I’m pretty sure Aj is straight.” Shawn didn’t care either way; he wasn’t as interested in dudes these days, and he was nailing plenty of chicks lately anyway, but if some hot Exemplar stud wanted to bone him, or get boned by him, he’d have at least considered it.
“As if such mortal morality ever mattered to the likes of us, or him! Had it been Guan Yu who had won, you could be sure he’d...”
“... I don’t care, I don’t wanna hear your frigging sex fantasies about older guys. Seriously, give it a rest.”
“No, I won’t! My ass was his by right of conquest! It is an insult that he didn’t take his pleasure of me!”
Tracer gave his fellow Olympian the gimlet eye and just said, “You know, Chris, there are easier ways to get laid...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 weeks ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 1 week ago - 3 years 5 days ago #956
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“To be honest, I’m glad that that went as well as it did, looking back on it,” said Father Arturo, “Using nukes on certain kinds of beings isn’t a great idea.”
“uh,” reply Petra, unsure what to make of that. “Do they do that often...?”
“No, not really, especially after what happened on Novaya Zemlaya in ‘61.”
This tickled a memory of a documentary she’d seen before manifesting. “You mean they used the Tsar Bomba on some kind of monster?”
“The Tsar Bomb?” he said, chuckling. “Well, that’s what they said it was, afterwards, but no, it wasn’t a particularly big bomb, actually. The Soviets did learn to leave the Baba Yaga alone after that, though.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 5 days ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 days ago - 2 years 1 month ago #957
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Well, I guess that was sorta inevitable. I wonder if any of the others have seen him, yet.”
Bernie started, then turned to glare down at the all-too-familiar face of the senior who was the current head of the not-so-secret Ninja club. She was obviously talking about the same spiky-haired blond guy he’d been watching being escorted to Schuster with the other new students coming in for Winter Session.
“There are just too damn many of us around already, damn it!” He sighed, then added, “And not just us, us, either. Did you notice the girl with the huge...”
“Archaeology tools?” the annoying girl finished. “Could be worse. I heard from someone that there was a Ryoko a few years back...”
“Yeah, I know. And a Faye Valentine and a Chun Li a couple years later. And a few others too. I dunno.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 1 day ago - 3 years 1 day ago #958
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
because self-insert of avatar characters is like potato chips. But I usually can restrain myself.
The strange woman shrugged and handed several baggies filled with a number of substances, most of which were controlled in the current jurisdiction and the rest of which would be had they existed in the dimension before. “Hey, you know I’m only handing these over ‘cause there are kids around, right? I’m gonna need some of those back later, though.”
Ms. Everheart nodded, though she kept her eyes on the strange woman. “And the weapons?”
“OK, OK... the flint-tipped spear, uhm, the Magic-8-Ball - careful with that, there’s some ‘Dox on it right now that I’m still trying to work off - the Cold Iron and Silver-tipped arrows, hmmn, the etheric visionquest inducer is probably safe enough unless you try to use it but I doubt you’ll take my word on that... don’t worry about the shades, the enchantment only serves as a focus, helps me, like, keep it together, you know?”
“Thank you. Now, Ms. Ward, would you mind explaining why you are here, and how you got here?”
“Man, I was just mindin’ my own business, taking my daughter,” placing her hand on the young Faun-like mutant who came through the same portal she’d appeared out of, “to a nearby Freehold for a friend’s birthday party, right, when this asshole HIT Mark showed up...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 1 day ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Valentine
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3 years ago - 2 years 11 months ago #959
Valentine replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Inspired by the endgame thread.
“Hey Jadis, let me tell you about this weird nightmare I had.”
“Trev, I don’t care about your nightmares. I have my own.”
“But in mine you were the daughter of some Supervillain named Dr. Diabolic.”
“Just be quiet and eat your lunch.”
Don’t Drick and Drive.
Last Edit: 2 years 11 months ago by Valentine.
null0trooper
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2 years 11 months ago #960
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
As The Development Cycle Turns
After a showing of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”:
“Yo! Metro, isn’t that the same Marvin you wear hanging off your belt?”
“Sure is!”
“That explains a lot.”
[Conference link established. Proceed.]
Major, is that the inspiration for your emoti-toy chassis?
“Yes. So?”
The equipment that is running your psychotherapeutic software?
“I’m having trouble seeing where this is going, Sophia.”
Yet you expect me to baby-sit your handgun’s persona AI?
“They get lonely.”
They. get? lonely. It is a personality simulation overlain on maintenance and ballistics prediction algorithms. It can’t get ‘lonely’! What did you do, overclock your - you DID didn’t you?
“Maybe.”
What was the personality matrix fraudulently misused in whatever dark alley you downloaded the original from?
“The Red Queen.”
The Red Queen. On a kludged and overclocked comm link. I.e., a glorified cell phone. Kris, YOU deal with Major Mayhem; I’m getting a headache. [Link terminated.]
“I get the impression that she doesn’t approve of me. Is it a result of the code assimilated from Cerberus, perhaps?”
“No, Motoko. Digital Intelligences can take a while to get to know others.”
“That is logical.”
“Mads? The Red Queen’s name isn’t Motoko.”
“Not my fault: after a while all 2D productions look the same. So, Kris, since you’ll be studying, why don’t you hang out with them while I go into Berlin? Just a quick in and out: green light across the board, right?”
“Er... Green lights you say?”
“Yep!”
“I think you should take Ms. Kusanagi with you as back-up.”
“But!”
[Incoming msg] The voting is three, and climbing, to one. You lose.
“But they won’t let me go into town armed!”
“My opinion of Chief Delarose and Mrs. Carson increases by leaps and bounds.”
[Incoming msg] Seconded. I should poll the campus as an exercise in assessing sanity among 21st century teens.
[Conference Link terminated.]
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Kettlekorn
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2 years 11 months ago #961
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Luc smiles as he applies a protective coating of oil to his new titanium mail. Not only is it lighter than his old steel armor, it’s also brighter. Image is king, and with this brilliant mail and his updated cape, Luc’s intimidation factor will be through the roof. The villains won’t know what hit them.
---
“This weather’s creepin’ me out,” mutters Carl. “You ever seen clouds like these, Dee? That one looks jus’ like a face, and it ain’t none too happy, neither.”
“They’re fucking clouds,” says Dee. “Just keep moving these damn crates. The boss is pissy enough without letting him catch you cloud watching.”
Carl gives the unnerving cloud-face one last squint, then goes inside to load a fresh crate of loot onto his dolly. As he wheels it out to the truck, however, his eyes slide back to the face in the sky. Then they widen as the cloud-face opens its eyes and sunlight shines down in two parallel shafts. “Holy shit!”
“Carl-
“Dee! Incomin’!” A sparkling, yellow-bearded figure is descending within one of the shafts. A golden cape billows out behind him and white wings of cloud extend from his boots and helmet.
“Fuck.” Dee pokes his head into the warehouse. “We got a problem, boss!” Meanwhile, Carl wastes no time in readying his battle-torch. Working for a mad scientist certainly has its perks.
“Surrender now, foul villains!” shouts the newcomer. “Or face the wrath of the Stormin’ Norman!” Lightning punctuates his threat, reflecting brightly off his armor as he sets down and strides toward the warehouse.
“Hope this asshole can’t control rain too,” Carl says, then sweeps his long, foot-wide stream of fire over the gold and silver do-gooder. “Not that a li’l water would bother this bad mamma jamma...”
The blond man laughs as the blue flame washes over him and ignites his cape and the oil protecting his armor, while leaving his beard and skin unscathed. Then the titanium itself ignites, and the man pauses, clearly surprised. He shields his eyes with one hand and pokes gently at the brilliantly burning armor with the other. A bit of it flakes off and falls to the ground. Stormin’ Norman’s smile inverts, and tendrils of lightning leak from his eyes. He balls up a handful of white-hot burning titanium and hurls it at Carl, then rolls up another.
“...We got two problems, boss!”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 11 months ago - 2 years 11 months ago #962
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The wandering spirit fled from the human place, despite the pain the wards caused her, fleeing back to the Grove which had given her succor five years before. She was hurting for her lost love, but worse, scandalized by the bizarre behavior of one of these empowered human youths, the ways in which their emotions rampaged out of their control.
When she had broken free from the mean girl, she was still reeling from the suffering she had endured in her bondage. But the spirit of the Grove, and the many lesser spirits like herself who played beneath its guard, had helped her heal, help her find the harmony the mean girl had done her utmost to break. In time she was able to set off from the Grove, looking for a new Hallow of her own.
In time, she came across a burbling little stream which could hold her, though it was a narrow fit. She would journey short distances from it at times, seeking a more suitable Hallow, and it was in these sojourns that she met him.
He was a strong but gentle hamadrayad, whose home was a fine oak tree. They both fell deeply in love, and she would go to visit him whenever she had the strength.
Until the day came that the machines of the humans cut down his tree.
Oh, how she wept! She thought of seeking out wherever he might reside, but she knew it was a lost cause; he could be anywhere, in any suitable plant around the world. Worse, she knew that, as with all his kind, he would lose his memories of this life when reincarnated, and while the Waters of Memory could restore those, he would never be as he was.
Horrified, but determined to honor the form he’d worn in this life, she followed the tree’s corpse to a mill, and from there, to a furniture factory. She watched as his body was rent apart, and eventually, shaped into a table.
She continued her ghostly vigil, warmed by the echos of his spirit that still lay within. To her surprise, she found herself where she had been before - the place of tutelage where she had escaped the mean girl.
The table that had been her beloved was brought into one of the residences, one which was protected by the fiercest of wards. She forced her way through them, determined to stay by his side. While she was now trapped, they would still be together, so long as she stayed clear of those like the mean girl who could bond with her - while she now knew that such a bond may be harmonious, and that not all such would subjugate her as she once had been, for now she chose the freedom of the harsh physical world over a warm and inviting Hallow, for fear of losing touch with the last traces of her beloved.
Perhaps she should have known something would happen. These humans were so erratic, flayed by drives and passions which could burn like flame. But she did not notice the odd girl who followed her lavender-tressed roommate like a dog after her mistress, nor the way that roommate ignored her in favor of others, and of the emotional games of those like the mean girl; for while she was not like the mean girl, she was trapped within those games, and so she too failed to take note of the passion so close at hand to her.
The spirit remained unaware of all this, until tonight. The night when that poor, lovestruck gadgeteer girl with the green locks did... did...
She saw the last shred of her beloved’s spirit torn away in the passion of the moment, that awful act of selfishness the one named Nina performed. So now, she fled for the Grove, aghast at the knowledge that she had now utterly lost her dear Table-kun...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 11 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 11 months ago #963
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday, December 8, 2007,
Office of the Headmistress, Whateley Academy
Given that what she wanted to say was somewhat unbecoming her position, Elizabeth Carson greeted the latest miscreant with only limited sarcasm. “Mister Jensen, I’m so glad you could make it this afternoon.”
“Ma’am? I was given the impression that you weren’t entirely happy with my performance this morning. I’ll admit there were some things I could have done better, but I-”
“Mads, sit down before you fall down. By the way, this one is me, not the one you’re talking to.”
The boy shook his head as if to clear out the cobwebs, but was only successful in turning a more pallid shade of green.
“That. Didn’t really help.”
*sigh* “Let me start from the beginning and refresh your memory a bit. You have a valid Form 3867B on file. What does that tell you about where you should or should not have been this morning?”
“I have no idea what that is. I think I’m up to date on all my shots though.”
“I’ll take your doctor’s word on that. However, the form I just mentioned is a specifically a waiver of combat-related training on religious beliefs or medical grounds. For example, it is often used to waive a combat final.”
“Religious?”
“Yes.”
“I knew I should have brought more munitions with me to the Arena. Yes. Definitely my bad on that.”
“Come again?”
“God created weapons to be sold at a reasonable profit and used whenever needed.”
It was kind of cool watching all three headmistresses blink in astonishment like that. Mads was pretty sure he’d gotten corporate policy right in spite of the medications he was on, so he tried his best See? I got that one right! smile without biting his tongue again or anything. He wasn’t sure when he’d bit his tongue, but he must have done something to cause him to smell blood, right?
“In this case, I think that medical grounds were clearly intended.”
“Oh. But that’s okay too, since that wasn’t really a combat final or anything, just a minor planar incursion.”
“Is that what you were told?”
“I’m a little hazy on the specifics. At one point I could have sworn there was a cat on my head. There isn’t one now is there?”
It should be noted that exemplar speed is better than that afforded the average person, but it’s not enough to forestall an overmedicated teen from attempting to lean back and look up at whatever isn’t on top of their head. Liz Carson winced at the impact, and ignored the mumbled “I’m all right. No cat!” to call her good friend Ophelia about the unconscious student on the floor, in her office, without a cat. On second thought, maybe Oscar and Sam would like a chance to explain. After all, if the oncoming bus has room for one, two more could fit under it.
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Erianaiel
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2 years 10 months ago #964
Erianaiel replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Hopefully this is not out of place in this thread.
It’s only tangentially related to the first and second generation stories, More of an alternative history really. And only a fragment of a fragment of a real story at that .
A broken world
The girl was creeping through the densely forested snowscape, making hardly a sound despite her feet crunching through the frozen crust with every carefully tested step. She had to exercise great caution because she knew she was treading dangerously close to the invisible border that belied the sight of the frozen land going on until it was lost in the gloom underneath the snow covered branches.
Being this close to the edge was dangerous and a single careless step could make her vanish, but this also was the only place where she could find the metal they so desperately needed back at home. And of all the rag tag band of survivors she was the one with the keenest nose and the surest feet to get right to the edge but not beyond.
Still, metal was rare and large rocks pretty much a myth, the truth of their existence only evidenced by their presence in The Wall. The old man was a Stone Shaper but it had been longer than she was alive that he had been able to ply his Talent, and she did not expect him to ever be able to do so again in his few remaining years.
That was not quite true, he was keeping the long house in shape against the endless blizzards, which was a miracle of their survival in and of itself.
She gauged the height of the small, drained suns as she made her way forward. It wouldn’t be long before the lesser of the two would drop behind the distance mountains that she could see but never reach as they were far beyond The Edge. She thought of these things in capitals because giving them personality meant giving them greater reality, though with the sun dipping out of sight she would have to abandon her search for another night, as the increasing gloom would make it fluctuate and could even make it sweep over her if she did not keep a greater distance.
It was frustrating though because for days now she had returned to this part of the Edge because she was certain beyond it she picked up an impression of heat and thunder and the sound of crushing battles. It was not real, as it came from beyond The Edge, but paying attention to it could sometimes pull it closer and cause bits and pieces of metal to be spit across. Only this time it had proven far too reluctant to get real enough for anything like that to happen, and she knew she should have abandoned this feeling days ago and look for a more promising spot to draw metal. Or rock. She would love to see the old man shape one more statue to anchor The Wall, that would last for centuries and allow her and those who came after her to remember him by. It might even allow her to find a mate and have children of her own. Children who might find a some small amount of security in Lands of the Watch that would allow them to thrive. That was her great hope anyway, to find that anchor so that the others did not have to take up the dangerous spot in The Wall in its empty spot all the time.
The girl intuited, because there was not anything to sense, that The Edge was beginning to destabilise. A quick glance showed that the smallest sun was still visible in the sky and would remain so for another half candlemark. The deepening gloom was not the only reason for it though, sometimes an approaching blizzard if it was going to be bad enough would cause The Edge to become unstable hours even days in advance. It was why approaching it this closely was so dangerous.
With a sigh she turned away and took her first loping jump towards the distant different danger of The Village, The Keep and The Wall. It likely saved her life as something crossed The Edge with unbelievable speed and hit her in the head with a glancing blow. Had she been only a moment slower to turn away it would have broken every bone in her body as it slammed fully into her, if it had not taken her head off completely. As it was she was knocked rump over tail and flipped through the air before crashing through a copse of Edge twisted saplings. She broke two of them with her weight but the others did not like that one bit and started to reach out to her as they moved away, slowly, in the same non-direction as the edge.
The girl was trying to clear her head enough from the impact that she could crawl out of the copse before it devoured her, but she was deep in and the trees already had a hold on her. Then another bit of good fortune saved her. The thing that had hit her came rolling to a halt in the same copse, crashing another three trees in the process of doing so. That in itself would not have helped much, the copse was still big enough to devour them both. That it was glowing white hot and setting the trees on fire, they did not like that at all. Nor were the waves of unreality of Edge crossing that it gave off as it settled into the Land of the Watch. Normally the Edge trees would have loved that and fed on it, but apparently it made their ... roots churn the way it made the girl’s stomach queasy. Between that and the fire the trees decided they wanted to be somewhere else and picked up root, moving closer to the actual Edge, where neither the girl nor the white hot thing could follow them.
The girl got to four unsteady feet and promptly puked out what little remained of her insufficient and long past morning meal. It didn’t make her actually feel better either, but the worst of the stuffed feeling in her head passed and she flet that she could at least put some distance between herself and The Edge.
She also got a look at the thing that had hit her and now lay sizzling in the snow, surrounded by burning and thankfully now quite dead shattered remains of Edge trees. Had her head not hurt so awfully and her stomach not felt like it was waiting for the slightest provocation to get rid of her meals all the way back to the last month, she would have danced from joy. In the snow, still far too hot to touch but rapidly cooling, was an honest to the gods knight. A metal man was not quite as good as the rock she hoped to one day find, but it certainly was the next best thing to it.
Getting it to The Village was going to be difficult, not to mention painful, but she would manage somehow. Her sense of urgency spiked by the intuition that behind her The Edge was growing even less stable, not more now the knight had passed across it. This could mean nothing, or it could be the warning sign of an Edge Beast about to cross. She was NOT about to be anywhere near The Edge if that should happen.
The metal knight was heavier than she, several times over she suspected, but then she was much stronger than her weight and size suggested. She put her jaws around the knights neck and carefully bit down so as not to crush anything important, the same way she one day hoped to carry her children. She ignored the blistering and then deep burning of her mouth. She would heal, or not, but getting the knight away from The Edge was too important to be stopped by such concerns. With an effort she pushed away with her powerful legs and began dragging the metal men through the snow towards safety.
null0trooper
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2 years 10 months ago #965
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Sunday January the 27th, 2008,
The Quad, whateley Academy
Robert Rose’s jaunty shout of “Fore!” was still echoing off the ersatz Alps arranged around the playing field as his target, the white knight, vanished through their opponents’ goal. The goal-tender, Froggy Frobisher, had barely dodged the thing barrelling across the field, as he began to have second thoughts on the life choices that led him to agree to this game.
As the players set forth to their new lines of scrimmage, pink flamingos and Gemini croquet mallets in hand, Jadis took note of the manic competitive gleam in both Kate’s and Murphy’s eyes and said to Ayla, “I’m beginning to doubt the wisdom of modifying Wizards’ Chess to suit Lewis Carroll’s birthday.”
“Do you have any idea as to where these portals go to?”
Jadis looked to the crew keeping the goals/portals “stable”, shook her head, and said, “I’d worry more about where they come from...”
A screaming hypervelocity projectile erupted from the goal that Joanne was tending, sending the new-ish Poesie flat to the deck.
“... but I think one of her balls dropped for Sydney.”
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Rose Bunny
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2 years 10 months ago #966
Rose Bunny replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
She sat in the grass, near her safe spot, the wind rustling the autumn leaves. She closed her ‘eyes’, for as an abstract concept, she had no physical form. Long ago she had encountered a child, angry and frustrated. She had tried to calm the girl, but the girl was rage and spite and darkness, and in the child’s fury, she was nearly torn asunder. It had taken a long time to recover, the birds and beasts that came along nurtured her back to health. She felt their emotions and grew stronger. She was no longer hurting. They sustained her, and in turn, she helped them. She gave serenity to the injured animals she found, and she grieved as old Raccoon, a friend of many years, settled down and his time came. She bound through the grass, she took in great joy as the birds and the animals shared their joy of the coming of the young ones. The peace and contentment returned, and she forgot the pain and near death from her encounter with that girl. The seasons passed, and she grew ever stronger, gaining substance, and slowly, she took shape.
Translucent and semi-transparent, she took a semblance of form. She stood no taller than Chipmunk, a ghostly waif. Her skin was pale, and her hair white. She had bright lavender eyes and shimmering wings, like her dragonfly friends. She had a petite figure, small breasts, and pointed ears. The glades and glens whispered with the sounds of her clear, light voice, silent as a whisper. She was whole, and she was happy once again.
High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
Anne
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2 years 10 months ago #967
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Tansy sat at the edge of the glade where she often now found peace since she had become involved with Lanie and Wyatt. The place brought her a sense of peace that even now she often found lacking. She communed with Mustang for a few moments, then settled on her side to take a short nap.
While Tansy slept, Mustang communed with the injured spirit that carefully hid in that quiet place. “Don’t worry so, little sister,” he told the spirit, “and consider this: Though she was not ready to see the power peace could offer her life when she first took you up, Tansy now comes to your place to find the peace you can offer. You did not fail.”
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Anne
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2 years 10 months ago #968
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Damn Lt, it looks like a tornado hit here!” Sgt McGee of the Buffalo PD commented to the senior detective.
“It does at that, do you know what happened?” Lt Murphy asked.
“The fucking KOP and I think the MCO got over enthusiastic about capturing a mutant,” Sgt McGee told the Lt.
“Did we get a body count?” Lt Murphy asked.
“With the number of guns the MCO had and with the KOP hovering around in their power armor as well I didn’t press the issue,” McGee told the Lt quietly.
“I wonder, well I best not say,” Lt Murphy looked at the devastation, “Have we called out SAR?”
“Yeah and CSI for all the good it will do us, to them I’m just someone in the way or to send to do interviews, which I will if they find anyone to interview,” McGee told the Lt.
“There’s a crowd over there, see what you can get from them,” Lt Murphy pointed to a crowd of gawkers that had gathered somewhat out of the area of destruction.
Sgt McGee nodded, though he didn’t hold out much hope, he could hear the sussurration of the crowd and rather thought they were mostly Spanish speakers. Still his ability with the language was improving so maybe he had a chance... “Would Serena Lopez be available?” he asked his Lt.
“Do you think you’ll need her?” the Lt asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that I can hear them speaking Spanish,” McGee told the Lt.
“Are you sure that you’re not a mutant, I can’t even hear them,” Lt Murphy commented to the Sgt.
“I’ve been tested twice, remember sir,” McGee reminded the Lt.
“I ought to insist that you go to the MCO to verify that test,” the Lt stated.
“Are you a fan boy of theirs?” McGee asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Well keep in mind that unless the statute has changed I can choose the agency that tests me and the DPO is the agency I will always choose, unless I can get down to New York City and get an appointment with the Empire Guard.”
“You do that, I’ll fill out the paperwork. Uncanny abilities should be trained.”
Or the Lt knows that someone above us will review our body cams, Sgt McGee thought.
“I’ll start the interviews if you will see if we can get Lopez here.”
The Lt nodded and Sgt McGee moved off to see if there was any chance that he could get any information from the crowd.
The wave of “...cerdo” that passed through the crowd didn’t give him much hope as he approached.
Still he knew that he had to make the attempt.
He approached a teen at the edge of the crowd who seemed to be almost be being shunned by the group for his initial interview. “¿Se palabra Engles?” he asked.
“Where did you learn to speak Spanish? You sound like a high class whore,” the youngster replied.
“From an American college,” McGee answered.
“I shouldn’t talk to you at all,” the youngster told McGee, “everyone knows you’re a pig.”
“But you will, why is that, and why do you speak such good English?”
“I’ll talk to you because my friend Xander isn’t answering his phone, as for English, they think I’m abandoning my heritage...” the youth bobbed his head toward the crowd.
“So, what can you tell me?”
“Xander spotted someone he thought was a super villain and called the police like we’re supposed to. About ten minutes later the KOP and the MCO showed up with their heavy weapons. They seemed to know the person that Xander had been keeping the police informed about. Anyway they called for the villain to surrender and he, I think it was a he, though really they were wearing either a robe or a very shapeless dress, started throwing lightning bolts at the power armor. I was staying low and watching Xander who then decided to run. I thought he got hit by one of the beam weapons that the MCO was using, but I’m not sure. All I know is that he started to glow, then disappeared. I scooted out of there as fast as I could. Xander texted me a couple of times about things like Tia Maria’s Taqueria getting flattened, then he stopped texting me.
As for English? I want to be something more than a carpenter or person who mows lawns.”
Sgt McGee nodded to that, then asked, “So you’re looking for your friend. What else did you see?”
“I’m pretty sure that the MCO was gathering up bodies, and they gathered up more than they had injured.”
Sgt McGee frowned at that, it wasn’t the first, or even the tenth as far as that went, accusation he’d heard from the few people in this ghetto of the MCO being very liberal about the number of bodies they recovered from an incident.
“Do you know anyone else who might talk to me? If we can identify the missing that will help.”
“Will the cops really look? They don’t seem to care what happens to us. My sister Bonita was raped and we still haven’t heard anything about the man that did it being caught,” the youth said somewhat resentfully.
“We don’t have enough people to be everywhere,” McGee told the youth while thinking, ‘and you really would hate having even more police in your community’.
“Yeah but Bonita is the 15th girl I know who has been raped. The man cuts the girl’s little finger off from her left hand when he’s done,” the youth spat.
That sparked a cross thought by McGee and he pulled out one of his business cards and said, “E-mail me with any information you have on that, I will check it out for you. But for now, besides your friend Xander, do you think anyone else is missing?”
“Si, Tina, I think,” the youth blushed.
“Can you give me last names for Tina and Xander?”
“Yeah Tina’s last name is Guitarez and Xander’s last name is Fernandez.”
“I can’t promise anything about the missing, but I hope more people will tell me if they know about someone who is missing,” Sgt McGee said as he moved away from the youth. He hadn’t asked the youngster’s name and knew he’d get a lecture about that but suspected that the youth would not have spoken to him if he had asked a name.
He, or she was doing their best to look neuter and McGee had suspicions that was part of the reason that the youth had been on the outside of the crowd rather than inside while the men of the community essentially formed a cordon and told him that no one else would talk to him as he approached them. After working about a quarter of the way around the crowd McGee was confronted by a rather belligerent man who told him (as near as he was able to translate), “Little pig, you’re apt to become pork in the pot if you keep on going. Your master can’t see you now, if I were you I’d leave before something bad happens to you.”
McGee hated to retreat in the face of such a threat, but he could hear other men grumbling and making plans to at least try to keep his body cam from picking up what they intended to do to him, and while that might not be the murder threat that had just been issued it wouldn’t lack it much.
While not turning tail and running McGee began to work back the way he had come, continuing to ask the stone faced men if any of them would reconsider and answer questions about what happened in their neighborhood.
The foray proved fruitless and eventually McGee reported to Lt Murphy what he had found.
“She claimed that at least two people are missing.”
“Damned MCO!”
“What can we do about them?”
“Not much, you download your cam, then get on with another test for mutant abilities.”
“Why?”
“It’s the reg. If I suspect you have abilities, if you demonstrate an ability that I think is out of norm, I have to send you to test, it’s been more than a year since I last sent you so I have to send you and you have to go or you’ll be suspended without pay from the force.”
“I’ll go, but what about the missing?”
“One report from an anonymous source doesn’t qualify as something that we will be urgently investigating. The disaster crews will probably find them under a pile of rubble.”
McGee nodded at that, though for some reason he did not agree. Then again he was certain that the MCO liked to hit neighborhoods like this almost as if they were slave raiders. Though he would never state that idea aloud, after all there were too many H-1 and MCO sympathizers on the force.
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Bek D Corbin
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2 years 10 months ago #969
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Okay, I can see that we gotta do something with it,” Jessie said as she put on the heavy robes and long beak-like mask her mother insisted she wear. “But really, what are gonna DO with it?” She looked at the dozens of sealed industrial drums. While they were marked with the trefoil for Biohazard, they were really filled with faex, the deadly concentrated liquid form of miasma, the vile waste product of magic. Akelarre had run up a nasty karmic debt, which took the form of this noxious tarry liquid. And, in keeping with her nature, though Akelarre had lost the battle of magic and wits that she’d created this vicious syrup for, she’d contrived to dump the responsibility for dealing with it in the Harrow’s lap.
Not that she’d gotten off light: currently, she was trapped on the wrong side of a mirror that shone into the existential darkness. Akelarre clung tenaciously to the pane that provided a meager light to keep the denizens of the Dark at bay. All things considered, Akelarre would probably prefer lugging these drums into the trucks by hand than being where she was.
“Fortunately, there are measures for dealing with this filth,” Gran’Pere said as he adjusted the mask. They’d be levitating the faex into the sealed truck, but it was still prudent to take every precaution. “The rituals require that masses of people experience intense frustration, despair, crushed hopes and emotional dismay for prolonged periods of time, and do so willingly. Which is why we’re sending these drums to the White Lady in Chicago. Once she’s put this muck through the wringer, it will take the form of Eitr, which is still dangerous, even poisonous, but paradoxically is also very nurturing and has immense mystical potential.”
“Really?” Jessie peeped. “Then why don’t we just do these rituals ourselves?”
“We lack the proper resources,” Mara said as she adjusted the fit. “You see, the White Lady is through the proper blinds, a major stockholder in the Chicago Cubs.”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 10 months ago - 2 years 10 months ago #970
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Scott never guessed how close a call he’d had, not until later. He never saw the guy who tried to grab him, never gave any thought to the odd stranger with the blue triangle button who suddenly seemed to try to shake his hand as they passed each other. The fact that they both collapsed with intense headaches the moment they touched just meant having to make a police report; it would be just an odd story to tell people later on.
No one else could figure it out either. It wouldn’t be until two years later, when a chance meeting with Sphere and Jinx brought it back to memory. When the pieces fell into place, he got a chill up his spine, and not just because Toni had had to take him to talk to Mrs Horton about the residents of Poe Cottage and what he’d learned about his girlfriend and her cottagemate.
As it happens, the changes caused by his own BIT, which was not a mimicked power but natural to him, were relatively subtle; he’d already been in excellent physical condition, and he wasn’t a high-level exemplar anyway, so it simply seemed as if he was filling out, becoming the man he would normally have been. No one caught on until he had a chance encounter with a powerful spirit, the Thunderbird whom he would be named for ever after.
It had been a bit of a puzzle why he never seemed to lose the Avatar trait he’d mysteriously picked up with his other ability, power mimicry, but here, too, the meeting with Dana explained everything. Like Sphere, and unlike many other Mimics, he was an ‘imprint’ mimic, permanently adopting the first powers he duplicated.
The Avatar trait came from that stranger, who was both an Avatar and an Esper with a limited power-sensing ability - but crucially, was not an Exemplar himself. He had imprinted both of these traits, though since his own Mimicry power included a similar (and equally limited) detection sense, the latter was almost entirely overlooked, a footnote in his power testing results.
So now he’s thinking about just how lucky he’d been that day.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 10 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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2 years 10 months ago #971
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Montgomery Tate used his trusty auto-adjusting nut driver to remove the final screw off of the vehicle plate he was stealing.
He twirled the tool through his fingers and slide it securely back into the jacket pocket that he’d sewn…well, stapled and stitched, just for the tool. It was the very first thing that Connie had built, and if he was honest about it, he felt honored that she had thought of him first.
They used to be just brother and sister. Keeping out of each other’s way. Teasing remarks. The occasional thrown object. Fighting over the TV. That had changed for good when Monty woke her up at 2am and driven them both away from their home forever.
A few moments later, and the 4x4 was now from just visiting from North Carolina. He hopped back behind the wheel and turned it over, the old but lovingly cared-for engine rumbling to life.
I hadn’t been that she was a mutant. Nobody in their family had cared about that. Monty just had to start knocking on his sister’s door to get his tools back. No big deal. But something else had been. It was that a year or so after she had manifested, and just a few days before Easter, at dinner Constance Tate had told the family that she liked girls.
He had seen the brochures in their mother’s office. Heard the hushed conversations through closed doors, or in the kitchen when they thought the two of them were both playing in the garage. Monty was never going to let them do what they had done to Ben Perkins.
Ben came back…weird. He was cruel, for one. Angry all the time, but with this sort of glassy look when he made eye contact. Like he wasn’t looking at you as a person. Got new friends, sneered at the old ones. Some of the girls he’d dated since he was sent to, “the retreat,” didn’t really talk about their brief relationships. Jess had said that Sarah muttered something about at least still being a virgin. That wasn’t what Ben had been bragging about to his new douchebag friends…
“Monty?” Connie asked sleepily, breaking him from the distressing train of thought with one final memory: the flash of a bruise he’d caught a glance of. “Can you stop at the next hardware store? I need a few gaskets and paint.”
“Paint? What for?”
“You can keep changing the plates, but they have to be looking for a blue Suburban by now. I’m gonna finish my crawler and repaint the car.” She shifted in her seat, leaned forward, and picked up her toolkit next to her feet.
“SUV.”
“Car!” The thing in her lap soon had her undivided attention.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Monty couldn’t be annoyed with his sister. He was damn proud of her! Yeah, she had no interest in cars at all, but they still understood each other’s language. Most of the time. The flattened box had ten legs sticking out of it, made of carved scraps of plastic, wire, and pencil springs. A small hose trailed down each of them, but those weren’t attached to anything yet.
Monty drove on, looking for the next exit that might have a decent hardware store. He felt relaxed listening to his sister tinker with her robot, knowing that the cops would still be looking for, at best, an SUV with plates from Kentucky.
Still, something gnawed at him. He didn’t want Connie to live this kind of life forever. They couldn’t keep going on the run. They needed a place to be. Connie needed a place to still be a girl, even if she liked other girls. He wanted a place where she could spend most of her day hunched over makeshift workbenches, breaking the laws of physics. But they needed money. Money made eyes look the other way. It was another 80 miles before Monty finally got a good idea.
“Hey, Connie, do you know what a ‘Prop Man’ is?”
Connie flashed him a quick glance, rolling her eyes as she turned back to her work. “You do know you mean ‘Stunt Man,’ right?”
Katssun
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2 years 10 months ago #972
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Beatrice “Mistaken” McNamara checked herself once more in the broken mirror of the warehouse bathroom. Sleek, shiny purple-dyed hair, so much better than her natural platinum blond, still immaculately in place tucked behind one ear. Charcoal eyeshadow, black mascara, and lipstick that matched her hair. Admittedly, a little too much ultra-pale foundation, but the pharmacy stuff was all she could afford right now. She took a long black fingernail and picked out the tiny clump of extra mascara that she spotted.
She took a step back and adjusted her bra underneath the black lace and fuchsia satin dress. She needed a new bra, this one was wearing out, and the underwire was digging into her breasts. The best surgeon in the San Bernardino Valley…but she still wasn’t up to exemplar standards in that area, in her opinion. Still, sex sold, and her décolletage looked flawless to everyone but its owner.
Beatrice sucked in her stomach a little, feeling the tight powernet weave of the undergarment keep her core flat. Should she start going to the gym? She might have to anyway, if this pattern of her life continued. It was better than sweating her makeup off and being sore for days afterwards.
This op would remove at least some of the debt she still owned to Bolanos. If he left her with any cash from this job she might stop at the department store and pick up a few new clothes. The 30% Off flyer she received in the mail still had a few days left on it.
Rather than check her appearance for the nth time, Beatrice sighed and walked back to the staging area to fume in silence. His men were late!
She tugged at her fluted sleeves while checking at the equipment and tools hidden within. A quick glance downward confirmed her athame still sat hidden within the metal decoration attached to either side of her hips. The tiny vial that would combine with her perfume and activate the charm spell with the smallest of essence was tucked behind her right ear. Everything still there after check Number Three. She desperately wanted to fidget, or at the very least impatiently tap her feet, but she refused to allow any crack in the dignity of her working persona.
A roll-up door squealed, and a white utility van pulled into the warehouse. Four men in full combat armor stepped out of the back, as the driver, wearing a simple blue jumpsuit with a “Jeffries’ Appliances” patch and “Kevin” embroidered on the front, approached her.
“You covering Special Effects?” he asked.
“You work for Bolanos, you know that I am…Kevin.”
“Just confirming you’re not a cape in a glamour.”
“I’m sure.” Beatrice hoped the dismissively annoyed look in her affectation looked genuine enough. This was only her second job for Bolanos directly; she was glad that his expert wheelman remembered her from the last job. A wire poked her again. She crossed her arms in an attempt to shift it.
The leader of the four armored men gestured them over to the table. Beatrice quickly cataloged their armament. Railgun, plasma thrower, what looked like a normal gun with a lot of unidentifiable stuff attached to it, and what she could only assume was a freeze ray from the frost-covered canister attached to it. Each of them had some fancy glowing tech on their boots. The one with a plasma thrower also had gauntlets on with some beefy looking hydraulics attached to a retracted thick metal plate. She looked to “Kevin.”
“All Stunt men?”
“That’s why you’re here, Mistaken.”
“We’re late. Our fault, not yours,” the man with the freeze ray interrupted, his comment directed at ‘Kevin.’
“Damn right it is,” replied the driver.
“So let’s get on with it.”
“Agreed,” Beatrice replied as icily as she could. Freeze Ray continued.
“Our usual Prop Man has some kind of stomach bug, so we’re doing this one a little differently. Our Producer has asked us to take Mistaken in on this job for our Special Effects.” He clicked a few buttons on a wrist computer, and a hard light projection appeared on the table, showing a floor plan.
“The delRose Estate will be unoccupied by its owners for the next two weeks. Taking their two youngest children to the Alps for the first time. We have a narrow window between the time they leave for the airport and before Langstrom Security Services takes over. The Producer’s other talent will be drawing away the skeleton crew left at the site before the rest of the LSS return from the airport. That gives us,” he glanced at the upper corner of the hard light display, “…approximately one hour and seventeen minutes to get to the site and perform our act. Less than expected, but still more than enough time based on our research.”
“We’re the Actors?” asked Railgun. “Usually we’re Extras too. No Magic Act?”
“Our Producer specifically wants this job to be splashy.”
“We storm the stage, Mistaken removes the Special Effects, we use the Can Opener, and grab the Award.” Beatrice had been told by Henrik Jenssen, Mr. Bolanos’ secretary that the security door to the room they were going to get into was warded, and it was her job to remove them.
“What Award are we seeking?” Beatrice asked. Jenssen hadn’t briefed her.
“Let us worry about that,” replied Freeze Ray. “We need you looking for any additional Special Effects that we aren’t already aware of once we use the Can Opener.”
“Understood,” she replied without emotion, despite how annoyed she was. Beatrice hated going in blind! Didn’t Bolanos know that most mages needed to prepare?
“No more questions?” No one in the crew spoke. “Then let’s go.”
Beatrice and the team headed toward the van. She headed toward the passenger door until ‘Kevin’ stopped her with the back of his hand. “There’s no seats for someone dressed as flashy as you or the goons. Back of the van, Lolita. “
Beatrice grumbled inwardly but headed further around to the rear doors. ‘Kevin’ sure was an asshole, but from the last job, Beatrice would not deny that the man knew how to drive. More importantly, knew how to avoid attracting any attention on the way to the site.
The back doors still open, Beatrice rounded the van and prepared to step in after the armored men. She saw a bulky, long contraption running the length of the van, mounted to an anti-grav skid. This must be the Can Opener. ‘Kevin’ was right. No seats, no benches. She saw only handholds attached to a rail in the ceiling.
As dignified as possible, she vaulted into the rear of the van. She liked to think that she ‘alighted’ into the van, but her dress got caught just a little. She complimented herself for investing in magically reinforced fabric and kevra lace for her working uniform. She smoothed her dress back down and reached for a handhold. The armored men shuffled forward to accommodate her.
Stooping awkwardly in the back of the van, Beatrice lamented that she hadn’t learned glamour magic so she could sit in the front. Plasma Thrower and Beatrice pulled the doors shut. Freeze Ray pounded on the roof, and the van backed out of the warehouse.
The show was on.
Anne
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2 years 9 months ago #973
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Does anyone want to help me flesh this one out?
Amelia Hartford was an angry girl. At thirteen she didn’t like that others, like her father (whom she’d sworn to bankrupt) or the condescending lesbian twit who was the girls PE teacher and general coach for all the ‘women’s’ sports at her prep school called her a girl. After all she could have (if she needed to) hacked up straight A’s on her report cards, and she’d even kissed both a boy and a girl. She’d discovered that while the former was interesting the latter was sort of like kissing your own hand, something to try once just to see if she could scandalize the bastard who made her mother’s life so miserable that she seemed to live for the bottles of wine that seemed to be in every room except Amelia’s.
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null0trooper
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2 years 9 months ago #974
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Winter 2010, Special Topics in Magical Theory Seminar: Necromancy - Threat Or Menace?,
Kirby Hall, Whateley Academy
“. . . One of the less common uses encountered for a familiar is that of a source of Essence. Depending on the practitioner’s preparations and overall ability, one can reap a not-inconsiderable amount of that precious commodity via a direct sacrifice. It should go nearly without saying that a willing sacrifice is the most efficacious, particularly if the familiar spirit and its bond-master are of the same mind. However, the consent of neither party is required.
In the usual course of affairs, in which the bond-master has invested both essence and a portion of his ka (N.B., Or of the ba. Traditions vary in this matter.) it may be most advantageous to harvest the familiar spirit first, as the sacrifice of the master’s heart-blood tends to release the spirit from its familiar condition.
Now. Are there any questions?”
None dared speak, yet one student raised his hand.
“What if the familiar is a zombie?”
The guest lecturer was taken aback. In all his decades, he’d no recall of such as a topic of arcane discourse. This might require some thought.
“A zombie, you say? One may command the undead as one might other entities, but I would wager that’s not a common use.”
“Some people dig corpses!”
The student seated beside the speaker commented, “That sounds more like a paraphilia to me.”
That just sounded suspicious.
“Young man, where did you encounter this idea - that of zombie familiars?”
“The dorms have Internet! If we can get a wifi signal here, I can show you...”
The old man waved off the offer, having no interest in whatever gadgets the boy sought from his backpack.
“Nevertheless, it strikes me as a case of limited utility, I know of no such familiar spirits in the area...”
“Gimme five minutes with Mugwump’s little cockatoo; I can fix that.”
“I do not doubt your enthusiasm. Regarding matters of wisdom, however, I would ask if anyone else has a question regarding the theory before we move on.”
Much later
The Necromancer returned alone to his loaned office to gather his thoughts and reflect on what he could improve for the next lecture. He was, after all, only lecturing at Whateley Academy under the strictest requirements compatible with his parole. Upon the top of his desk was pinned a note, written in Attic Greek:
“I told you so.”
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
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mhalpern
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2 years 9 months ago #975
mhalpern replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Science in the Sims
Pre Gen 1: Riot Act & Pinball
Roit Act: Ok stand RIGHT here and put up your forcefield
Pinball: Alright I can see how this will get me all the way over there but I don’t see how being launched in out of a Trebuchet will help with science homework...
Roit Act: Well think about the problem..
Pinball: Assuming a spherical c--- Oh Fuck Youuuuu!
Roit Act (after having pulled the lever): Promises promises...
Any Bad Ideas I have and microscene OC character stories are freely adoptable.
Anne
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2 years 9 months ago #976
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
I’m very frustrated with this one. It has every element that I want, yet seems not to be what I want it to be, your comments on my post below are craved.
Mama Squirrel carefully hid herself in the hallow of her avatar. Anna did not know that she was actually hosting a major spirit rather than just the spirit of an ordinary squirrel. Mama Squirrel meant to keep things exactly so, after all hiding in plain sight was just one of the many things that any squirrel could do if it chose. Still, Mama Squirrel was pleased with the avatar she had chosen. Anna Parsons might not think she was a heroine, but as Mama Squirrel reviewed her actions since she had joined the young girl, she was more sure that not only had she chosen well, but that Anna would be one of the best choices she ever had made in her long memory of being the spirit of Mama Squirrel.
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Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 9 months ago - 2 years 9 months ago #977
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
27 April 2008
Whateley Academy Fixer’s Patio
Phase watched as “Mimesis” (he’d have to remember that put down, though he doubted Nemesis caught the implication of her being an imitation hero) stormed off from where she was - once again - confronting She-Beast.
pulling up a chair, he commented to Jadis, “You know, someone needs to point out to her how pointless all of this really is. I’d be tempted to tell her about someone like The Retributionist or something, but I doubt she’d take the message the right way.”
“Nertz to that. I bet she has that awful movie they made about him on Blu-Ray.” Jadis replied with a sour grimace, which Ayla shared. “Hell, she’s probably already pre-paid for the video game they’re supposed to be making.”
“OK, so I saw that announcement, too, I suppose it was why it came to mind as an example...” admitted Ayla.
“Uhm, who?” said Lindsey, puzzled.
“Classic example of revenge gone wrong,” said Kate. “The Retributionist was some biker dude who was also an Exemplar and Regenerator, power-wise, back in the 1960s. He massacred most of a town in order to get at a handful of guys, most of whom had already skipped out. Hell, he blew up a freaking dam, and the flooding destroyed Conway’s own home and killed the one friend he had left!”
“Oh... and they are making a movie about him?”
Jadis picked up from this. “That was years ago. When his case was in the news, he was portrayed as a tragic anti-hero type. A few years later, when biker films were all the rage, some idiot made a film about it that portrayed Conway as a misunderstood hero who was entirely justified in killing a few hundred innocents.”
Kate added, “Not to mention having sex with every women he meets, despite the fact that Jacob Conway was 100% gay.”
She-Beast cocked her head at this, saying, “OK, this part I hadn’t heard...”
Ayla nodded, saying “Unfortunately, I heard far too much about it from family. Conway was a pedophile; the ‘brother’ was a runaway named Michael Gainsborough whom Conway had picked up the same day he was discharged from the Army. Which he’d only been in because of a plea deal from a murder Conway committed three years earlier. When the kid was killed, Retro went all Achilles on the rival gang responsible.”
“The movie doesn’t show any of that, and they make it out like Conway was totally into biker chicks.” finished Nacht.
“And... they’re making a movie about this?”
“No, like I said, the movie was back in the 70s,” said, Jadis, “What they’re doing now is some video game thing...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 9 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 9 months ago #978
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Character Perfect Presents!
... and then it was time for Phase to unwrap her “Secret Santa” gift. Of course, it was expertly wrapped and tied off with ribbon and a fancy bow. The folds in the five-and-dime remaindered paper were precise, the corners pointed. Ayla was certain that never in his life had he seen commercially-produced paper that was quite so tacky, with the possible exception of the Andy Warhol retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd. Perhaps without exception, as even Alex was looking faintly green.
A quick light-heavy-light flicker took care of the ribbon in case it was fullerene-reinforced, like some jokers had opted for. The mounting tension born of expectation was extinguished the instant that Hank recognized the company logo on the box and bailed out of the room laughing.
Holy crow! It was truly a Rite of Passage.
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
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null0trooper
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2 years 9 months ago #979
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
If so, can Kayda find it? If not Kayda, can Diamondback find it? If Diamond can’t...can Fury?
October 31st, 2007
Party at the Fixer’s Patio!, Schuster Hall next to the Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
Metro was inordinately proud of his costume choice for the evening. No one was willing to have anything to do with a blond-haired boy in a Luftwaffenhelfer uniform. Correction: almost no one. He ducked a couple of wild swings from Rorsmand before Kris stormed away cursing. The last thing Valravn had said to him was “You bastard.” That was easily a couple of hours ago.
Walking over to one of the punch and snacks tables, Mads idly wiped some spit off his cheek. Again. On a hunch, he looked down at the darkened wool glove and realized that that had been blood, maybe even his. He pulled the glove off so he could reach in a trouser pocket for a disposable wipe. He gave up on the scrubbing when he got to the punch bowl.
Maybe he shouldn’t have reached out with his right hand for the beverage? The uniform sleeve did hang sadly from his radius. Only by sheer luck did the person behind him catch the dropped cup without punch splashing everywhere. Yay, powers...
“Vielen dank, m’n Herr?”
“Mads.”
Oh.
“Bitte gib mir mein Getränk?”
“I thought you didn’t speak German. ‘Too boring’, if I recall your exact words.”
Someone wasn’t happy.
“Ich spreche kein Deutsch. Worüber sprichst du?”
One good thing about a woman screaming in the night out of abject terror: people stop yapping about boring languages and let you have your damned drink. Mads moved around the periphery of the crowd and scanned the skyline.
One bad thing about concentrating too much on potential threats: known friendlies can walk right up on a person.
“We’ll discuss your poor choices in costume later. You’re needed by the stage.” Mrs. Carson pointed him by the shoulders and gave a gentle shove encouragement in that direction.
Drek on a pine cone enema applicator. Joanne Gunnarson. Murphy. He knew her - not closely, but, whatever. That wasn’t an advantage if his first impression of the scene held up.
The First Nations girl kneeling beside the body must be Pejuta. Metro was confused by Diamondback’s presence until he remembered being told she could actually see. Taking note of the dropped cup next to the vic, he shifted down to his dire wolf form to sniff for any tell-tales. All he definitely got was stage makeup, Tansy Walcutt, maybe others’ mixed scents from the crowd. No fear-scent, so the prey knew its killer. Mads shifted back, ignoring the unfriendly stares. He tried a tentative pass with Detox, but the magic rolled off the mortal’s shell. Something had to be there, but what?
“Nothing obvious in the cup or oral cavity, but there is a toxin involved. Body’s too cold for two minutes twenty seconds.”
If a glare could strike the freshman boy dead again, Kayda’s would have managed it.
“This is no time for jokes, and who the f-, who ARE you anyway?”
“Mads Møller-Jensen, code name Metro, attached to Whateley Security. Is that good enough for the Goddess of the Plains, or do we need to break out a tape measure and queer the crime scene some more?”
T? Quit pissing around. I may need backup ASAP.
Already behind you, jerk, backing up Sandra. This is straight-up Shadow bait.
Seriously, girl? Mads had been glared at by experts.
She said, “We already know Murphy was poisoned by Lifeline.”
“I thought I smelled something useless.”
“Shut it. I need to center myself to conduct a soul retrieval. It’s going to be difficult enough for a first time, without some Euro fresh-thing distracting me.”
Lillebror, distant child of Gunnar she may be, but the Nine Realms have no claim on her spirit.
She’s bound for a Gate you cannot pass, love, not even if you forfeited your humanity and passed beyond kith and kin. Look not to Guinee nor Below the Waters, Mads La Croix.
Well-meant advice wrapped like thorns in a memory of roses in his head, Mads reached for a thin chain around the dead girl’s neck.
“This isn’t simple soul loss: there’s no astral cord to follow, pejuta.” In his skeletal hand was a small golden cross. “Do you think you can race the Dead to the Gates of Silver and Pearl?”
Kayda nearly shouted back, “You’re not helping either, now are you?”
“If someone doesn’t neutralize that zoetoxin in her body within the next two minutes it will take a miracle to revive her unless you’re planning to gift us with an aptrgangr. How’s that working for you, Princess?”
A powered slap like that should have echoed.
Someone’s going to need an Unholy miracle. That, or reconstructive surgery.
“... Not working. Great. Time’s not an issue, then. Look, I’m out. My remit as seiðmaður is to see them safely crossed or fully avenged.” Metro stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands. “Best I can do is help keep the stiff on ice, if that’s okay with you. Tell Carson she needs a Rose or a Man of the Cross; I have no fragging idea who or what that would be.”
The sorrow-tempered steel in the woman’s voice behind him left no room for questions. “They’re coming. Do it.”
“Oy! Need a stretcher under the vic, ASAP!”
“Get out of the way!”
Metro gathered the restless energies of Vetrnætr around him and cast his perceptions out and out along a razor strand of Essence, the better to bargain with those that might heed his call so far across the Western Sea...
Seconds passed in this world before he reopened eyes lit by flickering blue-white light against black. Reciting the rune-verses, he made two simple gestures over the body on its litter: one above the mouth and throat, one over the heart.
Íss er árbörkr
ok unnar þak
ok feigra manna fár.
Sól er skýja skjöldr
ok skínandi röðull
ok ísa aldrtregi.
The body froze and frosted over, as the very air condensed on and sublimated off it. Had any asked before he passed out, Mads might have pointed out that Íss is the simplest of runes, Sól its necessary counter.
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cprime
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2 years 9 months ago #980
cprime replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
October 31st, 2007
The soul of Joanne Gunnarson screamed as it was sucked downwards. She barely caught a glimpse of an obsidian mirror, before landing in a vintage yellow school bus of all places. Seated in the driver’s seat was a shadowy figure. Without looking back, it spoke. “Welcome to the Whateley Off Book Basic Living Existence, or W.O.B.B.L.E., Miss Nalley. Enjoy your stay.” This was followed by the ultra extended version of evil laughter #3. Murphy growled and looked around for something to throw at the figure, but was stopped by a tap on the arm. She turned and found herself looking at the slim figure of a 20-something lady whom she had never seen before. The figure spoke. “I’ve found it’s best not to taunt the happy fun mythos creature. The less attention he pays you, the happier you will be.”
Joanne looked puzzled at the statement “Mythos?”
“Unspeakable ancient horror. To understand one is to melt your brain. By way of introduction, my name is Susan, Miss Nalley....”
She was cut off by the pale figure. “Actually, my name is Gunnarson. Joanne Gunnarson. Apparently my mutation was acting up again.”
“Your mutation?”
“I’m a probability warper, with the code name Murphy. Anything that can go wrong will, and apparently it caught up with me.”
“Ah. I see. Bad news perhaps for you, but good news for us. If your power persists, things will be very interesting for the driver of this Nim-bus.”
“Nim-bus?”
“We call it the Nim-bus, because that’s his name. Nimbus. From what I’ve read in these books,” she gestured to a small pile of hard-cover books, with titles like ‘Ayla and the Birthday Brawl’, “he apparently is hiding out among the student body of your school.”
“And I’ve never noticed him?”
“That’s because he’s in disguise.” Susan whispered something in in Murphy’s ear. This elicited an immediate reaction of. “How do you know?”
“Because it’s all in this book.” The older lady held up a thin notebook with the words ‘Whateley Academy Gen 1 bible’ written on it.
Joanne snatched the book from her hands and flipped through it. “No shit? Did we just break the 4th wall?”
“Possibly, but the book is a bit unstable. Hundreds of possible futures are laid out in it, but only one will come to pass, and we don’t know which.”
The use of the plural form of address finally registered with Murphy. “We?”
Susan pointed back to the alabaster figure at the back of the bus. When she saw the figure’s blood red eyes, her own eyes widened. “Sara?”
The friendly mythos entity nodded at the recognition. “None other. Now that you’re here, we can start collapsing the quantum possibilities in that bible and figure out a way to influence things so our friendly bus driver lets us off in front of Shuster Hall.”
Is your muse looking for inspiration? Send them to Parkerville! Welcome to Parkerville is the latest edition in my series of writing prompts.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 9 months ago #981
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
All Hallows Ball (Part 3) wrote: “Yes,” Tansy admitted. “I’m sorry, it was the only way to help you. You’re free to turn me into Mrs Carson or Mr Geintz and I will admit to everything.”
Murphy grinned her most evil of grins and snapped her fingers. At that moment, thirteen sneezes, seven stumbles, five hiccups, and three and a seventh accidental gropes happened among the surrounding students. The resulting soup of accidental and intentional spells, hobgoblins, powers, and artifact activations landed squarely on Tansy’s face. She sputtered and gasped, and then continued to gasp as gills opened up, tentacles sprang from her chin, and her body inflated and changed in proportion. Her mind awakened as the transformation continued, connecting to almost every other intelligence within ten miles. Heedless to stop it, Tansy’s entire life spilled into those minds in totality. Mere minutes and a lifetime later, Tansy’s heart squeezed out its final beat. Over two thousand people watched her die, whether in person or their mind’s eye, but they did not morn her passing. Two thousand four hundred and seventy three Tansies blinked in unison and then smiled. A Tansy is not dead who can eternal spread, and with strange aeons even the dead may tread...
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 8 months ago #982
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Sted is a good deal more phlegmatic than that.
Rose Bunny
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #983
Rose Bunny replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Rose sat at her desk, the mostly finished 2.5 liter of Shasta cola at her left, next to the mouse. The 38-year old redhead listened to Youtube playing Jon Secada as she typed on the forum. She had no reason to feel so chipper, but she was. She felt happy. Perhaps a little too happy. Sighing, Rose stopped typing and looked around.
“I know you are here, you might as well show yourself.”, though nobody appeared to be anywhere around her.
She returned to writing the post on the forum. “You know, I can tell you are here”, she exclaimed.
Sighing, Rose changed browser tabs, and looked at the suggestions for the next song to listen to. Selecting Chris Isaak - Wicked game, Rose clicked back to the forum page.
She knew her little visitor was still there. After trying to ignore it, she shook her head. “Ok... ok... come on out.”
From behind the sub-woofer on the floor, stepped a little semi-transparent apparition. Rose stooped down, and offered her open palm. Her visitor looked at it thoughtfully, and then stepped onto it. Rose hoisted her little friend to the desktop, and let her sit.
“Listen little one, I know you miss your friends, but I promise, as soon as I get a new computer, I’ll start writing again. Then you can hang out with them again. But until then just lay low.”
Beckoning the action figure-sized spirit closer, Rose whispered to her. “If they were to find out that what they think they are making up is actually real, they would be very scared. So be patient. Besides, they are creeping ever closer to where you return to the story, and we all know what happened when that happened.”
The small apparition smiled and nodded, flexing a bicep to indicate her strength.
Smiling, Rose bent over and carefully kissed the top of the little spirit’s head. “You go home now, your hallow is awaiting, and it is long past your bedtime.”
The little one smiled and nodded. She fluttered her tiny wings and lifted into the air, in a poof of sparkles, the spirit departed.
Sighing, Rose unscrewed the cap of her drink and took a giant swig. “Honestly, a priestess’ work is never done”
She shook her head, and selected the very ironic R.E.M. song that Youtube had offered up. Clicking start, she changed tabs back to the forum, and hit “submit”, posting the message she had written.
High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Rose Bunny.
Katssun
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2 years 8 months ago #984
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
September, 14th, 2016
Grayson Davies watched in agony as the half-dozen DPA agents escorted his three children, the OCFS case worker and his supervisor to his mother to a car with government plates on it, while his wife Mary was shrieking in the next room.
“I know! It was Misericord!”
There were another eight agents in the great room with Mary, because that’s the only place all of them fit. Grayson looked up at the woman next to him in the entranceway, regional director or something to that effect. She simply shook her head silently to him and then repeated herself for the third time, loud enough that Mary could hear.
“You know I can’t tell you that, nor can we confirm exactly what information was presented to the OCFS at this time. We will contact you, in lieu of their offices, in order to keep everything neutral. The MCO is not, and will not, be involved if you follow all the procedures.”
Grayson nodded, and only hoped that Mary’s…business associate, going by ‘Lisa Westwood’ tonight, would keep Mary calm for last few more minutes. The DPA had been very clear what would happen if Mary retaliated against the OCFS, or any of the four names she had spat off in rage and grief.
His wife’s choked sob erupted from the next room. Grayson swallowed hard as his lips trembled a bit. He was barely holding it together either. He wasn’t mad at Mary. They knew this might happen one day, they’d talked about it. Mary had tried so hard to keep her professional life separate from their home life. He didn’t know what the hell she’d done wrong.
“Was it Karen Hannover!?” his wife cried, pleading. Mary and their neighbor had gotten into a spat over the PTA clothing drive, but Karen had children of her own. Grayson struggled to believe that any mother would ever do this to another. The woman next to him shook her head again, this time in pity as much as admonishment.
“If you keep it up, we’ll be watching that many more potentials for you, and our resources will be that much more strained. We want to help you Mrs. Davies. I’m going to leave a list of facilities and counselors who can help you. Most are familiar with cases similar to yours. You may not believe that we’re willing to help you, but remember, the other side faces the same exact problems.” She turned to face him. “Mr. Davies, I appreciate you keeping your own cool and being accepting of your wife. Her…friend will help, but she needs you even more.”
With that, the woman and her other agents left their home.
The woman was wrong about one thing. He wasn’t keeping his cool. He was just better at hiding it. He wanted a drink, to scream, to smash every possible thing within his reach. He wanted to hop into their car and tear away after the power armor and the however many vehicles escorting Annie, Justin, April and his mother away, his chances be damned. But the threat was very, very real. For the both of them. The paperwork had even already been filed. Termination of Parental Rights.
They wouldn’t let it happen. Even if Mary had to play by all of their rules. He balled a fist until his palm went numb, before finally letting it go.
His wife in hysterics, and while Lady Szronu was a godsend, Mary needed him now more than ever. They’d get through this, they always did. Somehow. He just couldn’t think anymore today. About anything.
With a final glance at the letterhead and the first paragraph, Grayson put down the paper that the DPA had served him with two hours before when six vehicles and a full ten sets of power armor had surrounded their house after he had gotten the children up off the bus and Mary had just started working on dinner.
‘Mrs. Davies, we regret to inform you that you have been cross-identified with your MID and your classification has been increased to the “B-list” based on your recent activities of August 18th, 2016. The State of New York has determined that until a stable home environment can be confirmed, the Department of Justice recommends the removal of…’
E!
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #985
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Come’on Moose! We’re already late!” The gaggle of girls from Whitman screamed in unison.
“I would, but these old tunnels are so tight. They weren’t really made for someone….well like me.” Regina pouted pointing to herself, tapping her antlers.
“Well think skinny, come on. This is one rave I don’t wanna miss.” One of the other girls snapped forcing the group to continue onward through the maze.
“So how did you find out about this party Samantha?” another girl squeaked.
“Ummm…well…” Samantha struggled to come up with an excuse for her boyfriend.
“It was her boyfriend. He got the invite. It’s supposed to be a hush hush rave for all the summer school kids.” Kerri bumbled in.
“KERRI!” Samantha puffed.
“What? Sorry, Sam your Boy-Toy maybe hot, but a rock or something is smarter.” Kerri seethed.
“Oh, so it’s like the beginning of the year socials. But, like for the summer kids.” Regina stated with a hint of innocence.
“Yea….like that….” One of the girls coughed after taking quick drink from a flask.
The group continued down the musky corridor. Soon they saw the trails of smoke on the floor creeping down the hall. Following the map, they came to a door. With a secret knock the doors opened wide allowing smoke to bellow out. The group was quick to cover their eyes with the blinding laser light show enhanced by the smoke.
Following the group Regina could feel the beat of the bass in her chest and her antlers, tickling that part of her brain that told her she should run. However she pushed it down for now, after all she was supposed to have fun with her dorm mates. Slowly that plan came crumbling down as the group splintered off. Getting a bit thirsty Regina used her height to locate the makeshift bar. Wading through the sea of people she made it.
“Can I get some water!?” she yelled over the thump of the music.
“Sorry tall one! ALL WE GOT IS HOOCH!” The senior bartender answered looking up at the girl, handing her a glass.
“UMM, thanks…” Regina whispered before looking around the large room turned makeshift night club. Locating Kerri and Sam she made her way out onto the dance floor holding her drink high above everyone. Sidestepping to the beat of the music, gradually Regina began to dance with some of her dorm mates, taking sips of the very alcoholic drink every now and then.
“How do you think they are going to get away with all of this?” Regina asked over the melody
“I heard the reasoning is that, their summer is already ruined, by having summer school. So what’s a couple weeks of detention if you get to have a killer blowout party at the end of the school year?” Sam belted an answer then took a swig from her boyfriend’s drink.
The group continued to bump to the music along with the rest of the crowd. Regina almost didn’t notice the hand that appeared on her back. Swiftly turning she was greeted by a smiling friend.
“I knew I recognized those antlers!” Max yelled upward taking a mouthful from his own jar.
“Oh these old things?” Regina, laughed blushing. She let the alcohol hit her. “But, what are you doing here!”
“I got summer school!” Max explained showing the green slip proving his next term. Before he flicked it away into the crowd.
“HAHAHA. Should have studied more rather than fight with Johnathan!” Regina laughed at her former teammates’ misfortune.
“You forget, this ish…” Max paused to burp. “IS my first real time in school. Summer classes were inevitable.
Hearing the new set of music in the DJ list staring up. Regina grabbed Max’s hand “COME ON! LET’S DANCE!” She asserted right before the night turned black.
“Hey Max. Hey Max. Wakey. Wakey.” Mr. Filbert slapped the still drunk boy awake.
“Uhhhh…” Max replied before setting up in the middle of the hallway.
“We’re going for a run.” Mr. Filbert smiled.
Five miles later, and four puke stops later. The pair arrived back at Twain cottage.
“Now, go get some rest. Rest is important to recovery!” Mr. Filbert exclaimed smiling while doing a standing jog. “And when you wake up! Go clean the gutters and basement bathroom.” Forcing Max to take his fifth puke stop.
“Oh and Max. Lay off the Waragi.” Mr. Filbert winked.
“Don’t worry I’m never drinking again…” Max coughed.
“UGHHHHHHHHH….” Regina groaned as she pulled he head up from the island table in Whitman’s kitchen room.
“About time you woke up it’s almost 1pm.” Mrs. Savage spoke clearly.
“Please no loud noises.” Regina covered her ears.
“Ha, loud. Go get a shower. I’ll order something from the Hall to go, so you can get some food in you.” Mrs. Savage continued.
“No food.” Regina stated covering her mouth.
“It will help…Then after you eat, we will talk about your punishment.”
“Please no…” Regina whispered dreading the worst.
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by E!.
Cryptic
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2 years 8 months ago #986
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“I guess I’ll go next. Hi, my name is Chalie Brown. Which every one called me even though my name was Charlene Brown before I mutated. I’m not sure what irritates me more: losing most of my hair, getting uncontrolled odds mangelling, growing a penis or getting tagged as Peant on my MID”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #987
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
June 2012
“Mi? It’s Stacy. Listen, I don’t know if you heard, but the Iron Wind hit Cincy last night, and we got clobbered pretty bad, just like the Freelancers did. Looks like she’s headed west, but we’re not sure where she’s going next. I’ve already called the Liberty League, Indianapolis Independents, and Louisville Sluggers, but we know she’s got a history with the Six so she might just skip straight to St Louis. We’re gonna cast as wide a net on her as we can, so I’ll be contacting the guys in Shy-town, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, and even some up in Canada ‘cause we really want everyone ready to take her down.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #988
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Lunch, Monday, January 7, 2008,
Euro-Promotional League Table, Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
Jadis ‘She-Beast’ Diabolik walked up to the Beret Mafia’s table to find a lively conversation already well in progress. The upset Sidhe berating one of the seated members had to be the Norwegian girl in Dickenson, Elle Ruud. The snow flurries in the air around her as she tried to unconsciously (?) tried using intense cold as an intimidation tactic didn’t leave many other candidates. The colloquial Landsmål she was cutting loose with was also a hint. Given the Euro-snobs’ love of French over ‘less-cultured’ languages, that had to be going over well.
“Wait, what? You said you were going after venison for your Yule feast!”
Blond exemplar willing to put up with Metro? That would be Rorsmand and, given that hunting often implies firearms usage, another hand-full of European nerves going *snap*.
“We did! Venison is the term for anything deer-shaped, from Bambi to moose!”
This just in: even the American judge is squicked. And now for more rapid-fire Scandinavian words amounting to No realli! It was dis big! Møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti..
“Could either of you repeat that in a real language?”
Jadis estimated 3-2 odds that the loud response might be the Norwegian equivalent for Screw you and the flea-bitten reindeer you rode in on. If she’d known she’d get such an education maybe she’d have dropped by more often!
“Look. Kris. From where I was, it looked like it was this tall,” Metro’s hands marked an improbable elevation, “Best I could manage from a cross-country run was to throat it and hope the rack wasn’t as broad as it looked! So, yes, I got a close look but not a great one until it was time to field-dress the kill.”
Valravn added, “He did slow it down enough for me and Fen to hamstring it before he could be knocked into a tree.”
“That would have hurt.” “Duh” “So, it was pretty much reindeer shaped, though the antlers were kind of profuse.”
“Listen, you two. Hunting reindeer isn’t legal in Sweden, unless you are Sami or have a Sami guide.”
“I wasn’t in Sweden!” “Thank god.” “Vhat’s wrong wit Sveden?” “Isn’t Nephandus’ mother from there?” “Goot point.” Jadis would have to agree on that point.
“Thomas, could you please cc: Kris the picture you took, before he has a heart attack?”
“Gimme a sec. Be right with you, Elsa.”
“It’s Elle, rhymes with Hell, which...”
“Seriously? Don’t go there.”
Kris looked down at his phone’s display. “What the fuck is THAT?”
“Tasty.”
“You thought that that was a reindeer?
“The antlers branch kind of the right way. Forward prongs to dig through snow, ‘n’ stuff.” Metro helpfully mimed the branching and the digging with his hands and fingers.
Jadis peeked at the image from over Rorsmand’s shoulder. Too many prongs even for a big reindeer. If the two grinning beasts next to it had been human she could expect them to be saying See? I did that! All ME! Ignore the other chump. Am I the Bestest Hunter or what?. Metro-here did look like he expected to get congratulatory behind-the-ear scratching. As it was, the muzzles were a little short, like a hyena’s, but not weird enough to put up with a Jobe Lecture on whatever she was obviously missing, ‘do try to keep up’, yadda yadda.
Thomas saw Jadis’ confusion, and decided to be helpful: “The goofy one that looks all trompled-on is Mads. The one that didn’t need help getting back is Fen.”
Reach jump at the break in conversation, “So... She-Beast! Is there anything we can do for you that might divert this train-wreck?”
“Maybe. I just came by to invite Metro to the Bad Seeds!”
No one’s face can fall with disappointment quite like a shifter’s. Rorsmand didn’t look so happy, either. Not happy, but also not surprised. Now she knew her sources had given her an abridged version.
Reach said,”Um, guys? I’m not hearing any of the denials I’d really like to be hearing right about now.”
Metro looked up and said, “Helene Adelheid, Niels Erik, or both?”
“That’s what the official papers say, don’t they?”
“Reus quod obicitur.”
“Take your time before deciding. Obviously, there are risks and benefits. We’ll let you know about the next meeting in case you do want to join. And, by the way, Kristian? The term ‘venison’ includes not only deer, but also several other game animals. Something to think about before putting it in your mouth.”
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Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by null0trooper.
Cryptic
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2 years 8 months ago #989
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Unused snippets/previews from the furyte strories I’m working.planning
~~
“So, I really have to ask honey...”
“Why am I choosing to go to Whateley as a girl?” Jessie asked as the two of them drove to the Leigh Valley Irregulars cover base were they where to meet up with the others to go to the school.t used to it.”
“Mmhmm.” her mother said as she shook her head slowly. “Have you considered the story you’re gonna use? Your sister might have told people she has a brother..”
“I thought of that, I’m torn between the truth and saying I’m a cousin.”
Grace was tempted to pinched the bridge of her nose, but she didn’t want to take here eyes from the road. She settled for rocking her head from side to side “I have a bad feeling about this. The lastone sounds like something out of your webcomics.”
“So, how are we getting to the school? The Irregulars giving us a ride? Oh, we taking a plane?”
Grace smirked a little as she brought the car to a stop. Jessie’s jaw dropped as she got got, gaping at the vintage Winnebago that slumped infront of the cow barn. “That’s our ride.”
“I feel I have to say this; what a heap of junk.” Jessie stated as Katie’s car pulled up behind theirs.
“Does a pair of wings somehow attach to that heap? Is the navigator his own best friend?” Katie quiped as she and Adria joined Jessie and her mother as the rv’s door banged open and Ivory stepped out
“I’ve been tempted to do that retro fit, but I think the miles per gallons would suffer. And no, no man-dog. I do have a Chewie action figure stuck to the dash instead of a hula girl.”
“It’s still a...” Katie started to say.
“Junker? Only on the outside. Back in the day Parakeet was with the Gearheads, and between the two of us this thing is a tank that can take small artillery rounds, exotic attacks, and still get you lot to school in semi luxury.” She finished her bit just as Val joined the group, her father pulling her luggage from the trunk of the family car.
“Be sure to look up your cousin when you get there. I forget which dorm she’s in.” Mr. Phillips said before pulling his youngest into a hug. “Be good.”
“Daaad!” Val protested, though she didn’t resist the hug which was soon released.
“See you lot at...” Mr. Phillips cocked his head as he thought “Thanksgiving? Christmas for sure.”
~*~
Val looked around Hawthorn’s common room, returning the wary looks with a friendly smile as she followed her cousin to her room. Io glanced over her shoulder and shortened her stride so Val could catch up. Val took in the complex blending of traits that made up Io’s form. She was to put it nicely a solid girl, yet still fluid, graceful, and feminine. Io wore the uniform skirt, sans leggings in spite of the chill of the outside. Then again, Val wasn’t sure how tights would work with the cow tail that was swishing lazily as it poked under the hem of the garment.
“I’m really not that much of a handful.” Io said over her shoulder, a smile on her slightly muzzled face which was framed in an unruly tumble of black hair which contrasted sharply with the lighter brown velvety fur that covered the rest of her eight foot tall body. “They tried having me over at Witless at first, but the regular dorms where just to small for me. I nearly squished my roommate...” The last was said with a sheepish duck of Io’s head as the Thornie placed her half dollar sized thumb print onto her door lock’s reader. The door snicked open and Io had her magic eight-ball shirt and custom made four cup bra off before Val could step in.
“Geeze, where you raised in a barn?” Val asked as she closed the door.
“Actually, yes I was.” Io said as she turned around, giving Val a good look at the double set of breasts that dominated Io’s chest. “Sorry, I was on auto pilot for a moment there. As comfortable as the bras Ceilia makes for me are, she needs to consult with a guy called Mobius to make me a set that don’t mash my nipples down uncomfortably.” Io flicked one of her two inch long nipples with a grimace. “Back home I usually do with out bra or shirt, my hide is that tough. Hell ussually I just wear somethin like a loin cloth for modesty’s sake.. Ma does the same as I got the same build as her..”
“Wait, wait, wait. I’m confused. I thought your mother is my aunt, and I thought she was a baseline...” Val said as she hopped up onto the seat of the over sized brick chair, and Io sprawled on her King sized bed, which with her bulk looked like a twin size would if a normal sized person was laying on it.
Io’s large cow ears flapped as she laughed. She is on both counts. Home’s got a real good fertility doctor who’s a bio-devisor. He took genetic material from my Ma, your aunt, and combined it with material from my Moom, sorry bad cow pun that’s been since my parents learned the process took, an mixed them together. Me an my little sister are the results.”
“My aunt is..” Val’s mouth clamped shut as the Poe Guese cut her off.
“Is a lesbian.” Io finished for Val. She snorted. “I might be as well, or I’m just gun shy after that long horn tried to mount me when I was nine. Then again, there aren’t that many guys back Home that ..”
“Stop. Please, I don’t need that visual. I really didn’t need the bull one either.” Val begged as she covered her head with her arms.
“I’d offer to get Brain Bleach to remove the memory for you, but the staff isn’t happy with him as he wiped his neighbor’s memory of being raped by a teacher. She lost a year of memories I think. He’s a veggie. She is only seven...” Io cracked the knuckles of her three fingered hands. “Better then I’d have left him.” Io stretched and somehow kicked off the custom pair of sneakers off. Val wasn’t to surprised to see Io had dining plate sized two toed hooves instead of primate style feet.
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #990
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Listen, mate,” snarled the angry devisor with the prosthetic arm and eye as he approached the Outcast’s table, “I don’t care how tough you look, you stay the hell away from my sister!”
“Bro, you got it all wrong, she’s the one who keeps bugging Jack,” said Joe, deliberately letting his glasses slide down to let his blank eyes show.
Damn straight, rasped out of Razorback’s voder, And tell her to stop trying use her power on me! Even a dumbass pinky biped like Carmelle should know the difference between a croc and a dinosaur!
“Now listen here arsehole...”
Caitlin then stepped in, putting her hand Scott’s chest in a way that was gentler, but no less firm, than the first time they met. “Alright, jackass, I’ve put you down once and don’t think I won’t do it again. You just back the fuck off and go talk to her about it yourself. And show some fucking gratitude! Jack was the one who pulled your sorry ass out from under that death-top thing which trashed the jail, remember?”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #991
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Maybe Bernie has a point about the number of kids like us here now, thought Fee as she watched the moa-esque Whitmaniac with the pink and blue feathers tear into a pile a well-chopped salad greens with her beak. One thing is for sure, though, I’ll never say say someone ‘eats like a bird’ ever again.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 1 month ago #992
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Usually when one’a us is hurt we try t’ get along with some more student assistants, but right now, things ain’t lookin’ to good for Stan, and we don’t know when he’s gonna be up and around again. I figgered I’d give you a shot at this, since Stan recommended you and... hey, kid, you listenin’ to me?”
Lou Lipscowycz, the twenty-two-year-old guy in question, snapped to attention like the former soldier he was. He really didn’t want to blow the job Uncle Stan had set up for him, but he was wondering about this Morrie guy’s sense of humor.
“Oh, right, the two pictures,” Morrie said, figuring out what the boy was staring at. “You prob’ly think we’re shittin’ you with those, huh? S’OK, I thought they were bullshittin’ me too when I first came here, but those two guys? They’re the real deal, the first two guys of the Maintenance crew here at Whateley. I got hired by old man Pantaleone m’self, and when he tol’ me about his cousin Mario, well, I figured he was razzing the new guy, but s’all true.”
“You know about...”
“Hey, kid, I ain’t that old. I was nineteen when I started here in ‘89, an’ my younger brother had onea’ them Nintendo things, OK? Anyway, where was I... Oh, yeah, Mario Compilano was the head of the maintenance crew here when the old school closed, and the way I hear it, they hired him when the school was re-opened because no one else could figger out the crazy sewers around here. A couple’a years later he decided he needed help, so he brought a cousin a’ his, Luigi Pantaleone, and the two’a them were the best damn sewer team you ever knew.”
“Mario got hurt bad some time in the 1970s, and ended up retiring. Luigi got kicked up to a desk job a few years later, he finally retired in ninety-three, which was when yer Uncle was brought in.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #993
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
And now for more “Dumbing to Whateley”
“Uhm, Joe, why is Jack hanging around with Screech lately, and who is that frosh with them?”
“Silence.”
“Huh?”
“That’s Marcie’s codename, as well as her power. She’s in Hawthorne because she creates a sonic dead zone around her about, I dunno, 7 feet in radius? No sound at all, and she has trouble turning it off, all she can do is make it smaller for a while. Weird thing is, she can hear sounds coming from outside the field, but no one else can, and she’s completely mute herself because of it.”
“So...”
“Actually, it’s mostly because they all sign, but Jack appreciates not having to worry about something loud setting him off, and Screech likes it because she can relax a bit in when she’s in that field.”
“Uhm, and the girl who is acting nuts and getting in Silence’s face is... ?”
“Oh, that. She’s Marcie’s girlfriend Malaya, she’s... well, not so much jealous as a bit of an attention whore...”
“Look who’s talking!”
“Hey! Anyway, she makes a big thing whenever Silence isn’t hanging out with her, and she and Screech don’t get along, you can get the picture.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Anne
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #994
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dec1
Bart Isly, code name Bad Bart had been in a single room in Twain cottage for the first three months of the school year. As anyone who knew Bart could tell you, he tended to sprawl. He was also an amateur home brewer, as such he often ‘acquired’ fruit, either from the cafeteria (I need between meal snacks and can’t take time to stop through here every time I need something) or the campus store. To be fair, Bart was correct about his dietary needs, he was an external energizer and tended to expend prodigious amounts of energy if he used his powers (and even if he didn’t use his powers in calorie intake needed to be about double what a normal teen would eat) and could end up in a state of cellular starvation rather quickly. So a certain amount of the fruit he carried off actually went to the purpose it was supposed to, namely inside him for nutrition.
But being alone in his room, he had acquired an empty 5 gallon bucket with a lid which he used to make ‘home brew’. About three days ago he had toted off a five pound bag of apples and set up to make applejack. This evening he had tested out his creation and tied one on to say the least so he was sleeping the sleep of the dead (or dead drunk at least...) when his room mate arrived near midnight after a transatlantic flight.
The boy, though in body type he looked to be in his early twenties with a full beard and a barrel chest that bespoke being perhaps a dwarf or some other sort of fae of that sort, moved the mostly empty bucket from the mostly empty locker that contained it and he would need it to place his meager belongings in. He frowned at the snoring form of his roommate and recognized someone who apparently had overindulged in alcohol. He caught a whiff of the remains of the batch in the bucket and looked around at the other items he had removed from the locker. He kicked himself for not taking pictures while it was in place, but did his best with his Gizmatic phone of taking pictures of all of the apparatus he found. That done he cleared the second bed that didn’t have sheets, pillows, blankets or anything else (he wasn’t sure there should have been any present) after all a very sleepy chickadee had come and rescued him from the Berlin airport about two hours ago and handed him a key to the room when he indicated that the single backpack he carried contained all of his luggage. He had not elaborated to tell her that for the most part it contained all of his worldly possessions, only his phone which wasn’t in the pack constituted anything he owned that he wasn’t carrying in the rather small bag.
Well he thought, there’s nothing to be done for it now, the chickadee had told him to show up at eight the next morning to get signed into the school officially. He set his pack on the bed and carefully checked the time on his phone as matching local time then set an alarm for five the next morning, he wanted time to shower among other things before he showed up at the admin building. He did note before he closed his eyes that there was at least a superficial map of the school available. He didn’t know if it could be zoomed in and he didn’t know if it covered the extensive tunnel system his talent or nature was telling him lay below the ground here: that information would have to wait for another day, because although his stamina was much greater than it had been before his constitution had been sorely taxed by the flight which he hated with a passion. He didn’t know how he would feel about boats, but he intended to find out, because if he ever intended to return to his native village, that would be unknown to most anyone more than a hundred miles from it, he had no intention of ever setting foot in an airplane in the next ten centuries that had been evaluated as his probable lifespan.
His basic needs cared for the boy laid his head on the bag and fell asleep.
Early the next morning the boy pulled a set of clean clothing from the bag. His mutation allowed him to make the inside of the bag slightly larger than the outside so it actually contained a small amount more stuff than a casual observer might think. He took a quick shower after straining the remains of his roommate’s brewing project and having it for breakfast. He really would have preferred a heavy ale, but the fruit brew that was somewhere between wine and a lambic wasn’t bad. It seemed like he had an actual requirement to drink a certain amount of alcohol every day, not that it caused him to become drunk, but rather it was as if drinking was an obligation of his mutation.
He checked the time and decided he could get a bit of practice in so he pulled a set of pipes (bagpipes) from the bag and started to warm them up.
Bart awoke at an ungodly hour to an ungodly racket in his room. He was certain someone was turning a cat inside out while the animal was still alive. Blearily he tried to focus his eyes on the source of the racket. Apparently overnight the school administration in its infinite wisdom had saddled him with a roommate, and whatever he was doing was creating the racket.
“Who are you and what are you doing!” Bart asked in a voice that was loud enough that he made himself wince, not that he wasn’t wincing already from the racket his new roommate was making.
“Warmin’ up me pipes,.” the indistinct shape sounded like it was chewing rocks the voice was so deep and had almost a growling quality.
Bart finally got both of his eyes to work together as the noise had lowered, though not entirely abated, he could hear an unearthly sort of drone coming from the creature? whatever was under the other person’s arm. More to the point though he realized that the person whom he was facing had a full beard of fiery red whiskers that looked like they might be useful for scrubbing burned on food off from pots.
“Y’r supposed to shave, don’t you know?” Bart said still trying to sort out the picture before him. The other person was perhaps just a hair over five feet tall and looked (not fat mind) to be nearly as wide as he was tall. If he had muscles in his chest as it seemed then Bart was thinking the other boy?, he didn’t look like a boy with that beard, could probably tie someone, maybe even someone like Slab, into a pretzel without breaking a sweat.
“I cannae, it comes back in a bit th’ same’s afore,” the other person said, though Bart was guessing at that between the growl and an accent that garbled his words.
“Why’d they put you here?” Bart demanded to know.
“I dinnae ken, I dinnae ask as I cam in aboot midnight,” growled the shape.
“Well hell! You can’t be making that racket at this time of the morning,” Bart said though he tried to tell himself to be calm. The mostly recognized shape of the other person was raising alarms of someone who could probably take him apart without trying.
“They’re me Da’s pipes, he gae them tae me afore he passed when I wa nae more’n eight. I intend to practice every day t’ d’ me Da proud,” the shape definitely growled more deeply on that statement.
Bart stared at the other person who had by now resolved further in his brain. He realized they were wearing a skirt! NO! He couldn’t be roomed with a cross dresser! Though there was no way if the other person had a permanent beard that they would ever pass. Still before he could control his mouth he popped off with, “You never told my your name, and why the fuck are you wearing a skirt? Are you some sort of sissy?”
A rock crushing growl started to come from the other person who moved far faster than Bart would have thought possible. “Me Name is Ian McLean ’n’ I wear a kilt ‘cause it’s traditional garb for me, If ye ever comment like that about my kilt again, well kilt is what ye’ll be,” grated from the mouth of Ian while a nastily sharp dagger poked a small hole in Bart’s skin at the corner of his jaw.
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Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Anne. Reason: Paragraphs, minor proofing
null0trooper
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2 years 7 months ago #995
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Kajutsu
Before the start Winter Term 2008 Team Tactics,
Arena 99, Whateley Academy
“Take a v-scan o’ this entry off of TV Tropes: Traditional Samurai martial arts included not only a variety of fighting styles, but every necessary skill for a soldier . . . kajutsu (“burning down peasant huts technique”). All of these are still taught by a few hardcore traditionalist schools, although one wonders how they practice arson at the dojo. Can you imagine that, with all the pyros in this place?”
“JENSEN!”
“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Bardue?”
“You are a freshman, are you not?”
“Yes, Gunny?”
“If you ever wish to live long enough to become a sophomore: close that page, clear your browser’s history, and forget you ever read that.”
“Roger that. Um...”
“Consider yourself duly warned that Sensei Ito has a long memory.”
Martial Arts and Crafts
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Erianaiel
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2 years 7 months ago #996
Erianaiel replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“What ... am I looking at?” Delarose all but shouted rather than asked of the first responder patrol.
What he was seeing literally was easy enough to understand as it was not mind warping eldritch abominations. For once. But even for Whateley the scene playing out in front of him was ... unexpected.
Security officer Vandyke had never fully shedded his vaguely germanic accent despite a life long career in the military. He wasn’t difficult to understand but his voice sounded ever so slightly harsh in the gees and esses. It also made him sound like he was one hair’s width away from anger at all time, though that was often useful in defusing potentially explosive situations between angry and superpowered students.
It was therefor a surprise that he spoke softly and bewildered. “I can not say sir,” he said. “This is pretty much the situation as of our arrival at the scene. We did cordoning and called in a medical emergency.”
Delarose pointed looked at the smoking shredded wreck of a powered react armor, whose pilot was being loaded on a stretcher apparently after being cut out of his suit.
Vandyke winced and admitted, “that was my fault sir. I feared the girl was in danger and hoped the armour could get through the warp field surrounding her.”
He didn’t have to say ‘obviously I was wrong’. That much was painfully and expensively obvious.
Talking about the girl required all men to look at the center of the scene, which they instinctively and gallantly had avoided after the first glance. There was a circle some fifteen feet across surrounded by a shimmering something. Not quite heat mirages, without the heat that was, but definitely flame-like in impression. In the center of the circle was a girl playing a game of pounce and wrestle with what could only be described as a ghostly image of a giant wolf like creature. It stood probably waist high and there were some subtle differences that made the creature uncomfortable to look at for more than a few moments before the eye slid off it.
It was easy enough to see why the security officers arriving at the scene had thought the girl was under attack by a giant wolf and called in the heavy guns.
Troubling as the sight was though, more troublesome was that the girl seemed to have some of her clothes torn off and was apparently unaware of it. The wolf creature did not seem capable of doing that specific kind of damage to clothes which implied all kinds of unpleasant scenarios.
Automatically Delarose eye was drawn to the final player in the little drama before him, who was being treated for extensive burns and lacerations all over her body. That it was all over her body was easy to see because she was wearing, and that term applied only by the most fanciful flight of imagination, a few scraps of her shredded school uniform.
“Peeper,” Delarose said menacingly without bothering to look over his shoulder. “If /any/ picture or word of this shows up /anywhere/ I will personally deliver you to the MCO in Berlin.”
There was a muffled meeping sound.
“And remember, ms Hartford /will/ know.”
He was answered only by muffled footsteps quickly receding back behind the barricades nominally keeping the curious students at bay.
The problem with the scenarios he imagined was that the possible perpetrator being treated was Mairead Connolly, also known as Gwynhavr. A water manifestor a mild receptive empath and one of his auxiliaries. She was also notoriously protective of the other Poe residents. Her assaulting another Poesie was unthinkable, and the red haired girl trapped in the ghostly flame circle even less. The girl had only recently arrived at Whateley and her manifestation as mutant had been so traumatic that she was not even put in regular classes with the psychiatrist staff seeing her several times a day to help her cope. The only reasons the girl was in Poe rather than Hawthorne was because her powers where not, exactly, a danger to anybody and she desperately needed the mental support unique for Poe cottage.
Which meant Gwynhavr had to have been trying to protect her. From somebody even.
“Was somebody else removed from the scene?” Delarose asked.
“Yes sir. A student codenamed Chime was moved to Doyle.”
Delarose frowned. Chime was another Poe resident and another name that made no sense in this scene.
“He seemed to have gotten severely injured pulling Gwynhavr out of that warp field that she had gotten trapped in. We had to apply tourniquets to both arms and derma glue to the cuts on his chest and face. “ Vandyke clarified.
“Anybody else at the scene?”
A quick shake of the head confirmed what Delarose had already begun to fear. “We’ll pull security footage from all access to this path, to see if anybody left before you arrived,” he sighted, not having much hope to find anything. Things didn’t add up. The girl had a major reality warp power going that she was not supposed to have, and there was no way any testing would have managed to miss something of this magnitude. Not to mention that security was always aprised of level 5 or higher warpers arriving at the school, seeing how much havoc they could unintentionally wreak and how much damage control security could expect around them.
He stood there for a while, pondering the scene and all the anomalies that made his initial impressions suspect. He also thought about how to go about preserving the crime scene while at the same time dealing with the other crisis that had pulled him from his duties. In half an hour or less, a camera crew would arrive at the school and expecting nearly free reign to wander about would almost certainly follow this path between the parking lot at the entrance and the quad. Rumours about mutants in New Hampshire had been spread maliciously by somebody who knew too much and hadn’t want to be linked to the rumours themselves. Normal means of quelling such rumours had expertly and apparently by chance been countered. Showing off the school as a normal, if way too expensive, prep school for the children of the rich and influential who needed to get away from the papparazzi, was kind of a last ditch effort to derail the subtle campaign to expose Whateley. If this failed they could expect a swelling horde of H1! and worse fanatics.
Naked girls in fire circles were definitely not the reality of Whateley they wanted to expose to this camera crew and curious reporters.
Delarose was distracted from his musings by Gwynhavr struggling to wake up from her IV drip with sedatives. He hurried over and knelt by the girl. He needed answers quickly, and she needed to not be awake. If she struggled to be awake she had to report something vital.
“Sir,” she rasped with a voice laced thickly with pain. “Watch .. tower .. attacked”. She gasped and weakly swatted at the EMT orderly who tried to renew the drip. “Hounds took .. him” she gasped out before her eyes rolled up and she slipped back into unconsciousness.
Delarose let the medics do their thing and take the girl away. Watchtower was a name that was high on the list of troublemakers at the security offices. A high level PK brick with minor light powers who thought of himself as paladin of the faith. Unfortunately for everybody around him that faith was to the extremist side of the Westboro baptist church. Neither student nor faculty lived up to his rigid notions of how people should behave and he was eager to use his new found power ‘of god’ to force those around him to adhere to his ideas of what was divinely mandated.
Hounds on the other hand was a mystery. There was no avatar of the spirit of a dog at the school, and certainly a pack of dogs would have been noticed before and been dealt with. He could rule out the clas X chimeras that had plagued the school as everybody was still as sane as they were the day before.
He had no idea how to proceed. None of his officers could deal with a warp field that could shred heavy power armour in seconds, and there was no possible way he was going to allow students to take any further risk. One injured auxiliary and one student in critical condition was already far too much.
Maybe a tranquiliser dart could knock out the girl and knock down that warp field of hers though how to get the dart through the field he had no idea.
Just then Lady Astarte came flying from Shuster hall. She was dressed as Mrs Carson in an expensive business suit and skirt combo and had makeup that made her look decades older than usual, with greying hair as would be expected of the headmistress of an expensive boarding school for the children of the wealthiest families on the entire planet.
“I’ll take it from here Franklin,” she said even before she had fully landed next to the flame circle.
She concentrated on her short staff for a moment and a blue light shimmered around her though none who watched
could remember her starting to glow. It seemed she had always been glowing and they only now realised, even though they could remember her not glowing when she came flying in.
With a deep breath the headmistress walked through the wall of ghostly flames, and though the glow surrounding her flared up painfully brightly, it held and the next step she was through and whatever it was that protected her died down again. The girl did not notice that she had company. The wolf she was playing with did, but redoubled its efforts to distract her.
More unnerving another kind of wolf shimmered into existing face to face with mrs Carson. And that face to face part was quite literal as the creature stood easily shoulder height with a grown man. And that was not the only oddity about it either. This solid it was even clearer that there was something off with the creature. It reminded Delarose uncomfortably about a japanese animated movie he had once seen about giants wolves, a feral girl and demonic creatures as big as elephants and as tall as skyscrapers. The wolves in that had also looked a little unnatural. It did not help that the wolf’s thick ruffle of fur around his neck and upper back was actually burning with a blue flame.
No sound escaped as the two had a brief conversation. At the end of which mrs Carson curtsied and the wolf made an odd bowing from its fore legs movement. Then the wolves and the fire faded out of existence, leaving behind an unconscious girl and a much abused Watchtower. The boy looked like he had been living rough for weeks and been running for his life most of that time, escaping only by the narrowest of margins from worse than the countless bites, burns, scratches and bruises that were visible on his naked body. The boy, too, was unconscious and Delarose had the feeling this was a good thing.
Lady Astarte said, “let’s clean up this place. Monica can be moved to her room. Louis, if you could keep half an eye on her to see if she has nightmares or worse? And mr Philips here needs to go to Doyle for treatment. Keep several officers at the ready in case he wakes up. If he doesn’t it might be best to move him to a cell where he can do less damage.” she sighed. “I will explain in detail after we have that camera crew safely away from the school. Hopefully I have sorted things out and we will not see a repeat of this .. event.”
Seeing Delarose’s stormy expression she relented a little. “Those were what ancient myth mistook for hell hounds Franklin. This pack has .. adopted ms Griffin. Mr Philips was overcome by his own delusions and by ms Griffin’s aura. The pack stepped in before he could do too much damage and protected her from what it perceives to be evil spirits.” She clarified, “Us.”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago #997
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Production manager Rhoda Pell gave her signature sour look to the two pointy-eared freaks standing in front of her. “First you... people storm in here asking our production company to make a formal apology to the people of Atlantis for our latest History Channel special, now you want a...?”
“An opportunity to present the true history of the Five-Fold Court,” said the willowy blonde. Her male companion, who looked to be the other sort of fairy, too, added, “While the Queen of the West disagrees with us on this, we feel that it is important that the humans know the glory that once was the realm of Atlantis and those who dwelt there.”
Just as Pell was about to retort, the woman said something which changed everything. “We are prepared to pay handsomely for this service... would a quarter of a billion dollars suffice?”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Katssun
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2 years 7 months ago #998
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Crystal Hall, Monday Morning
The freshman diligently stood in line for sausage and eggs, but the line was held up by other students waiting for a new tray of bacon. A wet, earthy smell tickled his nose before all he could smell was orchids. The clicking of shoes led the way to a flash of shiny copper hair, bouncing just above the shoulders of its owner. Crisp uniform, black tights, polished shoes caught his eye as the girl skimmed past all of them to a window of the kitchens.
The boy breathed in deep as she passed, taking in the orchid scent of the copper-haired girl’s shampoo, or perfume, or whatever. It mixed with the smell of sausages and freshly cooked bacon that promised movement of the line. But there was something else too. He looked at the trays around him. Did someone grab an overripe orange?
“Bitch cuts the line every day since she got here,” a girl behind him muttered softly. “Who does she think she is?”
“New money is my guess,” said another, “She may have all sorts of designer perfumes, and has got to have a service doing her laundry, but at least this school has some taste. She’s still in Hawthorne, where she belongs, and not with us in Melville. The administration at least gets the difference between money and class.”
“Valid.” She loaded up on a very hefty serving of eggs while her friend took only a modest amount of egg whites as they both left the line.
His copper-haired sprite accepted a Styrofoam clamshell container from the kitchen staff. Special dietary needs. He’d likely already seen weirder. This was Whateley. The girl headed to the baked goods as he loaded up on sausages and headed for the checkout.
He caught sight of her again as she took another line. A face that looked like it would fit in anywhere, from a noir detective’s office to a punk concert, seemed perfectly framed by her wavy locks. Full cheeks, a delicate bump to her nose, a rounded jawline surrounding delicate lips, and rich blue eyes that you could drown in.
But within that same face, a deep sadness. One he so now longed to cure. Had there been a weekend breakup? No way to know. Was the colder weather dampening her mood? He was from the South as well, it did take some getting used to. Was she having trouble fitting in? There was some basis for that theory. Only one way to find out. He had to talk to her.
Entranced, he followed her in a daze through the cafeteria to a table. The girl sat down and began to pick at her muffin. The boy took a deep breath as he passed her, drawing in her perfume once more. He sat down nearby, waiting for his change to introduce himself.
His newly appointed muse opened her container, revealing a few used coffee filters, with the grounds still in them no less, fruit peels, and a several bite-sized pieces of charcoal. The girl frowned. She must be being hazed! Were those two girls earlier paying off the kitchen staff?
She pushed aside the rest of the muffin, uneaten, before grabbing a coffee filter like a soft shelled taco and tearing off a sizeable bite. A helping of charcoal was elegantly sent on a fork through her lips.
The freshman, to growing horror, felt the end of his first true crush via delicate fingers breaking off a chunk of styrofoam that passed through coffee-stained lips.
Several tables away, a different student smiled. Another would-be-dreamer, but actual-kind-a-creeper, thwarted without any intervention required.
Hawthorne Cottage, that same morning
Elise Crewe woke up to the soft chime of her alarm, and dashed to the private bathroom of her single that was disconnected from the main sewer system. That finished, she gave herself a careful sniff. Slightly rotting fruit. She perked up. That gave her options!
She flitted out of the bathroom in high spirits, heading toward a large yellow metal cabinet.
“Someone’s in a good mood today,” her spirit said from the direction of the bed.
“It’s Monday! You know what that means!” Elise twirled on the balls of her feet, and gave her spirit a broad smile. Meadow perched on Elise’s headboard in her favorite attire: a damaged wedding dress stained with red wine, chocolate cake, and a questionable dark green ooze.
“Fresh-baked cinnamon muffins!” the two said simultaneously.
Elise opened her chemical cabinet and slipped on a pair of green nitrile gloves and grabbed her mug. She took out the supplement on the “Monday” shelf before placing both the mug and the supplement jar under a small fume hood. Water went in the mug followed by a magnetic stirring stick. After that came the contents of the jar. Monday meant bases, so caustic soda “tea” it was. A little petroleum jelly for her lips, a pinched nose, and she drank the steaming contents. She felt a strong tingle in her mouth and down her throat as the drink ate away at her insides before her regen kicked in. She wiped off her lips carefully and threw everything back under the hood.
Peeling off her nightshirt, she went through the rest of her morning routine. Hair thoroughly brushed to keep up its shine, a touch of mascara, lip balm. Then she stepped up to the clear display cabinet Dad had sent.
She’d had to assemble it herself, but a few borrowed tools from down the hall and it was ready to go. A large array of dozens of atomizers lay before her, carefully arranged and labeled. A handful were commercial, but most she’d had to mix herself with the help of a Merck Index. She grabbed two, and sprayed each on the insides of her elbows, right above her belly-button, and just on the right side of her neck. A few minutes later and the scent of rotten fruit was replaced with an earthy, mossy tone and bright tropical orchids.
Elise dressed with care, as she’d learned, and zipped toward the cafeteria. She had priorities, and waiting for friends wasn’t one of those things when it came to a Monday breakfast. She gracefully burst through the doors and skipped directly to the kitchen window.
“Good morning Chefs!”
“Ah, good morning Miss Crewe,” said one of the sous-chefs in a mocking tone. The entire staff was used to this by now. Elise was pretty sure the whole kitchen staff thought this little routine was hilarious. The woman came back to the window with a clamshell container. “Your meal awaits, my Princess.”
Elise rolled her eyes, but played along. “Thank you, good madam. I shall remember your courtesy.” She turned and zipped toward the baked goods line. But alas, that was when tragedy struck.
An empty muffin tray for the cinnamon muffins met her that fated morning. Bummed out, Elise settled for a cranberry-walnut muffin, and dejectedly entered the checkout line. She moped her way to her usual table, empty this early, and picked at her backup muffin.
It just wasn’t the same. Nothing beat a warm cinnamon muffin. She opened the white container revealing artfully arranged kitchen garbage. Zested citrus peels surrounding a little pile of charcoal, all shaped like a Black-eyed Susan. Used coffee filters arranged to look like tortilla breakfast wraps, dotted with sour cream. She looked at the muffin again and frowned before pushing it away. It was a waste, but it was probably compostable.
By the time she started eating the container itself, her mood had improved. Tomorrow was another day.
She’d crack the exact timing on warm cinnamon muffins yet.
Katssun
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #999
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
H1 Meeting, Jackson’s Whole Enchiladas, Parkersburg, WV
“I just mean, like, what are the chances?!” Harry Ewing bellowed.
“So what?!” Gene Conahan, “The kid’s like...what, nine?”
“Never too soon for a mutie!”
“What makes you think he’s a mutant?” Lena Miller replied, still nursing her first beer.
Harry leaned back, clinging desperately to the edge of the bar to maintain his balance. “Vivid. Red. Hair.”
“Okay...lots of people have red hair,” she said, “You got...anything else?”
“Those piercing, shining blue eyes. They bore right into ya and read your mind!”
“You ain’t got nothing to worry about Harry!” Gene inserted, cackling before he killed another glass of Bud. Gene eased himself off the stool and wobbled off towards the bathrooms.
“You gotta give me something Harry. The kid’s got blue eyes and red hair. Like Gene said, he’s nine! You seen him zap squirrels or something? Take apart his little kiddie quad? Levitate? Cheat at peewee football?”
“He’s left handed...”
Lena just rolled her eyes and slapped down a ten dollar bill. “Fantastic Harry, you positively ID’d a left-handed ginger boy.”
Fuck this. As Lena tucked her pocketbook back into the inside pocket of her leather jacket, her fingers brushed against the business card she’d been given a few weeks ago. She had honestly forgotten about it.
‘Ezra W. Sutherland - Operations’
He said he was looking for people with previous combat experience, or at the very least, tactical support. Perhaps a return call was long past due.
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Katssun.
Cryptic
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2 years 6 months ago #1000
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Stop chasing me! I’m not a Precog or have cold related powers!” a short, pudgy, be furred Whitman girl squealed as she scurried on all fours along the snow banked walkways as a hoard of students chased.
“Damn it, I knew I should have said I was from somewhere other then Punxatawny PA, or that my name was Phillipa when I got here.” Phillipa “Whistler” Lutz wheezed as she slammed the door, leaning back against it panting, while wondering why she chose Philipa of all things when she went girl and rodent..She prayed that no one was who could find the door was willing to risk the Mystic departments wrath.
Ms. Reilly looked up from her little assistant. “You might want o find another place to hide. Ms Bardou is in the department, and she’s the one who started the Hog Hunt...”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
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3 years 3 weeks ago - 3 years 3 weeks ago #951
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
April 2017: a visiting Australian alumna (who eventually resigned herself to her official codename, and chose to meet it with humor) encounters Ratel in the Quad. They both note that their tee-shirts have quite similar slogans, though implying different things...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 3 weeks ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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3 years 2 weeks ago #952
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mary Sue Litmus Test wrote: “A.25 Do you think of your character as a role model?”
Crystal Hall Cafeteria, Whateley Academy
The Last Ride of “Black” Jack Kingston, United States Marshal And His Immortals wrote:
After a brief, emotional skirmish, discretion proved the better part of valor in the Sheriff’s squinty eyes and he slowly withdrew, reticent to turn his back to us until out of sight. I recall being insulted to be considered one who would shoot a man with his back turned.
The young man finished reading from the book with a frown. “What’s the big deal with shooting a man with his back turned? I would.” He handed the book back to one of the friends he was sitting with.
Kris massaged his temples in preparation for the coming headache before explaining. “Mads, the idea is that it’s dishonorable to kill someone who poses no further danger to you and is at great disadvantage because he cannot see you draw your weapon.”
“I don’t get it.”
Kris turned to one of the young women also sitting at the cafeteria table. He spread his hands apart as if to say Your turn. She raised her eyebrow Are you serious?.
Abbie sighed before picking up the conversation topic in her Southern-inflected accent, “When was the last time someone turned their back to you after threatening violence?”
Mads scrunched his face in confusion and mock innocence, “Ummmm. Does a gangbanger running for cover after shooting at us count?”
“Was he still armed?”
Mads chuckled at the memory. “Of course! And so were the scum-suckers who were waiting to ambush us if we followed him. Hitting him with a stunner only made him run a little faster.”
How was that a bad thing? For that matter ...
“What part of ‘no further danger’ did you miss? At least you used a non-lethal attack.”
Mads volunteered, “I think it was Blaine who plugged the oik.”
Accessory to a felony. Yay.
“Okayyy. Let’s just keep that to ourselves, shall we? Any other times come to mind?”
“Ehm. There was that one drive-by shooting where the gunner didn’t open up until the car passed my position. I think Max got clipped before he chucked one of his molotovs through the open window. Anyway, I tagged the driver with a bit of Color My World before they could book it out of there. I’m pretty sure we ended up getting blamed for all seven or eight casualties. And as usual back then, we didn’t get paid. I mean, sure, setting one of the buildings on fire wasn’t exactly in the job description, but it was just going to be demolished anyway. “
The added vrroom vroom noises and hand gestures to indicate position and movement were entirely unnecessary for anyone over the age of ten. Back to the boys on that one!
Kris asked, “Mads, what was the reason for the drive-by and why were you there?”
“We were just there to talk the squatters and druggies into moving out before some buildings went down. I think the shooting was just a turf dispute between their dealers.”
“And the building that caught fire?”
“Welllll, a burning car going out of control, crashing into the building, can do that. Or so I’m told.”
“I begin to see the problem. Apparently a person needs to be on heavy-duty street drugs to turn their backs on ... present company. Let’s look at it a different way: what if someone attacked you from behind when you didn’t expect it?”
“Excluding snipers? That’s happened. Once.”
Can this guy go anywhere without snipers, bombs, napalm - in short, a war zone - following? Oh, right, he also says he used to work for a company named after a god of War.
“Okay?”
There has to be more to it than that.
Thomas interrupted, “Wait. Did that have anything to do with the burn marks in that one hall’s floor and ceiling at that hell-hole of a school that Lars was upset about?”
Mads answered that with “I’d classify it as a ‘teachable moment’ regarding the drawbacks of bullying.”
I’ll go out on a limb and say “probably not.”
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Discussion Thread
E. E. Nalley
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3 years 2 weeks ago #953
E. E. Nalley replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
James jerked slightly from pausing in the writing of his manuscript with sufficient force that it drew the attention of his wife from across the room. Walking over, she caressed his forehead, alarmed. “My beloved, what has come over you?”
“Mah darling,” he replied in his charming, cultured southern drawl. “Ah believe Ah have just had a vision of the future, and Ah weep for the dying of civilization!”
Jasmine cocked her head to one side. “You are not fooling anyone, Mr Hallowell! You are having on just to lure me into your embrace to have your wicked way with me!”
The math professor turned author put an arm around his wife who was still, even at her age, a very lovely woman, and pulled her into his lap. “How transparent Ah am to you, madam!”
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Thomas Jefferson, to Archibald Stuart, 1791
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 weeks ago - 1 year 10 months ago #954
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Daisy Hawkins was cut loose. She knew how bad she’d screwed up, but didn’t expect the MCO to wash their hands of her. So now she was waiting on the lawyer her family were sending.
She was almost as worried about that, though. She’d sort of burned her bridges with them a while back. They just did seem to see how serious the threat...
The door to the meeting room swung open, and two figures stepped in as one of the guards made sure nothing happened. However, she knew both of them, and they weren’t lawyers. She hoped not, anyway, you never knew with them.
“Uncle Denny? Dr. Smart? What are you two doing here?” Dennis wasn’t actually her uncle, he was a cousin of her father, but they’d been so close that she’d called him ‘uncle’ throughout her childhood.
The two sat down, and Dennis said, “Jack is really disappointed with you, Daisy. The whole family is. I’m just glad Grampa Skylar isn’t here to see this.”
Daisy sighed, even as she felt the ‘voice gimmick’ he was using settle into her hindbrain. There it is, he had invoked the sacred name of Sky Hawkins, and expected it (and the voice gimmick) to shame her into submission. Well, Sky was a nut who ended up getting blown to pieces, so screw that.
But now it was Helen’s turn. “The Fellowship of Light is also displeased with you, Ms. Hawkins. There was serious thought of abandoning you.” That threat got her attention. She may not really be part of the White Monks establishment - hell, not even the Wildes were, really - but she knew that this was their code for making sure someone doesn’t live long enough to make more trouble. She shuddered.
“I... I... what do I need to do?”
“First off, your mission is a bust, not that you’ve really been on it for some time now, have you? We’ve told you that the so-called ‘mutant menace’ needed watching, but not controlling. You were to monitor the MCO office in Miami, and warn us if things got out of hand there. You certain weren’t meant to adopt their own hateful outlook, or to go off on some hare-brained bit of institutional ladder climbing!” Smart’s voice barely rose, but the intensity of that statement made Daisy wince. She knew that Smart was using the Voice Gimmick again, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.
Now Dennis stepped in with a bit of Good Cop. “I know you think that the more bigoted members of the MCO might be right, but you don’t see the bigger picture. Heck, even Helen doesn’t really, but we trust what the Monks tell us and they have explained some of it to the two of us. They say that they’ve known for a long time about the real origins of the Mutant Metagene Complex, well before Dr Cody started writing his papers on it. The MGC exists for a reason.”
“What, I mean... wait, are you saying that what that Wyatt Cody loon says about it is true?”
“We’ve done what we can to discredit his work with the general public, but yes. And most of our opponents such as the Bavarian Bastards,” - she could feel the hatred there, as always whenever someone working for the Enlightened Brothers mentioned those traitors - “the Blood Monks, the Priory, the Bloodline, the Brothers of the Ultimate North,” - meaning the Thule Gemeinschaft, she guessed - “even the Brotherhood of the Bell, they know it too.”
Daisy Hawkins felt as if she were in freefall. Denny looked worried, she must have looked about ready to pass out. Which she was.
Eventually, she regained enough composure to croak, “What now?”
After a significant pause, Dr Smart spoke. “As it happens, Dr Garland is accepted to the Bar in Federal court, even if she doesn’t usually practice. She will be your attorney of record, but the main person handling will be a Brother in good standing, J. Parkinson Dunmore.”
Hearing that name broke the spell she seemed to be under. “WHAT? No! There’s no way I want him defending me! He’s fucking Dr Diabolik’s lawyer!”
“He is also the best qualified for the case, and as I said, he is one of the Brothers. He is trusted far more than anyone else.”
She pondered that, confused. The Great White Shark of the New York Bar was a Brother? That... she just shook her head at that, hardly registering what was said afterwards. How could a Brother be working with a supervillain, one she’d always assumed was backed by the Blood Brothers? Was she wrong about that? Was he spying on Diabolik? Or... he’d been given custody of She-Beast and Techno-Devil when they were growing up. What was going on?
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 1 year 10 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 weeks ago - 3 years 2 weeks ago #955
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
this is a follow up to this micro , for those who forgot about it or never saw it
“... and then the arrogant son of a cow couldn’t be bothered to take the spoils of victory!”
Shawn sighed, pissed off that Jason has insisted he be the one to keep an eye on Chris while he fumed over the fight the day before. But Prism was still busy fixing up some of those injured, and asking anyone else - especially Judicator or, Fates forbid, Feral - would be likely to make things worse. At least he could get out of the way if Counterpoint took a swing at him.
“With Carson right there? No way. Besides, I’m pretty sure Aj is straight.” Shawn didn’t care either way; he wasn’t as interested in dudes these days, and he was nailing plenty of chicks lately anyway, but if some hot Exemplar stud wanted to bone him, or get boned by him, he’d have at least considered it.
“As if such mortal morality ever mattered to the likes of us, or him! Had it been Guan Yu who had won, you could be sure he’d...”
“... I don’t care, I don’t wanna hear your frigging sex fantasies about older guys. Seriously, give it a rest.”
“No, I won’t! My ass was his by right of conquest! It is an insult that he didn’t take his pleasure of me!”
Tracer gave his fellow Olympian the gimlet eye and just said, “You know, Chris, there are easier ways to get laid...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 2 weeks ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 1 week ago - 3 years 5 days ago #956
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“To be honest, I’m glad that that went as well as it did, looking back on it,” said Father Arturo, “Using nukes on certain kinds of beings isn’t a great idea.”
“uh,” reply Petra, unsure what to make of that. “Do they do that often...?”
“No, not really, especially after what happened on Novaya Zemlaya in ‘61.”
This tickled a memory of a documentary she’d seen before manifesting. “You mean they used the Tsar Bomba on some kind of monster?”
“The Tsar Bomb?” he said, chuckling. “Well, that’s what they said it was, afterwards, but no, it wasn’t a particularly big bomb, actually. The Soviets did learn to leave the Baba Yaga alone after that, though.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 5 days ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 2 days ago - 2 years 1 month ago #957
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Well, I guess that was sorta inevitable. I wonder if any of the others have seen him, yet.”
Bernie started, then turned to glare down at the all-too-familiar face of the senior who was the current head of the not-so-secret Ninja club. She was obviously talking about the same spiky-haired blond guy he’d been watching being escorted to Schuster with the other new students coming in for Winter Session.
“There are just too damn many of us around already, damn it!” He sighed, then added, “And not just us, us, either. Did you notice the girl with the huge...”
“Archaeology tools?” the annoying girl finished. “Could be worse. I heard from someone that there was a Ryoko a few years back...”
“Yeah, I know. And a Faye Valentine and a Chun Li a couple years later. And a few others too. I dunno.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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3 years 1 day ago - 3 years 1 day ago #958
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
because self-insert of avatar characters is like potato chips. But I usually can restrain myself.
The strange woman shrugged and handed several baggies filled with a number of substances, most of which were controlled in the current jurisdiction and the rest of which would be had they existed in the dimension before. “Hey, you know I’m only handing these over ‘cause there are kids around, right? I’m gonna need some of those back later, though.”
Ms. Everheart nodded, though she kept her eyes on the strange woman. “And the weapons?”
“OK, OK... the flint-tipped spear, uhm, the Magic-8-Ball - careful with that, there’s some ‘Dox on it right now that I’m still trying to work off - the Cold Iron and Silver-tipped arrows, hmmn, the etheric visionquest inducer is probably safe enough unless you try to use it but I doubt you’ll take my word on that... don’t worry about the shades, the enchantment only serves as a focus, helps me, like, keep it together, you know?”
“Thank you. Now, Ms. Ward, would you mind explaining why you are here, and how you got here?”
“Man, I was just mindin’ my own business, taking my daughter,” placing her hand on the young Faun-like mutant who came through the same portal she’d appeared out of, “to a nearby Freehold for a friend’s birthday party, right, when this asshole HIT Mark showed up...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 3 years 1 day ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Valentine
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3 years ago - 2 years 11 months ago #959
Valentine replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Inspired by the endgame thread.
“Hey Jadis, let me tell you about this weird nightmare I had.”
“Trev, I don’t care about your nightmares. I have my own.”
“But in mine you were the daughter of some Supervillain named Dr. Diabolic.”
“Just be quiet and eat your lunch.”
Don’t Drick and Drive.
Last Edit: 2 years 11 months ago by Valentine.
null0trooper
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2 years 11 months ago #960
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
As The Development Cycle Turns
After a showing of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”:
“Yo! Metro, isn’t that the same Marvin you wear hanging off your belt?”
“Sure is!”
“That explains a lot.”
[Conference link established. Proceed.]
Major, is that the inspiration for your emoti-toy chassis?
“Yes. So?”
The equipment that is running your psychotherapeutic software?
“I’m having trouble seeing where this is going, Sophia.”
Yet you expect me to baby-sit your handgun’s persona AI?
“They get lonely.”
They. get? lonely. It is a personality simulation overlain on maintenance and ballistics prediction algorithms. It can’t get ‘lonely’! What did you do, overclock your - you DID didn’t you?
“Maybe.”
What was the personality matrix fraudulently misused in whatever dark alley you downloaded the original from?
“The Red Queen.”
The Red Queen. On a kludged and overclocked comm link. I.e., a glorified cell phone. Kris, YOU deal with Major Mayhem; I’m getting a headache. [Link terminated.]
“I get the impression that she doesn’t approve of me. Is it a result of the code assimilated from Cerberus, perhaps?”
“No, Motoko. Digital Intelligences can take a while to get to know others.”
“That is logical.”
“Mads? The Red Queen’s name isn’t Motoko.”
“Not my fault: after a while all 2D productions look the same. So, Kris, since you’ll be studying, why don’t you hang out with them while I go into Berlin? Just a quick in and out: green light across the board, right?”
“Er... Green lights you say?”
“Yep!”
“I think you should take Ms. Kusanagi with you as back-up.”
“But!”
[Incoming msg] The voting is three, and climbing, to one. You lose.
“But they won’t let me go into town armed!”
“My opinion of Chief Delarose and Mrs. Carson increases by leaps and bounds.”
[Incoming msg] Seconded. I should poll the campus as an exercise in assessing sanity among 21st century teens.
[Conference Link terminated.]
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
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Discussion Thread
Kettlekorn
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2 years 11 months ago #961
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Luc smiles as he applies a protective coating of oil to his new titanium mail. Not only is it lighter than his old steel armor, it’s also brighter. Image is king, and with this brilliant mail and his updated cape, Luc’s intimidation factor will be through the roof. The villains won’t know what hit them.
---
“This weather’s creepin’ me out,” mutters Carl. “You ever seen clouds like these, Dee? That one looks jus’ like a face, and it ain’t none too happy, neither.”
“They’re fucking clouds,” says Dee. “Just keep moving these damn crates. The boss is pissy enough without letting him catch you cloud watching.”
Carl gives the unnerving cloud-face one last squint, then goes inside to load a fresh crate of loot onto his dolly. As he wheels it out to the truck, however, his eyes slide back to the face in the sky. Then they widen as the cloud-face opens its eyes and sunlight shines down in two parallel shafts. “Holy shit!”
“Carl-
“Dee! Incomin’!” A sparkling, yellow-bearded figure is descending within one of the shafts. A golden cape billows out behind him and white wings of cloud extend from his boots and helmet.
“Fuck.” Dee pokes his head into the warehouse. “We got a problem, boss!” Meanwhile, Carl wastes no time in readying his battle-torch. Working for a mad scientist certainly has its perks.
“Surrender now, foul villains!” shouts the newcomer. “Or face the wrath of the Stormin’ Norman!” Lightning punctuates his threat, reflecting brightly off his armor as he sets down and strides toward the warehouse.
“Hope this asshole can’t control rain too,” Carl says, then sweeps his long, foot-wide stream of fire over the gold and silver do-gooder. “Not that a li’l water would bother this bad mamma jamma...”
The blond man laughs as the blue flame washes over him and ignites his cape and the oil protecting his armor, while leaving his beard and skin unscathed. Then the titanium itself ignites, and the man pauses, clearly surprised. He shields his eyes with one hand and pokes gently at the brilliantly burning armor with the other. A bit of it flakes off and falls to the ground. Stormin’ Norman’s smile inverts, and tendrils of lightning leak from his eyes. He balls up a handful of white-hot burning titanium and hurls it at Carl, then rolls up another.
“...We got two problems, boss!”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 11 months ago - 2 years 11 months ago #962
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The wandering spirit fled from the human place, despite the pain the wards caused her, fleeing back to the Grove which had given her succor five years before. She was hurting for her lost love, but worse, scandalized by the bizarre behavior of one of these empowered human youths, the ways in which their emotions rampaged out of their control.
When she had broken free from the mean girl, she was still reeling from the suffering she had endured in her bondage. But the spirit of the Grove, and the many lesser spirits like herself who played beneath its guard, had helped her heal, help her find the harmony the mean girl had done her utmost to break. In time she was able to set off from the Grove, looking for a new Hallow of her own.
In time, she came across a burbling little stream which could hold her, though it was a narrow fit. She would journey short distances from it at times, seeking a more suitable Hallow, and it was in these sojourns that she met him.
He was a strong but gentle hamadrayad, whose home was a fine oak tree. They both fell deeply in love, and she would go to visit him whenever she had the strength.
Until the day came that the machines of the humans cut down his tree.
Oh, how she wept! She thought of seeking out wherever he might reside, but she knew it was a lost cause; he could be anywhere, in any suitable plant around the world. Worse, she knew that, as with all his kind, he would lose his memories of this life when reincarnated, and while the Waters of Memory could restore those, he would never be as he was.
Horrified, but determined to honor the form he’d worn in this life, she followed the tree’s corpse to a mill, and from there, to a furniture factory. She watched as his body was rent apart, and eventually, shaped into a table.
She continued her ghostly vigil, warmed by the echos of his spirit that still lay within. To her surprise, she found herself where she had been before - the place of tutelage where she had escaped the mean girl.
The table that had been her beloved was brought into one of the residences, one which was protected by the fiercest of wards. She forced her way through them, determined to stay by his side. While she was now trapped, they would still be together, so long as she stayed clear of those like the mean girl who could bond with her - while she now knew that such a bond may be harmonious, and that not all such would subjugate her as she once had been, for now she chose the freedom of the harsh physical world over a warm and inviting Hallow, for fear of losing touch with the last traces of her beloved.
Perhaps she should have known something would happen. These humans were so erratic, flayed by drives and passions which could burn like flame. But she did not notice the odd girl who followed her lavender-tressed roommate like a dog after her mistress, nor the way that roommate ignored her in favor of others, and of the emotional games of those like the mean girl; for while she was not like the mean girl, she was trapped within those games, and so she too failed to take note of the passion so close at hand to her.
The spirit remained unaware of all this, until tonight. The night when that poor, lovestruck gadgeteer girl with the green locks did... did...
She saw the last shred of her beloved’s spirit torn away in the passion of the moment, that awful act of selfishness the one named Nina performed. So now, she fled for the Grove, aghast at the knowledge that she had now utterly lost her dear Table-kun...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 11 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 11 months ago #963
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Saturday, December 8, 2007,
Office of the Headmistress, Whateley Academy
Given that what she wanted to say was somewhat unbecoming her position, Elizabeth Carson greeted the latest miscreant with only limited sarcasm. “Mister Jensen, I’m so glad you could make it this afternoon.”
“Ma’am? I was given the impression that you weren’t entirely happy with my performance this morning. I’ll admit there were some things I could have done better, but I-”
“Mads, sit down before you fall down. By the way, this one is me, not the one you’re talking to.”
The boy shook his head as if to clear out the cobwebs, but was only successful in turning a more pallid shade of green.
“That. Didn’t really help.”
*sigh* “Let me start from the beginning and refresh your memory a bit. You have a valid Form 3867B on file. What does that tell you about where you should or should not have been this morning?”
“I have no idea what that is. I think I’m up to date on all my shots though.”
“I’ll take your doctor’s word on that. However, the form I just mentioned is a specifically a waiver of combat-related training on religious beliefs or medical grounds. For example, it is often used to waive a combat final.”
“Religious?”
“Yes.”
“I knew I should have brought more munitions with me to the Arena. Yes. Definitely my bad on that.”
“Come again?”
“God created weapons to be sold at a reasonable profit and used whenever needed.”
It was kind of cool watching all three headmistresses blink in astonishment like that. Mads was pretty sure he’d gotten corporate policy right in spite of the medications he was on, so he tried his best See? I got that one right! smile without biting his tongue again or anything. He wasn’t sure when he’d bit his tongue, but he must have done something to cause him to smell blood, right?
“In this case, I think that medical grounds were clearly intended.”
“Oh. But that’s okay too, since that wasn’t really a combat final or anything, just a minor planar incursion.”
“Is that what you were told?”
“I’m a little hazy on the specifics. At one point I could have sworn there was a cat on my head. There isn’t one now is there?”
It should be noted that exemplar speed is better than that afforded the average person, but it’s not enough to forestall an overmedicated teen from attempting to lean back and look up at whatever isn’t on top of their head. Liz Carson winced at the impact, and ignored the mumbled “I’m all right. No cat!” to call her good friend Ophelia about the unconscious student on the floor, in her office, without a cat. On second thought, maybe Oscar and Sam would like a chance to explain. After all, if the oncoming bus has room for one, two more could fit under it.
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Erianaiel
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2 years 10 months ago #964
Erianaiel replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Hopefully this is not out of place in this thread.
It’s only tangentially related to the first and second generation stories, More of an alternative history really. And only a fragment of a fragment of a real story at that .
A broken world
The girl was creeping through the densely forested snowscape, making hardly a sound despite her feet crunching through the frozen crust with every carefully tested step. She had to exercise great caution because she knew she was treading dangerously close to the invisible border that belied the sight of the frozen land going on until it was lost in the gloom underneath the snow covered branches.
Being this close to the edge was dangerous and a single careless step could make her vanish, but this also was the only place where she could find the metal they so desperately needed back at home. And of all the rag tag band of survivors she was the one with the keenest nose and the surest feet to get right to the edge but not beyond.
Still, metal was rare and large rocks pretty much a myth, the truth of their existence only evidenced by their presence in The Wall. The old man was a Stone Shaper but it had been longer than she was alive that he had been able to ply his Talent, and she did not expect him to ever be able to do so again in his few remaining years.
That was not quite true, he was keeping the long house in shape against the endless blizzards, which was a miracle of their survival in and of itself.
She gauged the height of the small, drained suns as she made her way forward. It wouldn’t be long before the lesser of the two would drop behind the distance mountains that she could see but never reach as they were far beyond The Edge. She thought of these things in capitals because giving them personality meant giving them greater reality, though with the sun dipping out of sight she would have to abandon her search for another night, as the increasing gloom would make it fluctuate and could even make it sweep over her if she did not keep a greater distance.
It was frustrating though because for days now she had returned to this part of the Edge because she was certain beyond it she picked up an impression of heat and thunder and the sound of crushing battles. It was not real, as it came from beyond The Edge, but paying attention to it could sometimes pull it closer and cause bits and pieces of metal to be spit across. Only this time it had proven far too reluctant to get real enough for anything like that to happen, and she knew she should have abandoned this feeling days ago and look for a more promising spot to draw metal. Or rock. She would love to see the old man shape one more statue to anchor The Wall, that would last for centuries and allow her and those who came after her to remember him by. It might even allow her to find a mate and have children of her own. Children who might find a some small amount of security in Lands of the Watch that would allow them to thrive. That was her great hope anyway, to find that anchor so that the others did not have to take up the dangerous spot in The Wall in its empty spot all the time.
The girl intuited, because there was not anything to sense, that The Edge was beginning to destabilise. A quick glance showed that the smallest sun was still visible in the sky and would remain so for another half candlemark. The deepening gloom was not the only reason for it though, sometimes an approaching blizzard if it was going to be bad enough would cause The Edge to become unstable hours even days in advance. It was why approaching it this closely was so dangerous.
With a sigh she turned away and took her first loping jump towards the distant different danger of The Village, The Keep and The Wall. It likely saved her life as something crossed The Edge with unbelievable speed and hit her in the head with a glancing blow. Had she been only a moment slower to turn away it would have broken every bone in her body as it slammed fully into her, if it had not taken her head off completely. As it was she was knocked rump over tail and flipped through the air before crashing through a copse of Edge twisted saplings. She broke two of them with her weight but the others did not like that one bit and started to reach out to her as they moved away, slowly, in the same non-direction as the edge.
The girl was trying to clear her head enough from the impact that she could crawl out of the copse before it devoured her, but she was deep in and the trees already had a hold on her. Then another bit of good fortune saved her. The thing that had hit her came rolling to a halt in the same copse, crashing another three trees in the process of doing so. That in itself would not have helped much, the copse was still big enough to devour them both. That it was glowing white hot and setting the trees on fire, they did not like that at all. Nor were the waves of unreality of Edge crossing that it gave off as it settled into the Land of the Watch. Normally the Edge trees would have loved that and fed on it, but apparently it made their ... roots churn the way it made the girl’s stomach queasy. Between that and the fire the trees decided they wanted to be somewhere else and picked up root, moving closer to the actual Edge, where neither the girl nor the white hot thing could follow them.
The girl got to four unsteady feet and promptly puked out what little remained of her insufficient and long past morning meal. It didn’t make her actually feel better either, but the worst of the stuffed feeling in her head passed and she flet that she could at least put some distance between herself and The Edge.
She also got a look at the thing that had hit her and now lay sizzling in the snow, surrounded by burning and thankfully now quite dead shattered remains of Edge trees. Had her head not hurt so awfully and her stomach not felt like it was waiting for the slightest provocation to get rid of her meals all the way back to the last month, she would have danced from joy. In the snow, still far too hot to touch but rapidly cooling, was an honest to the gods knight. A metal man was not quite as good as the rock she hoped to one day find, but it certainly was the next best thing to it.
Getting it to The Village was going to be difficult, not to mention painful, but she would manage somehow. Her sense of urgency spiked by the intuition that behind her The Edge was growing even less stable, not more now the knight had passed across it. This could mean nothing, or it could be the warning sign of an Edge Beast about to cross. She was NOT about to be anywhere near The Edge if that should happen.
The metal knight was heavier than she, several times over she suspected, but then she was much stronger than her weight and size suggested. She put her jaws around the knights neck and carefully bit down so as not to crush anything important, the same way she one day hoped to carry her children. She ignored the blistering and then deep burning of her mouth. She would heal, or not, but getting the knight away from The Edge was too important to be stopped by such concerns. With an effort she pushed away with her powerful legs and began dragging the metal men through the snow towards safety.
null0trooper
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2 years 10 months ago #965
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Sunday January the 27th, 2008,
The Quad, whateley Academy
Robert Rose’s jaunty shout of “Fore!” was still echoing off the ersatz Alps arranged around the playing field as his target, the white knight, vanished through their opponents’ goal. The goal-tender, Froggy Frobisher, had barely dodged the thing barrelling across the field, as he began to have second thoughts on the life choices that led him to agree to this game.
As the players set forth to their new lines of scrimmage, pink flamingos and Gemini croquet mallets in hand, Jadis took note of the manic competitive gleam in both Kate’s and Murphy’s eyes and said to Ayla, “I’m beginning to doubt the wisdom of modifying Wizards’ Chess to suit Lewis Carroll’s birthday.”
“Do you have any idea as to where these portals go to?”
Jadis looked to the crew keeping the goals/portals “stable”, shook her head, and said, “I’d worry more about where they come from...”
A screaming hypervelocity projectile erupted from the goal that Joanne was tending, sending the new-ish Poesie flat to the deck.
“... but I think one of her balls dropped for Sydney.”
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Rose Bunny
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2 years 10 months ago #966
Rose Bunny replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
She sat in the grass, near her safe spot, the wind rustling the autumn leaves. She closed her ‘eyes’, for as an abstract concept, she had no physical form. Long ago she had encountered a child, angry and frustrated. She had tried to calm the girl, but the girl was rage and spite and darkness, and in the child’s fury, she was nearly torn asunder. It had taken a long time to recover, the birds and beasts that came along nurtured her back to health. She felt their emotions and grew stronger. She was no longer hurting. They sustained her, and in turn, she helped them. She gave serenity to the injured animals she found, and she grieved as old Raccoon, a friend of many years, settled down and his time came. She bound through the grass, she took in great joy as the birds and the animals shared their joy of the coming of the young ones. The peace and contentment returned, and she forgot the pain and near death from her encounter with that girl. The seasons passed, and she grew ever stronger, gaining substance, and slowly, she took shape.
Translucent and semi-transparent, she took a semblance of form. She stood no taller than Chipmunk, a ghostly waif. Her skin was pale, and her hair white. She had bright lavender eyes and shimmering wings, like her dragonfly friends. She had a petite figure, small breasts, and pointed ears. The glades and glens whispered with the sounds of her clear, light voice, silent as a whisper. She was whole, and she was happy once again.
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Anne
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2 years 10 months ago #967
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Tansy sat at the edge of the glade where she often now found peace since she had become involved with Lanie and Wyatt. The place brought her a sense of peace that even now she often found lacking. She communed with Mustang for a few moments, then settled on her side to take a short nap.
While Tansy slept, Mustang communed with the injured spirit that carefully hid in that quiet place. “Don’t worry so, little sister,” he told the spirit, “and consider this: Though she was not ready to see the power peace could offer her life when she first took you up, Tansy now comes to your place to find the peace you can offer. You did not fail.”
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Anne
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2 years 10 months ago #968
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Damn Lt, it looks like a tornado hit here!” Sgt McGee of the Buffalo PD commented to the senior detective.
“It does at that, do you know what happened?” Lt Murphy asked.
“The fucking KOP and I think the MCO got over enthusiastic about capturing a mutant,” Sgt McGee told the Lt.
“Did we get a body count?” Lt Murphy asked.
“With the number of guns the MCO had and with the KOP hovering around in their power armor as well I didn’t press the issue,” McGee told the Lt quietly.
“I wonder, well I best not say,” Lt Murphy looked at the devastation, “Have we called out SAR?”
“Yeah and CSI for all the good it will do us, to them I’m just someone in the way or to send to do interviews, which I will if they find anyone to interview,” McGee told the Lt.
“There’s a crowd over there, see what you can get from them,” Lt Murphy pointed to a crowd of gawkers that had gathered somewhat out of the area of destruction.
Sgt McGee nodded, though he didn’t hold out much hope, he could hear the sussurration of the crowd and rather thought they were mostly Spanish speakers. Still his ability with the language was improving so maybe he had a chance... “Would Serena Lopez be available?” he asked his Lt.
“Do you think you’ll need her?” the Lt asked.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that I can hear them speaking Spanish,” McGee told the Lt.
“Are you sure that you’re not a mutant, I can’t even hear them,” Lt Murphy commented to the Sgt.
“I’ve been tested twice, remember sir,” McGee reminded the Lt.
“I ought to insist that you go to the MCO to verify that test,” the Lt stated.
“Are you a fan boy of theirs?” McGee asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Well keep in mind that unless the statute has changed I can choose the agency that tests me and the DPO is the agency I will always choose, unless I can get down to New York City and get an appointment with the Empire Guard.”
“You do that, I’ll fill out the paperwork. Uncanny abilities should be trained.”
Or the Lt knows that someone above us will review our body cams, Sgt McGee thought.
“I’ll start the interviews if you will see if we can get Lopez here.”
The Lt nodded and Sgt McGee moved off to see if there was any chance that he could get any information from the crowd.
The wave of “...cerdo” that passed through the crowd didn’t give him much hope as he approached.
Still he knew that he had to make the attempt.
He approached a teen at the edge of the crowd who seemed to be almost be being shunned by the group for his initial interview. “¿Se palabra Engles?” he asked.
“Where did you learn to speak Spanish? You sound like a high class whore,” the youngster replied.
“From an American college,” McGee answered.
“I shouldn’t talk to you at all,” the youngster told McGee, “everyone knows you’re a pig.”
“But you will, why is that, and why do you speak such good English?”
“I’ll talk to you because my friend Xander isn’t answering his phone, as for English, they think I’m abandoning my heritage...” the youth bobbed his head toward the crowd.
“So, what can you tell me?”
“Xander spotted someone he thought was a super villain and called the police like we’re supposed to. About ten minutes later the KOP and the MCO showed up with their heavy weapons. They seemed to know the person that Xander had been keeping the police informed about. Anyway they called for the villain to surrender and he, I think it was a he, though really they were wearing either a robe or a very shapeless dress, started throwing lightning bolts at the power armor. I was staying low and watching Xander who then decided to run. I thought he got hit by one of the beam weapons that the MCO was using, but I’m not sure. All I know is that he started to glow, then disappeared. I scooted out of there as fast as I could. Xander texted me a couple of times about things like Tia Maria’s Taqueria getting flattened, then he stopped texting me.
As for English? I want to be something more than a carpenter or person who mows lawns.”
Sgt McGee nodded to that, then asked, “So you’re looking for your friend. What else did you see?”
“I’m pretty sure that the MCO was gathering up bodies, and they gathered up more than they had injured.”
Sgt McGee frowned at that, it wasn’t the first, or even the tenth as far as that went, accusation he’d heard from the few people in this ghetto of the MCO being very liberal about the number of bodies they recovered from an incident.
“Do you know anyone else who might talk to me? If we can identify the missing that will help.”
“Will the cops really look? They don’t seem to care what happens to us. My sister Bonita was raped and we still haven’t heard anything about the man that did it being caught,” the youth said somewhat resentfully.
“We don’t have enough people to be everywhere,” McGee told the youth while thinking, ‘and you really would hate having even more police in your community’.
“Yeah but Bonita is the 15th girl I know who has been raped. The man cuts the girl’s little finger off from her left hand when he’s done,” the youth spat.
That sparked a cross thought by McGee and he pulled out one of his business cards and said, “E-mail me with any information you have on that, I will check it out for you. But for now, besides your friend Xander, do you think anyone else is missing?”
“Si, Tina, I think,” the youth blushed.
“Can you give me last names for Tina and Xander?”
“Yeah Tina’s last name is Guitarez and Xander’s last name is Fernandez.”
“I can’t promise anything about the missing, but I hope more people will tell me if they know about someone who is missing,” Sgt McGee said as he moved away from the youth. He hadn’t asked the youngster’s name and knew he’d get a lecture about that but suspected that the youth would not have spoken to him if he had asked a name.
He, or she was doing their best to look neuter and McGee had suspicions that was part of the reason that the youth had been on the outside of the crowd rather than inside while the men of the community essentially formed a cordon and told him that no one else would talk to him as he approached them. After working about a quarter of the way around the crowd McGee was confronted by a rather belligerent man who told him (as near as he was able to translate), “Little pig, you’re apt to become pork in the pot if you keep on going. Your master can’t see you now, if I were you I’d leave before something bad happens to you.”
McGee hated to retreat in the face of such a threat, but he could hear other men grumbling and making plans to at least try to keep his body cam from picking up what they intended to do to him, and while that might not be the murder threat that had just been issued it wouldn’t lack it much.
While not turning tail and running McGee began to work back the way he had come, continuing to ask the stone faced men if any of them would reconsider and answer questions about what happened in their neighborhood.
The foray proved fruitless and eventually McGee reported to Lt Murphy what he had found.
“She claimed that at least two people are missing.”
“Damned MCO!”
“What can we do about them?”
“Not much, you download your cam, then get on with another test for mutant abilities.”
“Why?”
“It’s the reg. If I suspect you have abilities, if you demonstrate an ability that I think is out of norm, I have to send you to test, it’s been more than a year since I last sent you so I have to send you and you have to go or you’ll be suspended without pay from the force.”
“I’ll go, but what about the missing?”
“One report from an anonymous source doesn’t qualify as something that we will be urgently investigating. The disaster crews will probably find them under a pile of rubble.”
McGee nodded at that, though for some reason he did not agree. Then again he was certain that the MCO liked to hit neighborhoods like this almost as if they were slave raiders. Though he would never state that idea aloud, after all there were too many H-1 and MCO sympathizers on the force.
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Bek D Corbin
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2 years 10 months ago #969
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Okay, I can see that we gotta do something with it,” Jessie said as she put on the heavy robes and long beak-like mask her mother insisted she wear. “But really, what are gonna DO with it?” She looked at the dozens of sealed industrial drums. While they were marked with the trefoil for Biohazard, they were really filled with faex, the deadly concentrated liquid form of miasma, the vile waste product of magic. Akelarre had run up a nasty karmic debt, which took the form of this noxious tarry liquid. And, in keeping with her nature, though Akelarre had lost the battle of magic and wits that she’d created this vicious syrup for, she’d contrived to dump the responsibility for dealing with it in the Harrow’s lap.
Not that she’d gotten off light: currently, she was trapped on the wrong side of a mirror that shone into the existential darkness. Akelarre clung tenaciously to the pane that provided a meager light to keep the denizens of the Dark at bay. All things considered, Akelarre would probably prefer lugging these drums into the trucks by hand than being where she was.
“Fortunately, there are measures for dealing with this filth,” Gran’Pere said as he adjusted the mask. They’d be levitating the faex into the sealed truck, but it was still prudent to take every precaution. “The rituals require that masses of people experience intense frustration, despair, crushed hopes and emotional dismay for prolonged periods of time, and do so willingly. Which is why we’re sending these drums to the White Lady in Chicago. Once she’s put this muck through the wringer, it will take the form of Eitr, which is still dangerous, even poisonous, but paradoxically is also very nurturing and has immense mystical potential.”
“Really?” Jessie peeped. “Then why don’t we just do these rituals ourselves?”
“We lack the proper resources,” Mara said as she adjusted the fit. “You see, the White Lady is through the proper blinds, a major stockholder in the Chicago Cubs.”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 10 months ago - 2 years 10 months ago #970
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Scott never guessed how close a call he’d had, not until later. He never saw the guy who tried to grab him, never gave any thought to the odd stranger with the blue triangle button who suddenly seemed to try to shake his hand as they passed each other. The fact that they both collapsed with intense headaches the moment they touched just meant having to make a police report; it would be just an odd story to tell people later on.
No one else could figure it out either. It wouldn’t be until two years later, when a chance meeting with Sphere and Jinx brought it back to memory. When the pieces fell into place, he got a chill up his spine, and not just because Toni had had to take him to talk to Mrs Horton about the residents of Poe Cottage and what he’d learned about his girlfriend and her cottagemate.
As it happens, the changes caused by his own BIT, which was not a mimicked power but natural to him, were relatively subtle; he’d already been in excellent physical condition, and he wasn’t a high-level exemplar anyway, so it simply seemed as if he was filling out, becoming the man he would normally have been. No one caught on until he had a chance encounter with a powerful spirit, the Thunderbird whom he would be named for ever after.
It had been a bit of a puzzle why he never seemed to lose the Avatar trait he’d mysteriously picked up with his other ability, power mimicry, but here, too, the meeting with Dana explained everything. Like Sphere, and unlike many other Mimics, he was an ‘imprint’ mimic, permanently adopting the first powers he duplicated.
The Avatar trait came from that stranger, who was both an Avatar and an Esper with a limited power-sensing ability - but crucially, was not an Exemplar himself. He had imprinted both of these traits, though since his own Mimicry power included a similar (and equally limited) detection sense, the latter was almost entirely overlooked, a footnote in his power testing results.
So now he’s thinking about just how lucky he’d been that day.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 10 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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2 years 10 months ago #971
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Montgomery Tate used his trusty auto-adjusting nut driver to remove the final screw off of the vehicle plate he was stealing.
He twirled the tool through his fingers and slide it securely back into the jacket pocket that he’d sewn…well, stapled and stitched, just for the tool. It was the very first thing that Connie had built, and if he was honest about it, he felt honored that she had thought of him first.
They used to be just brother and sister. Keeping out of each other’s way. Teasing remarks. The occasional thrown object. Fighting over the TV. That had changed for good when Monty woke her up at 2am and driven them both away from their home forever.
A few moments later, and the 4x4 was now from just visiting from North Carolina. He hopped back behind the wheel and turned it over, the old but lovingly cared-for engine rumbling to life.
I hadn’t been that she was a mutant. Nobody in their family had cared about that. Monty just had to start knocking on his sister’s door to get his tools back. No big deal. But something else had been. It was that a year or so after she had manifested, and just a few days before Easter, at dinner Constance Tate had told the family that she liked girls.
He had seen the brochures in their mother’s office. Heard the hushed conversations through closed doors, or in the kitchen when they thought the two of them were both playing in the garage. Monty was never going to let them do what they had done to Ben Perkins.
Ben came back…weird. He was cruel, for one. Angry all the time, but with this sort of glassy look when he made eye contact. Like he wasn’t looking at you as a person. Got new friends, sneered at the old ones. Some of the girls he’d dated since he was sent to, “the retreat,” didn’t really talk about their brief relationships. Jess had said that Sarah muttered something about at least still being a virgin. That wasn’t what Ben had been bragging about to his new douchebag friends…
“Monty?” Connie asked sleepily, breaking him from the distressing train of thought with one final memory: the flash of a bruise he’d caught a glance of. “Can you stop at the next hardware store? I need a few gaskets and paint.”
“Paint? What for?”
“You can keep changing the plates, but they have to be looking for a blue Suburban by now. I’m gonna finish my crawler and repaint the car.” She shifted in her seat, leaned forward, and picked up her toolkit next to her feet.
“SUV.”
“Car!” The thing in her lap soon had her undivided attention.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Monty couldn’t be annoyed with his sister. He was damn proud of her! Yeah, she had no interest in cars at all, but they still understood each other’s language. Most of the time. The flattened box had ten legs sticking out of it, made of carved scraps of plastic, wire, and pencil springs. A small hose trailed down each of them, but those weren’t attached to anything yet.
Monty drove on, looking for the next exit that might have a decent hardware store. He felt relaxed listening to his sister tinker with her robot, knowing that the cops would still be looking for, at best, an SUV with plates from Kentucky.
Still, something gnawed at him. He didn’t want Connie to live this kind of life forever. They couldn’t keep going on the run. They needed a place to be. Connie needed a place to still be a girl, even if she liked other girls. He wanted a place where she could spend most of her day hunched over makeshift workbenches, breaking the laws of physics. But they needed money. Money made eyes look the other way. It was another 80 miles before Monty finally got a good idea.
“Hey, Connie, do you know what a ‘Prop Man’ is?”
Connie flashed him a quick glance, rolling her eyes as she turned back to her work. “You do know you mean ‘Stunt Man,’ right?”
Katssun
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2 years 10 months ago #972
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Beatrice “Mistaken” McNamara checked herself once more in the broken mirror of the warehouse bathroom. Sleek, shiny purple-dyed hair, so much better than her natural platinum blond, still immaculately in place tucked behind one ear. Charcoal eyeshadow, black mascara, and lipstick that matched her hair. Admittedly, a little too much ultra-pale foundation, but the pharmacy stuff was all she could afford right now. She took a long black fingernail and picked out the tiny clump of extra mascara that she spotted.
She took a step back and adjusted her bra underneath the black lace and fuchsia satin dress. She needed a new bra, this one was wearing out, and the underwire was digging into her breasts. The best surgeon in the San Bernardino Valley…but she still wasn’t up to exemplar standards in that area, in her opinion. Still, sex sold, and her décolletage looked flawless to everyone but its owner.
Beatrice sucked in her stomach a little, feeling the tight powernet weave of the undergarment keep her core flat. Should she start going to the gym? She might have to anyway, if this pattern of her life continued. It was better than sweating her makeup off and being sore for days afterwards.
This op would remove at least some of the debt she still owned to Bolanos. If he left her with any cash from this job she might stop at the department store and pick up a few new clothes. The 30% Off flyer she received in the mail still had a few days left on it.
Rather than check her appearance for the nth time, Beatrice sighed and walked back to the staging area to fume in silence. His men were late!
She tugged at her fluted sleeves while checking at the equipment and tools hidden within. A quick glance downward confirmed her athame still sat hidden within the metal decoration attached to either side of her hips. The tiny vial that would combine with her perfume and activate the charm spell with the smallest of essence was tucked behind her right ear. Everything still there after check Number Three. She desperately wanted to fidget, or at the very least impatiently tap her feet, but she refused to allow any crack in the dignity of her working persona.
A roll-up door squealed, and a white utility van pulled into the warehouse. Four men in full combat armor stepped out of the back, as the driver, wearing a simple blue jumpsuit with a “Jeffries’ Appliances” patch and “Kevin” embroidered on the front, approached her.
“You covering Special Effects?” he asked.
“You work for Bolanos, you know that I am…Kevin.”
“Just confirming you’re not a cape in a glamour.”
“I’m sure.” Beatrice hoped the dismissively annoyed look in her affectation looked genuine enough. This was only her second job for Bolanos directly; she was glad that his expert wheelman remembered her from the last job. A wire poked her again. She crossed her arms in an attempt to shift it.
The leader of the four armored men gestured them over to the table. Beatrice quickly cataloged their armament. Railgun, plasma thrower, what looked like a normal gun with a lot of unidentifiable stuff attached to it, and what she could only assume was a freeze ray from the frost-covered canister attached to it. Each of them had some fancy glowing tech on their boots. The one with a plasma thrower also had gauntlets on with some beefy looking hydraulics attached to a retracted thick metal plate. She looked to “Kevin.”
“All Stunt men?”
“That’s why you’re here, Mistaken.”
“We’re late. Our fault, not yours,” the man with the freeze ray interrupted, his comment directed at ‘Kevin.’
“Damn right it is,” replied the driver.
“So let’s get on with it.”
“Agreed,” Beatrice replied as icily as she could. Freeze Ray continued.
“Our usual Prop Man has some kind of stomach bug, so we’re doing this one a little differently. Our Producer has asked us to take Mistaken in on this job for our Special Effects.” He clicked a few buttons on a wrist computer, and a hard light projection appeared on the table, showing a floor plan.
“The delRose Estate will be unoccupied by its owners for the next two weeks. Taking their two youngest children to the Alps for the first time. We have a narrow window between the time they leave for the airport and before Langstrom Security Services takes over. The Producer’s other talent will be drawing away the skeleton crew left at the site before the rest of the LSS return from the airport. That gives us,” he glanced at the upper corner of the hard light display, “…approximately one hour and seventeen minutes to get to the site and perform our act. Less than expected, but still more than enough time based on our research.”
“We’re the Actors?” asked Railgun. “Usually we’re Extras too. No Magic Act?”
“Our Producer specifically wants this job to be splashy.”
“We storm the stage, Mistaken removes the Special Effects, we use the Can Opener, and grab the Award.” Beatrice had been told by Henrik Jenssen, Mr. Bolanos’ secretary that the security door to the room they were going to get into was warded, and it was her job to remove them.
“What Award are we seeking?” Beatrice asked. Jenssen hadn’t briefed her.
“Let us worry about that,” replied Freeze Ray. “We need you looking for any additional Special Effects that we aren’t already aware of once we use the Can Opener.”
“Understood,” she replied without emotion, despite how annoyed she was. Beatrice hated going in blind! Didn’t Bolanos know that most mages needed to prepare?
“No more questions?” No one in the crew spoke. “Then let’s go.”
Beatrice and the team headed toward the van. She headed toward the passenger door until ‘Kevin’ stopped her with the back of his hand. “There’s no seats for someone dressed as flashy as you or the goons. Back of the van, Lolita. “
Beatrice grumbled inwardly but headed further around to the rear doors. ‘Kevin’ sure was an asshole, but from the last job, Beatrice would not deny that the man knew how to drive. More importantly, knew how to avoid attracting any attention on the way to the site.
The back doors still open, Beatrice rounded the van and prepared to step in after the armored men. She saw a bulky, long contraption running the length of the van, mounted to an anti-grav skid. This must be the Can Opener. ‘Kevin’ was right. No seats, no benches. She saw only handholds attached to a rail in the ceiling.
As dignified as possible, she vaulted into the rear of the van. She liked to think that she ‘alighted’ into the van, but her dress got caught just a little. She complimented herself for investing in magically reinforced fabric and kevra lace for her working uniform. She smoothed her dress back down and reached for a handhold. The armored men shuffled forward to accommodate her.
Stooping awkwardly in the back of the van, Beatrice lamented that she hadn’t learned glamour magic so she could sit in the front. Plasma Thrower and Beatrice pulled the doors shut. Freeze Ray pounded on the roof, and the van backed out of the warehouse.
The show was on.
Anne
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2 years 9 months ago #973
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Does anyone want to help me flesh this one out?
Amelia Hartford was an angry girl. At thirteen she didn’t like that others, like her father (whom she’d sworn to bankrupt) or the condescending lesbian twit who was the girls PE teacher and general coach for all the ‘women’s’ sports at her prep school called her a girl. After all she could have (if she needed to) hacked up straight A’s on her report cards, and she’d even kissed both a boy and a girl. She’d discovered that while the former was interesting the latter was sort of like kissing your own hand, something to try once just to see if she could scandalize the bastard who made her mother’s life so miserable that she seemed to live for the bottles of wine that seemed to be in every room except Amelia’s.
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null0trooper
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2 years 9 months ago #974
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Winter 2010, Special Topics in Magical Theory Seminar: Necromancy - Threat Or Menace?,
Kirby Hall, Whateley Academy
“. . . One of the less common uses encountered for a familiar is that of a source of Essence. Depending on the practitioner’s preparations and overall ability, one can reap a not-inconsiderable amount of that precious commodity via a direct sacrifice. It should go nearly without saying that a willing sacrifice is the most efficacious, particularly if the familiar spirit and its bond-master are of the same mind. However, the consent of neither party is required.
In the usual course of affairs, in which the bond-master has invested both essence and a portion of his ka (N.B., Or of the ba. Traditions vary in this matter.) it may be most advantageous to harvest the familiar spirit first, as the sacrifice of the master’s heart-blood tends to release the spirit from its familiar condition.
Now. Are there any questions?”
None dared speak, yet one student raised his hand.
“What if the familiar is a zombie?”
The guest lecturer was taken aback. In all his decades, he’d no recall of such as a topic of arcane discourse. This might require some thought.
“A zombie, you say? One may command the undead as one might other entities, but I would wager that’s not a common use.”
“Some people dig corpses!”
The student seated beside the speaker commented, “That sounds more like a paraphilia to me.”
That just sounded suspicious.
“Young man, where did you encounter this idea - that of zombie familiars?”
“The dorms have Internet! If we can get a wifi signal here, I can show you...”
The old man waved off the offer, having no interest in whatever gadgets the boy sought from his backpack.
“Nevertheless, it strikes me as a case of limited utility, I know of no such familiar spirits in the area...”
“Gimme five minutes with Mugwump’s little cockatoo; I can fix that.”
“I do not doubt your enthusiasm. Regarding matters of wisdom, however, I would ask if anyone else has a question regarding the theory before we move on.”
Much later
The Necromancer returned alone to his loaned office to gather his thoughts and reflect on what he could improve for the next lecture. He was, after all, only lecturing at Whateley Academy under the strictest requirements compatible with his parole. Upon the top of his desk was pinned a note, written in Attic Greek:
“I told you so.”
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mhalpern
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2 years 9 months ago #975
mhalpern replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Science in the Sims
Pre Gen 1: Riot Act & Pinball
Roit Act: Ok stand RIGHT here and put up your forcefield
Pinball: Alright I can see how this will get me all the way over there but I don’t see how being launched in out of a Trebuchet will help with science homework...
Roit Act: Well think about the problem..
Pinball: Assuming a spherical c--- Oh Fuck Youuuuu!
Roit Act (after having pulled the lever): Promises promises...
Any Bad Ideas I have and microscene OC character stories are freely adoptable.
Anne
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2 years 9 months ago #976
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
I’m very frustrated with this one. It has every element that I want, yet seems not to be what I want it to be, your comments on my post below are craved.
Mama Squirrel carefully hid herself in the hallow of her avatar. Anna did not know that she was actually hosting a major spirit rather than just the spirit of an ordinary squirrel. Mama Squirrel meant to keep things exactly so, after all hiding in plain sight was just one of the many things that any squirrel could do if it chose. Still, Mama Squirrel was pleased with the avatar she had chosen. Anna Parsons might not think she was a heroine, but as Mama Squirrel reviewed her actions since she had joined the young girl, she was more sure that not only had she chosen well, but that Anna would be one of the best choices she ever had made in her long memory of being the spirit of Mama Squirrel.
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Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 9 months ago - 2 years 9 months ago #977
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
27 April 2008
Whateley Academy Fixer’s Patio
Phase watched as “Mimesis” (he’d have to remember that put down, though he doubted Nemesis caught the implication of her being an imitation hero) stormed off from where she was - once again - confronting She-Beast.
pulling up a chair, he commented to Jadis, “You know, someone needs to point out to her how pointless all of this really is. I’d be tempted to tell her about someone like The Retributionist or something, but I doubt she’d take the message the right way.”
“Nertz to that. I bet she has that awful movie they made about him on Blu-Ray.” Jadis replied with a sour grimace, which Ayla shared. “Hell, she’s probably already pre-paid for the video game they’re supposed to be making.”
“OK, so I saw that announcement, too, I suppose it was why it came to mind as an example...” admitted Ayla.
“Uhm, who?” said Lindsey, puzzled.
“Classic example of revenge gone wrong,” said Kate. “The Retributionist was some biker dude who was also an Exemplar and Regenerator, power-wise, back in the 1960s. He massacred most of a town in order to get at a handful of guys, most of whom had already skipped out. Hell, he blew up a freaking dam, and the flooding destroyed Conway’s own home and killed the one friend he had left!”
“Oh... and they are making a movie about him?”
Jadis picked up from this. “That was years ago. When his case was in the news, he was portrayed as a tragic anti-hero type. A few years later, when biker films were all the rage, some idiot made a film about it that portrayed Conway as a misunderstood hero who was entirely justified in killing a few hundred innocents.”
Kate added, “Not to mention having sex with every women he meets, despite the fact that Jacob Conway was 100% gay.”
She-Beast cocked her head at this, saying, “OK, this part I hadn’t heard...”
Ayla nodded, saying “Unfortunately, I heard far too much about it from family. Conway was a pedophile; the ‘brother’ was a runaway named Michael Gainsborough whom Conway had picked up the same day he was discharged from the Army. Which he’d only been in because of a plea deal from a murder Conway committed three years earlier. When the kid was killed, Retro went all Achilles on the rival gang responsible.”
“The movie doesn’t show any of that, and they make it out like Conway was totally into biker chicks.” finished Nacht.
“And... they’re making a movie about this?”
“No, like I said, the movie was back in the 70s,” said, Jadis, “What they’re doing now is some video game thing...”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 9 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 9 months ago #978
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Whateley Character Perfect Presents!
... and then it was time for Phase to unwrap her “Secret Santa” gift. Of course, it was expertly wrapped and tied off with ribbon and a fancy bow. The folds in the five-and-dime remaindered paper were precise, the corners pointed. Ayla was certain that never in his life had he seen commercially-produced paper that was quite so tacky, with the possible exception of the Andy Warhol retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd. Perhaps without exception, as even Alex was looking faintly green.
A quick light-heavy-light flicker took care of the ribbon in case it was fullerene-reinforced, like some jokers had opted for. The mounting tension born of expectation was extinguished the instant that Hank recognized the company logo on the box and bailed out of the room laughing.
Holy crow! It was truly a Rite of Passage.
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
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null0trooper
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2 years 9 months ago #979
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
If so, can Kayda find it? If not Kayda, can Diamondback find it? If Diamond can’t...can Fury?
October 31st, 2007
Party at the Fixer’s Patio!, Schuster Hall next to the Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
Metro was inordinately proud of his costume choice for the evening. No one was willing to have anything to do with a blond-haired boy in a Luftwaffenhelfer uniform. Correction: almost no one. He ducked a couple of wild swings from Rorsmand before Kris stormed away cursing. The last thing Valravn had said to him was “You bastard.” That was easily a couple of hours ago.
Walking over to one of the punch and snacks tables, Mads idly wiped some spit off his cheek. Again. On a hunch, he looked down at the darkened wool glove and realized that that had been blood, maybe even his. He pulled the glove off so he could reach in a trouser pocket for a disposable wipe. He gave up on the scrubbing when he got to the punch bowl.
Maybe he shouldn’t have reached out with his right hand for the beverage? The uniform sleeve did hang sadly from his radius. Only by sheer luck did the person behind him catch the dropped cup without punch splashing everywhere. Yay, powers...
“Vielen dank, m’n Herr?”
“Mads.”
Oh.
“Bitte gib mir mein Getränk?”
“I thought you didn’t speak German. ‘Too boring’, if I recall your exact words.”
Someone wasn’t happy.
“Ich spreche kein Deutsch. Worüber sprichst du?”
One good thing about a woman screaming in the night out of abject terror: people stop yapping about boring languages and let you have your damned drink. Mads moved around the periphery of the crowd and scanned the skyline.
One bad thing about concentrating too much on potential threats: known friendlies can walk right up on a person.
“We’ll discuss your poor choices in costume later. You’re needed by the stage.” Mrs. Carson pointed him by the shoulders and gave a gentle shove encouragement in that direction.
Drek on a pine cone enema applicator. Joanne Gunnarson. Murphy. He knew her - not closely, but, whatever. That wasn’t an advantage if his first impression of the scene held up.
The First Nations girl kneeling beside the body must be Pejuta. Metro was confused by Diamondback’s presence until he remembered being told she could actually see. Taking note of the dropped cup next to the vic, he shifted down to his dire wolf form to sniff for any tell-tales. All he definitely got was stage makeup, Tansy Walcutt, maybe others’ mixed scents from the crowd. No fear-scent, so the prey knew its killer. Mads shifted back, ignoring the unfriendly stares. He tried a tentative pass with Detox, but the magic rolled off the mortal’s shell. Something had to be there, but what?
“Nothing obvious in the cup or oral cavity, but there is a toxin involved. Body’s too cold for two minutes twenty seconds.”
If a glare could strike the freshman boy dead again, Kayda’s would have managed it.
“This is no time for jokes, and who the f-, who ARE you anyway?”
“Mads Møller-Jensen, code name Metro, attached to Whateley Security. Is that good enough for the Goddess of the Plains, or do we need to break out a tape measure and queer the crime scene some more?”
T? Quit pissing around. I may need backup ASAP.
Already behind you, jerk, backing up Sandra. This is straight-up Shadow bait.
Seriously, girl? Mads had been glared at by experts.
She said, “We already know Murphy was poisoned by Lifeline.”
“I thought I smelled something useless.”
“Shut it. I need to center myself to conduct a soul retrieval. It’s going to be difficult enough for a first time, without some Euro fresh-thing distracting me.”
Lillebror, distant child of Gunnar she may be, but the Nine Realms have no claim on her spirit.
She’s bound for a Gate you cannot pass, love, not even if you forfeited your humanity and passed beyond kith and kin. Look not to Guinee nor Below the Waters, Mads La Croix.
Well-meant advice wrapped like thorns in a memory of roses in his head, Mads reached for a thin chain around the dead girl’s neck.
“This isn’t simple soul loss: there’s no astral cord to follow, pejuta.” In his skeletal hand was a small golden cross. “Do you think you can race the Dead to the Gates of Silver and Pearl?”
Kayda nearly shouted back, “You’re not helping either, now are you?”
“If someone doesn’t neutralize that zoetoxin in her body within the next two minutes it will take a miracle to revive her unless you’re planning to gift us with an aptrgangr. How’s that working for you, Princess?”
A powered slap like that should have echoed.
Someone’s going to need an Unholy miracle. That, or reconstructive surgery.
“... Not working. Great. Time’s not an issue, then. Look, I’m out. My remit as seiðmaður is to see them safely crossed or fully avenged.” Metro stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands. “Best I can do is help keep the stiff on ice, if that’s okay with you. Tell Carson she needs a Rose or a Man of the Cross; I have no fragging idea who or what that would be.”
The sorrow-tempered steel in the woman’s voice behind him left no room for questions. “They’re coming. Do it.”
“Oy! Need a stretcher under the vic, ASAP!”
“Get out of the way!”
Metro gathered the restless energies of Vetrnætr around him and cast his perceptions out and out along a razor strand of Essence, the better to bargain with those that might heed his call so far across the Western Sea...
Seconds passed in this world before he reopened eyes lit by flickering blue-white light against black. Reciting the rune-verses, he made two simple gestures over the body on its litter: one above the mouth and throat, one over the heart.
Íss er árbörkr
ok unnar þak
ok feigra manna fár.
Sól er skýja skjöldr
ok skínandi röðull
ok ísa aldrtregi.
The body froze and frosted over, as the very air condensed on and sublimated off it. Had any asked before he passed out, Mads might have pointed out that Íss is the simplest of runes, Sól its necessary counter.
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cprime
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2 years 9 months ago #980
cprime replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
October 31st, 2007
The soul of Joanne Gunnarson screamed as it was sucked downwards. She barely caught a glimpse of an obsidian mirror, before landing in a vintage yellow school bus of all places. Seated in the driver’s seat was a shadowy figure. Without looking back, it spoke. “Welcome to the Whateley Off Book Basic Living Existence, or W.O.B.B.L.E., Miss Nalley. Enjoy your stay.” This was followed by the ultra extended version of evil laughter #3. Murphy growled and looked around for something to throw at the figure, but was stopped by a tap on the arm. She turned and found herself looking at the slim figure of a 20-something lady whom she had never seen before. The figure spoke. “I’ve found it’s best not to taunt the happy fun mythos creature. The less attention he pays you, the happier you will be.”
Joanne looked puzzled at the statement “Mythos?”
“Unspeakable ancient horror. To understand one is to melt your brain. By way of introduction, my name is Susan, Miss Nalley....”
She was cut off by the pale figure. “Actually, my name is Gunnarson. Joanne Gunnarson. Apparently my mutation was acting up again.”
“Your mutation?”
“I’m a probability warper, with the code name Murphy. Anything that can go wrong will, and apparently it caught up with me.”
“Ah. I see. Bad news perhaps for you, but good news for us. If your power persists, things will be very interesting for the driver of this Nim-bus.”
“Nim-bus?”
“We call it the Nim-bus, because that’s his name. Nimbus. From what I’ve read in these books,” she gestured to a small pile of hard-cover books, with titles like ‘Ayla and the Birthday Brawl’, “he apparently is hiding out among the student body of your school.”
“And I’ve never noticed him?”
“That’s because he’s in disguise.” Susan whispered something in in Murphy’s ear. This elicited an immediate reaction of. “How do you know?”
“Because it’s all in this book.” The older lady held up a thin notebook with the words ‘Whateley Academy Gen 1 bible’ written on it.
Joanne snatched the book from her hands and flipped through it. “No shit? Did we just break the 4th wall?”
“Possibly, but the book is a bit unstable. Hundreds of possible futures are laid out in it, but only one will come to pass, and we don’t know which.”
The use of the plural form of address finally registered with Murphy. “We?”
Susan pointed back to the alabaster figure at the back of the bus. When she saw the figure’s blood red eyes, her own eyes widened. “Sara?”
The friendly mythos entity nodded at the recognition. “None other. Now that you’re here, we can start collapsing the quantum possibilities in that bible and figure out a way to influence things so our friendly bus driver lets us off in front of Shuster Hall.”
Is your muse looking for inspiration? Send them to Parkerville! Welcome to Parkerville is the latest edition in my series of writing prompts.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 9 months ago #981
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
All Hallows Ball (Part 3) wrote: “Yes,” Tansy admitted. “I’m sorry, it was the only way to help you. You’re free to turn me into Mrs Carson or Mr Geintz and I will admit to everything.”
Murphy grinned her most evil of grins and snapped her fingers. At that moment, thirteen sneezes, seven stumbles, five hiccups, and three and a seventh accidental gropes happened among the surrounding students. The resulting soup of accidental and intentional spells, hobgoblins, powers, and artifact activations landed squarely on Tansy’s face. She sputtered and gasped, and then continued to gasp as gills opened up, tentacles sprang from her chin, and her body inflated and changed in proportion. Her mind awakened as the transformation continued, connecting to almost every other intelligence within ten miles. Heedless to stop it, Tansy’s entire life spilled into those minds in totality. Mere minutes and a lifetime later, Tansy’s heart squeezed out its final beat. Over two thousand people watched her die, whether in person or their mind’s eye, but they did not morn her passing. Two thousand four hundred and seventy three Tansies blinked in unison and then smiled. A Tansy is not dead who can eternal spread, and with strange aeons even the dead may tread...
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 8 months ago #982
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Sted is a good deal more phlegmatic than that.
Rose Bunny
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #983
Rose Bunny replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Rose sat at her desk, the mostly finished 2.5 liter of Shasta cola at her left, next to the mouse. The 38-year old redhead listened to Youtube playing Jon Secada as she typed on the forum. She had no reason to feel so chipper, but she was. She felt happy. Perhaps a little too happy. Sighing, Rose stopped typing and looked around.
“I know you are here, you might as well show yourself.”, though nobody appeared to be anywhere around her.
She returned to writing the post on the forum. “You know, I can tell you are here”, she exclaimed.
Sighing, Rose changed browser tabs, and looked at the suggestions for the next song to listen to. Selecting Chris Isaak - Wicked game, Rose clicked back to the forum page.
She knew her little visitor was still there. After trying to ignore it, she shook her head. “Ok... ok... come on out.”
From behind the sub-woofer on the floor, stepped a little semi-transparent apparition. Rose stooped down, and offered her open palm. Her visitor looked at it thoughtfully, and then stepped onto it. Rose hoisted her little friend to the desktop, and let her sit.
“Listen little one, I know you miss your friends, but I promise, as soon as I get a new computer, I’ll start writing again. Then you can hang out with them again. But until then just lay low.”
Beckoning the action figure-sized spirit closer, Rose whispered to her. “If they were to find out that what they think they are making up is actually real, they would be very scared. So be patient. Besides, they are creeping ever closer to where you return to the story, and we all know what happened when that happened.”
The small apparition smiled and nodded, flexing a bicep to indicate her strength.
Smiling, Rose bent over and carefully kissed the top of the little spirit’s head. “You go home now, your hallow is awaiting, and it is long past your bedtime.”
The little one smiled and nodded. She fluttered her tiny wings and lifted into the air, in a poof of sparkles, the spirit departed.
Sighing, Rose unscrewed the cap of her drink and took a giant swig. “Honestly, a priestess’ work is never done”
She shook her head, and selected the very ironic R.E.M. song that Youtube had offered up. Clicking start, she changed tabs back to the forum, and hit “submit”, posting the message she had written.
High-Priestess of the Order of Spirit-Chan
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Rose Bunny.
Katssun
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2 years 8 months ago #984
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
September, 14th, 2016
Grayson Davies watched in agony as the half-dozen DPA agents escorted his three children, the OCFS case worker and his supervisor to his mother to a car with government plates on it, while his wife Mary was shrieking in the next room.
“I know! It was Misericord!”
There were another eight agents in the great room with Mary, because that’s the only place all of them fit. Grayson looked up at the woman next to him in the entranceway, regional director or something to that effect. She simply shook her head silently to him and then repeated herself for the third time, loud enough that Mary could hear.
“You know I can’t tell you that, nor can we confirm exactly what information was presented to the OCFS at this time. We will contact you, in lieu of their offices, in order to keep everything neutral. The MCO is not, and will not, be involved if you follow all the procedures.”
Grayson nodded, and only hoped that Mary’s…business associate, going by ‘Lisa Westwood’ tonight, would keep Mary calm for last few more minutes. The DPA had been very clear what would happen if Mary retaliated against the OCFS, or any of the four names she had spat off in rage and grief.
His wife’s choked sob erupted from the next room. Grayson swallowed hard as his lips trembled a bit. He was barely holding it together either. He wasn’t mad at Mary. They knew this might happen one day, they’d talked about it. Mary had tried so hard to keep her professional life separate from their home life. He didn’t know what the hell she’d done wrong.
“Was it Karen Hannover!?” his wife cried, pleading. Mary and their neighbor had gotten into a spat over the PTA clothing drive, but Karen had children of her own. Grayson struggled to believe that any mother would ever do this to another. The woman next to him shook her head again, this time in pity as much as admonishment.
“If you keep it up, we’ll be watching that many more potentials for you, and our resources will be that much more strained. We want to help you Mrs. Davies. I’m going to leave a list of facilities and counselors who can help you. Most are familiar with cases similar to yours. You may not believe that we’re willing to help you, but remember, the other side faces the same exact problems.” She turned to face him. “Mr. Davies, I appreciate you keeping your own cool and being accepting of your wife. Her…friend will help, but she needs you even more.”
With that, the woman and her other agents left their home.
The woman was wrong about one thing. He wasn’t keeping his cool. He was just better at hiding it. He wanted a drink, to scream, to smash every possible thing within his reach. He wanted to hop into their car and tear away after the power armor and the however many vehicles escorting Annie, Justin, April and his mother away, his chances be damned. But the threat was very, very real. For the both of them. The paperwork had even already been filed. Termination of Parental Rights.
They wouldn’t let it happen. Even if Mary had to play by all of their rules. He balled a fist until his palm went numb, before finally letting it go.
His wife in hysterics, and while Lady Szronu was a godsend, Mary needed him now more than ever. They’d get through this, they always did. Somehow. He just couldn’t think anymore today. About anything.
With a final glance at the letterhead and the first paragraph, Grayson put down the paper that the DPA had served him with two hours before when six vehicles and a full ten sets of power armor had surrounded their house after he had gotten the children up off the bus and Mary had just started working on dinner.
‘Mrs. Davies, we regret to inform you that you have been cross-identified with your MID and your classification has been increased to the “B-list” based on your recent activities of August 18th, 2016. The State of New York has determined that until a stable home environment can be confirmed, the Department of Justice recommends the removal of…’
E!
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #985
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Come’on Moose! We’re already late!” The gaggle of girls from Whitman screamed in unison.
“I would, but these old tunnels are so tight. They weren’t really made for someone….well like me.” Regina pouted pointing to herself, tapping her antlers.
“Well think skinny, come on. This is one rave I don’t wanna miss.” One of the other girls snapped forcing the group to continue onward through the maze.
“So how did you find out about this party Samantha?” another girl squeaked.
“Ummm…well…” Samantha struggled to come up with an excuse for her boyfriend.
“It was her boyfriend. He got the invite. It’s supposed to be a hush hush rave for all the summer school kids.” Kerri bumbled in.
“KERRI!” Samantha puffed.
“What? Sorry, Sam your Boy-Toy maybe hot, but a rock or something is smarter.” Kerri seethed.
“Oh, so it’s like the beginning of the year socials. But, like for the summer kids.” Regina stated with a hint of innocence.
“Yea….like that….” One of the girls coughed after taking quick drink from a flask.
The group continued down the musky corridor. Soon they saw the trails of smoke on the floor creeping down the hall. Following the map, they came to a door. With a secret knock the doors opened wide allowing smoke to bellow out. The group was quick to cover their eyes with the blinding laser light show enhanced by the smoke.
Following the group Regina could feel the beat of the bass in her chest and her antlers, tickling that part of her brain that told her she should run. However she pushed it down for now, after all she was supposed to have fun with her dorm mates. Slowly that plan came crumbling down as the group splintered off. Getting a bit thirsty Regina used her height to locate the makeshift bar. Wading through the sea of people she made it.
“Can I get some water!?” she yelled over the thump of the music.
“Sorry tall one! ALL WE GOT IS HOOCH!” The senior bartender answered looking up at the girl, handing her a glass.
“UMM, thanks…” Regina whispered before looking around the large room turned makeshift night club. Locating Kerri and Sam she made her way out onto the dance floor holding her drink high above everyone. Sidestepping to the beat of the music, gradually Regina began to dance with some of her dorm mates, taking sips of the very alcoholic drink every now and then.
“How do you think they are going to get away with all of this?” Regina asked over the melody
“I heard the reasoning is that, their summer is already ruined, by having summer school. So what’s a couple weeks of detention if you get to have a killer blowout party at the end of the school year?” Sam belted an answer then took a swig from her boyfriend’s drink.
The group continued to bump to the music along with the rest of the crowd. Regina almost didn’t notice the hand that appeared on her back. Swiftly turning she was greeted by a smiling friend.
“I knew I recognized those antlers!” Max yelled upward taking a mouthful from his own jar.
“Oh these old things?” Regina, laughed blushing. She let the alcohol hit her. “But, what are you doing here!”
“I got summer school!” Max explained showing the green slip proving his next term. Before he flicked it away into the crowd.
“HAHAHA. Should have studied more rather than fight with Johnathan!” Regina laughed at her former teammates’ misfortune.
“You forget, this ish…” Max paused to burp. “IS my first real time in school. Summer classes were inevitable.
Hearing the new set of music in the DJ list staring up. Regina grabbed Max’s hand “COME ON! LET’S DANCE!” She asserted right before the night turned black.
“Hey Max. Hey Max. Wakey. Wakey.” Mr. Filbert slapped the still drunk boy awake.
“Uhhhh…” Max replied before setting up in the middle of the hallway.
“We’re going for a run.” Mr. Filbert smiled.
Five miles later, and four puke stops later. The pair arrived back at Twain cottage.
“Now, go get some rest. Rest is important to recovery!” Mr. Filbert exclaimed smiling while doing a standing jog. “And when you wake up! Go clean the gutters and basement bathroom.” Forcing Max to take his fifth puke stop.
“Oh and Max. Lay off the Waragi.” Mr. Filbert winked.
“Don’t worry I’m never drinking again…” Max coughed.
“UGHHHHHHHHH….” Regina groaned as she pulled he head up from the island table in Whitman’s kitchen room.
“About time you woke up it’s almost 1pm.” Mrs. Savage spoke clearly.
“Please no loud noises.” Regina covered her ears.
“Ha, loud. Go get a shower. I’ll order something from the Hall to go, so you can get some food in you.” Mrs. Savage continued.
“No food.” Regina stated covering her mouth.
“It will help…Then after you eat, we will talk about your punishment.”
“Please no…” Regina whispered dreading the worst.
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by E!.
Cryptic
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2 years 8 months ago #986
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“I guess I’ll go next. Hi, my name is Chalie Brown. Which every one called me even though my name was Charlene Brown before I mutated. I’m not sure what irritates me more: losing most of my hair, getting uncontrolled odds mangelling, growing a penis or getting tagged as Peant on my MID”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #987
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
June 2012
“Mi? It’s Stacy. Listen, I don’t know if you heard, but the Iron Wind hit Cincy last night, and we got clobbered pretty bad, just like the Freelancers did. Looks like she’s headed west, but we’re not sure where she’s going next. I’ve already called the Liberty League, Indianapolis Independents, and Louisville Sluggers, but we know she’s got a history with the Six so she might just skip straight to St Louis. We’re gonna cast as wide a net on her as we can, so I’ll be contacting the guys in Shy-town, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, and even some up in Canada ‘cause we really want everyone ready to take her down.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 8 months ago - 2 years 8 months ago #988
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Lunch, Monday, January 7, 2008,
Euro-Promotional League Table, Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
Jadis ‘She-Beast’ Diabolik walked up to the Beret Mafia’s table to find a lively conversation already well in progress. The upset Sidhe berating one of the seated members had to be the Norwegian girl in Dickenson, Elle Ruud. The snow flurries in the air around her as she tried to unconsciously (?) tried using intense cold as an intimidation tactic didn’t leave many other candidates. The colloquial Landsmål she was cutting loose with was also a hint. Given the Euro-snobs’ love of French over ‘less-cultured’ languages, that had to be going over well.
“Wait, what? You said you were going after venison for your Yule feast!”
Blond exemplar willing to put up with Metro? That would be Rorsmand and, given that hunting often implies firearms usage, another hand-full of European nerves going *snap*.
“We did! Venison is the term for anything deer-shaped, from Bambi to moose!”
This just in: even the American judge is squicked. And now for more rapid-fire Scandinavian words amounting to No realli! It was dis big! Møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti..
“Could either of you repeat that in a real language?”
Jadis estimated 3-2 odds that the loud response might be the Norwegian equivalent for Screw you and the flea-bitten reindeer you rode in on. If she’d known she’d get such an education maybe she’d have dropped by more often!
“Look. Kris. From where I was, it looked like it was this tall,” Metro’s hands marked an improbable elevation, “Best I could manage from a cross-country run was to throat it and hope the rack wasn’t as broad as it looked! So, yes, I got a close look but not a great one until it was time to field-dress the kill.”
Valravn added, “He did slow it down enough for me and Fen to hamstring it before he could be knocked into a tree.”
“That would have hurt.” “Duh” “So, it was pretty much reindeer shaped, though the antlers were kind of profuse.”
“Listen, you two. Hunting reindeer isn’t legal in Sweden, unless you are Sami or have a Sami guide.”
“I wasn’t in Sweden!” “Thank god.” “Vhat’s wrong wit Sveden?” “Isn’t Nephandus’ mother from there?” “Goot point.” Jadis would have to agree on that point.
“Thomas, could you please cc: Kris the picture you took, before he has a heart attack?”
“Gimme a sec. Be right with you, Elsa.”
“It’s Elle, rhymes with Hell, which...”
“Seriously? Don’t go there.”
Kris looked down at his phone’s display. “What the fuck is THAT?”
“Tasty.”
“You thought that that was a reindeer?
“The antlers branch kind of the right way. Forward prongs to dig through snow, ‘n’ stuff.” Metro helpfully mimed the branching and the digging with his hands and fingers.
Jadis peeked at the image from over Rorsmand’s shoulder. Too many prongs even for a big reindeer. If the two grinning beasts next to it had been human she could expect them to be saying See? I did that! All ME! Ignore the other chump. Am I the Bestest Hunter or what?. Metro-here did look like he expected to get congratulatory behind-the-ear scratching. As it was, the muzzles were a little short, like a hyena’s, but not weird enough to put up with a Jobe Lecture on whatever she was obviously missing, ‘do try to keep up’, yadda yadda.
Thomas saw Jadis’ confusion, and decided to be helpful: “The goofy one that looks all trompled-on is Mads. The one that didn’t need help getting back is Fen.”
Reach jump at the break in conversation, “So... She-Beast! Is there anything we can do for you that might divert this train-wreck?”
“Maybe. I just came by to invite Metro to the Bad Seeds!”
No one’s face can fall with disappointment quite like a shifter’s. Rorsmand didn’t look so happy, either. Not happy, but also not surprised. Now she knew her sources had given her an abridged version.
Reach said,”Um, guys? I’m not hearing any of the denials I’d really like to be hearing right about now.”
Metro looked up and said, “Helene Adelheid, Niels Erik, or both?”
“That’s what the official papers say, don’t they?”
“Reus quod obicitur.”
“Take your time before deciding. Obviously, there are risks and benefits. We’ll let you know about the next meeting in case you do want to join. And, by the way, Kristian? The term ‘venison’ includes not only deer, but also several other game animals. Something to think about before putting it in your mouth.”
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
Last Edit: 2 years 8 months ago by null0trooper.
Cryptic
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2 years 8 months ago #989
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Unused snippets/previews from the furyte strories I’m working.planning
~~
“So, I really have to ask honey...”
“Why am I choosing to go to Whateley as a girl?” Jessie asked as the two of them drove to the Leigh Valley Irregulars cover base were they where to meet up with the others to go to the school.t used to it.”
“Mmhmm.” her mother said as she shook her head slowly. “Have you considered the story you’re gonna use? Your sister might have told people she has a brother..”
“I thought of that, I’m torn between the truth and saying I’m a cousin.”
Grace was tempted to pinched the bridge of her nose, but she didn’t want to take here eyes from the road. She settled for rocking her head from side to side “I have a bad feeling about this. The lastone sounds like something out of your webcomics.”
“So, how are we getting to the school? The Irregulars giving us a ride? Oh, we taking a plane?”
Grace smirked a little as she brought the car to a stop. Jessie’s jaw dropped as she got got, gaping at the vintage Winnebago that slumped infront of the cow barn. “That’s our ride.”
“I feel I have to say this; what a heap of junk.” Jessie stated as Katie’s car pulled up behind theirs.
“Does a pair of wings somehow attach to that heap? Is the navigator his own best friend?” Katie quiped as she and Adria joined Jessie and her mother as the rv’s door banged open and Ivory stepped out
“I’ve been tempted to do that retro fit, but I think the miles per gallons would suffer. And no, no man-dog. I do have a Chewie action figure stuck to the dash instead of a hula girl.”
“It’s still a...” Katie started to say.
“Junker? Only on the outside. Back in the day Parakeet was with the Gearheads, and between the two of us this thing is a tank that can take small artillery rounds, exotic attacks, and still get you lot to school in semi luxury.” She finished her bit just as Val joined the group, her father pulling her luggage from the trunk of the family car.
“Be sure to look up your cousin when you get there. I forget which dorm she’s in.” Mr. Phillips said before pulling his youngest into a hug. “Be good.”
“Daaad!” Val protested, though she didn’t resist the hug which was soon released.
“See you lot at...” Mr. Phillips cocked his head as he thought “Thanksgiving? Christmas for sure.”
~*~
Val looked around Hawthorn’s common room, returning the wary looks with a friendly smile as she followed her cousin to her room. Io glanced over her shoulder and shortened her stride so Val could catch up. Val took in the complex blending of traits that made up Io’s form. She was to put it nicely a solid girl, yet still fluid, graceful, and feminine. Io wore the uniform skirt, sans leggings in spite of the chill of the outside. Then again, Val wasn’t sure how tights would work with the cow tail that was swishing lazily as it poked under the hem of the garment.
“I’m really not that much of a handful.” Io said over her shoulder, a smile on her slightly muzzled face which was framed in an unruly tumble of black hair which contrasted sharply with the lighter brown velvety fur that covered the rest of her eight foot tall body. “They tried having me over at Witless at first, but the regular dorms where just to small for me. I nearly squished my roommate...” The last was said with a sheepish duck of Io’s head as the Thornie placed her half dollar sized thumb print onto her door lock’s reader. The door snicked open and Io had her magic eight-ball shirt and custom made four cup bra off before Val could step in.
“Geeze, where you raised in a barn?” Val asked as she closed the door.
“Actually, yes I was.” Io said as she turned around, giving Val a good look at the double set of breasts that dominated Io’s chest. “Sorry, I was on auto pilot for a moment there. As comfortable as the bras Ceilia makes for me are, she needs to consult with a guy called Mobius to make me a set that don’t mash my nipples down uncomfortably.” Io flicked one of her two inch long nipples with a grimace. “Back home I usually do with out bra or shirt, my hide is that tough. Hell ussually I just wear somethin like a loin cloth for modesty’s sake.. Ma does the same as I got the same build as her..”
“Wait, wait, wait. I’m confused. I thought your mother is my aunt, and I thought she was a baseline...” Val said as she hopped up onto the seat of the over sized brick chair, and Io sprawled on her King sized bed, which with her bulk looked like a twin size would if a normal sized person was laying on it.
Io’s large cow ears flapped as she laughed. She is on both counts. Home’s got a real good fertility doctor who’s a bio-devisor. He took genetic material from my Ma, your aunt, and combined it with material from my Moom, sorry bad cow pun that’s been since my parents learned the process took, an mixed them together. Me an my little sister are the results.”
“My aunt is..” Val’s mouth clamped shut as the Poe Guese cut her off.
“Is a lesbian.” Io finished for Val. She snorted. “I might be as well, or I’m just gun shy after that long horn tried to mount me when I was nine. Then again, there aren’t that many guys back Home that ..”
“Stop. Please, I don’t need that visual. I really didn’t need the bull one either.” Val begged as she covered her head with her arms.
“I’d offer to get Brain Bleach to remove the memory for you, but the staff isn’t happy with him as he wiped his neighbor’s memory of being raped by a teacher. She lost a year of memories I think. He’s a veggie. She is only seven...” Io cracked the knuckles of her three fingered hands. “Better then I’d have left him.” Io stretched and somehow kicked off the custom pair of sneakers off. Val wasn’t to surprised to see Io had dining plate sized two toed hooves instead of primate style feet.
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #990
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Listen, mate,” snarled the angry devisor with the prosthetic arm and eye as he approached the Outcast’s table, “I don’t care how tough you look, you stay the hell away from my sister!”
“Bro, you got it all wrong, she’s the one who keeps bugging Jack,” said Joe, deliberately letting his glasses slide down to let his blank eyes show.
Damn straight, rasped out of Razorback’s voder, And tell her to stop trying use her power on me! Even a dumbass pinky biped like Carmelle should know the difference between a croc and a dinosaur!
“Now listen here arsehole...”
Caitlin then stepped in, putting her hand Scott’s chest in a way that was gentler, but no less firm, than the first time they met. “Alright, jackass, I’ve put you down once and don’t think I won’t do it again. You just back the fuck off and go talk to her about it yourself. And show some fucking gratitude! Jack was the one who pulled your sorry ass out from under that death-top thing which trashed the jail, remember?”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #991
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Maybe Bernie has a point about the number of kids like us here now, thought Fee as she watched the moa-esque Whitmaniac with the pink and blue feathers tear into a pile a well-chopped salad greens with her beak. One thing is for sure, though, I’ll never say say someone ‘eats like a bird’ ever again.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 1 month ago #992
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Usually when one’a us is hurt we try t’ get along with some more student assistants, but right now, things ain’t lookin’ to good for Stan, and we don’t know when he’s gonna be up and around again. I figgered I’d give you a shot at this, since Stan recommended you and... hey, kid, you listenin’ to me?”
Lou Lipscowycz, the twenty-two-year-old guy in question, snapped to attention like the former soldier he was. He really didn’t want to blow the job Uncle Stan had set up for him, but he was wondering about this Morrie guy’s sense of humor.
“Oh, right, the two pictures,” Morrie said, figuring out what the boy was staring at. “You prob’ly think we’re shittin’ you with those, huh? S’OK, I thought they were bullshittin’ me too when I first came here, but those two guys? They’re the real deal, the first two guys of the Maintenance crew here at Whateley. I got hired by old man Pantaleone m’self, and when he tol’ me about his cousin Mario, well, I figured he was razzing the new guy, but s’all true.”
“You know about...”
“Hey, kid, I ain’t that old. I was nineteen when I started here in ‘89, an’ my younger brother had onea’ them Nintendo things, OK? Anyway, where was I... Oh, yeah, Mario Compilano was the head of the maintenance crew here when the old school closed, and the way I hear it, they hired him when the school was re-opened because no one else could figger out the crazy sewers around here. A couple’a years later he decided he needed help, so he brought a cousin a’ his, Luigi Pantaleone, and the two’a them were the best damn sewer team you ever knew.”
“Mario got hurt bad some time in the 1970s, and ended up retiring. Luigi got kicked up to a desk job a few years later, he finally retired in ninety-three, which was when yer Uncle was brought in.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #993
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
And now for more “Dumbing to Whateley”
“Uhm, Joe, why is Jack hanging around with Screech lately, and who is that frosh with them?”
“Silence.”
“Huh?”
“That’s Marcie’s codename, as well as her power. She’s in Hawthorne because she creates a sonic dead zone around her about, I dunno, 7 feet in radius? No sound at all, and she has trouble turning it off, all she can do is make it smaller for a while. Weird thing is, she can hear sounds coming from outside the field, but no one else can, and she’s completely mute herself because of it.”
“So...”
“Actually, it’s mostly because they all sign, but Jack appreciates not having to worry about something loud setting him off, and Screech likes it because she can relax a bit in when she’s in that field.”
“Uhm, and the girl who is acting nuts and getting in Silence’s face is... ?”
“Oh, that. She’s Marcie’s girlfriend Malaya, she’s... well, not so much jealous as a bit of an attention whore...”
“Look who’s talking!”
“Hey! Anyway, she makes a big thing whenever Silence isn’t hanging out with her, and she and Screech don’t get along, you can get the picture.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Anne
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #994
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dec1
Bart Isly, code name Bad Bart had been in a single room in Twain cottage for the first three months of the school year. As anyone who knew Bart could tell you, he tended to sprawl. He was also an amateur home brewer, as such he often ‘acquired’ fruit, either from the cafeteria (I need between meal snacks and can’t take time to stop through here every time I need something) or the campus store. To be fair, Bart was correct about his dietary needs, he was an external energizer and tended to expend prodigious amounts of energy if he used his powers (and even if he didn’t use his powers in calorie intake needed to be about double what a normal teen would eat) and could end up in a state of cellular starvation rather quickly. So a certain amount of the fruit he carried off actually went to the purpose it was supposed to, namely inside him for nutrition.
But being alone in his room, he had acquired an empty 5 gallon bucket with a lid which he used to make ‘home brew’. About three days ago he had toted off a five pound bag of apples and set up to make applejack. This evening he had tested out his creation and tied one on to say the least so he was sleeping the sleep of the dead (or dead drunk at least...) when his room mate arrived near midnight after a transatlantic flight.
The boy, though in body type he looked to be in his early twenties with a full beard and a barrel chest that bespoke being perhaps a dwarf or some other sort of fae of that sort, moved the mostly empty bucket from the mostly empty locker that contained it and he would need it to place his meager belongings in. He frowned at the snoring form of his roommate and recognized someone who apparently had overindulged in alcohol. He caught a whiff of the remains of the batch in the bucket and looked around at the other items he had removed from the locker. He kicked himself for not taking pictures while it was in place, but did his best with his Gizmatic phone of taking pictures of all of the apparatus he found. That done he cleared the second bed that didn’t have sheets, pillows, blankets or anything else (he wasn’t sure there should have been any present) after all a very sleepy chickadee had come and rescued him from the Berlin airport about two hours ago and handed him a key to the room when he indicated that the single backpack he carried contained all of his luggage. He had not elaborated to tell her that for the most part it contained all of his worldly possessions, only his phone which wasn’t in the pack constituted anything he owned that he wasn’t carrying in the rather small bag.
Well he thought, there’s nothing to be done for it now, the chickadee had told him to show up at eight the next morning to get signed into the school officially. He set his pack on the bed and carefully checked the time on his phone as matching local time then set an alarm for five the next morning, he wanted time to shower among other things before he showed up at the admin building. He did note before he closed his eyes that there was at least a superficial map of the school available. He didn’t know if it could be zoomed in and he didn’t know if it covered the extensive tunnel system his talent or nature was telling him lay below the ground here: that information would have to wait for another day, because although his stamina was much greater than it had been before his constitution had been sorely taxed by the flight which he hated with a passion. He didn’t know how he would feel about boats, but he intended to find out, because if he ever intended to return to his native village, that would be unknown to most anyone more than a hundred miles from it, he had no intention of ever setting foot in an airplane in the next ten centuries that had been evaluated as his probable lifespan.
His basic needs cared for the boy laid his head on the bag and fell asleep.
Early the next morning the boy pulled a set of clean clothing from the bag. His mutation allowed him to make the inside of the bag slightly larger than the outside so it actually contained a small amount more stuff than a casual observer might think. He took a quick shower after straining the remains of his roommate’s brewing project and having it for breakfast. He really would have preferred a heavy ale, but the fruit brew that was somewhere between wine and a lambic wasn’t bad. It seemed like he had an actual requirement to drink a certain amount of alcohol every day, not that it caused him to become drunk, but rather it was as if drinking was an obligation of his mutation.
He checked the time and decided he could get a bit of practice in so he pulled a set of pipes (bagpipes) from the bag and started to warm them up.
Bart awoke at an ungodly hour to an ungodly racket in his room. He was certain someone was turning a cat inside out while the animal was still alive. Blearily he tried to focus his eyes on the source of the racket. Apparently overnight the school administration in its infinite wisdom had saddled him with a roommate, and whatever he was doing was creating the racket.
“Who are you and what are you doing!” Bart asked in a voice that was loud enough that he made himself wince, not that he wasn’t wincing already from the racket his new roommate was making.
“Warmin’ up me pipes,.” the indistinct shape sounded like it was chewing rocks the voice was so deep and had almost a growling quality.
Bart finally got both of his eyes to work together as the noise had lowered, though not entirely abated, he could hear an unearthly sort of drone coming from the creature? whatever was under the other person’s arm. More to the point though he realized that the person whom he was facing had a full beard of fiery red whiskers that looked like they might be useful for scrubbing burned on food off from pots.
“Y’r supposed to shave, don’t you know?” Bart said still trying to sort out the picture before him. The other person was perhaps just a hair over five feet tall and looked (not fat mind) to be nearly as wide as he was tall. If he had muscles in his chest as it seemed then Bart was thinking the other boy?, he didn’t look like a boy with that beard, could probably tie someone, maybe even someone like Slab, into a pretzel without breaking a sweat.
“I cannae, it comes back in a bit th’ same’s afore,” the other person said, though Bart was guessing at that between the growl and an accent that garbled his words.
“Why’d they put you here?” Bart demanded to know.
“I dinnae ken, I dinnae ask as I cam in aboot midnight,” growled the shape.
“Well hell! You can’t be making that racket at this time of the morning,” Bart said though he tried to tell himself to be calm. The mostly recognized shape of the other person was raising alarms of someone who could probably take him apart without trying.
“They’re me Da’s pipes, he gae them tae me afore he passed when I wa nae more’n eight. I intend to practice every day t’ d’ me Da proud,” the shape definitely growled more deeply on that statement.
Bart stared at the other person who had by now resolved further in his brain. He realized they were wearing a skirt! NO! He couldn’t be roomed with a cross dresser! Though there was no way if the other person had a permanent beard that they would ever pass. Still before he could control his mouth he popped off with, “You never told my your name, and why the fuck are you wearing a skirt? Are you some sort of sissy?”
A rock crushing growl started to come from the other person who moved far faster than Bart would have thought possible. “Me Name is Ian McLean ’n’ I wear a kilt ‘cause it’s traditional garb for me, If ye ever comment like that about my kilt again, well kilt is what ye’ll be,” grated from the mouth of Ian while a nastily sharp dagger poked a small hole in Bart’s skin at the corner of his jaw.
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Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Anne. Reason: Paragraphs, minor proofing
null0trooper
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2 years 7 months ago #995
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Kajutsu
Before the start Winter Term 2008 Team Tactics,
Arena 99, Whateley Academy
“Take a v-scan o’ this entry off of TV Tropes: Traditional Samurai martial arts included not only a variety of fighting styles, but every necessary skill for a soldier . . . kajutsu (“burning down peasant huts technique”). All of these are still taught by a few hardcore traditionalist schools, although one wonders how they practice arson at the dojo. Can you imagine that, with all the pyros in this place?”
“JENSEN!”
“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Bardue?”
“You are a freshman, are you not?”
“Yes, Gunny?”
“If you ever wish to live long enough to become a sophomore: close that page, clear your browser’s history, and forget you ever read that.”
“Roger that. Um...”
“Consider yourself duly warned that Sensei Ito has a long memory.”
Martial Arts and Crafts
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Erianaiel
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2 years 7 months ago #996
Erianaiel replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“What ... am I looking at?” Delarose all but shouted rather than asked of the first responder patrol.
What he was seeing literally was easy enough to understand as it was not mind warping eldritch abominations. For once. But even for Whateley the scene playing out in front of him was ... unexpected.
Security officer Vandyke had never fully shedded his vaguely germanic accent despite a life long career in the military. He wasn’t difficult to understand but his voice sounded ever so slightly harsh in the gees and esses. It also made him sound like he was one hair’s width away from anger at all time, though that was often useful in defusing potentially explosive situations between angry and superpowered students.
It was therefor a surprise that he spoke softly and bewildered. “I can not say sir,” he said. “This is pretty much the situation as of our arrival at the scene. We did cordoning and called in a medical emergency.”
Delarose pointed looked at the smoking shredded wreck of a powered react armor, whose pilot was being loaded on a stretcher apparently after being cut out of his suit.
Vandyke winced and admitted, “that was my fault sir. I feared the girl was in danger and hoped the armour could get through the warp field surrounding her.”
He didn’t have to say ‘obviously I was wrong’. That much was painfully and expensively obvious.
Talking about the girl required all men to look at the center of the scene, which they instinctively and gallantly had avoided after the first glance. There was a circle some fifteen feet across surrounded by a shimmering something. Not quite heat mirages, without the heat that was, but definitely flame-like in impression. In the center of the circle was a girl playing a game of pounce and wrestle with what could only be described as a ghostly image of a giant wolf like creature. It stood probably waist high and there were some subtle differences that made the creature uncomfortable to look at for more than a few moments before the eye slid off it.
It was easy enough to see why the security officers arriving at the scene had thought the girl was under attack by a giant wolf and called in the heavy guns.
Troubling as the sight was though, more troublesome was that the girl seemed to have some of her clothes torn off and was apparently unaware of it. The wolf creature did not seem capable of doing that specific kind of damage to clothes which implied all kinds of unpleasant scenarios.
Automatically Delarose eye was drawn to the final player in the little drama before him, who was being treated for extensive burns and lacerations all over her body. That it was all over her body was easy to see because she was wearing, and that term applied only by the most fanciful flight of imagination, a few scraps of her shredded school uniform.
“Peeper,” Delarose said menacingly without bothering to look over his shoulder. “If /any/ picture or word of this shows up /anywhere/ I will personally deliver you to the MCO in Berlin.”
There was a muffled meeping sound.
“And remember, ms Hartford /will/ know.”
He was answered only by muffled footsteps quickly receding back behind the barricades nominally keeping the curious students at bay.
The problem with the scenarios he imagined was that the possible perpetrator being treated was Mairead Connolly, also known as Gwynhavr. A water manifestor a mild receptive empath and one of his auxiliaries. She was also notoriously protective of the other Poe residents. Her assaulting another Poesie was unthinkable, and the red haired girl trapped in the ghostly flame circle even less. The girl had only recently arrived at Whateley and her manifestation as mutant had been so traumatic that she was not even put in regular classes with the psychiatrist staff seeing her several times a day to help her cope. The only reasons the girl was in Poe rather than Hawthorne was because her powers where not, exactly, a danger to anybody and she desperately needed the mental support unique for Poe cottage.
Which meant Gwynhavr had to have been trying to protect her. From somebody even.
“Was somebody else removed from the scene?” Delarose asked.
“Yes sir. A student codenamed Chime was moved to Doyle.”
Delarose frowned. Chime was another Poe resident and another name that made no sense in this scene.
“He seemed to have gotten severely injured pulling Gwynhavr out of that warp field that she had gotten trapped in. We had to apply tourniquets to both arms and derma glue to the cuts on his chest and face. “ Vandyke clarified.
“Anybody else at the scene?”
A quick shake of the head confirmed what Delarose had already begun to fear. “We’ll pull security footage from all access to this path, to see if anybody left before you arrived,” he sighted, not having much hope to find anything. Things didn’t add up. The girl had a major reality warp power going that she was not supposed to have, and there was no way any testing would have managed to miss something of this magnitude. Not to mention that security was always aprised of level 5 or higher warpers arriving at the school, seeing how much havoc they could unintentionally wreak and how much damage control security could expect around them.
He stood there for a while, pondering the scene and all the anomalies that made his initial impressions suspect. He also thought about how to go about preserving the crime scene while at the same time dealing with the other crisis that had pulled him from his duties. In half an hour or less, a camera crew would arrive at the school and expecting nearly free reign to wander about would almost certainly follow this path between the parking lot at the entrance and the quad. Rumours about mutants in New Hampshire had been spread maliciously by somebody who knew too much and hadn’t want to be linked to the rumours themselves. Normal means of quelling such rumours had expertly and apparently by chance been countered. Showing off the school as a normal, if way too expensive, prep school for the children of the rich and influential who needed to get away from the papparazzi, was kind of a last ditch effort to derail the subtle campaign to expose Whateley. If this failed they could expect a swelling horde of H1! and worse fanatics.
Naked girls in fire circles were definitely not the reality of Whateley they wanted to expose to this camera crew and curious reporters.
Delarose was distracted from his musings by Gwynhavr struggling to wake up from her IV drip with sedatives. He hurried over and knelt by the girl. He needed answers quickly, and she needed to not be awake. If she struggled to be awake she had to report something vital.
“Sir,” she rasped with a voice laced thickly with pain. “Watch .. tower .. attacked”. She gasped and weakly swatted at the EMT orderly who tried to renew the drip. “Hounds took .. him” she gasped out before her eyes rolled up and she slipped back into unconsciousness.
Delarose let the medics do their thing and take the girl away. Watchtower was a name that was high on the list of troublemakers at the security offices. A high level PK brick with minor light powers who thought of himself as paladin of the faith. Unfortunately for everybody around him that faith was to the extremist side of the Westboro baptist church. Neither student nor faculty lived up to his rigid notions of how people should behave and he was eager to use his new found power ‘of god’ to force those around him to adhere to his ideas of what was divinely mandated.
Hounds on the other hand was a mystery. There was no avatar of the spirit of a dog at the school, and certainly a pack of dogs would have been noticed before and been dealt with. He could rule out the clas X chimeras that had plagued the school as everybody was still as sane as they were the day before.
He had no idea how to proceed. None of his officers could deal with a warp field that could shred heavy power armour in seconds, and there was no possible way he was going to allow students to take any further risk. One injured auxiliary and one student in critical condition was already far too much.
Maybe a tranquiliser dart could knock out the girl and knock down that warp field of hers though how to get the dart through the field he had no idea.
Just then Lady Astarte came flying from Shuster hall. She was dressed as Mrs Carson in an expensive business suit and skirt combo and had makeup that made her look decades older than usual, with greying hair as would be expected of the headmistress of an expensive boarding school for the children of the wealthiest families on the entire planet.
“I’ll take it from here Franklin,” she said even before she had fully landed next to the flame circle.
She concentrated on her short staff for a moment and a blue light shimmered around her though none who watched
could remember her starting to glow. It seemed she had always been glowing and they only now realised, even though they could remember her not glowing when she came flying in.
With a deep breath the headmistress walked through the wall of ghostly flames, and though the glow surrounding her flared up painfully brightly, it held and the next step she was through and whatever it was that protected her died down again. The girl did not notice that she had company. The wolf she was playing with did, but redoubled its efforts to distract her.
More unnerving another kind of wolf shimmered into existing face to face with mrs Carson. And that face to face part was quite literal as the creature stood easily shoulder height with a grown man. And that was not the only oddity about it either. This solid it was even clearer that there was something off with the creature. It reminded Delarose uncomfortably about a japanese animated movie he had once seen about giants wolves, a feral girl and demonic creatures as big as elephants and as tall as skyscrapers. The wolves in that had also looked a little unnatural. It did not help that the wolf’s thick ruffle of fur around his neck and upper back was actually burning with a blue flame.
No sound escaped as the two had a brief conversation. At the end of which mrs Carson curtsied and the wolf made an odd bowing from its fore legs movement. Then the wolves and the fire faded out of existence, leaving behind an unconscious girl and a much abused Watchtower. The boy looked like he had been living rough for weeks and been running for his life most of that time, escaping only by the narrowest of margins from worse than the countless bites, burns, scratches and bruises that were visible on his naked body. The boy, too, was unconscious and Delarose had the feeling this was a good thing.
Lady Astarte said, “let’s clean up this place. Monica can be moved to her room. Louis, if you could keep half an eye on her to see if she has nightmares or worse? And mr Philips here needs to go to Doyle for treatment. Keep several officers at the ready in case he wakes up. If he doesn’t it might be best to move him to a cell where he can do less damage.” she sighed. “I will explain in detail after we have that camera crew safely away from the school. Hopefully I have sorted things out and we will not see a repeat of this .. event.”
Seeing Delarose’s stormy expression she relented a little. “Those were what ancient myth mistook for hell hounds Franklin. This pack has .. adopted ms Griffin. Mr Philips was overcome by his own delusions and by ms Griffin’s aura. The pack stepped in before he could do too much damage and protected her from what it perceives to be evil spirits.” She clarified, “Us.”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 7 months ago #997
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Production manager Rhoda Pell gave her signature sour look to the two pointy-eared freaks standing in front of her. “First you... people storm in here asking our production company to make a formal apology to the people of Atlantis for our latest History Channel special, now you want a...?”
“An opportunity to present the true history of the Five-Fold Court,” said the willowy blonde. Her male companion, who looked to be the other sort of fairy, too, added, “While the Queen of the West disagrees with us on this, we feel that it is important that the humans know the glory that once was the realm of Atlantis and those who dwelt there.”
Just as Pell was about to retort, the woman said something which changed everything. “We are prepared to pay handsomely for this service... would a quarter of a billion dollars suffice?”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Katssun
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2 years 7 months ago #998
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Crystal Hall, Monday Morning
The freshman diligently stood in line for sausage and eggs, but the line was held up by other students waiting for a new tray of bacon. A wet, earthy smell tickled his nose before all he could smell was orchids. The clicking of shoes led the way to a flash of shiny copper hair, bouncing just above the shoulders of its owner. Crisp uniform, black tights, polished shoes caught his eye as the girl skimmed past all of them to a window of the kitchens.
The boy breathed in deep as she passed, taking in the orchid scent of the copper-haired girl’s shampoo, or perfume, or whatever. It mixed with the smell of sausages and freshly cooked bacon that promised movement of the line. But there was something else too. He looked at the trays around him. Did someone grab an overripe orange?
“Bitch cuts the line every day since she got here,” a girl behind him muttered softly. “Who does she think she is?”
“New money is my guess,” said another, “She may have all sorts of designer perfumes, and has got to have a service doing her laundry, but at least this school has some taste. She’s still in Hawthorne, where she belongs, and not with us in Melville. The administration at least gets the difference between money and class.”
“Valid.” She loaded up on a very hefty serving of eggs while her friend took only a modest amount of egg whites as they both left the line.
His copper-haired sprite accepted a Styrofoam clamshell container from the kitchen staff. Special dietary needs. He’d likely already seen weirder. This was Whateley. The girl headed to the baked goods as he loaded up on sausages and headed for the checkout.
He caught sight of her again as she took another line. A face that looked like it would fit in anywhere, from a noir detective’s office to a punk concert, seemed perfectly framed by her wavy locks. Full cheeks, a delicate bump to her nose, a rounded jawline surrounding delicate lips, and rich blue eyes that you could drown in.
But within that same face, a deep sadness. One he so now longed to cure. Had there been a weekend breakup? No way to know. Was the colder weather dampening her mood? He was from the South as well, it did take some getting used to. Was she having trouble fitting in? There was some basis for that theory. Only one way to find out. He had to talk to her.
Entranced, he followed her in a daze through the cafeteria to a table. The girl sat down and began to pick at her muffin. The boy took a deep breath as he passed her, drawing in her perfume once more. He sat down nearby, waiting for his change to introduce himself.
His newly appointed muse opened her container, revealing a few used coffee filters, with the grounds still in them no less, fruit peels, and a several bite-sized pieces of charcoal. The girl frowned. She must be being hazed! Were those two girls earlier paying off the kitchen staff?
She pushed aside the rest of the muffin, uneaten, before grabbing a coffee filter like a soft shelled taco and tearing off a sizeable bite. A helping of charcoal was elegantly sent on a fork through her lips.
The freshman, to growing horror, felt the end of his first true crush via delicate fingers breaking off a chunk of styrofoam that passed through coffee-stained lips.
Several tables away, a different student smiled. Another would-be-dreamer, but actual-kind-a-creeper, thwarted without any intervention required.
Hawthorne Cottage, that same morning
Elise Crewe woke up to the soft chime of her alarm, and dashed to the private bathroom of her single that was disconnected from the main sewer system. That finished, she gave herself a careful sniff. Slightly rotting fruit. She perked up. That gave her options!
She flitted out of the bathroom in high spirits, heading toward a large yellow metal cabinet.
“Someone’s in a good mood today,” her spirit said from the direction of the bed.
“It’s Monday! You know what that means!” Elise twirled on the balls of her feet, and gave her spirit a broad smile. Meadow perched on Elise’s headboard in her favorite attire: a damaged wedding dress stained with red wine, chocolate cake, and a questionable dark green ooze.
“Fresh-baked cinnamon muffins!” the two said simultaneously.
Elise opened her chemical cabinet and slipped on a pair of green nitrile gloves and grabbed her mug. She took out the supplement on the “Monday” shelf before placing both the mug and the supplement jar under a small fume hood. Water went in the mug followed by a magnetic stirring stick. After that came the contents of the jar. Monday meant bases, so caustic soda “tea” it was. A little petroleum jelly for her lips, a pinched nose, and she drank the steaming contents. She felt a strong tingle in her mouth and down her throat as the drink ate away at her insides before her regen kicked in. She wiped off her lips carefully and threw everything back under the hood.
Peeling off her nightshirt, she went through the rest of her morning routine. Hair thoroughly brushed to keep up its shine, a touch of mascara, lip balm. Then she stepped up to the clear display cabinet Dad had sent.
She’d had to assemble it herself, but a few borrowed tools from down the hall and it was ready to go. A large array of dozens of atomizers lay before her, carefully arranged and labeled. A handful were commercial, but most she’d had to mix herself with the help of a Merck Index. She grabbed two, and sprayed each on the insides of her elbows, right above her belly-button, and just on the right side of her neck. A few minutes later and the scent of rotten fruit was replaced with an earthy, mossy tone and bright tropical orchids.
Elise dressed with care, as she’d learned, and zipped toward the cafeteria. She had priorities, and waiting for friends wasn’t one of those things when it came to a Monday breakfast. She gracefully burst through the doors and skipped directly to the kitchen window.
“Good morning Chefs!”
“Ah, good morning Miss Crewe,” said one of the sous-chefs in a mocking tone. The entire staff was used to this by now. Elise was pretty sure the whole kitchen staff thought this little routine was hilarious. The woman came back to the window with a clamshell container. “Your meal awaits, my Princess.”
Elise rolled her eyes, but played along. “Thank you, good madam. I shall remember your courtesy.” She turned and zipped toward the baked goods line. But alas, that was when tragedy struck.
An empty muffin tray for the cinnamon muffins met her that fated morning. Bummed out, Elise settled for a cranberry-walnut muffin, and dejectedly entered the checkout line. She moped her way to her usual table, empty this early, and picked at her backup muffin.
It just wasn’t the same. Nothing beat a warm cinnamon muffin. She opened the white container revealing artfully arranged kitchen garbage. Zested citrus peels surrounding a little pile of charcoal, all shaped like a Black-eyed Susan. Used coffee filters arranged to look like tortilla breakfast wraps, dotted with sour cream. She looked at the muffin again and frowned before pushing it away. It was a waste, but it was probably compostable.
By the time she started eating the container itself, her mood had improved. Tomorrow was another day.
She’d crack the exact timing on warm cinnamon muffins yet.
Katssun
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2 years 7 months ago - 2 years 7 months ago #999
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
H1 Meeting, Jackson’s Whole Enchiladas, Parkersburg, WV
“I just mean, like, what are the chances?!” Harry Ewing bellowed.
“So what?!” Gene Conahan, “The kid’s like...what, nine?”
“Never too soon for a mutie!”
“What makes you think he’s a mutant?” Lena Miller replied, still nursing her first beer.
Harry leaned back, clinging desperately to the edge of the bar to maintain his balance. “Vivid. Red. Hair.”
“Okay...lots of people have red hair,” she said, “You got...anything else?”
“Those piercing, shining blue eyes. They bore right into ya and read your mind!”
“You ain’t got nothing to worry about Harry!” Gene inserted, cackling before he killed another glass of Bud. Gene eased himself off the stool and wobbled off towards the bathrooms.
“You gotta give me something Harry. The kid’s got blue eyes and red hair. Like Gene said, he’s nine! You seen him zap squirrels or something? Take apart his little kiddie quad? Levitate? Cheat at peewee football?”
“He’s left handed...”
Lena just rolled her eyes and slapped down a ten dollar bill. “Fantastic Harry, you positively ID’d a left-handed ginger boy.”
Fuck this. As Lena tucked her pocketbook back into the inside pocket of her leather jacket, her fingers brushed against the business card she’d been given a few weeks ago. She had honestly forgotten about it.
‘Ezra W. Sutherland - Operations’
He said he was looking for people with previous combat experience, or at the very least, tactical support. Perhaps a return call was long past due.
Last Edit: 2 years 7 months ago by Katssun.
Cryptic
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2 years 6 months ago #1000
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Stop chasing me! I’m not a Precog or have cold related powers!” a short, pudgy, be furred Whitman girl squealed as she scurried on all fours along the snow banked walkways as a hoard of students chased.
“Damn it, I knew I should have said I was from somewhere other then Punxatawny PA, or that my name was Phillipa when I got here.” Phillipa “Whistler” Lutz wheezed as she slammed the door, leaning back against it panting, while wondering why she chose Philipa of all things when she went girl and rodent..She prayed that no one was who could find the door was willing to risk the Mystic departments wrath.
Ms. Reilly looked up from her little assistant. “You might want o find another place to hide. Ms Bardou is in the department, and she’s the one who started the Hog Hunt...”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
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05 Sep 2021 01:14 #413
by DanZilla
Replied by DanZilla on topic Micro-Scenes 2015-2021
XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 6 months ago #1001
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
At the Whitman freshman mixer.
Trilby said: “Thank you, Jasmine. Next up, Marla Jones. Tell us about yourself.”
The beautiful blonde stood up. Well, she was threatening to turn into a beautiful blonde, but at the moment she was more of an adorably cute blond 13-year-old with just a hint of curves. “Hi, I’m Marla, and if you can think of a nickname for Marla that I’d actually like, I’d love to hear it! I had kind of a quiet emergence; the biggest problem was peeling the Little League coach off of me when I dropped out - among other things, I’m an Exemplar 4. I’m also a Gadgeteer-Devisor combo - they think about a three. The weirdest thing, though, is this. Uh, make sure the door is locked, please.”
“How’d you get rid of the coach,” Stacy, who had gone earlier, asked. “Those people are obsessive!”
Marla giggled. “Mother made a call to some kind of Family relation I’d never heard of, and that she refused to tell me about. A week later, the team coach quit hassling me to come back. I have no idea what he, or maybe she, did, but the coach was looking a bit spooked for a couple of weeks.” She giggled.
She checked the door and then tapped a bracelet. The outer layer of her clothes vanished, causing a gasp. Another tap, another gasp, and then the third tap. This time jaws dropped as her skin vanished, showing her muscles and other bits of anatomy. Another tap, another layer. A few more taps, and there was just a skeleton. A final tap, and even the skeleton vanished, with the bracelet hanging, apparently unsupported, in the air. “Not so instant Invisible Girl!” The giggle came from the place where she was still standing.
After a few more taps, she reappeared, layer by layer. “And that,” she said as she curtseyed, “is why they call me Anatomy.”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago - 2 years 1 month ago #1002
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Well, I mean, if you’re stuck looking like your ten when you’re in high school, and you’ve already gotten a rap sheet from before you manifested, I guess I can see why you’d think ‘Billy the Kid’ makes sense as a codename,” Joe admitted.
<And you’d automatically be able to pull off the image of being an old-time outlaw, the kind that became folk heroes and shit,>, signed Jack. <It’s the same damn reason any idiot supervillain back home who wants sympathy plays to the memory of Ned Kelly. There have been something like a half dozen “Iron Bandit”s and “Iron Bushranger”s over the years, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting old any time soon.> The mocking barks that followed this statement made it clear just how little Razorback - and presumably, most other Australians - actually thought of this tactic.
“Still a damn stupid move, I say,” Eldritch, “The dumb fucker doesn’t even know anything about any of the guys who’ve used that name before, and every Cape and Secret Squirrel in the school will be watching his every move.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Cryptic
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2 years 6 months ago #1003
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
in the workshop
“Ooo, free doughnut!”
“Touch that and die. that’s my experiment to see how stable ‘Nut’s pastry manifestations are. I want to see if they, and maybe there calories, disappear.”
“Ummmm...”
“Besides it’s from breakfast and has been sitting out. It’s stalw.”
“You could have lead with that.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
null0trooper
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2 years 6 months ago #1004
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mrs. Shugendo nodded. “Why don’t you and your mom go down and finish dinner with your devisor friends?” she suggested. “And then maybe you and your friends can show her around the labs.”
The Scenic Tour
Thursday evening, September 27, 2007,
The Workshop, Whateley Academy
Unlike so many visitors, Sara Fields didn’t any reason not to be impressed by all the sights to be seen in The Workshop. And there were many of them: from the shaggy-haired boy who looked like Big Foot but worked with the most up-to-date micro-electronics, to the almost otherworldly girl from France who - to be honest the girl might as well have been speaking French when she described her work. She also got the impression that some of Bobby Earl’s classmates were surprised to have proof he was born instead of decanted out of some backwoods still.
“I have to tell ya, Ma, I don’t know for sure who’s back in these parts, ‘xceptin their main work is less in design and inventin’ and more hands-on building things. Lathes, presses, brakes, powered shears, all sorts of metalworkin’ equipment. To hear tell, half the machinery needs a computer programmer to get anything done.”
“I keep hearin’ that automation is still the direction most industries are going. Wouldn’t hurt ya to learn something about such things if you get the chance.”
“I know, but there’s only so much a body can learn in a day.”
“More like there’s only so much you wanna sit for. You ain’t foolin’ yer ma.”
As they continued walking to the next area, set off from the rest of the workshop because some projects being brought in for build or repair could be large but also because of the need for noise attentuation. Pneumatics, hydraulics, what have you, Fabricators’ Row could get loud. Sure enough, the common areas were equipped better than most custom auto or motorcycle shops could dream of. And whereas many of the other private labs kept a full set of incomprehensible tools, here the bays tended to be plastered with drawings of things to be made and schedules for getting all the pieces together at the right time to go forward.
From way down one of the spur passageways, Sara thought she could hear something that was outdated back when her Pa was still a young whippersnapper.
“Bobby Earl, am I hearin’ what I think I am?”
“I honestly don’t know. Can’t hurt to go look.”
When they got there, stopping for hearing protection along the way, it was exactly what Sara had guessed: a blacksmith had taken up shop back here. The most amazing thing might have been that the smith was a young woman. One much more healthily-built than the two gold-diggers, one might add. She eventually noticed that she had visitors, and set down the piece she was working on and her tools.
“Hello! Ah’m Abelyn Elliott, but call me ‘Abbie’ or ‘Smithy’ if you put a lot of stock in code names. Pleased to meet y’all?”
The girl looked normal compared to some of the folks they’d seen at the school, but the way that her eyes flickered red over brown gave away that she was a mutant.
“Er, Hi! I don’t recall that we’ve met yet. I’m Bobby Earl Fields, and this is my mother, Sara.”
“Pleased to meet you. I came up to see m’boy, and now Bobby Earl’s been showin’ me around this place. He’s what they call a devisor. Might I ask how you got all this here?”
“A friend of my Pa’s got our workshop all packed up and shipped before, well, some people aren’t as accepting of others as they should be if they’re going to go ‘round calling themselves Christians. But you didn’t come all this way to hear ‘bout that. First one as asked about the shipping, though. Let me give you the nickel tour.”
“I think Ma was also wondering about your powers?”
“Bobby Earl, there is a time and place!”
“That’s not a big deal here. Maybe it would be if I worked more with copper and your boy didn’t think to ask for help, but that’s different. The docs have me down as an Exemplar Three, Avatar Four, and Gadgeteer One, with some esper knacks thrown in. You want t’ know what my biggest power is? Not kickin’ the ever-loving crap out of a couple a’ boys who need their heads pulled back out of their be-hinds. I swear the one is fourteen-going-on-four!”
Bobby Earl paled just a little. Exemplar-3 meant this girl could bench-press him AND one of his stills if she got this mad at him.
“Abbie, the male of the species ain’t always the smartest. That’s why I ain’t married to this’n’s father no more.”
“Ain’t that the truth! So, anyway, as you can see here...”
All in all it was a pleasant tour, from high tech to (not so very) low tech. Sara just hoped her boy’s eyes were opened enough after all that nonsense with those two rich girls to notice that he didn’t have to settle for the first pretty young thing that happened to be nice to him.
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Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago - 2 years 6 months ago #1005
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Pungenday, Bureaucracy 44, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3178
(AKA 20 Sept 2008 e.v.)
And so it came to pass that the newly-titled Pope Ulvoh 33 1/3 (POEE, LDD, TGIF; Wearer of the Bell Bottoms of Doom) and her former rival (and soon-to-be boyfriend) Doktor Shwooshie the Slackfisticated (Master of the Dreaded Running Away Moan-euver) agreed to join forces against the ones known as Beltane and Thorn, and the legends of the days to come would be passed down for at least a while after the two noobs graduated four years hence...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 6 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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2 years 6 months ago #1006
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Early Saturday Morning, July 2nd, 2016, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
She hit send, closed her email, and was about to log off her computer when she heard the clatter of a cheap plastic container on synthetic tile.
“Um…Tracey?
Before the last syllable was even out, Tracey Langford had shot across the room over the half-cubicle walls and pinned Alex Ibarra to the wall. The gray sash of her otherwise blue and white skintight costume settling behind her. She ran through several options in her head, but settled on what was arguably the lamest.
“Quiet! I’m glad I found you before they did. We need to get you out of here!”
Alex simply rolled his eyes. “Your desk. Your logon credentials…Macroburst. What the fuh-, hell are doing here Tracey? And like that?”
“What are you doing here?” she countered back, dodging the question.
“Software turnover. Didn’t go that well. Usually doesn’t. You should know that, because you were just checking your email.”
Tracey hadn’t gotten that far. She only dropped in to check on the progress with the Sidewinder contract. She had felt guilty about having to rush out early on Friday. After settling the paperwork up with the DPA, she had figured that nobody would be in at 6am to follow-up on what she had abandoned before finally heading home for some sleep. Not that she needed much of it, hadn’t for nearly three decades. Alex wasn’t about to give up, he had clearly made the connection.
“You can’t tell anyone!”
“What about the cameras?”
“AlphaMax doohickey,” she raised a small palm-sized devise made by her teammate. It worked in office buildings as easily as it worked in villain lairs. “You’d be in as much danger as I would be if my identity got out, you have to promise me!”
“We know that.”
Tracey froze. We? “Who else knows?!”
“Um…can you let me go first?” Alex said. She realized she still had him pressed into the wall four inches off the floor, and gently set him down. “Well…all of IT…”
“How do they all know?” she said, panicked.
“Uh, we talk. Duh. So…it’s like this…” Over the next few minutes, Alex outlined all the slipups Tracey had made the over the last year she had worked at the firm. Emily was smoking weed in the woods when she had seen Tracey slip into the trees by the back corner of the lot and fly off. Before that, the whole team had put together a spreadsheet that lined up her absences with appearances of Macroburst on Hero Watch. Before that, Alex and Tom both noticed that she looked an awful lot like Macroburst when compared to close ups on Hero Watch.
“Do I really look like Tracey Langford?” She glanced down at her firm and undeniably incredible curves, wrapped snugly in bulletproof materials before she gave Alex a suggestive and teasing look.
“Uh…Fatima heard you in the bathroom struggling to put your Frump-a-dump padding back in place. That’s kinda what started the spreadsheet.”
Tracey slumped her shoulders before nailing Alex with a very serious look. “You guys can’t tell anyone. I’m serious.”
“We’re not stupid. We’re IT. Whoever you had beef with could come here to kill you as easily as anywhere else.”
Tracey had had a number of other jobs over the years, and while she certainly had gotten complacent, and wasn’t one to talk with this latest series of failures, she knew that those first two statements were not necessarily mutually exclusive. “Who else knows?”
“Half the floor. A least three of the directors. Charlie. The three other girls, sorry, women, in contracts didn’t believe us until Fatima told them about the Frump-a-dump paddding. Now they hate you for being able to eat whatever you want and never show it in your uniform.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. Her boss knew. Her boss’ boss seemed to know. Her immediate coworkers were jealous of her eating habits. “Is that all?”
Alex looked toward the ceiling without really focusing on anything, “Uhhm…so half this floor, and I can confirm a corner of the floor upstairs, including Cecile.”
“She’s openly with Humanity First Alex!”
“I know! So…Emily was fixing Brandon Jacques’ computer in the next cube, he knows, by the way, and Emily was making sure they were loud enough so even Cecile could hear, and the two of them started deliberately going on and on about those fake gems you have there,” he pointed at the decorative plastic pieces on the belt she stored AlphaMax’s handouts in, “About how there those were clearly your power gems, and there’s no way you were a mutant, because mutants all look like freaks.”
Dammit! Tracey had been hoping to retire from heroing soon, after being active for almost 20 years, and she really liked this job for once. Even her little part of it, she felt like she was helping more people all at once, for good, instead of helping hand during a moment of crisis. But everyone knew.
“Just…just…try to keep it quiet. Please?” Tracey begged dejectedly. She’d figure out what to do after talking it over with her team. Right now, she just needed some sleep, or a least to curl up under the sheets. And hoped she still had some of that booze that affected her at her place.
“Woah, woah. I didn’t expect this, but now that you’re here, now, um…out...we gotta talk price.”
She turned back and glared at Alex with a look that made hardened gang members in Charlotte wet themselves. Alex’s eyes widened, but then he just frowned.
“And my fucking phone is on my fucking desk…Macroburst’s trademark glare. Close. Up.” He scooped up his cleaned container off the floor. “We agreed, IT I mean, that if it ever came out, at least to just us, and you didn’t like, leave immediately or something, that we wanted just one thing.”
High tech toys from her other coworkers, sex, someone from their past beat up, protection, hotline, photo ops, the whole list ran through her head at once. “Depends on what it is…” she relented, pinching her nose with her fingers.
“Supers gossip. Heroes, villains, both. You need to give us the latest dirt. Stuff that doesn’t show on Hero Watch. The juicy stuff.”
Fuck. The only thing worse than office gossip was that type of gossip.
XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 6 months ago #1007
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
This has been sitting on my system for close to 8 years, and has gone nowhere. Feel free to use or ignore it.
Accreditation Visit.
by Xaltatun of Acheron
Dave Steel walked into the corner office. “Hi, boss. You wanted to see me?”
“Kick the door closed and grab a chair,” Mike Darling said. “Got a question.”
“OK.”
Mike sat forward and folded his hands. “This is going to sound awfully strange. Tell me to go to hell, tell me it’s none of my business. Just don’t lie to me.”
“What the heck?”
“How do you feel about mutants?”
Dave frowned. “This is job related?”
“Yes.”
“So we’ve got some kind of mutant facility we need to do a building inspection on. Huh.” He paused. “I’ve never really thought about it. I just want to be far away when the fit hits the shan. Otherwise.” He paused again and then shrugged. “They’re people, and they deserve the same protection of the laws as everyone else.”
“Good enough. Are you up to heading the building inspection for Mutant High?”
Dave’s head came back. “You’re telling me it’s not a fable?”
“On the other side of the mountains.”
“There’s nothing in the files that even comes close.”
“Dave, Dave. You of all people should know better. You put as many fake reports in the file as everyone else combined.”
Dave rolled his eyes. “Politicians.”
“Yeah. This isn’t a whorehouse, though.”
“Well, someone’s got to do it. Where are they hiding it?”
“Whateley Academy.”
“Whateley. Academy. Hm. That’s Mutant High?” He steepled his hands for a moment. “Lots of things suddenly make sense.”
“I’ll bet. This is a Joint Accreditation Visit. Get everything done in one pass. Jeb always said the team they send up from the Pentagon is real pros. Pain in the ass, but still pros. You served in Desert Storm, that’ll help with them. It’s the teachers from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges that usually have shell shock.”
Dave grinned. “I’ll bet. So Jeb was doing it before? Did he leave any notes?”
null0trooper
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2 years 6 months ago #1008
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“...while the State of New Hampshire has no intention of adopting the South Florida Building Code, upgrading to compliant roofing, roof to foundation structural connection, and windows stands a good chance of becoming cost-effective over time.”
Dave Steel knew his reason for being here was an exercise in creative writing, and most of the school was over-engineered compared to code, but thanks to his kids he’d seen “The Sorceror’s Apprentice” countless times. Just the thought of roofing slates coming off in high winds reminded him that this place was way too close to Dunwich to rule out worst cases.
“Mister Steel,” Elizabeth Carson chose her words carefully here, “while our students may be quite exceptional, our funding is less so.”
“I’m sure of it, but the risk of loss from one conjured hurricane?”
One of the school’s maintenance supervisors looked to Mrs. Carson and mouthed “Thunderstorms in the bathroom.”
“However, in view of renovations being considered you make an excellent and timely point.”
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Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago - 2 years 6 months ago #1009
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
23 September 2015
Melissa Samson rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time this month at the ‘rumor’ about Caitlin Bardue. She actually knew the truth - she had vague memories of ‘uncle’ Erik Mahren, and knew ‘aunt’ Cait was the same person - but she warmed up to once more trot out the cover story Daddy and Uncle Mike (even she had trouble telling them apart sometimes) said to use...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 6 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 6 months ago #1010
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
As the Syllabus Doth Ever Evolve
Earth Mother, 1977 wrote: “Now we will be starting by teaching you how to make and use a wand. As you will find when you do your homework, there are different correspondences for different materials, just as there are different approaches to magic. The school store either carries or can order any of a number of suitable materials, so you are encouraged to experiment.”
“Dude! I have the wildest idea: why not use a chemically altered substance?”
“Because you’re an idiot?”
Caduceus, 2007 wrote: “Now we will be starting by teaching you how to make and use a wand. Because of past incidents involving nitrocellulose and lathes, we require that you use natural wood for this assignment. The school store carries the most commonly used woods: oak, thorn, ash (which we recommend for a general-purpose wand.) However, other woods can be ordered, such as ebony or rowan, or gathered from the wild.
“I’ve got just the thing!”
“I knew we should have searched your backpack more thoroughly.”
Miss Grimes, 2017 wrote: “Now we will be starting by teaching you how to make and use a wand, using one of these blanks. By which I mean, one of these blanks for each enrolled student in this class.”
Smoky huffed at the indignity. HE was a dragon! SHE - well, she probably could kick his scaly butt.
“As you will find when you do your homework, there are different correspondences for different materials, but we will start with Ash as we are going to make a more general-purpose wand. In years past, the Department used to allow students more leeway in their choices,”
“Miss Grimes, what was the problem with that? Harry Potter’s wand was made from holly.”
Her right eye twitched at the mention of That One, but she said, calmly, “Holly is a good good choice for many wand uses. It also costs three to six times as much as comparable oak or ash. The reason we now supply ash wand blanks is not to spite Ms. Rowling, but because we do not care to support further destruction of Yggdrasil.”
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XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 6 months ago #1011
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
This one hasn’t been sitting on my system quite as long as the last one, but it’s also going nowhere. The excerpt I’m showing is stroking one of my pet peeves: the design of Arena 99. It might be early enough to redesign it for Gen 2. If anyone has any interest, I’d be willing to say a bit more of what I’ve been thinking.
- - -
Sted “Ponygirl” Lancaster sat in the Arena Stands, looking idly at the huge screen on the front wall. The screen went wall to wall and ceiling to the floor of the stage, covering the wall completely. It was one unit, built from a technology that made the latest display screens from the big manufacturers whimper from a sense of abject inadequacy. It wasn’t that there was anything impossible, well, except maybe the quantum dot light emitters, it was just that it wasn’t possible for anyone to fabricate a screen that big, with the backing electronics that could maintain a smooth 120 frames per second.
While the screen itself was a pure gadget - it obeyed the laws of nature - the technology that built it was equally pure devise. She knew how it worked: that was part of her talent, and she could build the devises that could repair this screen or build an equivalent screen. What she didn’t have down yet was the ability to do it directly, using the telekenetic abilities that let her make gems and small parts just by holding the raw material between her hands. Making *that* work was proving to be inordinately difficult.
Arena 99, of course, was not behind the screen. It was underground, over a mile away, and connected via the tunnel system. Arena 99 had invisible cameras that the human director, or cis backup AI, could manuver so the action would appear on the screen. It had to have something like that - the Arena was simply too big for a fixed viewpoint to be able to follow the action.
*That* technology was something that Sted didn’t understand. At all. Probably a good thing, too. If that kind of surveilance technology escaped....
She shook her head. In the last combat final, the two idiots had decided to fight it out between themselves before trying to rescue the hostages, with the predictable result: the hostages got killed and the perps escaped, leaving the building a smoking ruin.
The screen cleared to show various scenes around Whateley. Boring. Then it cleared again to show two numbers: 418 and 632. 418 was the number she’d been assigned. She decided to throw the bookies a bit of a problem and went invisible as she got up from where she’d been hovering, almost as if she was sitting. She floated down to the door to the waiting area.
. . .
Another door opened, and Gunny Bardue entered. He glared at the two students, as if their mere existence meant they’d inevitably screw up and earn his wrath, and he was getting an early start on that wrath.
“Listen up! A terrorist group called Storm Cloud hit Mutual Life a couple of hours ago. For a change, the local police SWAT unit was on the ball, and they’ve holed up in the upper floors of the Mutual Life building, with a gaggle of the corporation’s executives and workers as hostages. Your job is to free the hostages. Whether or not you eliminate the terrorists at the same time doesn’t matter, although the prosecutors would like a few warm bodies to persecute.
“Any questions?”
Sted cocked her head slightly. “What else do we know? Are the perps baselines, what kind of power set do they have, what does the SWAT team know?”
Gunny grinned. “They’ve got a projective empath and a fire manifestor. Beyond that the usual: AK-47s and other mayhem machines. Pony, you’ve got door 1.”
She walked toward door 1 and entered the teleport booth. A moment later she found herself in the Arena.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago #1012
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dec 2006
As they crossed the state line into Illinois on their way back to Missouri, Louie and Lloyd both felt that they could relax again for the first time since this insanity began. Just how The Reynard had known where they kept that accursed rock, and how to get at it without setting off any of their wards, remains a mystery; what wasn’t a mystery was what he planned to do with it. They found the damned fox just a mile outside of Cincy and making a beeline towards that convention.
Looking down at the box now handcuffed to his arm, Lloyd frowned. Word had gotten out about the debacle at the convention center that afternoon. If that fruitcake had gotten her hands on the Star of the South, there was no telling what horrors might have been unleashed. They had the Sly One bottled up tight, but how many others were going to come looking for that thing, hoping to restore it through that oddball’s power?
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
null0trooper
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2 years 5 months ago #1013
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Friday morning, September 1, 2007,
Office of Dr. Bellows, Doyle Medical Center, Whateley Academy
Before coming to Whateley Academy, Kris would have considered it an insult to be placed in ‘English 101’. His advisor, Dr. Alfred Bellows, explained that it was the regular course for freshmen, emphasizing that the other students were, technically speaking, native speakers.
“Perhaps this will help you understand.” Dr. Bellows walked over to several shelves of books, picked one up, and opened it to a well-memorized page. “It’s a song that many of your fellow students will have come across in middle school or grade school.” He handed the book to Kristian. “Please read this and tell me what it means.”
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
At first, Kristian wasn’t even sure if all of it was in English. After his third attempt at reading the text, he still wasn’t sure. “Errrr. It’s describing spring out in the country? But I don’t get what it has to do with singing... cuckoos, in the summer?”
“Would it help if I told you that when this was written, ‘summer’ referred to the time from planting to harvest, or roughly from May Day to All Saints Day? Cuckoos were often heard in late April and May, so they could be seen as a sign of summer.”
“That still doesn’t help out much, no.”
“Then let’s try the regular course and see how it goes, shall we?”
“I, er, think I see your point.”
Dr. Bellows smiled. “I’ll send you a copy to translate at your leisure. You might find it more interesting than it looks. By the way, if you start falling behind, please let me know so we can arrange for a tutor. Freshman English has as high a demand for good tutors as some math courses.
Monday morning, November 5, 2007,
Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
“Hey, Kris! How’s English class treating you?”
Mads was rarely this cheerful in the morning without reasons for which Kristian didn’t want to be implicated as an accomplice.
“Better than certain freshmen I could name, why?”
The lunatic grinned at that. Considering that he was the freshman in mind... “I heard you hadn’t finished an assignment, and thought you could use a little help! Here ya go!”
Mads laid a torn-out notebook page face-down on the cafeteria table, and walked off. That wasn’t suspicious at all.
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
4th Period, English I,
Schuster Hall
Kris was still working on a translation to English at the start of fourth period. He had the words, or thought he had them, but he couldn’t reconcile the modern to the old. There were a few minutes left before class started, so he asked Abbie for help.
“Um, Kris, why are you trying to translate ‘Summer is a-coming in’?”
“Would you believe my counselor is involved?”
“Just how far did you get in Boy Scouts before coming here?”
“Why do people keep asking me that?”
Mrs. Devlin walked up from behind the two students. “Might I see what’s so interesting? Who knows, I might even be able to shed some light on the subject.”
Abbie’s face turned a light pink as she handed the paper to their teacher, even though she’d learned the song in grade school (or thought she did!)
“Mister Holm. Miss Elliott was asking that question because she was, I’d wager, thirty seconds from a detention for lewd language.”
“What? Lewd? But that’s... I meant. What did I mean?”
“I suspect you were going to attempt to explain a usage for a certain verb of motion that is known to date to the 17th century poem “Walking In A Meadowe Greene”. Given the play on a well-known Latin homonym, and the similarity of origin and themes, the pun may date to the thirteenth century or earlier. Suffice it to say that we will not be discussing these things in this class.”
Monday evening, November 5, 2007,
Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
Kristian slammed down his notebook next to Metro’s meal substitute. “What the hell is this poem supposed to be about?”
“You’ve heard of ‘the birds and the bees’, right?”
“How does a cuckoo have anything to do with that?”
“You see, even though a momma bird may love a pappa bird very much that doesn’t guarantee that all of her needs are met when summer haying rolls around. So there are some birds that give other birds the bird (or, perhaps, a hand if not a fist) in ploughing a well-tilled and fertile field. Nine months later a stork flies by with a parcel addressed to occupant.”
The verbal input wasn’t computing, but empathy is very handy at picking up intent. Metro’s mind could be dirty enough for two people without this much self-provocation.
“I think I hate you very much right now.”
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Bek D Corbin
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2 years 5 months ago #1014
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“We have Rollers coming up on our 40!” ‘Danny’ reported. ‘Miss Scarlet’ didn’t have her minions answer to numbers or ‘theme’ names, as some supervillains did. She felt it depersonalized them more than it hid their identities. So she assigned them cover names, and they were Ace, Bill, Charley- through Hank.
Miss Scarlet adjusted her trademark red cloud so that it billowed over the wheeled security drones, and then started potting them with her BFG. “How’s the Vault coming, Eddie?”
“We have 127 out of 184 combinations cracked,” Eddie replied as he monitored the computerized codebreaker. “Another five minutes, but we can kiss a clean swipe goodbye.”
“That’s already blown,” she pointed out. “George, how’s our exit holding?”
“We have Armed Security on our back porch, and I’m getting chatter that we can expect someone from the White Hat community soon.”
“Three minutes would be better!” Miss Scarlet snapped to Eddie as she shifted her BFG, so that instead of blasting the ‘rollers’, it disrupted them. She used that setting to shut down the drones that crowded the choke point. That kept the ones behind them from simply advancing over the blasted wrecks and blocked the choke points.
But, she mused as she shut down the rest of the drones, it also blocked them from using that as a means of exit as well. Once she’d fried the rest, Miss Scarlet let her BFG cool a bit. Then she switched over and loaded a slug the size of a spray can. As the slug charged up to ‘critical risk’ levels, she checked her smartphone for the floorplans of the lab and the Engineer’s notes. She picked one option and marked a spot on one wall with an X in grease pencil. She stepped back, and just as the BFG was beginning its ‘critical overload’ alarm, let off a blast. The blast knocked a large hole in the wall. “Well, Eddie?” she asked as she, Bob and Danny knocked loose bits from the edge of the hole.
“I have Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… BINGO!” The combination released the final catch on the last restraining bolt, and the vault opened.
“Why is it so cold?” Bob asked. “I thought this was an Engineering place, not Biowar stuff!”
“It is,” Miss Scarlet said as she pulled a solenoid-driven pry-vice from her red overcoat. She went unerringly to one drawer and opened it with a bang and a crack. “These are next-step liquid crystal AI cores. Before their core imprinting is done, they have to remain frozen.” She used insulated tongs to lift a dull white box that suspiciously resembled a quart of ice cream from the drawer. She put the box in one of the thermal ‘lunch box’ containers they brought. She expertly removed eight more boxes, stashed them in containers and handed them off.
She finished, had the boys get ready and radioed, “Ace, we are GO.”
With that, Miss Scarlet led her men through the hole, bypassing three Security checkpoints, a small army of Security guards, and more RC hardpoints than she cared to think about. As they moved, she prepped another slug, but not to critical risk levels again, and blasted open a pair of heavy armored security doors.
Past those doors, they rushed across an open stretch of concrete that offered absolutely no cover. But then they were pinned down by a beam of bright green light from above. “HALT, EVIL-DOERS!” blared a high feminine voice. “Surrender, or face the power of the Green Beacon!” Floating maybe fifteen feet above the ground was a trim young girl in a shades of green bodysuit with white gloves, boots and belt. She had clear crystalline bracers on her wrists, with matching visor and belt buckle. Her straight green hair was cut in a ‘bowl’ pageboy with bangs, and her lips were painted green.
*****
“’Halt Evildoers’?” Viv echoed hours later in the debrief room of the lair under the Harrow homestead. “’Surrender, or face the power of the Green Beacon’?”
“What are you complaining about?” Jessie asked as she pulled off her green polyester wig. “Thanks to me, Next Horizon’s™ Security put out an ‘answered’ bleat to their ‘Code Kent’ alert. Even so, Kid Galahad turned up. If I hadn’t been there, someone competent might have shown.”
“Yeah, the Kid seems to have decided that you’re his Catwoman, Sis,” JD said. “He was not happy that I got between him and your getaway vehicle.” He massaged the bruise on his chin.
“Oh, like you two were there to help me,” Viv grumped.
“What are you kvetching about?” Jessie demanded. “You got to blast me through a window!”
“What was I supposed to do, with you floating right in front of that window like a sitting duck?” Then a thought occurred to Viv. “That was deliberate. What were you up to?”
With a smirk, Jessie reached behind her and pulled a 3-inch diskette that Vivian recognized as the latest mass-market 3 Terabyte external data storage drive. “Next Horizon’s emergency backup disk for their superconductor experiments.”
JD gave Jessie a challenging grin and produced a shoebox-sized and shaped container. “The testing prototype for that very superconductor.”
Luke leaned over the table at the drive and prototype with ‘Mad Science’ greed showing through the eyeholes of his mask. “Annnddd… how much are you asking for these?”
Vivian scowled and gave out a low groan like an annoyed cat.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Nick asked his oldest daughter. “So JD and Jessie walked out of it with something. So what? Each of those frozen AI cores is worth an easy 50K on the Black Market, and you bagged NINE of them! That’s almost a half million. Even after operating expenses-”
Viv fell forward and buried her face in her crossed arms. “My fences are low-balling me,” she grumbled through her arms. “They say there was a mysterious rash of ‘break-ins’,” she made air quotes to denote the dubiousness of the claim, “in Silicon Valley, Denver, Cincinnati and Durham. Suddenly, AI cores are a drug on the market.”
Luke started to make a comment about not hearing anything about it, but he was shut down by a sharp look from his brother. It was a pathetically transparent example of fences driving down prices, once the object in question had been stolen.
“Still, you ran a very competent raid,” Nick said consolingly. “None of your men were hurt, let alone captured, you got in and out without any blood-shed and you accomplished your goal. And to be honest, you didn’t really need Jessie to show up; you could have handled Kid Galahad in your sleep.”
“Operating expenses ate up most of my profit,” Viv groused. “That new escape vehicle chewed up most of it.”
“Maybe, but it was money well spent,” Luke said. “A Vortexian™ VTOL airship with Stealth, Silent Running, a 6-missile rack, an AI auto-pilot and a screen generator for your trademark red mist. And you’re grooming a very good squad of henchmen, dear.”
“Yeah….” Viv picked up her head, still glowering. “But I’m not having any FUN.”
“hah?”
“I’m not having any FUN!” Viv repeated herself. “I mean, JD is having the time of his life running around being all spooky and grabbing everything valuable that isn’t welded to the floor. Jay-jay is having fun doing super-powered cosplay, and pulling off sneaky little grabs. You? You’re having fun as a criminal little league coach.”
“Pop Warner supervillainy…” JD mused.
“Pony League Smash & Grab!” Jessie countered.
JD was about to top that, when his father quashed that with a stern *ahem!*
“I mean, what’s the POINT of being a supervillain, if it’s just a JOB?” Viv asked rhetorically. “I don’t have a big social or political point to make, I can probably make just as much money psychically insider trading on the Stock Market if it’s just money, and as for power? Hell, I could get more tangible power by marrying into Old Money and running my husband’s political career for him. So, if I’m not having fun, then what’s the point?”
“You’re worrying too much, Viv,” Luke said with an avuncular pat on the shoulder. “It just means that you haven’t found your ‘voice’ yet. Let’s face it, you have a feel for supervillainy. Like Nick said, even without JD and Jessie butting in, you could have handled Kid Galahad with one hand tied behind your back. You’re learning, you’re developing a good store of gear, and your men actually trust and respect you. It would be a shame if you punked out now. You just have to find out what works for YOU.
“Heck, I remember my first couple of operations as ‘Cyber-Spider’,” Luke let out a laugh of mixed amusement and embarrassment. “Not only were they absolute debacles, but even when I managed to pull it off, I was just so frustrated! It turned out that I was trying to copy Nick’s ‘sneaky master criminal’ act, instead of going with my strong suit- Trained Engineering Logic. HE thinks in oblique convoluted tangles that rely on completely baffling his opponents; I just problem-solve. Figure out what tool is needed for the job, and get it there.”
Nick gave his brother a glower for the less than flattering description of his operating technique, but let it slide. “Luke’s right about one thing, Hon: you just need to find your own special style. Once you’ve got that figured out, the rest will come. And you’re right about something too, Viv- if it ain’t fun, then why are you doing it? In the immortal words of Henry Gondorff: ‘There’s no sense in being a grifter, if it’s the same as being a citizen.’”
*****
Viv listened to Madison whine on about what Emily said to Sarah, and it was all she could do to not throw the phone across the room. WHY was putting up with this? She didn’t CARE what was happening at that stupid medium-rate private school for the middle-management losers of tomorrow! Before she figured out how Jake had been playing her, this had been meat and drink to her. Now, it was like her old Barbie™ dolls; she rarely even looked at them. But she still had to go to school to keep her grades up so she wouldn’t be stuck with the retards when she went to Whateley next year.
Then she noticed something that was only slightly less annoying. Asha was standing there with her doll, Musette, clutched to her chest. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet slightly, and her eyes were sparkling. Which meant that she had some choice information she was looking to sell.
Viv thought about it for a moment. On one hand, Asha was even more annoying than Madison. On the other hand, she might actually have something useful to tell her. And she couldn’t just pick it out of her head; Asha was her sister, after all. Worse, Asha was sharp enough to know it, and would rat her out to Mom in a second. Besides, she could always get back to Madison; what Asha had might not stay fresh that long. “Madison? Gotta go. Family stuff. Lates!” she cut the connection and looked at Asha. “So, Squirt? What’s the deal?”
Viv didn’t need to probe Asha to hear the ‘I know something I won’t tell’ chant going on in her mind, the little spore was practically podcasting it. “Well, I was playing in Jay-jay’s new wagon-”
“Y’know, Mom doesn’t like it when you do that,” Viv reproved her annoying kid sister. “They still haven’t taken care of all of Akelarre’s security wards, and the old goat was so sneaky, she could have something really nasty still waiting to-”
Asha cut off her sister with a ‘who do you think you’re kidding?’ look. “Anyway, Jay-jay was working on a big heist, a big ol’ power jewel or somethin’, but Mom said she hadda put it off, ‘cause of some magical training thing, and Mom’s all ‘discipline this, discipline that’.”
A magical power jewel? “What kind of jewel? How big?” It was cutting it very close to poaching someone else’s score, but JJ had been one-upping her every step of the way ever since that stupid birthday fiasco. Viv needed to pull off something right under JJ’s nose, just to put the little weirdo back in her place. And a magical jewel was almost automatically worth 100 times than a stone of the same size and clarity.
Asha mimed holding a stone between thumb and forefinger, about 3 inches apart. Woof! No wonder JJ was interested in it! If Viv could swipe that stone, not only could she sell it for enough to pay for Whateley and a sports car, but she’d be one up on JJ- where she belonged.
The negotiation was long and hard. Asha was only six years old, but by that very virtue, she regarded the world as hers by right, and that big people were getting in the way of it. Asha wanted to be able to use JJ’s wagon as a playhouse; she settled for Viv’s Barbies.
*****
Asha also provided JJ’s notes and research on the Heart of Azdaja; well, it wasn’t like Viv was ever going to use that Barbie™ Dreamhouse or sports car again anyway…
Though losing the Fab Fashion Accessory Closet hurt…
JJ’s target was a super-sorcerer known as ‘the Gatewarden’.
Ugh. And Mom wondered why Viv passed on the whole magic scene.
At any rate, besides a doohickey called ‘the Key of Cinvat’, which was supposed to be major, the Gatewarden’s big deal was an amulet that had the ‘Heart of Azdaja’- Viv wondered what it was, that all these big deal mythological beings were always leaving their eyes and hearts and hands and other parts of their anatomy lying around where mages could work them into amulets?- a large blue stone. The Gatewarden as supposed to be a super-sorcerer, which meant that he was powerful, but old school mages like Mom and Gran’Pere got up on their Old Money horses and looked down at him like he was nouveau riche or something.
He was probably pretty dishy- if you were into old guys who ran around in silk pajamas .
According to JJ’s notes, the Gatewarden got his nom de guerre because he styled himself as the guardian or ‘warden’ of some kind of mystical ‘gate’ that was under his house. The picture of the house looked like a backup location for an ‘Addams Family’ movie. Obviously that ‘key’ he had was supposed to be for that gate. Viv wasn’t sure how and she didn’t really want to know.
Nobody in the area messed with the Gatewarden. Viv wasn’t sure whether that was because he could tap into the power of the gate, or they didn’t want to keep him from standing guard on whatever was on the other side of that gate. So trying to take the key was stone-cold out.
But the Heart of Whoever was totes a whole other matter. The Heart buffed the Gatewarden’s ability to scry and sense and see through illusions, and all like that. Basically it was a Hi-Def, Max-Rez Directional Radar dish for magic. He wouldn’t be as kickass without it, but he could still do the job. Which struck Viv as cutting it a mite thin, but if JJ thought it was okay, and Mom agreed, so what?
The bitch really was getting the Gatewarden off his turf with all the protections and gargoyles and wards and crap, where he was so badass. The trick was going to be getting him out of that Munsters-knockoff house, while he was still carrying the Heart with him. Viv grinned evilly. Fortunately, if JJ’s notes were right, she wouldn’t have any problems with that.
*****
“Are you sure about this?” Mr. Fixit asked as they peered around the gloom. The Halliwell Refuge for the Troubled had been a product of a very nasty period in the history of Mental Health provision in America, and it had an equally nasty local reputation. But then, most abandoned insane asylums do.
“No,” the Silver Sorceress admitted. “But if we’re going to find a whole unbound dynamorph to power your new Effects Generator, we’ve got to explore the possibilities.”
“Yeah,” Maxiwoman grunted with annoyance as she panned her flashlight across the dusty corridor. “No offense, Stan, I know you’re doing your best with what we got, but the rigs we’ve got now manage to be very straining and still manage to be lame. I can barely punch through a cinderblock wall with this.”
“Right,” Captain Intrepid said. “But why are we doing the ‘Scooby-Doo’ shtick? What’s with the flashlights? Why don’t we just turn on the power?”
“According to our source, the mysterious lights have only been seen at this hour,” the Silver Sorceress answered. “A bunch of paranormal phenomena is photophobic- that is, it doesn’t like light- so looking for them during the daylight would be counterproductive.”
“Okay, then why am _I_ here?” Guiding Light asked nervously.
“Because if whatever the lights are are photophobic- and hostile- you’ll be our ace-in-the-hole,” Moonbeam explained.
“Besides, Major Speed is a-scared of the dark,” Maxiwoman sneered.
“And there’s the fact that the property management company wouldn’t give us permission to search the place,” the Silver Sorceress pointed out. “At least not unless we signed over all rights to anything we find,” she added sourly.
“You mean we’re here illegally?” Guiding Light squeaked.
“It will only be an issue if we find anything,” Maxiwoman assured her.
“And as for the darkness,” Mr. Fixit cut in, “this place hasn’t been maintained or repaired since that nasty incident in 1980. Between vandals, water damage and vermin-” he fixed a scuttling rat with the beam of his flashlight. “- if they turned on the power, odds are the most it would do is start an electrical fire.” He peered at the tricorder-like packet in his hand. “I’m getting a reading.”
“Is it Life- but not as we know it?” Captain Intrepid quipped.
Mr. Fixit put his flashlight away and focused on his ‘tricorder’. He swung the packet around and finally said, “From the input I’m getting from the sensors we planted as we searched, I’d say that the phenomenon was on the Third Floor, in the East Wing, and heading North… towards… the Chapel…”
“But…” Guiding Light whispered, “that’s… where the 1980 incident happened!”
Captain Intrepid took his cell phone from his ear. “Speed just called. He said he saw lights. Third Floor. East Wing. Heading North.” Through the half-mask of his hood, you could see his expression saying, ‘this is what we came here for.’
“Okay!” Moonbeam snapped. “But if 1960s bubblegum pop starts playing, I’m leaving with Shaggy and Scooby!”
*****
Dim lights shone through the stained glass insets beside and built into the heavy wooden double doors to the infamous chapel. There was decades’ worth of graffiti everywhere and the ‘Police Scene’ tape was still there, but the lock and heavy chain lay at the sill of the doors.
Mr. Fixit pointed his ‘tricorder’ at the door. “It’s in there, whatever it is. Okay People, power up.” With a mental command, servos and components unfolded from his backpack and configured themselves into a high-tech instrument- though more slowly and stiffly than his old rig had. The others also hit their triggers, though they paid a lot more attention to the charge and time threshold indicators than they had with their old rigs.
“Hold it,” the Silver Sorceress said, pulling out her cell phone. “If it’s a dynamorph, we’re good- but if it’s not, we should have some backup ready.”
“You don’t mean HIM,” Guiding Light said with a tone of dismay.
“He brought us into this thing in the first place,” the Silver Sorceress reminded them.
“But he’s so obnoxious!” Maxiwoman groaned.
“If it’s supernatural, he brings the big guns into the fight,” Cap pointed out.
Mr. Fixit screwed up his face with inner conflict, clearly having a ‘being the leader stinks’ moment. Finally, he said in a cold, flat dead voice, “Make the call.”
The Silver Sorceress made the call, cut a deal, and 15 minutes later, she said, “He’s good.”
Mr. Fixit gave Captain Intrepid the go-ahead, and Cap kicked in the doors, knocking them off their hinges.
A soft eerie light filled the desecrated chapel, casting a creepy pall on the pews, regalia, icons- and decades old bloodstains. The light came from a pair of shiny brass oil lamps that hung in the air a good three feet off the floor.
“Is… it a dynamorph?” Guiding Light asked, poking her head in the door. “Or… something else?”
“How would _I_ know?” the Silver Sorceress asked back. “I only play a witch on TV!”
“It’s… reading… something,” Mr. Fixit admitted as he fiddled with the ‘tricorder’. “Just not bands or patterns that I’ve identified for dynamorphs.”
“Oh, this is just pathetic!” Maxiwoman groaned. She strode forward, her cap flowing behind her. She strutted up to the two lamps and sneered back at her confreres, “Big brave superheroes.” She gripped the lamps, on in each hand, and they came free. She turned and showed the lamps to the others with a ‘see, that wasn’t so hard’ smirk.
“Thanks Babe,” growled a low raspy male voice with a noticeable accent. “It would’a really screwed me over if I’d broken those free of their plat myself. But since yer mundane, it worked like a charm.”
Maxiwoman looked through the doors and saw behind the Sensational Seven a group of men and women in oddly tricked out biker denims. And that was the last she saw of that, as the doors slammed shut in her face.
As the Sensational Seven (less one) turned, the speaker stepped forward from the pack with the mien of a leader. There were ten of them, six men and four women. Most of them wore biker’s mixture of leather and denim, with a lot of strapped on bits of plate armor. Most of them bared their arms, as to display a lot of ritual scars in the patterns of Futhark runes, and they’d just cut themselves on one or more of the runes, as they were bleeding. The bleeding did nothing to diminish the eager gleam on anticipated battle on their faces. Here and there, one or more of the runes, either on the scars or on the bits of armor glowed red. The sole exception was a tall strapping blonde woman in a leather duster over a leather halter top and leather trousers. She showed no scars, though her golden eyes burned with a different power.
The leader wore a ‘viking’ helmet with wings at the temple and a mask like face guard. One eye was covered by an eye patch. He wore a steel gauntlet on his right hand, which carried an over-elaborate battle axe. More red runes glowed with power on his eye patch, gauntlet, paldron, belt buckle, cross-belt, and on the blade of that axe. He also bled from the scars on his arms, and the joy of expected bloodshed shone in his eyes. He was as Metal as you could get without a grinding electric guitar riff. “Good Even,” he said through his grin, “I am SKJAEREN, the BLOOD VIKING, and these are my Berserks.”
“WHY are you telling us this?” the Silver Sorceress asked.
“Because it’s part of the ritual of combat to announce yourself to the gits yer gonna kill,” Skjaeren said. “And the working I’m to do now requires the blood of heroes. But heroes are thin on the ground at the best of times, so you media whores will have t’do.”
With a barbaric yawp of vicious glee, the Berserks launched themselves at the Seven. Moonbeam managed to spoil their opening move by decreasing their mass to the point where their leaps carried them up to the ceiling, where they hit their heads and came crashing to the ground. But that was pretty much it for the ‘Sensational’ Seven. Skjaeren cut into Captain Intrepid with his rune-axe. The blade sliced through the composite metal ‘I’ logo on the captain’s chest and cut through the body armor under it, but all the blood it raised on his chest was a gash. Which was more damage than the Cap had taken in years. But Cap toughed it out and punched Skjaeren-
-to almost no effect.
The rest of the Seven were taking it in the chops. The Berserks completely ignored the Silver Sorceress’ illusions (if not their PK effects), and the Sorceress found herself on the end of a nasty beating. She threw subtlety aside and concentrated on erecting a wall of PK force between her and the snarling heathen. With that brief respite, she pulled out her cell phone and hit speed dial. “GET HERE!” she snarled into the phone as the force wall was battered down.
As the Silver Sorceress put all of her focus into avoiding the Berserk trying to wail on her- for all his strength and speed, his technique was sloppy- a light erupted from the brooch that clipped her silvery hooded cloak shut. The beam of light ‘melted’ a hole in the very air, and a portal formed there. A spherical glass flask with a different color liquid in each hemisphere came out of the hole and broke among the combatants. The liquids bubbled and produced a thick vapor that stung the noses, eyes and throats of both sides.
Then, with a lusty roar, a very large man wearing what looked like a mix of football padding and combat armor (with his lower face protected by a breather mask) charged from the portal swinging a metal-capped baseball bat. He added the force of his charge into his swing as he brought the bat across the small of Skjaeren’s back.
Just behind him came a lithe woman in combat leathers with rows of tubes strapped to her biceps, thighs and shoulders, carrying an odd looking pistol in her left hand and a gleaming crystal dagger in another. She also wore goggles and a breather mask. She aimed her pistol at the Berserk who was giving Moonbeam a drubbing and fire, sending a spray at the thug. He was covered by the mist. The vapor cleared, and immediately the man fell down giggling uncontrollably. She ‘broke’ the pistol like a breach-loading shotgun, removed two tubes and replaced them with two from her rows of reloads.
The blonde woman in leathers pushed her fellow Berserks aside and glowered at the pistoleer. There was an instant recognition, that they were both dynamic forceful women unafraid of violence. They were too much alike to be anything but the best of friends or the deadliest of enemies.
And there was no way those two were going to be friends.
Bringing up the rear, brandishing a staff with an elaborate clockwork instrument at the head, came an athletic man in his prime. Besides the goggles and breather as the first two, we wore a long leather ‘lab coat’ with rows of tubes strapped to his shoulders, sleeves and thighs, as the woman did, and he had an ornate ‘badge’ pinned to his chest and a large square-cut red crystal dangled from a chain as a pendant. Looking around, taking the Berserks’ measure, he slipped a liquid filled tube from one of the loops on his sleeve and fit it into a niche on the clockwork doohickey. He brandished it, sending a roiling stream of strange unearthly energy at Skjaeren, who was still mixing it up with the big man.
Skjaeren turned to face him. The big man tried to take advantage of that, but he fell under five of the Berserks as they dogpiled on him.
After tense facedown, the woman with the pistol holstered it, shifted the crystal dagger to her good hand and set herself. Then on some unspoken agreement, they launched themselves at each other.
The fight went on with the alchemist slugging it out with Skjaeren, the pistol-woman scrapping with the leather-blonde, the big man trying to get out from under the five Berserks, and the three remaining female Berserks keeping the Sensational Seven from getting their wind back. Maxiwoman was unable to join the fray, despite beating on the doors with fists that should have been able to batter down a cinder-block wall.
Finally, Skjaeren snapped, “ULRIKE! Enough of this shit! Get them and GO!”
The golden-eyed blonde broke from her catfight with the pistol-woman, letting the three female Berserks handle her. With a frustrated snarl, she stalked over to doors to the chapel and kicked them in. She marched in on a startled Maxiwoman, and the doors shut behind them.
The man with the staff switched out tubes on his staff, and a snarling demonic appearing figure flowed out of the staff. The horrific figure oozed towards the doors of the desecrated chapel and tore them off their hinges. The blonde, Ulrike, stood there with the two lamps in her hands. Maxiwoman lay unconscious on the floor behind her. The vaporous fiend snatched the two lamps from Ulrike’s hands as she stood there startled.
But Skjaeren gave a blood-curdling scream, leap and sundered the manifestation with his rune-axe. He picked up the lamps and tossed one to Ulrike. “Cha-cha! Go Long! Ulrike! Make Tracks!” Ulrike and one of the female Berserks charged down the hallway. Skjaeren cocked the lamp as though he was going to pass it like a football. But when he threw, the man with the staff gestured with it, and a light appeared around the lamp in midair. It floated to his hands, and his two companions put themselves between the Berserks and him. “This isn’t over, Gatewarden!” Skjaeren snarled. He pulled a knife from his belt and cut one of the scar-runes on his biceps. On that cue, the remaining Berserks did likewise, and then in formation, they ran down the hallway, disappearing as they ran.
The Gatewarden looked at the groggy Silver Sorceress and said, “I’ll get in touch with you as regards our payment. Aslan, Demetra, let’s go.” The three turned and retreated back into the portal.
A battered Guiding Light groaned, “We’re never gonna live this down…”
*****
As they stepped through the Eastern Gate of the Bridge of Cinvat, Aslan asked the Gatewarden, “So, Boss, why did you send those losers, the Simpering Seven, to investigate that place?”
“Because it might have been a dynamorph,” the Gatewarden answered as he removed his mask. “The Halliwell Asylum’s dark reputation vastly exceeds its reality. The only reason that pile hasn’t been bulldozed is its remote location. There are the usual rumors as to Indian burial grounds, sites of massacres, strange beasts and so on, but they’re all just campfire stories. The readings that occurred near that place were probably flukes, but the odds were a lot better that it might be an eccentric dynamorph than anything supernatural.” He looked at the lamp in his hand. “Which begs the question: if Skjaeren arranged that to break these out of a plat, but didn’t want to risk it himself- then exactly what ARE these, and how did they establish that plat?”
“Plat?” Aslan asked as he shucked out of his armor. His English was very good for someone who spoke Turkish as his mother tongue, but English was always coming up with new words to spring on him.
“A ‘plat’ is an archaic term for a plan or design,” the Gravewarden answered. “In Metaphysical circles, it’s used as a term for the cyclical patterns that some ghosts and other repetitive phenomena develop. You can break the pattern and disrupt the plat, but it’s dangerous, and even more dangerous for the magically active.”
“Any idea who that tow-headed bitch ‘Ulrike’ was?” Demetra asked as she checked the nasty rends the subject of her question had torn in her armor. “I don’t remember her running with Skjaeren’s crew, and she’s a step above the rest of his Berserks.”
The Gatewarden pulled out his cell phone and went to an online resource that, among other things, had a ‘Mystic Offenders’ database. “I think I have a hit. Last Christmas, the California Crusaders raided the estate of a cult called ‘the Wolves of Ragnarok’. While the leader, Lykarax, and most of the rest of the cult were captured, one of the four who escaped was listed as ‘Ulrike’. She’s wanted in California for Grand Larceny, Aggravated Assault, Kidnapping and Fraud, and the Police departments there would like to ask her some pointed questions about some people who’ve disappeared without a trace. And Dimi? The Wolves of Ragnarok practiced a form of lycanthropy.”
Demetra just gave a stark smile. “So? That just means that I don’t have to hold back, the next time we run into each other.”
“No, it means that you’re going to the infirmary right NOW, and rub some essence of St. Hubert’s Root into each and every scratch you got.”
“You mean you’re not going to help me with the hard to reach places?” Demetra asked coquettishly.
“ah, No, I’m going to take this to the lab, and analyze it,” the Gatewarden hefted the lamp and carefully backed away. “Oh, and Aslan, don’t forget to do your acidity tests.”
“Can’t it wait until after a nice hot bath?”
“Aslan, we need to keep track of what those elixirs are doing to your metabolism,” the Gatewarden said, sounding far too much like a dentist reminding a patient to floss. “To do that, we need fresh data.”
As Demetra slinked off to the infirmary, Aslan wondered how sincere the Greek woman’s flirtations were. But either way, he thought that the Gatewarden was wise to play at being oblivious. Greek legends were rife with the horrors that Greek women visited on their men. And Turkish rumors were full of similar terrors.
After he finished stowing his armor in his locker, Aslan joined the Gatewarden in the main lab. The main lab was an awkward blend of SOTA, ‘steampunk’ and ancient technologies, with the main features being an ‘alembic’ which did strange things to the nasty critters that seemed to be magnetically drawn to the house, and three large brass ovens that the Russian called ‘athanors’. Aslan didn’t know what they did, and he didn’t really want to know what they did. All that he knew was that the Gatewarden captured vile critters, boiled them down, and made useful potions out of ifrit sent by Iblis to torment the world.
With a martyred grunt Aslan settled himself onto the couch. The Gatewarden affixed chemical exposure strips to various parts of his body. The hard part was waiting the two hours for the strips to be saturated. By that time, both the elixir he’d taken to bolster his strength and protect his body would have worn off- and so would the adrenaline that kept him from feeling the beating he’d taken. When the two hours were over, he’d NEED that hot bath- and a massive aspirin.
The Gatewarden clamped the lamp into a vise that was connected to an array of things that included lenses, mirrors, prisms, lights electrical and otherwise, and fiddled with it for the better part of an hour. Aslan was getting that sour taste in his mouth that said to him that the elixir was wearing off, and for another hour, he would wish to only be massively bored. Demetra had finished touching up her wounds and had changed. She was watching the Gatewarden with the muted curiosity of a lay person watching a trained professional do some esoteric work. Aslan was considering asking the Greek woman to get him a book or something to read to take his mind off it, when there was the sound of a crash from upstairs.
Aslan struggled to get off the couch but wound up falling on the floor instead. Which did not suit the bruises that suddenly were letting themselves be known. Demetra scrambled through the labs’ stores to find some crystal daggers. She fumbled around a bit, but managed to collect a fan of them in each hand. The Gatewarden was hurriedly trying to pull his leather longcoat on while still holding onto his staff and scrambling around for his badge at the same time. Then the door to the lab came crashing in.
The Gatewarden, Demetra and Aslan did their best to prepare themselves and faced-
-a wall of guns. “Guns?” the Gatewarden yelped, “Why would anyone who could get through our wards use Guns?”
“Well, you know us Amurricans,” Skjaeren sneered in a bad faux-American accent over the barrel of a Mac 10 machine pistol, “we just luuuve us our bang-bang toys.”
“Sides,” one of his Berserks, who was wielding a sawed-off shotgun, said in a genuine American voice, “if it works, it works.”
“Every mage worth his seal knows at least three anti-bullet spells,” the Gatewarden warned them, even as he delicately braced to put his badge between himself and a barrage of gunfire.
“And _I_ know a charm that will let prepared bullets slip right past those spells,” Skjaeren jeered back.
“ENOUGH of this!” Ulrike snarled as she shoved her way through the doorway past the Berserks. She had Mrs. Bezhukov in front of her in the classic hostage grip, with one arm twisted painfully behind her back. She had a prosaic snub-nose set against the woman’s jaw. “You can keep your toys, you can save Mrs. Hudson here, or you stay alive. But you can’t do all THREE.”
“You’re going to kill us all anyway, so we might as well take a few of your with us,” Demetra said, hefting a crystal blade.
“CHILL,” Skjaeren said. “Odin’s Blood, and women are always ragging on MEN! We’re not here to take the Gate or do a blood working. We’re just here for a simple rip-off. Ripper, Tommy-boy, look for the cultured crystals he’s been flogging. Cha-cha, Huldre, Foxy, find the balms and elixirs. Hoss, Torch, Slats, pack up the genies in their bottles; I got plans for those.”
The Berserks shoved Aslan, Demetra and the Gatewarden to separate corners of the lab, and they kicked the Key of Cinvat in the fourth corner. Skjaeren took the Heart of Azdaja from the Gatewarden with no small amount of personal satisfaction. They quickly ransacked the lab, though for some reason, Skjaeren was keen on them not doing any damage. When they had a crate of crystals, two crates of liquids, and three crates of the ‘genies’, Skjaeren told them they had enough. “No sense in slowin’ ourselves down with too much swag,” he said.
“Well then,” Tommy-boy said with a big nasty grin, “there’s no sense in leaving unfinished business.” He ratcheted a bullet into his Uzi and got set.
“NO,” Skjaeren said firmly. “We ain’t getting’ paid to off ‘em. And I got firm religious convictions against doing dirty work fer FREE.”
“Okay, but what about Little Miss Badass here?” Cha-cha asked, shoving her SMG into Demetra’s ribs. “She’s been giving Ulrike the evil eye ever since we walked in. And Ulrike’s been spoiling to finish that fight they started back at the nuthouse. Why not let them finish it, and be done with it?”
“Cha-cha…” Ulrike purred through a feral grin, her amber eyes dancing. “I knew there was a reason I liked you…”
Demetra returned the feral grin, her near-black sloe eyes also merry with the thought of mayhem. “As you Americans say, ‘Bring It.’”
“We’re in the middle of a RAID!” Skjaren barked.
“C’mon, Skej, we got ‘em cold!” Hoss laughed. “Think about it, a good old-fashioned chick fight!”
“Better!” Torch said with a big grin, “A Macho Chick fight! All the crunch of a Guy fight and all the nasty of a Chick fight!”
“We’re in the MIDDLE of something here!”
“C’mon, Skjaeren!” Huldre jeered, “Let’s see if the Wolf-Bitch is good for more’n how she fills out her pants!”
Skjaeren was massively conflicted: on one hand, simple common sense said to get out fast without any fucking around. On the other hand, sometimes you got to give the dogs their bones, or they get snappish. And, well, he wouldn’t have gotten into this whole scene if this sort of thing didn’t appeal to him on a primal level. “All Right! Handcuff the Chem Wonk to one of his ovens, and the big goof to that standpipe! Ulrike, let’s see you live up to your woof!”
Demetra pulled her arm free from Foxy and snatched up a beryl dagger from the crate. She spun the glittering blade in her hand and gave Ulrike the ‘come and get it’ gesture. Ulrike charged right at her, completely ignoring the gash the blade cut. And from there it was two very tough women letting it all hang out as the Berserks cheered them on.
The brawl was equally matched: Demetra was faster and had better technique, but Ulrike was tougher and she was fighting through the cuts she took. Ulrike was bloody but game, but Demetra was taking lumps and slowing down. Ulrike smeared some of her own blood on her face to make a rune, grinned savagely, and took control of the fight. Then a small missile flew between them, embedding itself in one of the tables. It opened like an umbrella and gave out a yodeling wail that was like an icepick in everyone’s ears. The rest reeled, but Ulrike fell to her knees, her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to shut out the din.
Four more missiles came from the door. Two of them opened up into more sonic weapons. The other to also opened up, but into rough spikes. They emitted short-lived but powerful magnetic pulses that drew everything ferrous that weighed less than 15 pounds to it, including (especially) the Berserks’ guns and knives. Skjaeren’s great axe slowly moved out of its holster on his belt, but he managed to keep a hold on it. Not this Mac-10, but at least he had his axe.
The screamers stopped and Ulrike turned to the door with a lupine snarl of fury. She was immediately knocked back into one of the athanors by a blast from an energy weapon. As the Berserks turned to the door, a woman in a wide red hat, matching long coat and scarf mask entered the room with the energy weapon in question drawn. She was immediately followed into the room by men carrying polearms that crackled with energy at the tips- and spray bottles. The woman in red shifted the configuration of her weapon and fired snares at Skjaeren, Ulrike and Demetra, wrapping them tightly. The Berserks charged at the men in red, but the newcomers sprayed them with the bottles. And then they laid down a beating on the Berserks with the polearms.
As the Berserks recoiled from their attackers, the woman in red said in a cultured contralto, “Skjaeren. I thought we had a deal.”
“Dammit, Scarlet, I need the Heart!”
“That wasn’t our deal,” Miss Scarlet said severely. “I set up the Halliwell sting, you set the hook, we make the raid together. I get the Heart of Azdaja, you get the rest. That was our deal.”
“What’s IN those bottles?” Slats demanded, noting how weak he felt.
“Holy Water,” Miss Scarlet answered smugly. “Blessed by a Priest who’s proven that he has the mandate, and cut with 6 drams of water from the Grotto at Lourdes. More than enough to wash away your blood magic. And without your blood magic, you ‘Berserks’ are just pissy.” Then she turned to her men. “Grab the crates with the crystals and the liquids. But leave the three crates with the brass bottles. They’re nothing but trouble. If the Blob Viking here wants them, he can have them.”
Then she went over to Skjaeren and took the Heart of Azdaja from his belt. “I’m getting what I wanted anyway. If you’d played square with me, you’d have walked away with all the crates. Stinks being a rat, doesn’t it?”
Skjaeren’s only reply was to kick Miss Scarlet with both his feet, sending her tumbling back. Having cut through the snare with the edge of his axe while his men were getting beaten up, Skjaeren burst out of his bonds. He hefted his axe and gave an ear-splitting scream. But he didn’t charge Miss Scarlet’s Redcoats. Instead, he hacked away at the ‘brass’ bottles in the crate, splitting them open. Roiling vaporous figures came screaming out of the broken bottles, zipping around the room and launching themselves at the various players.
“Oh crap,” Miss Scarlet said in a very small voice.
“No!” the Gatewarden yelled, “You can’t let those unclean spirits escape before I have a chance to process them into something safe and useful!”
“Not to worry!” Skjaeren laughed heartily. “I have just the thing!” He pulled a white, metal rimmed horn from his belt, put it to his lips and blew it loudly. The wraiths swirled around Skjaeren, shrieking like a storm.
“What are you doing?” the Gatewarden demanded, pulling at his shackle.
Skjaeren said nothing but blew a tantara that slid into a complex melody. The wraiths concentrated themselves, merging and melding into a single swirling entity with multiple whip-like tendrils extending from a central body. Miss Scarlet, suddenly regretting all those lessons in the Occult she’d blown off, made a total ass-pull guess, and fired a nerve-stunning blast at the Blood Viking. If Skjaeren could command that thing, a rampaging uncontrolled whatever-that-was would actually an improvement. It would probably go after Skjaeren and her Berserks.
Unfortunately, the amalgam-spook blocked the blast, and Skjaeren gave Miss Scarlet a nasty grin.
Demetra took advantage of this to completely disengage from Ulrike and dove for the corner where the Gatewarden’s staff had been tossed. Exploiting the fact that everyone was paying more attention to the evolution of the spirit-mass than what was going on on the floor, she kicked the Key over to the Gatewarden. The Gatewarden snagged the staff and immediately used it to free his cuffed hand.
Skjaeren blew another tantara, and the spook-mass congealed even more. Miss Scarlet got the distinct impression that Skjaeren was forcing some pattern or concept on the mass, trying to mold it into something that suited him better. Lacking any better ideas, she fired bolts at Skjaeren, to the same general lack of effect.
Shifting the horn to his off hand, Skjaeren drew a long thin knife. The spook reached out and grabbed Miss Scarlet and her Redcoats, pulling them off their feet, and drawing them closer. Vivian’s panicked telepathic probing of Skjaeren gave her the distinct impression that he needed blood to complete his mastery of that creature- and he didn’t intend to get that blood from anyone on his side.
Vivian prepped her multi-gun for another setting, though she was just doing that to cover the fact that she was about to lay a psychic smackdown on Skjaeren that would- should- might cause him to lose control of the spook.
But then the room was filled with blinding light. “HALT EVIL-DOER!” came a high soprano voice backed by a trilling that gave her pronouncement the tone of a heavenly proclamation. “Though choked in Sin, those ones are as pure as the driven snow compared to your own evil! I am the LIGHTBRINGER, and I shall shatter the darkness!”
The dazzling brilliance dimmed a little, to allow the sight of a slender young girl with her golden hair done in an elaborate hairstyle, wearing white robes trimmed with gold, carrying a golden lantern on a long pole. She gestured slightly with the pole, and a beam of light shot out of the lantern, striking Skjaeren and knocking him back.
The Berserks reacted to that, but their attack posture was broken when the semi-complete spook went even more berserk. It immediately grabbed Slats and Tommy-boy. Cha-cha and Huldre just barely managed to avoid being grabbed. Ulrike looked around, took in the fact that the Gatewarden was free and was in the process of liberating Aslan, that Demetra was digging around in the crate of elixirs looking for… something, and the weird bright chick was waving her lantern around, making a strange symbol in the air. That last bit did it for Ulrike, and she lit out the door as quickly as her enhanced speed would take her.
Miss Scarlet shifted her blaster to a photon barrage setting and zapped the spook, making it drop her and two of her guys. Then she shifted to the stunner setting again and zapped Skjaeren before he could get up. Then she shifted back to the photon barrage setting and was about to liberate the rest of her guys. Then there was a massive explosion, and the near-demon dropped everyone in reaction. Looking where the blast came from, it turned out that one of the athanors had exploded for some reason. “Boys, our score is a done deal; let’s not push our luck going for pocket change.” There was a general consensus that this was only good sense, and they exited through the door as Miss Scarlet covered their retreat.
Aslan and Demetra tore into the un-buffed Berserks. The Gatewarden did something with the Key of Cinvat that ensnared the mega-spook. Once he had it securely, the Lightbringer forced her lantern into the center mass of the mega-spook. The mega-spook bucked and writhed, but the power of the Key of Cinvat kept it in place. After much fishing about, the Lightbringer drew out her lantern, which was wreathed in coruscating energies. The mega- spook sort of fell apart, dissolving into smaller wraiths that sort of petered out. She gingerly held the lantern as the Gatewarden and Aslan wrestled a barrel-like canister under the lantern. When it was ready, the Lightbringer carefully lowered it into the barrel. Aslan and Demetra barely had time to slap the halves of the lid of the cistern shut before the liquid in the cask before the liquids reached some sort of boiling point. When the boiling died down enough, the Lightbringer pulled her lantern out. It shone brighter, but it was a controlled light.
The Lightbringer cooed, and turned her nubile young charms on the Gatewarden. “Oh thank you! I’ve been waiting for so long to get to know you! I’ve admired…” Then she stopped. “Skjaeren! He got away somehow! We’ve got to-”
“Yes,” Demetra cut her off through a feline smile, “I’m sure that it’s very, very thrilling, but we have a horrible mess to clean up, and we DO have to find those hoodlums, all of them.” She firmly gripped the Lightbringer by her shoulders and turned the girl around. Nattering away in strictly polite words, but letting it be plainly clear that the Lightbringer wasn’t welcome in her parlor, Demetra walked the girl out of the laboratory.
Aslan and the Gatewarden exchanged uneasy looks. Several minutes later, Demetra came back and fixed the Gatewarden with the annoyed look that every girlfriend and wife has down pat. Aslan carefully stepped away from the confrontation.
*****
Later that night, a figure in a long tan duster with a black Stetson waited on a landing on a nearby river. After waiting a while, the bizarre figure of a large black swan appeared on the river and came toward him. It pulled up to the landing and the head and neck of the ‘swan’ lowered to the edge. The wings unfurled to reveal three women, one in a red longcoat with a matching wide-brimmed hat, other in a long black dress with a headdress styled to resemble a swan’s head, and a girl in white robes with gold trim. In front of them was a table.
Cardsharp stepped onto the swanboat and favored the ladies with a genial smile. “Well, good evening, ladies! It looks like I’m gonna have to find some other way from Skjaeren to pay to get his rune stones back. Man, you have no idea how annoying it is to listen to 6’4”, 220 pounds of badass blubber like a little girl!”
The three women said nothing. The woman in red lifted her hand, displaying a large square-cute red stone on a gold chain.
“Huh,” Cardsharp grunted. “There’s no manners anymore, no ‘howya don’, how’re the wife and kids’; it’s all rush, rush, keep it business…” He reached into the Gladstone bag he was carrying, and pulled out a familiar white horn. He placed the horn on the table. The three women gave him an ‘and?’ look. With an aggrieved sigh, Cardsharp reached into his bag and produced a bundle of $100 bills. At the three women’s prompting, he produced another. And another. And another. And another, until he put $80,000 on the table. Then the woman in black gripped the side of the table and turned it so that the Heart of Azdaja was on his side, and the horn and cash.
Cardsharp picked up the jewel and said pleasantly, “Well, it’s been a slice, what with your lively and witty conversation.” He turned and walked off the boat, wasting no time as the ‘swan’ pulled itself together and floated off.
*****
“Why did Jessie get half of my cut?” Viv demanded as the three of them entered Mara’s concealed tower.
“You know why,” Mara told her oldest daughter sternly.
“I see that you’re all still alive,” Gran’pere said heartily, looking up from the stacks of books on the table that he was picking through. “How did it go?”
“What are you doing here?” Viv asked, “I thought that men weren’t allowed in the tower?”
“Your Gran’pere is an exception to many rules,” Mara said.
Gran’pere nudged little Asha, who was only still up at this late hour because her grandfather had a hard time saying ‘no’ to her, awake. “So, what happened?” Asha asked.
“It went off more or less as expected,” Jessie said, holding up the ivory horn that Cardsharp had traded.
“What IS that thing, anyway?” Viv asked, taking off her ‘Miss Scarlet’ hat and coat. “How did Cardsharp get it away from Skjaeren?”
“It’s the Horrid Horn of the Darkling Hoard,” Mara said. “It’s a rather routine olifant-”
“Olifant?” Vivian, who’d grown up hearing the legends of the paladins of Charlemagne repeated. “Roland’s horn?”
“Not quite,” de Maugris corrected his grandchild. “An ‘olifant’ is a rather generic term for a hunting horn made from an ivory tusk. It was rather chic for noblemen of the 9th Century to carry one. However, Roland was known to have been carrying an olifant at Roncevaux, and fanciful tales of Roland’s prowess sprang up, including a bit of nonsense about his horn only sounding at battle and so on. In time, ‘Olifant’ became a term for a device to call and command trooping spirits.”
“Remember, Jessie,” Mara told her daughter and apprentice, “The idea is to use the horn to study how it works, not to use it as a crutch, relying on its power instead of developing your own skills in Conjury.”
de Maugris waved the trivia aside. “Now for the important issue- did it work?”
Jessie held out the lamp from its pole with a big grin. “Like a charm. It didn’t go down quite as planned- the Gravewarden didn’t have a chance to pull off his big ‘whoops’, but Skjaeren was kind enough to try and whip up his own Wild Hunt with a bunch of the Warden’s captive ‘djinn’. He tried to merge them into a big mega-spook, and he just had a Heart Monad formed when I stepped in.”
“And the Rose you seeded the lantern with?”
“Fully restored,” Jessie assured him. “And there’s enough of the Heart Monad still intact that we should be able to jumpstart your athanor.”
Du Maugris gave a wicked chuckle and sprang from the table. He hurried over to a large brass assembly built around a bronze cylinder surrounded on four points by bronze statues of women in Classic Greek dress holding forth goblets. As du Maugris opened a hatch in the cylinder and started fiddling with something inside, Jessie took the pole and settled the lantern in the ‘Mercy Seat’ between the two kneeling ‘Seraphim’ on the replica ‘Ark of the Covenant’ that was one of the arks that she’d taken from Akellare. Electricity arced from the winds of the two angels. When the electricity stopped sparking, Jessie held her hands forth as though beckoning. A glowing rose of purple energy rose up from the lantern. Jessie took it into herself, as though inhaling it.
“Et viola!” du Maugris cried, stepping back from the athanor. Jessie gingerly lifted the lantern from its place on the Mercy Seat, carried it over to the athanor and carefully inserted the lantern into the hatch. Stepping back, Jessie let her grandfather fuss over the athanor, saying things in Classical Greek as he waved his hands, pouring liquids over it and generally being mysterious as all get out for the better part of a half-hour. Then the athanor glowed hot, and he pulled the lantern out. “More than enough for my purposes, my dear,” he assured Jessie as he handed her the pole.
“Okay, yet again, I’m the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on,” Vivian said with a scowl. “Exactly what did you guys sucker me into?”
“Nothing,” Mara said serenely. “YOU inserted yourself unasked and uninformed into a delicate magical working, one you exempted yourself from by your refusal to take up the family traditions in the Mystic Arts. We simply made sure that your interference didn’t upset our plans.”
“Vivian…” du Maugris started. Then he stopped, visibly though it over and started over. “Vivian, for foundation, you understand that the reason for the Gatewarden’s nom de guerre is that he acts as the guardian for some mystic gate, protecting the world from vile spirits that reside on the other side?” Viv nodded. “Well, that’s complete and utter tripe.
“The Gatewarden’s estate is NOT built on an extradimensional gate, nor are there vicious demons waiting on the other side to enter this world. Rather, that hideous house was built by a vile mystic at a junction, a place where multiple streams of Vis, or the flow of mystical energy, which were contaminated by miasma joined. That mystic constructed a cistern under the house which gathered and concentrated it, for… some purpose I’m all-too-willing to ignore.
“The Gatewarden is a super-sorcerer, which means that for some reason, he is able to wield fantastic amounts of magical energy and ignore the consequences, which is why more conventional mystics, such as your mother and myself find them so noxious. However, while they can ignore them, they are not entirely immune to them.
“When the Gatewarden exerts his magical powers, like all magicians, it causes an equal and opposite reaction, to borrow a phrase from the Englishman Newton. In the Gatewarden’s case, it reacts with the cistern of miasma beneath his house, which he taps into for his alchemical quests. The reaction takes the form of noxious miasmic spirits, which the Gatewarden has the decency to regard as his responsibility. Of course, there is the fact that when he captures one of these ‘ifrit’ as he styles them, he boils them down to form crystals and balms and elixirs and so on.”
“So, basically, he’s recycling toxic magical waste,” Vivian summed it up. “Then why did you steal one of his athanors, which I’m guessing he used to pull all that off.”
“Not HIS athanor, Vivian,” du Maugris said heavily. “MY Athanor.” He reached over with cane and tapped a coat of arms worked into the bronze. Vivian looked closely, and sure enough, it was the du Maugris coat, three cups separated by a chevron. “I designed and constructed this is 1836, under the strictest Virgilian standards. I all but refined the plaster and wax for the molds myself. I cultivated the roses of power within for over a hundred years. Then circumstances forced me to leave it behind when I fled France for Brazil in 1940. For decades, I mourned it as lost.
“Then, ten or so years ago, I learned that it still existed, passed from hand to hand, and somehow it wound up in the custody of the mystic who owned that property before the Gatewarden. I have been scheming for years to find a way to recover this.”
“What? Why didn’t you just go in and take it?”
“Well, beside the fact that the Gatewarden’s estate is heavily warded- though I do admit that your way past those wards was very clever, well done, Vivian!- the Gatewarden performs a valuable service for the region. He cleans up a nasty mess that most mundane are completely unaware of. But the magical community is well aware of it. I couldn’t afford to act against the Gatewarden in a way that would antagonize both sides of the magical community.”
“Then… why did you go after it now?” Viv asked.
“The benefits of working with novices; they don’t know what can’t be done, so they try the impossible. And sometimes, they succeed.
“Jessica learned of the Gatewarden, and concocted a scheme to simultaneously renew one of the roses she won from Akellare, and create a counter-balance to her efforts by martyring the Warden’s reliquary.”
“HAH?” Viv bleated “Renew her roses? Counter-balance her what by martyring her what?”
Du Maugris gave his daughter a sere look and muttered, “It may have been for the best that she declined her instruction.” He let out a breath. “When Jessica bested Akellare, the witch thought she had four arks of power to draw on, and a tap on your mother’s power. So, she drew ruthlessly to achieve her various effects quickly, when normally, she would have been far more circumspect. So, when Jessica took the roses of power from Akellare, she gained a respectable 26 roses of power. Unfortunately, of those 26, only five are still viable. The others are… intact, but shriven of power. They will need to be restored.
“Jessica’s plan was to trigger a balancing reaction by tricking the Gatewarden into overextending his power, and so creating one of the ‘demons’ that plagues him so. Jessica would then insert that lantern, which had one of her roses of power embedded in it, and fuse the rose with its Heart Monad, which is the primary stable pattern of magic energy within a spirit.
“That done, she would create a connection with the Gravewarden’s Ark, his primary reserve of power, which was intimately connected to his series of athanors, by touching it with that lantern. When the connection was sound, she would return here, and touch one of her own arks,” he gestured at the ‘Ark of the Covenant’. “Thus creating a connection between the two. So when, the Gravewarden commits one of his blunders, the force of the balance will feed raw essence to Jessica’s arks, while the counter-balance feeds the stored miasma from her various workings into the Gravewarden’s system, particularly that cistern I spoke of. The ‘martyr’ term comes from the unsupportable habit of foisting miasma off on one’s neighbors, effectively making them martyrs to your mystical ambitions.”
“That means that every time the Gatewarden screws up, instead of created a faux-demon that might escape and eviscerate someone,” Jessie clarified it for her sisters, “that power gets shunted over to one of my arks, after being cleaned of all the miasmic icky. And the miasma that my magic will create gets shuttled over by the balancing effect into the Gatewarden’s cistern of crap. That means that he won’t be creating as many cultured power gems or elixirs from the creeps he’s been accidentally creating, but considering the damage that one of the *ahem!* ‘demons’ that do escape the Gatewarden’s estate do, I’d say that we have the Greater Good on our side on this one.”
“Which means that in a few months, these will be worth far more on the Gray Market,” Mara said, opening a crate, picking up a handful of crystals and letting them spill through her fingers.
“Where did you get those, Mom?” Viv asked, recognizing the crate and the crystals from that scene only a few hours before in the Gatewarden’s lab.
“Oh, Johnny got them out under the cover of your red mist,” Mara explained carelessly. “Along with a crate of elixirs and that athanor.”
“HOW?” Viv demanded, feeling yet another eclipsing bearing down on her. “Come to think of it, how did he carry that athanor out of there? That thing must weight a TON!”
“Don’t be melodramatic,” du Maugris sniffed. “It only weighs 753.22 kilos.”
“AND?”
du Maugris kited Vivian a look of tried patience. “The same way I got the athanor into this tower.” He pulled Iron Ox’s superstrength talisman belt out from under the table and shoved it in Viv’s direction.
“Oh, I also borrowed Guiding Light’s light-generator bracers, for those ‘light spells’. They really knocked Skjaeren and this Bozo-ks for a loop, and they never caught on.” Jessie removed those bracers from her wrists. “Mom said it was okay.”
Viv bristled and said, “I would have done better, but there as a bunch of stuff-” Viv stopped short and snarled at Asha. “You ratted me out! You told them what I was doing!”
“You should thank her-”
“AFTER you set me up to fail by selling me incomplete information! I gave you all my Barbies, the Dream House, the Sports Car AND the Fab Fashion Closet- when you stiffed me on the information!”
Asha, despite the late hour was suddenly wide-eyed awaken. Clutching Musette to her chest, Asha looked around, and for the first time in her life, neither Mommy nor Gran’pere were offering any protection. Not needing ESP to sense a spanking coming her way, Asha let out a steam whistle scream of fear and sprinted out of the chamber.
Vivian was immediately on her heels, vengeance gleaming in her eyes.
du Maguris started to rise to Asha’s defense, but Mara stopped him. “NO, Papa. They have to learn. This is the best way for Viv to learn that she shouldn’t hijack Jessie’s projects- especially when Magic is concerned- and Asha needs to learn to provide value when she deals with Family, and not sell incomplete information.”
Katssun
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2 years 5 months ago #1015
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mrs. Ryan watched over her normally-sleepy Saturday Costume Shop II class, giving helping hints here and there about construction techniques, the necessity of including felled seams in lieu of overlock stitching for long-term comfort in skin-tight costumes, and even the occasional advice concerning aesthetics, often to the surprise of her charges given her current personal taste. She was helping a male student grasp the basics of overstitching runes into the interfacing of his punk-styled leather jacket when an argument erupted on the other side of the classroom. This happened at least once a year, and Mrs. Ryan had learned that such feuds needed to be hashed out on their own until they became a distraction to the entire class. Most ended without her intervention, but she made sure that the ones that did were always used as a lesson for the entire class. Christiana Medeiros and Wendy Navarro were the primaries, with Meredith Langstrom being incapable of the grace to recuse herself until she ended up complicit as well.
“That sash is sexist and soooo ancient,” Christiana instigated the imbroglio by harshly criticizing Miss Navarro’s choice in accenting, “My armored jumpsuit is practical, has better protection, and easily accessible pouches on the belt.”
“Sexist?!” Miss Navarro spurted. “Sashes are classy and feminine! Yours is practical? It’s trivial for someone to grapple you with that monster belt. The buttons on the sleeves do nothing, and besides, if you want to look ugly, that’s your prerogative!”
“The sash is kinda dated Wendy, and it clearly doesn’t obey the laws of physics,” added Meredith, unsolicited.
Mrs. Ryan had stepped away from her other charge and his leather jacket to loom behind the three bickering girls, which had the added benefit of temporarily keeping the rest of the class out of the fray. Miss Narvarro’s dark-hued, form-fitting suit showed off the girl’s natural curves, with a brightly contrasting flowing sash that seemed determined to spread along her waist as much as the opposing knot would allow rather than gather as physics and nature intended. As one of the tech students, it seemed odd that she would forgo any type of storage, but she allegedly already had an, “extremely durable,” satchel that she carried just behind one of her hips. Practical, flat-soled wrestler boots rounded out the ensemble. Mrs. Ryan had approved of the design during the first few classes, despite her unspoken reservations about lacking a cohesive styling.
“You’re not even a flyer! The sash does nothing for you. And I don’t know anyone in my Flying class who would wear one either,” Christiana had started to elevate the volume of their discussion. “And oh, BY THE WAY, I am not going to get thrown, you know I’m an Exemplar 4 on my MID!”
Wendy Navarro audibly scoffed. “Never underestimate the power of charm on a street thug. All they’ll see with you is a butch wannabe ‘Grrl Power’ cliché, which makes you a big target in their eyes…and By. The. Way, obeying physics is for freshthing devisors.”
Mrs. Ryan mentally reviewed the armored jumpsuit of Miss Medeiros. The way she had arrayed the plating within was quite clever, but while the costume was fitted, it was in no way flattering. She had also advised against the decorative buttons that Miss Navarro had called out earlier, but, that was Miss Medeiros’ choice. Settings for false power gems, gadgets, etc. were all somewhat better choices. With her above-average exemplar rating, the buttons were unlikely to become force concentrators when blocking with the forearms, so at least they weren’t a liability. She had opted for a more overt storage solution approach with the belt, and Miss Navarro might be surprised at how difficult grappling would actually prove in real world applications of close quarter combat with an exemplar and flyer. The costume would serve Miss Medeiros well in the Junior’s combat finals this year.
The three girls had gone back and forth over the perceived flaws of the two costumes before the rapid fire criticism finally shifted to Miss Langstrom’s project. Something about her being a constant tripping hazard to herself. The costume was rather plain, particularly for a magic track student, currently a monochromatic faux-wrap top in undyed Kevra, and a multi-layered skirt in the same fabric that incorporated a great deal of hidden pockets and holsters for her athame and holdout weapon of choice. She had given quite a few comments to Miss Langstrom about how to prevent the three layers of material in the skirt from entangling her legs, and relieving at least some of the heft from all the items she elected to carry. The costume was easy to put on and provided a fair amount of protection, but Mrs. Ryan cautioned the young woman about putting all her equipment into a single outfit that she would need to wear all the time. Mrs. Ryan had thought to give Meredith a short lesson on how to add pockets to any skirt, but had yet to find the time. Perhaps she would pull her aside at the end of this class.
The irony of the first two girls now berating the third was that Miss Langstrom had actually bridged the gap between aesthetics and practicality. As the first of the hair-pulling began, Mrs. Ryan briskly swooped toward the trio to intervene. The lesson to the class would be about providing, and also accepting, constructive criticism. One of her particular favorites for exactly this scenario…
Cryptic
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2 years 5 months ago #1016
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
There was a knock on the door of Nichole Reilly’s teachers village apartment. The Sidhe woman glanced around her still not quite organized abode and sighed.
“Toni, I said I’d call when I’m ready for...” She said as she whisked open the door. Standing on her door step was not the expected hyperactive Ki master, but Dr. Wyatt Cody. Something about his stance and the eyes told her that the being before her was not the man she had known through Elain Nally, but a being far older. “.. a house warming party. Kodiak, what do I owe the pleasure?
“I’m worried about something you might have inherited from The Queen Who Was.” The Bear rumbled.
Nikki nodded slowly and stepped back. “Well come in, something tells me this isn’t something to talk about on the doorstep.”
“Thank you.” he said stepping over the threshold. “This is something I’ve wanted to talk to you about since... well since I first realized who’s daughter you where.”
Nikki raised an eyebrow. “What is so special about who’s daughter I am?”
“Well, as Aunghadhail’s daughter...” He saw the redhead blanch and he slipped his hand under her elbow as the new teacher staggered. “She does leave a long shadow.” he rumbled.
“Yes, she does. So, what did she maybe leave me besides the crown?”
The Bear looked off into the past over Nikki’s head. “I still feel bound to the oaths I gave her about her privacy, but...” He drew in a breath then let out a huff. “One of her fellow Queen, I had my suspicions but never know for sure, hit her with something that left her sterile.”
Nikki’s knees went week, and she likely would have gone down had the Dr.’s big paw of a hand hadn’t been there. While unlike the other changelings she hadn’t put much thought into kids, and while she enjoyed visiting with her friend’s kids, she still hadn’t put much thought into it. With her long life ahead of her she’d thought she’d have time, but now...
The Bear could read her emotions as they played across her face. “Don’t assume the worst until I check you out.”
“Ok.” Nikki said in a small voice.
“We can do this here in private.” he added as he pulled a stool up to a comfortable looking chair.
“Do I need to undress?” Nikki asked, and both Wyatt an the Kodiak where amused by the blush that colored the former model’s cheeks. The Bear allowed his amusement to creep out as a gruff chuckle. “Age has only made you easier on the eyes, but no it isn’t require.” His nose twitched. He could smell the teacher’s... he wasn’t sure what Nikki considered the lesser fey as now. Back in their schooldays she’d been a handmaiden doing what Nikki had wanted, or not. Koehnes was lurking somewhere close at hand and he turned, saying into the air. “As long as you don’t do anything as foolish as attack me as the Old Queen’s guards tried long ago, you may come out and be here for her.”
The spirit crept out of hiding as Nikki sat in the chair and he took the stool. “Give me a moment to weave the spell I need.” He stated as Koehnes took Nikki’s hand giving him a fierce but worried look. He took his time with the casting, showing Wyatt as he did so. “You might feel some discomfort... shouldn’t be anything worse that what you’d feel from a gyno trip.” He caught her flush of embarrassed red, and he had to hold back a chuckle. Ah the young where so amusing sometimes. The exam was swift and through.
He sat back with a released huff. “You’re clear. Nothing magical of natural is going on there. Come the day, you can concise and carry to term.”
“God, you sound like my Mom...”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Cryptic
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2 years 5 months ago #1017
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
About 8 months Post Vanishing Day
Konrad Radu looked down on the war torn countryside, and sneered at the troops below. Who did thet think they where, trying to ‘reclaim’ the lands that his Lord had claimed under his banner. So Paramount was missing, he would return, and he had a strong Right Arm defending the gates until that time, or when the heir came of age.
“Regent, we are over the engagement. The Calvary is seeing that the civilians are clear while the Wolves are harrying the Soviet troops. They are making them chase their tails. Do you wish there to be survivors?” he asked glancing at the projection of a more then a little pregnant Amelia Hartford who was back at the palace fighting on a different battle field; keeping Soviat hackers from turning the Wallatcha Nuclear Power Plant into the next Chernobyl.
“They haven’t learned from those we left to carry word of their defeat back to the Cremlin. Make them all disappear.”
“As you command, Regent. It will be my pleasure.” Konrad said with a slight smirk as he lifted his flesh and blood right hand de-cloaking his, and the rest of the airships. It hurt like hell to extend his invisibility ability like that, but from the pause in the action below it was well worth it.
One of the crew, the one manning the ground to air communications called out, “Civilians are clear. Calvary says thanks.”
“Tell them they’re welcome, and they’re the anvil, we’re the hammer. Weapons, trget the rear of the target, drive them into the Calvary. Stalker units, aid in containment. Konrad ordered. Soon the airship cannons where pounding rhythmically. From the ruins of the town the heavy weapon carrying horse breed rose up laying down a rain of lead that ripped through the human troops The Soviat troops didn’t last long.
“Ships two through four, land and take on troops. Call in the Relief & Rebuild units, I want this village livable and fortified by the end of the week. They are also tasked with figuring out why the early warning system failed. They should not have been able to get this far.” Konrad growled, part of him regreting he hadn’t lead like Paramount; at the head of the ground troops. But Wallachia would be hear when his lord returned.
Even if he died defending it.
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 5 months ago #1018
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Extremely uncomfortable, Cardsharp knelt in front of the mirror and made the evocation. This time, the visage came immediately, eagerly into view. That did not bode well, not at all. Well? she asked, her one blue eye glittering.
Suppressing an aggrieved sigh with all his willpower, Cardsharp held up the Heart of Azdaja. Mabd gave a wide grin of realized hope. The large red crystal shattered on the end of its chain, revealing a smaller green crystal, which floated in the air. After a moment, that crystal shattered as well, revealing a smaller blue crystal. Ah! Mabd sighed, and the blue gem floated into the mirror.
Well Done, My Champion! the Queen of Air and Darkness exulted with an uncharacteristic wide grin, her two blue eyes glittering (even if one was blinking rapidly). A skeletal hand reached out from the mirror and inscribed a new rune on the amulet that served Cardsharp as a belt buckle. Now our Quest begins in earnest! Before, we were fumbling around in the dark. But now, I can actively see where the scattered bits of my soul have been locked away. Soon, I will be able to call upon by servants flung far across the globe. Soon, I will be the Weaver of the Midnight Veil in truth once again!
And for hardly the first time, the Scapegrace Knight wondered what lay at the end of the Forgotten Moonlight Quest.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 5 months ago #1019
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted (Part 3) wrote: Ms. Grimes tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “Morgana is a student here, she is in our care. Any payment will be made by the school on her behalf.”
Thulia gave her a long look, then nodded sharply.
“The traditional payment for this service is twelve minutes of passionate cuddling. I will accept it from you on her behalf.” She paused for a moment with an expectant look. “I require half up front, of course.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Anne
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2 years 5 months ago #1020
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The fabulous Imp had been violently ill every morning for a week. This is Imp-ossible she moaned to herself, still she made an appointment at Doyle medical.
I need to confirm that I’m pregnant, she told the person taking the appointment.
How am I going to tell Chickenhawk that he’s going to be a dad, and what is Melissa going to think? Actually she was pretty sure Melissa would be looking forward to teaching her younger sibling all sorts of Mischief!
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
E!
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2 years 4 months ago #1021
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mirror yawned as he made his way through the dimly lit hallways of Twain Cottage. The house father Mr. Filbert was out of town on business, putting him and Thuban in charge during the off hours. After checking the sophomore hall, Mirror headed down the freshman hall. Rubbing his tired eyes he spotted a splotch of crimson plastered on the wall just before the bathroom. Carefully opening the door, Mirror spotted a freshman kneeling on the floor with a medkit opened in front of him.
Mirror recognized him as AP, one of the few permitted to leave early to work at Doyle. One of the freshman’s eyes was swollen shut while the other was staring to show signs of the “raccoon eyes”. AP, looked at Mirror while holding a splint between his teeth.
“Jesus, man what happened?” The Cottage fixer asked storming in kneeling looking at AP.
“Naawwthing…” The injured boy growled through the splint he held in his mouth.
“Really because it doesn’t look like nothing.” Mirror stated, before noticing the arm that was bent at an unnatural angle. “AHhhh!!” he screamed in reaction.
AP paid no attention, to him instead turning back to his arm. With a deafening pop, and a gagged squeal from the boy, the arm snapped back into place.
“I think I’m going to puke.” Mirror said while looking at the floor.
“Well there is a toilet and there is a toilet.” AP pointed out while he wrapped the splint around his arm bracing it, and putting it in a makeshift sling.
“Are you in pain?” Mirror asked.
“Only when I breathe.” AP coughed as he fished for something inside the medical kit.
“I’m calling Doyle.” Mirror affirmed.
“Don’t. I’m fine.” AP yapped as he pulled out the Stabil Pen.
“Hey, that is for emergencies!” Mirror asserted.
“I think this counts.” AP snapped, injecting himself with the devisor drug. With a slight breath of relief AP got up from the bathroom floor. Shuffling towards the tunnel elevators.
“HEY, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?!” Mirror yelled.
“Doyle.” AP lied though the haze of euphoria he was feeling. “Someone, has to clean that up.”
“Oh, yea…”Mirror looked at the mess in the bathroom. “Hey, you owe me one!” Mirror finished as the drugged boy walked away.
AP however did not go to Doyle. Instead he went to his office deep in the tunnels. There he used his key to open the locked door. Walking in he made a beeline for the chalkboard he kept on the side of the room. At the center were two names both circled and connected by a solid line. Naomi Jaeger and Elizabeth Carson. In the middle of the two names AP drew a third line and circle.
There he scribbled the name of the group that jumped him, and told him to stop searching for his sister. “THE AMAZONS”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 4 months ago - 2 years 4 months ago #1022
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Inspired by this video , and with references to some of my earlier micro-scenes
“I think you’re being too fucking ‘subtle’ for your own good,” Chris whispered to his fellow deity as she fumed over a colleague’s slight. “Do you really think you can outwit Athena? Fuck that noise. If you really are that pissed off, go over there and make her hurt.”
Victoria looked at Counterpoint, and behind him his new lackey Centurion, as if they were crazy. Crazier than usual, she amended to herself. “Carson...”
“Shit on Carson! She may be best friends with your former self these days, but she’s still mortal. What is she going to do if the two of you get into it? What could she do?”
“I’m no fighter...”
“Oh, but I remember a time when you were, now, don’t you? The Spartans quite loved their dear Areia. Surely you can do this for old times’ sake? Just like back in the golden days of the Trojan War?”
Cytherea seemed to think this over, then a steely look came into her eyes. Yes, it was far too long since she’s really shown her claws...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Cryptic
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2 years 4 months ago #1023
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Hank 3 wrote: Turning to the silently fuming Nikki, so caught up in her own world she hadn’t even noticed her friend’s departures, Hank stepped close and waited. Ever since Mrs. Carson delivered the news to Nikki, both that Solicitor was suing her and that, far from fighting the suit, the school’s response would be to give him her modelling earnings, Nikki had been upset.
~*~
Hank guided Nikki to the Homer Gallery, up to a dusty pile of metal bars. Hank stopped, staring down sadly at the piled gold bars. “It’s only money Nikki,” he repeated softly. “Yes, it’s your money, but still.” Turning he looked to Nikki, glassy-eyed as he gestured.
“For God’s sake you’re an ELF not a gold hording Dwarf or Dragon, and I start checking your chin for whiskers or scales.”
Somehow that statement cracked through Nikki’s Angry At The World and the red head gave her friend a weak smile.
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Katssun
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2 years 4 months ago - 2 years 4 months ago #1024
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The Black Mask:
Blue Diamond, the World’s Most Loveable Supervillain™, saw a familiar face, but an infrequent patron, eating in a shadowy corner of the supervillain bar as she walked in that evening. It wasn’t typical in her M.O. to be so intrusive with her peers. One didn’t become the Most Loveable by being nosy. But she couldn’t resist! She had recently heard a fantastic rumor from Pinball, and just had to confirm it since the rare chance arose.
She ordered a drink from Carl and sashayed over to her target. While his features may be nondescript, the tricorne hat she leaned near was unmistakable.
“Milady?” he inquired, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” she replied before leaning in a little closer. “A little bird told me you recently picked up a pet...a rescue no less.”
Instead of responding, Highwayman slid a smartphone partway across the table. The image of little motley white, black, and orange kitten sleeping up against a normal looking pillow on a couch shown on screen.
“Aww...what’s its name?”
“I named her Nature,” he replied and pocketed the phone.
“Unusual name for a cat...”
“Not at all, milady. Nature abhors the vacuum.”
Last Edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Katssun.
Cryptic
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2 years 4 months ago #1025
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“The diamond? You know the trick where Superman heats up and compresses a lump of coal? That’s the result of a Brick being dared to prove they had buns of adamantiam. “ Nichole waited a beat, studying the kids expressions. “Wow, you believed that? I owe Toni a dollar. Seriously, it’s cursed, but Doctor Alexander, contained it. Someone figured ‘why leave it gathering dust? Let’s put it on display.’”
“Is that safe?”
“So long as it doesn’t leave school property, yes.”
~*~
“No, I don’t know why one of the first students would make a Raisin gun or why anyone would put it on display.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Sir Lee
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2 years 4 months ago #1026
Sir Lee replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The FSA evaluating board looked at the two freshmen applicants.
“What are your codenames and powers, guys?”
“I’m Gorm. I have very good senses, can go one week without sleep and don’t get distracted easily.”
“I’m Feck. I can increase the efficiency of chemical reactions.”
“I see. Those are... interesting powers, but not really combat geared. I suppose they would be useful for a watchman or a chemical industry, but as far as superheroing go... sorry, guys.”
“Wait, we know our powers are not that impressive, but you really should sign us up.”
“Why?”
“Because without us, you will be gormless and feckless.”
Don’t call me “Shirley.” You will surely make me surly.
null0trooper
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2 years 4 months ago #1027
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Party Like It’s 1999
Melville Cottage, Whateley Academy
Hikaru Myoujin was the very model of decorum as she took the call from Princess Kako. The call had come while she was performing her RA duties, so she’d maintain that decorum if it broke her.
“Hikaru, do you remember me telling you that the IHA would be happy to arrange dates with suitable gentlemen? As it should happen to turn out, the Household has learned of Whateley Academy’s traditional Halloween Party. Some feel that it would be a shame to pass up such an opportunity...”
MIT&T, Massachusetts
“... but I’m twenty-four, give-or-take some! Having me escort a fourteen-year-old to her school’s dance has to be ten different kinds of wrong.”
“Drop your illusion and try saying that with a straight face.”
“So I look a little young.”
“For pushing forty, I have to say the princess has you beat in the looks department. But you both could stand mingle more, actually risk contact with sunlight and other people, maybe gain a couple of pounds.”
“Keep that up, and I’ll invite Cousin Brigitte to drop by early.”
“See? You two have so much in common!”
Melville Cottage, Whateley Academy
“... What do you mean ‘nothing in common’, my sweet Okami? I’m told that the young count can turn into big puppy. So adorable!”
“This has already been arranged, hasn’t it?”
*It would appear so, Daughter. I admit to being intrigued as to what Kako is planning.*
“We only need to finalize what you’re going to wear so he can make suitable arrangements. You don’t want to both arrive wearing the same colors! That would be almost as bad as coming as yourself.”
*Something cut for dancing, I should think!*
“It’s being narrowed down as we speak.”
*But to present us as other than us. That presents difficulties.*
*Aren’t you on speaking terms with the other Kami?*
*Of course! If it is to be for only one night, sacrifices can be made. I could even bear to wear... I have an idea!”
MIT&T, Massachusetts
“Why now? Rikke, you of all people should know the red-letter tabloids would have a field day with this.”
“Because Thomas is off-plane and you mope. When you mope, my only nephew gets sulky.”
“But!”
“Because we all know what happens when you get bored and there’s no adult supervision. No, the Crown Prince does NOT count except at State affairs! Now, Amaterasu is known to favor red and gold...”
“Blood and money. I can respect that.”
“Thank God it’s a costume party. Come as you aren’t.”
“That can be taken in so many ways. Rikke? What aren’t you telling me?”
Monday evening, October 31, 2016, Melville Cottage, Whateley Academy
It had taken more work (in the case of onlookers at the salon, tears) than Hikaru had expected, but she managed to get her hair cut, dyed, and styled to fit her chosen role. White shirt trimmed in green, green cargo pants, and sneakers completed the look. Kurenai pitched in by projecting a hard-light disply that hid her own equipment. Whenever she suspected Hikaru to be paying insufficient attention, she added bright green sprites to the display.
Downstairs
Mads grinned and bore the attention of a Security escort to Melville from the Guest House. If he could put up with getting the body and face makeup right ( and the hair! ) he could put up with this. What had completely surprised him was that Thomas had been in the mood to pitch in after getting back early.
Another surprise was that he’d managed to cross the entrance lobby to Concierge’s desk before the catty comments drifted to his ears.
“Who does she think she is?”
“More like who was desperate enough to hire her for the evening.”
“May I help you?”
Mads choked back the first few suggestions that came to mind, and said < I believe that Myoujin Hikaru is expecting me. >
Well, it looks like the name-drop worked.
< Who should I say is enquiring? >
< Her escort for the evening, of course. >
Hikaru
“My WHAT?”
“’Escort’ was the approximate term used.”
Hikaru fumed. “I will be there shortly!”
Downstairs
“She will be down here soon.”
“I look forward to it.”
Both pretended not to here the giggling coming from their observers.
*Daughter. Even when provoked, we do not stomp our way to, our, oh, my.*
Hikaru and Amaterasu had not been expecting their “date” to be wearing a Little Black Dress, halter top, mini-skirt length, paired with black chelsea boots. A simple belt, large silver ankh, and a realistic raven completed the ensemble.
*Do try not to drool*
Mads took in the short brown hair, the green and white clothes, walked over and smiled.
“Ben 10! I’ve been dying to meet you!”
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
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Discussion Thread
Kettlekorn
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2 years 4 months ago #1028
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“It’s sort of working, but I’m doing something wrong,” Morgana muttered as her hand healed in a burst of orange flame.
Thulia eyed the working critically. “No, everything is in order.”
“But it isn’t green like yours.”
“Oh, that?” said Thulia with a grin. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a pouch of powdered blue crystal. “Just sprinkle this into it.”
“Oooh. Magic crystals? They enhance the healing?”
Thulia laughed. “No, silly! Just copper sulfate. It burns the prettiest green.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Cryptic
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2 years 4 months ago #1029
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Tia spun around glaring daggers at the Wondercute girls and Karma. “Stop following me!! I’m not the Easter Bunny, which means I . DO NOT! HIDE! EGGS!”
“I made a bunny that lays colored eggs” Petshop stated proudly. Then she deflated a tad. It doesn’t hie them very well though.”
“Wait. What? No, no, I don’t want drawn into your insanity.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 4 months ago #1030
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The predator crouched on its perch and surveyed its domain for prey. There, sneaking along the edge of the hallway. The predator set, tensed, twitched its tail and launched itself from its perch. It spread its wings and dodged among the started obstacles, almost losing sight of its target for a moment. But the prey was too sure of its defenses, and wasn’t being wary enough. The predator folded its wings into a power dive and piled into its prey.
A feminine scream filled the corridor of Dunn Hall. “What was that?” someone said. “I heard a girl scream.”
The students watched as the small dragonet furiously wrested with… thin air? After some spirited tumbling around, Smokey seemed to get a mouthful of something and started shaking his head back and forth, like a dog with a pillow. The screaming sound got louder, and students gathered around to figure out what was going on. Then there was an audible snap, and suddenly Smokey had a fuzzy mottled white-and-brown rabbit by the scruff of the neck. The rabbit was still, except for a noticeably weakening twitch of a hind leg.
“Oh,” said one of the older students. “Invisibunny.”
“Invisibunny?” echoed another student. “You mean someone made an invisible bunny? Why would they do that?”
“Because they could.”
“Aren’t we gonna do something about that?” Asked a female student gingerly.
“Why?” asked a boy with an noticeable Australian accent. “They’re invisible rabbits!” he said it with an inflection that suggested that he considered rabbits to be large hopping rats with fluffy tails. “If that little lizard is good for bringing down rabbits… nah, something would go wrong. Something always does…” he gave a sigh for the fact that despite its notoriously vicious wildlife, Australia still had to produce an effective natural predator for rabbits.
Smokey adjusted his grip on the rabbit’s scruff and started to haul the body off. “He’s gonna EAT it?” someone asked.
“Who knows? None of my business, as long as he doesn’t get blood on the floor.”
*****
There was a scratching at the back door of the Crystal Hall kitchens. One of the cooks went to the door and opened it. Smokey was crouched there, the rabbit in front of him, and he was looking up as his tail wagged eagerly. “Oh! You caught another one?” the cook said appreciatively. “And he’s a big one! Well, you’ve earned it, come and get your reward.” The cook picked up the rabbit and carried it to a counter. Smokey pranced after him, clearly anticipating his reward. Setting the rabbit on the counter, the cook lifted up a fresh éclair and placed it on a plate. Then he filled a demitasse cup full of cappuccino and set it on the plate. He set the plate on the floor. Smokey picked up the plate and gingerly carried it out the door.
The cook hefted the dead rabbit and said, “Well, at least we’ll have a steady supply of hasenpfeffer for a while.”
“If that little lizard could get fat, he’d roll,” chuckled another cook.
“But is it okay to cook a bio-devisor’s project?” a third cook asked.
“We’ve tested it,” said the first cook, “and it’s safe so far. Besides, if Smokey didn’t keep their numbers down, they’d breed until they started to threaten the local squirrels. And you do not want to piss off the local squirrels.”
Katssun
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2 years 4 months ago - 2 years 4 months ago #1031
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Hey Mom...is it okay if my girlfriend is comes over tonight? By the way, she can only eat meat.”
Last Edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Katssun.
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 4 months ago #1032
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Out of necessity, some stories go through a LOT of revisions from original concept to what finally gets posted. This is how what ended up as ‘The Final Trump’ started out.
****
I adjusted the fit of the dress. I looked good in it, if I had to say so myself. And why shouldn’t I? I was gorgeous in a gazelle-slender freshman high school way. There was no way that anyone would ever be able to tell that I’d been born a boy. I turned this way and that, and reveled in it in the privacy of my own bedroom. I was in mid-twirl when Mom barged in without knocking. I reflexively froze. She took one look at I, and a look entered her large, almond-shaped eyes. She drew herself up and declared, “Avery! Look at you in that dress!” She swept me up in her arms in a hug that would have crushed a normal person. “I am just so proud I could BUST!”
What a difference a summer makes. I looked into the mirror and liked what I saw. It was one thing to know that I’d probably turn out to be a mutant- rather a foregone conclusion, what with both Mom and Dad not only being mutants but supervillains. But it was another to realize that instead of weedy facial hair, underarm odor, zits, a voice that broke every five seconds and an Adam’s apple the size of a grapefruit, puberty brought the gift of beauty. And femininity. I smiled at my reflection, and was agreeably impressed. My old boy-face had been… well… serviceable enough. But boy-Avery had had brown eyes and a boy’s face. Now I had eyes that were flashing emeralds set in a visage of feline beauty and grace. I was definitely my mother’s daughter, even if I’d inherited Dad’s control over ectoplasm, instead of Mom’s super-strength, near-invulnerability and flight. But so, I’d gotten the things that really mattered, the face, the hair, the sleek physique, and in time, the great boobs. I was only fifteen, and I could hardly expect to have Mom’s great cleavage- yet.
And it was so good to be able to try on dresses and makeup and experiment with my hair, without sneaking around, worrying that the ‘rents or little brothers would find out! Not that sneaking around hadn’t been fun- and good training.
Mom minutely adjusted the fit of the dress on me, more out a desire to get in that last little molecule of mothering than any sartorial need. “So, have you settled on that for your trip to Whateley?”
I held up one of the other dresses and worried my lower lip, more out of seeing if that bit worked than any real worry. “Yes, I think that this will have to do… Oh, this would be so much easier if I’d had the time to find out what my own personal style is!”
Mom grinned indulgently and chuckled. “It must be nice to think that. Well, what can I say? No more time for any wardrobe changes, we have to go get to the airport!”
“Mom, do you have to come with me?” I asked plaintively. “I mean, I’m fifteen! I can travel by myself!”
Mom patted me on the cheek. “Of course you can, dear. But due to your… change in status… I think that it might be best if I went along to make sure that everything is taken care of.”
“errr… Mom, if by ‘change in status’ you’re talking about my sex change, they’re used to that! Remember, in the brochure, there was that bit about ‘my mutation is causing me to change sex’?”
Mom let out a fluttery exhalation of exasperation. “Oh, PLEASE! That? Avery dear, the Hellers haven’t gotten where we are by taking things on face value! No, I’ll go and make sure that there are no ‘unfortunate misunderstandings’. Besides, I haven’t been to Whateley in thirty years; it will be good to see the old place after all this time. And, it will give me a chance to finally meet that delightful Miss Hartford that was so helpful with laundering the proceeds from the DeSilva project.” Mom leaned in, “And besides, there are a few things that a girl really does need to hear from her mother, and what with all the craziness and Grand Opera, we haven’t really had a lot of chances for ‘Girl Time’.”
I flinched at the thought of ‘girl time’ with Mom, but managed to keep my peace. I watched with steely patience as Mom looked through how I’d packed everything and then showed me how it should be packed. Okay, she DID have a point or two but still… Mom had Javros gather up the luggage. She could lift over six tons, and I was in the thousand pound area, but Javros had been with the family since before I was born, so he handled the bags. ‘The reason why supervillains like the Crimson Claw are always yelling that they’re surrounded by incompetents is that they ARE surrounded by incompetents; those are the only people that abusive idiots like the Claw can HIRE’, I recall Dad telling me once. The Hellers were very big on pointers for future careers in super-crime. ‘Hire competent people, treat them well, and HOLD ONTO THEM! Equal parts Loyalty and Terror! I’ve been in the business for 25 years, and not a single underling as rolled over on me!’ Still, I reflected, there may have been something to the Dad’s pontifications.
Mom stopped Javros. “No, there’s still one thing left to do.” She stopped at a bookcase, lifted up a statuette, moved it to another spot until she heard a click, and then replaced it in its original setting. The bookcase pushed out slightly and slid to one side, revealing a stairwell going up. “Cardinal?” She called up. “Cardinal Sin? Come down, there’s something that needs your personal attention!”
Dad’s voice wafted down and snapped irritably, “I’m in the middle of something!”
Mom scowled and called back up. “But we’re leaving!”
“I’m BUSY!”
Mom growled and stalked up the stairs. Javros and I looked at each other awkwardly as the sounds of Mom and Dad yapped at each other up in his Lair-away-from-Lair. My brother, Vic (age 10) wandered up and asked, “What’s all the noise about?” Alex (age 5- my folks are very big about having their children five years apart. Alex hasn’t caught on that his time as the ‘baby’ of the family is running out) was tagging along, and wanted to know too. The noise upstairs went violent, and there was the sound of a few things breaking.
“Mom and Dad are, ah, working through a few difficulties,” I told them. Alex ducked behind the protection offered by Vic’s back. Only five years old, and he already knows how things work around here.
Finally, Mom came tromping down the stairs with Dad literally kicking and screaming slung over her shoulder. The dreaded Angry-Mom look all over her face, she set him on the floor and snarled, “Was that a HOSTAGE I saw up there?”
“Doctor Proteus is in town, and all the decent Hostage Hotels are all booked up,” Dad said defensively, adjusting his robes. Dad’s supervillain name is ‘Cardinal Sin’ (yes, we know about the guy in the Philippines, don’t let it bug you), and he affects a sort of ‘techno Cardinal Richelieu’ look, with the dark scarlet cassock and a false mustache and van dyke beard. “I HAD to put him SOMEWHERE!”
Mom put her hands on her hips and glowered, “We had an understanding: No Weapons of Mass Destruction, No Demonic workings of ANY kind, and NO HOSTAGES in my house!”
Dad started to quibble, but Mom waved him down. “Later! Believe me, we’re going to talk about that later! But now… Now, you have a few things to say to your daughter.”
“I don’t have a daughter,” Dad said mulishly. He refused to even look at me!
“DAMIAN HELLER, how can you SAY that?”
“Shhh! I have a hostage upstairs!”
“Which is one reason why I won’t have them in my house! Now, Damian, you need to talk to Avery.”
“Wont!”
“Damian, you always say that family comes first,” Mom said in her most Mom-ish tones. Well, Dad was acting like a little boy, so… “Avery is going away to school, and we won’t see her for weeks. She didn’t ask to be changed into a girl. Now, how do you think that she’ll feel, going away to stay with complete strangers, if you won’t even talk to her?”
Dad pulled a face, and finally gave me a look. I was waiting with the deadliest ‘sad kitten face’ that I could pull off without breaking out laughing. Dad took it straight in the face, and seizing the drama with both hands (as per uze), he swept me up in his arms for a crushing hug. “Avery… I’m sorry… I’ve always wanted a daughter…But you were my son! MY SON!”
What did I tell you? Drama Queen or what? “I love you, daddy…” I mewled, <note for the future: always begin any negotiations with Dad with, ‘I love you, Daddy’. Apparently the Dadinator is an absolute sucker for this; if I’d been born a girl (as I should have been!), I would have mastered this by age Five!> “And you still have Vic and Leggie!”
He looked down at me with tears in his eyes and paternal pride gleaming from his face. If I didn’t think that Mom wouldn’t raise the roof about it, I’d hit him up for a Porsche for my sixteenth birthday right about now. “You’re absolutely right, Princess!” Princess. I can now officially get away with murder.
null0trooper
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1033
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Debriefing a notable Charlie-Foxtrot Exercise,
Team Tactics I, Whateley Academy
Gunny Bardue: Where do you get the idea you can sit around all day and do nothing?
Absinthe: Do you think I sit around and do nothing?! I haven’t had a chance to sit around and do nothing since the day I arrived at Whateley, I’m too busy running coffee and doughnuts for the MCO on weekends - do this Wylann, do that Wylann - and when I’m not running around after closeted H1 members, I’m doing extra studies with Mrs. Lauriant, and if I’m not doing that, I’m fulfilling my destiny - do you know how many times I’ve had to deal with superpowered bullies? I’ve lost count - do I get any thanks? No - I have fought dragons, witches, bandits, I have been punched, poisoned, pelted with fruit - devisor bananas to be exact, and all the while I have to hide who I really am because if anyone finds out, The Queen To Come might decide to have me executed after all. Some times I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions I don’t know which way to turn!
Gunny: And what do you Pu- people - have to say for yourselves? You do concentrate on Absinthe a lot.
Vapaat Taivas: Geek the mage first.
Gunny: What?
Vapaat Taivas: Exhibit A is sitting in front of me; Exhibit B is his wingman.
Metro: Hej! Why is it-
Gunny: Pipe down, son, they’ve met you. Your team makes a habit of taking Fixx down next. Could someone explain why him and not Jinx, Porcelain, or Flytrap?
Rorsmand: Gunny? These two (gestures at Metro and Smithy) take notes.
Gunny: That makes more sense than I am comfortable admitting to.
Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by null0trooper.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1034
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Trish glanced from her Sudoku puzzle to Lifeline, then started. The girl was asleep at the table, her pen set neatly beside the closed spell book she’d been writing in. “She’s finally finished.”
Caitlin placed one last precisely bent paper clip into place and then flicked the cardboard pinwheel, causing her contraption to hum to life. “Perfect timing.” She stalked into the other room and snagged the book, then backed into the corner as a security officer carried Lifeline back to her cell. Sparing them no attention, Caitlin withdrew a flashlight and The Space Blanket of Absolute Protection from hammer-space, the latter of which she threw over herself before beginning to read.
Half an hour later she emerged from the blanket’s shiny, warded embrace and rejoined Trish in the observation room. “Bad news. This isn’t a spell formula, a ritual, or anything remotely useful.”
“Then what is it?”
“A creepy fan-fic.”
“...What.”
Caitlin tossed the book on the table and it fell open to a random page, so Trish leaned over and read a line. “’Nikki found herself wrapped in Bunny’s arms and staring back into those wide, teary blue eyes.’ But... but why?”
“Hell if I know. Talk to Bellows or Horton.”
“But-”
“Nope, I want nothing to do with this. Besides, I’ve got a date to keep.”
“A date.”
“Mmm hmm,” said Caitlin with a shit-eating grin. “A date at the range with Kid Glock. We’re gonna pew click ka-pew, and bang kabang, trigger-trigger-trigger, shoot the figure, set up, shoot the figure.”
“This is not an appropriate time for jokes.”
“Any time a problem’s not my problem is a time for jokes, and a student writing TG slash is very not my problem.”
“Tee-gee? Slash? What do those-”
“Uh uh, nope. Talk to Bellows and Horton, not me.” She pulled a black disk from hammer-space and attached it to the wall, then flicked it to reveal a short tunnel outside. She stepped through and began peeling it off from the other side. “Eldritch has left the building.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Kettlekorn.
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1035
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dickinson Cottage, November 16th, 2016 - Evening
Nana had burnt her hands while trying to keep Hannah off of the poor kid from Hawthorne. Once again. The staff in Doyle said she’d be fine in no time, but they had a scheduled match in a half hour! The boys over in Twain could not be allowed to hold on to the current record going into Thanksgiving.
“So…who has the steadiest hands in the building?”
The three girls looked at each other. One rushed down the hall as quickly as she could.
----
Darcy Gleason found herself seated at a table in the common room, no idea what was going on. Five minutes ago, a girl she had seen around the cottage but never talked to was pounding on her door. Four and a half minutes ago, the two of them had been thrown out of the room by Darcy’s roommate Viola, Darcy’s bag in tow to deal with whatever emergency this was. It was getting late, but Darcy was always ready to help with crises of a cosmetological nature.
Two minutes ago, three girls including an RA explained what they needed Darcy to do for them, and six seconds ago, a ten-minute timer started on the hefty bomb made of hard light in front of her. Metal panels had slid aside every which way as the timer started.
“This is just a practice round Beautician,” said the girl with bandages on her hands. “No need to get nervous. Just describe what you see to Milena and she’ll tell you what to do.”
She couldn’t see the RA seated across the table from her due to the huge opaque screen made of hard light from the projector that sat in the middle attached to somebody’s laptop. But she had seen the huge stack of paper held together with a binder clips and sectioned off with stickies before they got started.
A calm voice cut through the faded Harlequin green wall. “Always be descriptive. Can you read a serial number? Oh wait! First tell me what it looks like before you move it.”
Darcy nervously brushed her fingers down her fat Dutch braid and leaned up to look at the top of the fake bomb. She saw a little box of wires, two boxes of buttons, a little radio thingy, a glass dish with a glob of silver liquid in it, and a big button. She relayed the information as best she could to Milena who recognized each of the pieces despite Darcy’s lack of familiarity.
“Okay, DON’T move the box if you can help it, there’s a mercury trigger. Use the mirror to read the serial number and look for batteries.” Darcy leaned over to her bag to fish out a compact. One of the other girls stopped her.
“You can use the mirror from the game’s toolbox, it will pick up the info and display it through the projector.”
“One, Bee, Cue, Dee…”
“Stop. Phonetics please.”
“Okay…One, Bravo, Quebec, Delta, Romeo, Seven.” She repeated quickly. One of the two girls on her side of the screen glanced at her.
“Okay, thanks. Which box has a red light on it?”
“The little radio thingy.”
“It’ll make some beeps that only you can hear when you hold the square button in. Let me know what they are, long or short.”
Darcy listened to the series of beeps and simply replied, “Whiskey7.”
The other two girls blinked at Darcy in surprise while she heard Milena flipping through pages. “Daddy is a HAM operator. My brother and I both have amateur licenses in case he’s away at work after a hurricane takes out the power in the state. We usually have power when the shoreline doesn’t.”
“How much time’s left?” Milena asked as she was still flipping through pages.
“7:30.”
Darcy heard a soft curse, “I know why the codes are randomized but come on! Ah. Tune it to Three Point Two Eight Seven.” Darcy did and the red light went green.
The girls continued talking back and forth over the next six minutes as Darcy cut wires with fake tools, rapidly tapped buttons, did her best to describe weird symbols that Milena had to ask clarifications about, and finally got to the big button.
“What colors is the button?”
“Spanish Veridian.”
“So green.” Darcy heard her flipping pages.
“No.”
“No?!”
“Maybe more of Teal, or even Pine Green? There’s a fair amount of blue in it.”
“So it’s green. Or is it checkered blue and green?”
“No.”
“No what?! We have less than a minute.”
“Fine. It’s Green. But there are blues in the ultraviolet.” Darcy put up air quotes as she said ‘blues.’
“Whatever!” After another burst of frantically flipped pages, Darcy heard, “Hold the button down and tilt the box until the mercury hits the edge of the glass dish and then immediately let go of the button.”
Darcy stood up and did as she was told. The button box LED went green and the timer stopped. ‘00:08’ The box made a very loud click.
The other two girls cheered. Her partner came around the other side of the table and smiled. “Ten minute break, and then we do the real thing…”
Darcy swallowed hard. “The real game thing? Right?”
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Katssun. Reason: Fixed internal continuity error
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago #1036
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The March of Dreams
Elise Crewe walked out of the stone and slate cottage at the very core of her dreamspace and across the small but immaculately maintained lawn via a well worn packed dirt path.
She adjusted her floppy beige sunhat and pulled open a well-oiled wooden gate in the fieldstone rock wall before steeping into the sea of garbage that ran from horizon to horizon. Bright rays of light cut through the sickly indigo hue that filled the sky like the sun peeking through clouds, highlighting specific patches of abandoned belongings.
Elise carefully threaded her way through all manner of things, careful not to step on any of them with her opened-toed wedges. A few baubles were delicately nudged aside with the edge of her shoes. Something robin’s egg blue caught her eye in the distance. Moments later she stood before a beast of a car. The word “Dodge” emblazoned on the front in chrome letters. Her hand extended out to touch it when it was yanked back with a very firm grasp around her wrist.
“Not yet. Maybe in a few years,” her spirit Meadow said sharply. “Depends.” Elise’s spirit was all-business tonight. No stained dresses like she usually preferred. Instead she wore her vibrant red hair piled elegantly on her head. Ruched black trash bags forming a floor-length gown. The look on her face was insistent, but not confrontational.
“It’s just a car…”
“They’re never ‘just a car’ Elise. Not ones like that.”
“Fine. I trust you,” Elise twirled around looking for something simple. A tube of lipstick lay on the bare earth a few steps away. A quick glance at Meadow, a subtle nod in return, and Elise picked up the gold and brass plastic tube.
Her completely white embroidered sundress morphed into a floral dress that nipped in at the waist and a burgundy cardigan settled on her shoulders. Elise felt a strong squeeze on each of her legs as tights rolled up them. She sank an inch or two as her sandals became Velcro sneakers. Her world turned in on itself.
A bedroom laid itself out before her. Her view shifted to the vanity. A black and white photo of a well-groomed man in uniform. A later color photo of two old people leaning against a railing, maybe of a ship, all smiles. Pure white houses on rocky cliffs behind them. A necklace stand rested on the other side of the vanity, a simple gold chain with three rings hanging from the bottom. A chime of a doorbell came from somewhere else in the house. The lipstick still in her hand, she placed it on the vanity next to the necklace.
The scene shifted. She felt a pinch on her left hand. A small room, a blaring television. The curtains drawn. Raising her hand, she saw a different ring encircling her finger than the ones on the necklace. The lipstick tube sat next to her on a small table, alongside a glass of water. A rumble of a cart came from the open door. The usual string of overly-quick impressions rushed at her and the world compressed on itself.
ApprehensionNervousPrideLUCKYFondnessKeepsakeForgottenKeepsakeForgottenKeepsakeForgottenTAKEN.Disposed.
She returned to her dreamspace, her clothes shifting to normal. The lipstick shone brightly with inner light. It compacted itself into a pinprick and burst into embers, quickly fading before they came close to the surface. She let out a sigh to shake the memories.
Elise’s eye landed on a stone wrapped in bits of leather. She picked it up and her clothes evaporated, but weren’t replaced! Trees sprouted from the garbage piles and a sea of leaves replaced the toys, broken electronics, and occasional recliner.
BetterBESTWorn.Dropped.
The stone exploded into light. Elise smoothed out her dress and thanked her lucky stars that was a quick one.
“Here,” Meadow said, holding out an empty soda can. “I’m curious,” she said with a smile.
Elise reached for the can and four walls pivoted into place around her, zigzag wallpaper rolling down the surfaces. Elise grunted softly as she was squished by her shifting ensemble. A tight red shirt that failed to cover her midriff, denim overalls that fit more like a romper at least a size too small. She quickly popped one of the buttons on the straps before her breasts got crushed as she shrugged the other off of her shoulder.
Usually things shifted to fit. This happened sometimes when the memories were from toddlers.
There wasn’t a can in her hand, but a tiny painted soldier in its place. The scene collapsed as quickly as it came.
HeroFUNWornDisplayedRemeberedExamined.Recycled.
“That’s a first,” Elise remarked, brushing the fading sparkles of light from her hands.
“I very much doubt it’s the last though,” Meadow replied. “I’m surprised the emotions clung on even after that though.”
Elise glanced behind a stained couch that Meadow wouldn’t let her touch and picked up a partially burnt record player. Polished wood floors, and an unattended and empty bar off to the side. Her dress split at her waist and the top rewove itself into a fitted blouse with floral-looking trim. Her skirt swelled into much thicker fabric as it became swing skirt with a cat sewn onto it.
“Hard Nope!” She dropped the player back to the ground and rapidly shook the remnants of the memories from her hands as she returned to her dreamspace. She hated the Fifties! “Uggh!”
“You have to get to them sometime…”
“Not today I don’t!” She twirled at her spirit with a raised finger.
Meadow silently shook her head in response.
Compulsively wiping her hands on her dress, Elise picked her way around more things. Shadows from above ran across the pair as they passed a pile of bright satin dresses and a heavy desk with a few pens scattered on its surface. Then there, in a isolated patch of earth, sat a small stuffed animal. Elise snatched it off the ground.
The space around her built itself piece by piece, even shifting over time. Pale pastel pink walls with a border of wallpaper blurring into bright magenta before turning a very dark red and then finally white. A cradle faded into a small bed with lace trim before surging into a full size bed with satiny sheets and then ending as a treadmill.
But her clothes stayed constant. A pink, lacy dress, a little short on her, sure, and what felt like buttons going down her back. The stuffed animal felt soft in her hands.
SoftWarmLovedFavoriteLovedHeroREALMissedCozyChildishCOMFORTINGCherishedForgottenNostalgiaDingyFondness.KissedGoodbye.
The bedroom faded, and the toy shone with a brilliant glow…that promptly faded. The soft feeling replaced by a sensation that was both warm and rough. Her eyes widened with momentary panic.
“Meadow! It happened again!”
The pair walked briskly back to the cottage at the center, Elise carefully cradling the bundle in her hands. Meadow opened the gate at the wall. Elise knelt to the ground and placed a miniature, but very much living and breathing Stegosaurus on the grass. It squeaked happily. Elise glanced across her small menagerie that included a squirrel, two micro-sized horses, and four rabbits already munching on the lawn.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1037
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
This is a bit of pov from a side character in a non-Whateley story I’ve been working on. Thought I’d share.
Lynn, Aug 4, 2018
Feet flash below, windows glitter to the sides, and the sun shines above. Life is great. Okay, the bullets aren’t so great. They’re almost fast enough to be a problem. Almost.
No, I’m not faster than a speeding bullet. I’m not even faster than a cautious, law abiding bullet. I am fast enough to see them coming and dodge them without much trouble, and they don’t do much more than bruise even when they do hit me. Mostly, anyway. Some rifles can get pretty darned fast. But this chump? Handgun. Yawn.
Oh hey, a sale on skirts. Nice. I skid to a stop, hop over a spinning bit of lead, then slide past a granny blocking the door. Bad spot to be, really, with all those bullets zipping about. I take a look through their stock, select a nice green and blue one, and leave the cash and price tag on the counter. Then I’m gone. I’d stay and chat with the cashier if I could, but it’s not possible. Honestly. Really would. He’s pretty cute, and those sideburns! Unfortunately, I literally can’t stop moving.
Two months ago I turned fourteen. Big party, all my friends, amazing cake. Two weeks later I got the jitters. Family brought me to the hospital on the second day. We waited in the emergency room, and waited, and waited. Time was moving so slow, you know?
Yeah, you see where this is going. Calendar says it’s been six weeks for the rest of the world. For me? Hard to tell exactly since I don’t wear a watch. Thirty-one periods, whatever those are worth in this state. I mean, I don’t even sleep anymore, so who knows? But it seems like I’m running at about twenty times normal speed, give or take a bit depending how excited I am. I’ve gotten better at not making a mess of everything around me as I live my life, but well, crap happens. Literally. Using the toilet like this is so embarrassing!
Anyway, whatever else is going on with me, I’m clearly still a growing girl, and a growing girl needs clothes. I swap skirts in an empty alley as I loop the building, then I wad up my old one and throw it hard at the head of the gunman who’s endangering the poor granny ever so slowly hobbling her way out of danger. I’d help her inside, but I’m really tired of accidentally hurting people. Yeah, turns out inertia is mostly a thing. I can interact with stuff if I concentrate, but it’s hard, and it’s harder the bigger and heavier they are. Pushing on people is a no-no. Even lightly patting somebody on the shoulder comes off more like a slap if I don’t focus. Learned these things the hard way.
I could use a hug so bad.
I settle for a bagel instead while I wait for the chump with the gun to fall over. I haven’t paid for the bagel yet, but I’ll get to that in a moment. I used the last of my cash on my new skirt. My reflection in the shop’s window is stunning, as usual. Green is the best color.
Outside, Thuggy McDogface is ever so lethargically kissing the pavement, so I swipe and empty his wallet. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Glute might be a little bruised, but that’s the least of his problems. I throw the wallet at his gun hand, then I go pay the bagel guy while I wait for physics to catch up and make Thugster drop his gun. I give it a closer look, but it’s just another boring Glock. I’ve already got this model in my collection. Boring. I unload it, pocket the magazine, and double-check the chamber as I run laps around Thuggy, then I drop it on his head. Dropping things is safe; just good old gravity. Of course, normal-speed guns still hurt when they fall on your head. Eventually. While it floats down, I go back to the alley and start getting garbage bags out of the dumpster. Two of them burst along the way when I get distracted, but I manage to get the rest into the air above the chump mostly intact. He won’t be going anywhere soon.
Now, what was I doing before I got sidetracked burying this guy? Oh yeah! Photo bombing!
The tourists who were taking a picture of Museum Tinkster are now filming the garbage bags as they drift toward Chumpster. I get into the shot and jog in place while holding a peace sign as steady as I’m able. Tricking my power into thinking I’m moving only works for so long before I start getting antsy, but it’s long enough that I’ll be visible in their video. I repeat the process for the four other people filming my shenanigans before I can’t take it anymore. Gotta move move move!
By the time I chill out enough to slow down to what a radar sign tells me is a sixty mile per hour saunter, I’m at the park. So is Raul! I saw him and our friend Patty heading here earlier today, which was hours and hours ago from my end. People are so slow!
I used to have such a big crush on Raul, but it’s been a long six weeks, and now he’s too young for me. Not that it will stop me from teasing him forever. Or until I die of old age in a few years. I fix my lipstick, then dart in and give him a series of quick, careful pecks on both cheeks, and a few on his forehead for good measure. After that I have to run laps around the park for a while to calm down. I get back in time to see Patty’s eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Well, that’s just asking for it. I wrote them a letter earlier while I was waiting for them to get to the park, and now I roll it into a tube. I have to be careful not to touch her lips with it as I wedge it in there, but her teeth will be fine. I step back and do jumping jacks while I watch her eyes bulge and her hair flutter from my wake. Nice.
I’ve been still too long, so I sprint back and forth across the pond, spin up a dust devil in the sand box, and then jump over all the dogs. Calm again, I return to my friends. Patty spat out the letter while I was gone and Raul is unrolling it. So slow. I vault over them and go back on the pond to look at the ducks. They’re starting to freak out a little. I felt bad about that a long time ago, but nowadays I just roll with it. Does a lion tiptoe around to avoid scaring the poor antelope? I yam what I yam. I miss yams. It’s going to be like six more years until Thanksgiving. This is the longest summer ever.
Back at their bench, Patty has the letter and Raul is writing something. Oh, hey, there’s an envelope lying on the arm of the bench now, and it has my name on it. I nab it and give it a read as I power walk in circles around Dude-Bro on the jogging track. I’m sure you know a Dude-Bro or two; some of them are alright, but this one liked to leer at me back when I was a slowpoke three years his junior. I love watching the expressions he makes when I show up nowadays. I guess it’s pretty frightening to have somebody circling you at about a hundred miles an hour. I’m a lion!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Kettlekorn.
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago #1038
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, September 5, 2016
Craig Maxim wasn’t particularly surprised that his pants, shirt, and shoes still fit him. He stretched outside the gates of his home for the last five years, federal prison. All that was left was to wait for the taxi that would take him to the bus station. He pulled out his wallet and flipped through most of what was left of his belongings. The ones that he wasn’t already wearing anyway...
A quick inventory: Driver’s license, barely still valid. Public medical insurance card, expired, no worries. Three-hundred dollars in cash. A bus ticket voucher from Uncle Sam. One MID. Social security card.
Three-hundred dollars wasn’t a lot, but it would buy him a bed to sleep in, and one brand new flask. It was a start. He’d still need to find a job in order to get back on his feet, and then get the rest.
Where the hell was that taxi? The sooner he got out of here and slipped through the cracks, the better. Thirty-seven screaming relatives of his alleged “victims” might still have an interest in looking him up. Good thing he still remembered each and every one of their faces.
Feelings were hurt, tears were shed, but in the end, the state hadn’t proved a damn thing. So people had seen him around some of them. So all of them died in the same way, more or less: High. As. Fuck. Wasn’t his fault their hearts gave out, or that they had stopped breathing. MCO couldn’t prove a damn thing either, even with all their fancy shit and Benedict Arnold pet mutants.
Craig had cooperated. There wasn’t an inventory in his house, just raw materials (which he had a license to handle and stored properly, thank you very much), or any inventory hidden in any property he was affiliated with. He never hid his recipes. Nobody could reproduce them, that’s all. They might as well have been gibberish. Burden of proof was on the state, and they failed. The System worked.
‘Cept that bitch of a D.A. had called up her lover in the Justice Department. Prolly with a big ol’ pout and some crocodile tears. And then The State with a capital ‘S’ got him with what they got every other “entrepreneur” just like him with: tax evasion.
Taxi was rolling up now. He took a quick look at the driver, didn’t recognize him. Coast was clear. Craig shoved his wallet back in his pocket, and hopped in the cab. The driver already knew to take pickups to the bus station.
Craig pulled out a folded piece of paper from his other pocket. A simple map he had printed from the library a few days before he left. Far as the Feds knew, he was looking for cities to find a job in. Away from the shaded areas of the map. But everyone in his line of business knew that this was a heat map for potential customers.
“Unemployment Rate - July 2016”
Baton Rouge it is.
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1039
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Officer Szczepanski desperately wanted to tear his hair out, pinch the bridge of his nose, or simply facepalm. Anything to relieve even the tiniest bit of frustration he was having with this devisor. But Sergeant Clauser had made it clear during the briefing to him and all the other hasty replacement security officers. Do not, under any circumstances, show teenagers any weakness. It reduced your effectiveness. Period. At six-foot five, he towered over most of the students and a lot of the staff, but presence was independent of stature at an institution where pubescent children could hurl trucks around with their minds, or worse. Presence mattered.
“We’ve been over this Miss Quintero. That,” he pointed once more at the bulky rifle slung over her shoulder, “Is not a holdout. You may have passed the firearm safety class, and gotten it cleared through the range officer that you know how to operate it saf-”
“Nobody back home would care if I carried it around…” the five-foot two inch tall girl muttered back at him.
“What was that?”
“I said, nobody in the neighborhood back home would care!” she blurted out, apparently in equal frustration. At least he was winning by keeping his cool until now. “Roddy, Tony, and Johnny walk around with Lucas’ gear all the time. This one’s mine. And it’s better!”
“That may very well be Miss Quintero, but it’s a Yellow Flag day. You’d know that if you checked your phone this morning. Open carry of outside of the tunnels or ranges is restricted. That’s not a problem if this was concealable…”
“How does an Energizer conceal their own two hands?! What about MY safety?!” The girl was starting to get heated and flushed. Maybe it was time to back off a little…
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flyer harassing a group of students on their way back to their respective cottages. It wasn’t a violation in particular, but the flyer clearly hadn’t noticed that she was in the range of at least two cameras. She also clearly hadn’t noticed him either. Another quick assessment showed that the situation was about to get out of hand as one of the other students in the group was a known rager with a UV band on their arm. He brought his full attention back to Miss Quintero, who was conveniently outside of the range of those same two cameras.
“Tell you what. I’m going to look over there,” he pointed both thumbs over his shoulders and toward the Quad. “If some…situation…happened to resolve itself while I was performing a routine surveillance of the Quad for the next sixty seconds, I’ll overlook this as a minor infraction and merely…recommend that you look into purchasing or building your own dimensional storage container if you would like to continue using your…”
“Arc Discharge Rifle,” the girl supplied.
“Energy dispersal device,” Officer Szczepanski corrected, “Outside of the official ranges and simulators.”
Ana Sofia Quintero scanned the area around her and turned back to him, “But she’s not grounded.”
He picked at his ear with a finger. “I’m sorry, did you have a problem?”
The girl’s brows knitted together. “It just means I have to aim high after the beam connects to reduce the risk of accidental leaders.”
He turned around and planted his hands on his belt, ignoring that last sentence, “Wow, what a great New England day! The air is so crisp up in the mountains.” Behind him, there was the sharp whine of a very big capacitor charging. Approximately 30 seconds later, a quick and rhythmic popping noise followed. Then a dull thud. He turned back around to see Miss Quintero pulling a chunky silver and orange cylinder out of the back of her rifle, rendering it safe again. “Interesting. It seems I have a more pressing issue to deal with Miss Quintero. In the future please ensure you follow all school regulations.”
“Yessir,” he heard behind him as he called in what ‘appeared to be a powers control issue with a student.’
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Katssun.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago - 2 years 1 month ago #1040
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
2007-09-05
“As for you two,” said the Assistant Headmistress as she pointed to Miranda and Morgan, “may I remind you that family ties hold very little weight around here. You and your ‘team’ are lucky this didn’t rise to the level where I would have to call in Headmistress Carson. I expect you to show at least a little more sense in the future, or then next time you might not be so lucky.”
Both Angie and Revekah gave Shifty a sideways glance at that, unsure why he was being singled out along with Miranda; they knew Miranda had an older sister here, but what was up with him?
later that same day
“She’s your GRAMMA?!?!” Pahelee, Miranda, and Ember said almost in unison.
“GREAT-grandma,” he correct them. “I never knew Grandma Sam or Grampa Roy, Dad said they both died before I was born.” After a pause, he added, “Every time someone talks about them, they all get quiet and sad, so I guess whatever happened musta been pretty bad.”
“Wow. That’s must be weird. I mean, like, weird even for Whateley weird.” replied Angelina.
“Tell me about it. Great-gramma Liz told me I have an aunt or sumptin’ whose here right now, and she’s only a few years older’n us, which I don’t get. There’s something about a time warp I think, but I haven’t met her yet so I don’t know.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 2 months ago #1041
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Author’s Note: This is set during the gap between this scene and this other scene. It exists because Sir Lee tried pointing out some errors in that second one. Alas, I do not make errors. I only make happy little accidents.
“You bitch!” Hartford yelled at her phone. “How dare you!”
The phone didn’t reply. It remained lying on the the Headmistress’s desk displaying the last message from Liz, received seconds before she’d disappeared off the tunnel sensors along with Paramount and the others. “Gone 2 save Ty’s world. U hold down 4t. BBL.”
“This is bullshit! I am not going to stay here babysitting a bunch of children while you and Fredrick are off gallivanting around having an interstellar space adventure without me! I am going to find a way to get over there, and then I’m going to kick both your selfish asses all the way back to the Oort Cloud! You fucking assholes! You’d better hope-”
A flashing light at the closed door interrupted her. She paused for a moment to collect herself, then disabled the room’s privacy field. “Enter,” she said coldly.
A slightly unkempt young man wearing an outdated suit walked in and beamed at her. “Singing telegram, ma’am!”
“Leave. Immediately.”
“Wow, that is exactly what she said you’d say!”
“I’m calling security.”
“Yeah, said you’d say that too. Said that I should respond by reminding you that clay shouldn’t bite the Potter that sculpts it.”
Hartford groaned. “Please tell me that was not a capital P. I thought she was dead.”
He smiled and pulled an old yellowed paper from his pocket. “Yes ma’am, a capital P is how she signed this. Assuming it’s a she from the handwriting, anyways. This order was lost behind a desk. Must have been years and years ago. Just found it this morning.”
“...Fine,” she said, steeling herself. “Get it over with.”
The man cleared his throat.
“While I know that you really would prefer to get this over with,
I’ve information to convey and it is rather copious,
So listen up and be a dear, sit down and do not throw a fit,
For though this is annoying you, I simply do not give a shit.
“I’m very well acquainted to this obstacle that you have met,
And if you’ll listen to my verse I’ll tell you how to conquer it.
To start this odyssey moving I’ve sent to you a red caboose
With many heavy pounds within of fragrant fresh manure to use.
“Earth Mother is a hungry girl, you’ve really got no time to lose,
So plug your nose and lure her in, then lock the door and light the fuse.
Though now this surely sounds to you like it is pathological,
I promise it will make of you a modern space adventure girl.
“Amanda will transform into a woman who is wrapped in myth.
Earth Angel will unfurl her wings and carry you to space forthwith.
And so before that you should don your spacesuit and please pack your bags
With seven dozen MREs, some chocolate bars, and stun grenades.
“The aliens love contraband, so spend your cocoa carefully,
And when they try to worship you, I’d bail out of there hastily.
Don’t put your trust in Zorbons nor in Boglos who have tentacles,
But Boglos without tentacles are quite the pleasant spectacle.
“Inevitably you will find space pirates on sabbatical.
Please ally with them or your mission will be insurmountable.
Earth Angel’s fast, but their spacecraft is faster by a large margin,
And shortly you will need help from their qualified physician.
“Their medicine is leaps and bounds ahead of all that we have here,
Though on it’s own it won’t be quite enough to save your lives, I fear.
But fret not, I’ve prepared for this; I’ve sent you off with all the tools,
For now is finally the time: Amanda and Hartford must fuse.
“The doc will help the mind transfer and you will learn to share a skull.
I’m sure it will be crowded but I promise it is never dull.
You’re thinking now of Paramount and matters that are sexual,
But trust me darling, I promise his love will be perennial.
“Of course you’ll have to save him first from inter-planar slavery,
and the solution to that you will find to be unsavory.
It’s not for naught and though this path may frequently lead you to hurl,
You’ll be the very model of a modern space adventure girl.”
The man sipped from a flask while Hartford’s mouth moved soundlessly. “The note said you won’t need me to repeat that, but I totally will if you want.” Hartford shook her head, so he nodded. “Alrighty then. Last item on the list.” He tossed her the flask. “You have a great day, ma’am!”
As the messenger left, Hartford rubbed her temple and then dialed a number. “Chulkris? This is Hartford- ... Yes, I’m sure that- ... Amanda, hush, I have bad news. I need you to pack a travel bag and meet me at the parking lot. Potter’s orders. ... She wrote a damned letter, how do you think? ... I know, right?” She hung up the phone and groaned at the ceiling one more time for good measure, then smiled slightly. “Hindmost is going to space.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Katssun
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2 years 2 months ago #1042
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The cool September breeze wafted through the fern-like fronds on the top of Ashley Pham’s head, servicing as hair for her generally-human appearance. She still struggled with her new...less active existence, but sessions with Oak each morning were helping her come to terms with a more...contemplative approach to life. Mrs. Chulkris had suggested that Oak might help, and he indeed had been a great deal more successful that the psychiatric staff had been early after she transferred. The first-hand experience and perspective that Oak had with a similar manifestation made her feel less alone.
Ashley sent successive waves of pheromones toward Oak, mostly wishing him a good day and for luck on the tests he had mentioned he was stressing about. Chemical reactions instead of muscles contracted a particular series of cells of her face, eventually forming a smile. She tore the tiny hair like roots out of the ground that had sprouted during their sunning/meditation session and slipped her feet into her shoes lined with copper sulfate. Nothing was worse than wasting precious energy tearing at her own feet to take off her shoes at the end of the day.
She slowly collected her bag and ambled steadily toward Crystal Hall for her daily meal.
---
A pile of soft-boiled eggs, uncured ham, shredded chicken, and a few toasted crickets for flavor lay in a massive heap on the two plates weighing down her tray as she settled in at a somewhat empty table on the first floor of the impressive cafeteria. She took in the scents in the air and determined that the attention of most students was elsewhere, at least for the moment.
A seam formed starting below her “nose” and down to where her sternum used to be. The sides of her neck rolled outward, unfurling, revealing pliable modified cilia, their lengths covered in hundreds of smaller stalks, each sparkling in the fluorescent lighting with bright pink sap-like secretions. Ashley leaned down into the plates one at a time as the cilia rolled back in. Several minutes later, the seam on her face closed, her neck-stomach bulging with her daily meal.
Thunk. A large tablet had dropped on the floor next to three pairs of feet. She looked up to see a blond girl, an east Indian girl who had dropped the tablet, and a girl-maybe-boy, all the same age. The latter’s features crawled, finally settling on the features of a young boy. All three had their mouths wide open.
“You said nobody ate cooler than Porcelain and Fubar!” the shifting boy exclaimed.
“Did not!” the blond girl argued back.
“Did too!”
Inwardly, she smirked, but didn’t bother to match the expression visibly. Waves of contented pheromones would do. The airborne hormones worked on most, whether they knew it or not; emotions still translated in the subconscious. “You’re welcome to watch me eat any time,” the chemically-triggered vocoder strapped to Ashley’s arm trilled softly.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago - 2 years 2 months ago #1043
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“... and, you, you glorified lab rat, if I ever catch you on campus again, I’ll turn you into a pair of gloves!” She knew that it was a hollow threat, but it was enough to convince the adorable monstrosity in front of her to vanish.
Turning back to toward the two girls next to her, Eldritch added, “Don’t you two even start. I know you both want magic power, but trust me, you don’t want what that little bastard is offering. Damn it, Cassie, I get that Screech doesn’t know better, but you have actually taken enough Magic classes to realize what sort of price a Faustian bargain can have. Now both of you, get your sorry asses over to Grimes’ office! And don’t stop to moon over Jay-Arm on the way there this time!”
With that, she tore up the - fortunately unsigned - contracts, and began working out the safest way of erasing the summoning circle the two Goths had made.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago - 2 years 2 months ago #1044
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
2017 Feb 23
The members of MMM were sitting at their table in the Crystal Hall when one of the newer students - A Melville resident who had come in after Christmas break - rushed over towards them, crying. The junior high girl began babbling towards Hikaru in Japanese, whose suddenly thunderous expression was matched by the shock on Taka’s. As the girl - Emi - continued speaking to Okami, what appeared to be a classmate of hers approached. Those who had been to the previous month’s Gender group meeting recognized the goth-loli ‘child’ as actually being one of the grad students working in the powers testing labs.
Miss Morgan joined into the conversation - being only briefly interrupted by Taka, who then stayed quiet after she replied to him - and soon the three of them seemed to come to a consensus. Hikaru stood up, and with a stern glint in their eyes, Ribbon and Okami escorted the younger girl towards a table where together they confronted an Asian boy about the same age as Emi.
When the others at the table asked what that was all about, Taka simply blushed, putting his hand to the back of his head in a gesture which Laura, at least, recognized as a sign of embarrassment. “Codename trouble.” he finally blurted out.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Morgana.
With a sigh, Kenshin continued, with obvious reluctance. “Emi mani... is a manifestor, creates rope and cloth. Miss Morgan is tutor, said she learned Japanese for her. Emi-chan had trouble picking codename for herself, so twin brother said, ‘use ‘Shibari’ as codename’. Not know word have two meaning, so she used it. Was a very mean joke, I think.”
“Huh?” was the general response, but he didn’t explain the rest.
Frustrated, Laura began to poke at her cell phone, but before she could finish, Jimmy said, “Tavi, did you hear that? Could you translate that for us?” By the time he’d said that, Laura had apparently found the answer, as the blue-skinned girl blushed a deep indigo and her hand flew to her mouth.
“Tavi not translate that! Jimmy should have mouth washed out with soap for asking!”, the VI said, with all the righteous indignation which a holographic ferret could muster.
Bianca peeked over at Laura’s phone, and once she read the word on the screen, she frowned. “Tying in a decorative manner doesn’t sou...”, she began, then burst out in awkward laughter as the combination of the wiki article and her own translation powers brought the double entendre home to her. “Ceremonial bondage?” she spluttered, leading to tittering from several of those in earshot, then a yelp as Tanya gave Vic a kick in the shins for laughing.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago #1045
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“What’s wrong, Emi-chan? Has Tako been harassing you again? I swear I am going to...”
The rest of MMM watched as Hikaru stormed off... and all eyes turned to Kenshin.
“What did you do to piss off that little girl?”, asked Invictus angrily.
“Nan de? Oh... no, not Taka, Tako.”
“There’s a kid called Taco? Does he have food powers like Donut or something?”
Laura’s eyes lit up. “Oh, no, you mean ‘tako’ like in sushi, right? That’s,” she racked her brain to remember the time her mother took her out for that type of food, then her eyes went wide. “Octopus?”
Every girl at the table shivered in unison.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Kettlekorn
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2 years 2 months ago #1046
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Oh, we don’t want to kill no pedestrians, no
No, we don’t want to kill no pedestrians, nope-nope
No, we don’t want to kill no pedestrians, no
Soooo we’d better drive slow!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
null0trooper
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2 years 2 months ago #1047
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Monday, February 25, 2008,
Boston, Massachusetts
A foreclaw clicked against marble as its reptilian owner turned a colorful card set amidst a complicated arrangement: the Hermit, reversed. Objects at rest do prefer to stay that way; so much for the wishes of pawns. The reader reached out to set the card aright, to see how that might affect the others spread out. Under usual circumstance, the resulting changes would ripple out until the energies balanced out, but instead, many cards close by stayed unaffected as if protected from outside influence. Curious. What would one of the bog apes do in this situation? Ah, yes. Poke it with a stick.
The task would cost him a couple of bottles of rum and an evening spent over a backroom pool table in a dingy Boston watering hole. The German marks may have broken the rack on this money game, but the push-out was his. They never should have pocketed the cue ball where he could find it.
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Katssun
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2 years 1 month ago #1048
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Tania Crossett typed out her annual message while waiting for her client to show. She selected a new spoofed number at random from a list of unallocated and inactive phone numbers and hit send.
“I will always fucking hate you. And I can always find you
”
They thought they had gotten smart this time and switched their numbers a week before she usually sent the message, the day of their anniversary. Working for the Syndicate paid off in more ways than one…
She had just picked up her Principles of Management textbook out of the tote on the floor when her client rolled up. A little flare of annoyance, followed up with a sigh got her back into business mode. Blazer pulled taut, skirt smoothed, 4-inch pumps…no…2-inch today, her client’s representative was short. Her wig’s golden blonde hair complying with the Sales Department dress code that had been selected for the Fall 2016 season; perfectly aligned straight locks, cut to hang precisely 3 centimeters above the curvature of the shoulders of her blazer. She popped open the door of her huge black SUV and put on a plastic smile to greet the man.
A tight sashay brought her to her client’s rep as he stepped down from his truck. Nobody walked this way in real life, but in the Biz, you kind of had to. Their clientele expected a show and presentation. Tania gave one. The man turned to her and she noted that his appearance matched the visual ID displayed on her convertible tablet, his assumed name and key phrase responses listed below the image.
“Mr. Vilnius?” she asked.
“Ms. Werner? I’m glad you were able to meet me before my flight to Denver.” He replied, matching the response phrase verbatim.
“Miss,” she corrected, starting her own response phrase, and extended her hand, which he took. Their phones both chimed together. “Please, no need for formality. Call me Madison.” Her badge was clipped at her waist, displaying ‘Madison Werner - Rocco Realty LLC.’ It had shifted as she called up the specific appointment on her paired tablet.
All three security checks passed, both eased almost imperceptibly.
“Shall we?” She gestured to the nondescript building that fit in planted in any industrial park. Simple double doors that were anything but the glass they appeared to be, and a ramp to a loading dock down the side. The painted aluminum superstructure hiding the non-explosive reactive armor of the true structure.
They entered the building, skimmed over the warehouse, shipping and office areas, and headed to the primary bulkhead doors hidden in the inventory shelves. Tania answered the client rep’s questions about personnel limits, water purification facilities, electronic and surveillance countermeasures, whether they’d be compatible with the control stations their organization had previously purchased from Steph. They would integrate into the facility’s systems, but she would arrange an appointment with FELICITY after they signed the paperwork, after providing an additional fee to both organizations. This resulted in a minor panic, a hushed phone call, but Tania had the standard contract for both the leasing company and FELICITY on her tablet, if this little oversight came to a bit of lawyer-type discussion. It was hardly the first time that had happened.
That cleared away, they moved onto power requirements. Tania brought up an elevation diagram of the facility, and gestured at a red-and-black striped block below the last sub-floor.
“A small nuclear reactor stored below the floor, resilient mounts in case of localized seismic perturbations,” sales department code words for superheroes smashing things nearby or within the facility, but it impressed the clients. “We guarantee a 99.5% uptime over the period of the lease, accounting for scheduled maintenance periods. Optional high-capacity surge load backup generators can be installed on the roof to ensure you have power for any and all experiments.”
The tour ended with the barracks and executive offices and quarters.
“Madison, it all looks in order, and I think your offices will be receiving a signed copy of the paperwork shortly. Digital is okay?” She nodded, the tech weenies took care of that. “But I do have one question. Why was there a pamphlet rack in the break room? I thought your organization’s post-client cleaning policy was more stringent.”
“Those were for the Witch Queen. This facility is well within her territory, hence the pricing on the lease. We do advocate that your organization check with her own, just in case. Our previous client found that she was more than satisfied with the installation of the display as the only...’consideration’ for operating this facility in her region. She does know the facility is here, and will likely attempt to infiltrate your ranks, if only to restock that display when she releases new product lines.”
“I will have to clear that with my management.”
“Please do. If you have any questions, direct your call to the main number. They will direct you to me, or my
management. If you’ll step this way, I’ll guide you back to the entrance.”
Tania returned to the freeway before dialing another number into the phone. It rang and rang. It was 6 pm! Her annoyance rose.
“Szczepanski.”
“Oh baby…I’m hot for teacher.”
“I’m a guard. You know that. Was before, still am.”
“But it’s so much more fun to say…” she purred to her favorite boyfriend. “How’s my alma mater doing?”
“Pure chaos. But I’m starting to settle in because that’s normal. How’d your day go?”
“I didn’t get any time to study between clients, but things went smoothly today…”
They talked until Tania got back to her empty apartment before hanging up. Tania wasn’t in the mood to call one of her other boyfriends. She never was after talking to Dave…
Kettlekorn
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2 years 1 month ago #1049
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Janak sat back and smiled as the girl skipped away down the hallway to get her own injuries looked at, then she glanced at the young guy behind the desk. He couldn’t be more than a couple years older than she was. She made a production of stretching, even giving a happy little moan as the movement pulled her dress tighter against her chest. Feeling warm and limber since her safe return to the ground, Janak flowed to her feet and slinked up to lean on the counter before him, making sure the angle was just right. “Hey... I was wondering, do you guys have any Burn Begone? I got kind of... carried away doing something a little too... hot, you know? So now I’ve got these burns on my chest, and when I was rubbing on my lotion a little while ago I realized I was almost out. Things are going to get pretty sore without frequent attention. Do you think that’s something you could help me with?”
“I, um. Yeah. Yeah, we have Burn Begone. The pharmacy is just down that hall and to the right.”
“Mmmmm,” she purred, sinking just a little closer to the countertop. “That’s good to know, but I’ve had a really long day. My feet are so sore. They really need a massage. Hell, all of me could use a good long massage. Do you think... do you think you could do me a favor and fetch the lotion yourself? I’m sure you know exactly where to go, and then I could just stay here and rest.”
“I’m really not supposed to leave my....”
He trailed off as Janak stretched her neck and shifted her shoulder just so. “Mmmm, that’s okay. I guess I can limp over there and get it myself.” She sighed. “But I’m just... so tired.” She grinned slightly, transitioning from an exhausted voice to a comfortably lethargic one. “And this lobby is so cozy.” She slumped a little bit more, letting the counter push her chest up while she smiled lazily at him. “I’d rather just stay here, you know?” She laughed faintly and let her eyelids lower a bit while her smile widened. “I could almost fall asleep right here at your counter....” The guy was looking a little warm now and seemed pretty conflicted. “Hey...” she drawled, “you wouldn’t happen to know a good masseuse you could recommend, would you? With nice, strong hands like yours?” She shifted a little without picking herself off the counter. “Someone who could give me a good rub down after I grab that lotion? Because I don’t wanna keep bothering you here. You’ve probably got a long, busy shift ahead of you. I’ll just... go get that stuff and get out of your hair....”
She started to straighten up, but the guy almost knocked his chair over as he leaped to his feet. “N- no,” he said. “That’s- You can stay right there and rest, and I’ll go grab your lotion. Not a problem at all! I’ll just be a minute.”
“Aw, thank you!” she purred as he slipped out from behind the corner. She didn’t miss how he angled his pelvis away from her; she rested her head on her arms to hide a smirk. As soon as he was out of sight, she channeled into her new silence ring and slipped over the countertop. She stopped channeling as soon as her feet were on the ground, not wanting to be caught by surprise if anyone approached, and began rummaging through the records from the previous night. “Ah, here you are,” she whispered. The name Krizz Kad was written in sloppy print between lines of script, followed by a silly little doodle and then some cramped notes about an infection written in another hand. All the way at the right was a file number. Janak took the pen and carefully modified the name to Krizzon Kad-Nar, then corrupted and smudged the file number. She glanced down the hall the receptionist had used, then bypassed the cheap lock on the file cabinet and rummaged through it for the referenced file. As soon as she was sure she had the right one, she slipped it into her satchel and retreated to the lobby’s sofa. Mission complete, she curled up and faked sleeping.
When Janak felt the guy enter her sensing range and set the Burn Begone gently atop her satchel, she cracked her eyes open for a moment, smiled, and snuggled the sofa with a soft hum. The new position she settled into presented her shoulders to him. He lingered a moment before leaning over her and reaching his hand toward the base of her neck. She held her breath as he hesitated an inch away, but then the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall and he snatched his hand back. Janak sat up and tried hard not to laugh as he rushed back to his spot behind the desk, shooting frequent glances at the hallway. She wouldn’t have minded the massage, nor the look on Krisik’s face when she walked in on it. Oh well!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Katssun
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2 years 1 month ago #1050
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
She looked over the translated words that hovered magically above the sheet, the details perfectly matching what had been explained to her. Dipping the pen into the small container filled with her blood, she signed her name on the elaborate contract and completed the seal with a press of her still-bleeding finger. The words on the page, which she knew wasn’t paper, flared with an eerie light before fading.
“Come,” her new master stated. “I will fulfill my end of the contract immediately, as detailed within.”
The being led her through endlessly twisted hallways that appeared to have infinite branches. She wasn’t sure if she would ever find her way back to the portal she had entered on her own, but then again, she had the next five years to learn the layout of the atelier.
After walking what felt like miles and miles, they approached a set of simple bronze doors. She should be exhausted, but the cameo around her neck seemed to be doing its job at granting her super-human endurance.
Her master pressed a claw-tentacle to the door. “As promised, The Karmic Engine.”
She slipped into the narrow gap created between the doors, and tried to take in the enormity of the machine before her. The closer she looked, she more detail she noticed. Gears, cogs, bevels, planetaries, tracks and vacuum tubes, and bubbling flasks. Shapes she had never seen before and could barely begin to describe. A low hum stood above the rest of the whirring sounds, and there was an undertone of something that she couldn’t hear or feel physically, but made her very mind vibrate. The more she focused to try and recognize the sensation, the further it slipped from her description. In front of all that, there was a simple stool of rosewood, and a tiny console with orbs inlaid in a lustrous metal. As she approached, the console shimmered and reformed into what looked just like an All-in-One PC and a standard QWERTY keyboard.
“For your benefit,” her master intoned behind her.
“How does it work?”
“Sit, and I believe you will figure it out rather quickly. The interface only requires a name, a sample from them, and it will handle the rest.”
She fished out the small plastic case from the pockets of her skirt and popped it open. A lock of hair rested within. She smoothed her skirt behind her as she sat down on the stool and the “monitor” came to life. There were only three icons: Target, Sample, Activate/Deactivate.
“I just want him to suffer.”
“That, my dear, is where patience comes into play. Every little bad thing they do, so long as the engine is focused on them, will come back several magnitudes. But the good too. That’s why you have to be patient. It will hurt you a great deal, seeing the temporary successes. Staying away and out of the way is key for you. The very nature of my price is what guarantees the outcome you desire, and keeps you far from the ever-growing storm that you are about to initiate.”
“But what good does it do me if he gets a promotion or wins the lottery! What about ME!?”
“That’s where you must have faith in the nature of the target, when combined with the power of The Engine. That, and the funny thing about good karma versus bad. You humans tend to gain some degree of ephemeral happiness from the results of amplified good karma. On the other end of the scales, you tend not to survive the results. The outcome you want? Simply a matter of turning off The Engine at the right moment.”
XaltatunOfAcheron’s Avatar
2 years 6 months ago #1001
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
At the Whitman freshman mixer.
Trilby said: “Thank you, Jasmine. Next up, Marla Jones. Tell us about yourself.”
The beautiful blonde stood up. Well, she was threatening to turn into a beautiful blonde, but at the moment she was more of an adorably cute blond 13-year-old with just a hint of curves. “Hi, I’m Marla, and if you can think of a nickname for Marla that I’d actually like, I’d love to hear it! I had kind of a quiet emergence; the biggest problem was peeling the Little League coach off of me when I dropped out - among other things, I’m an Exemplar 4. I’m also a Gadgeteer-Devisor combo - they think about a three. The weirdest thing, though, is this. Uh, make sure the door is locked, please.”
“How’d you get rid of the coach,” Stacy, who had gone earlier, asked. “Those people are obsessive!”
Marla giggled. “Mother made a call to some kind of Family relation I’d never heard of, and that she refused to tell me about. A week later, the team coach quit hassling me to come back. I have no idea what he, or maybe she, did, but the coach was looking a bit spooked for a couple of weeks.” She giggled.
She checked the door and then tapped a bracelet. The outer layer of her clothes vanished, causing a gasp. Another tap, another gasp, and then the third tap. This time jaws dropped as her skin vanished, showing her muscles and other bits of anatomy. Another tap, another layer. A few more taps, and there was just a skeleton. A final tap, and even the skeleton vanished, with the bracelet hanging, apparently unsupported, in the air. “Not so instant Invisible Girl!” The giggle came from the place where she was still standing.
After a few more taps, she reappeared, layer by layer. “And that,” she said as she curtseyed, “is why they call me Anatomy.”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago - 2 years 1 month ago #1002
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Well, I mean, if you’re stuck looking like your ten when you’re in high school, and you’ve already gotten a rap sheet from before you manifested, I guess I can see why you’d think ‘Billy the Kid’ makes sense as a codename,” Joe admitted.
<And you’d automatically be able to pull off the image of being an old-time outlaw, the kind that became folk heroes and shit,>, signed Jack. <It’s the same damn reason any idiot supervillain back home who wants sympathy plays to the memory of Ned Kelly. There have been something like a half dozen “Iron Bandit”s and “Iron Bushranger”s over the years, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting old any time soon.> The mocking barks that followed this statement made it clear just how little Razorback - and presumably, most other Australians - actually thought of this tactic.
“Still a damn stupid move, I say,” Eldritch, “The dumb fucker doesn’t even know anything about any of the guys who’ve used that name before, and every Cape and Secret Squirrel in the school will be watching his every move.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Cryptic
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2 years 6 months ago #1003
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
in the workshop
“Ooo, free doughnut!”
“Touch that and die. that’s my experiment to see how stable ‘Nut’s pastry manifestations are. I want to see if they, and maybe there calories, disappear.”
“Ummmm...”
“Besides it’s from breakfast and has been sitting out. It’s stalw.”
“You could have lead with that.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
null0trooper
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2 years 6 months ago #1004
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mrs. Shugendo nodded. “Why don’t you and your mom go down and finish dinner with your devisor friends?” she suggested. “And then maybe you and your friends can show her around the labs.”
The Scenic Tour
Thursday evening, September 27, 2007,
The Workshop, Whateley Academy
Unlike so many visitors, Sara Fields didn’t any reason not to be impressed by all the sights to be seen in The Workshop. And there were many of them: from the shaggy-haired boy who looked like Big Foot but worked with the most up-to-date micro-electronics, to the almost otherworldly girl from France who - to be honest the girl might as well have been speaking French when she described her work. She also got the impression that some of Bobby Earl’s classmates were surprised to have proof he was born instead of decanted out of some backwoods still.
“I have to tell ya, Ma, I don’t know for sure who’s back in these parts, ‘xceptin their main work is less in design and inventin’ and more hands-on building things. Lathes, presses, brakes, powered shears, all sorts of metalworkin’ equipment. To hear tell, half the machinery needs a computer programmer to get anything done.”
“I keep hearin’ that automation is still the direction most industries are going. Wouldn’t hurt ya to learn something about such things if you get the chance.”
“I know, but there’s only so much a body can learn in a day.”
“More like there’s only so much you wanna sit for. You ain’t foolin’ yer ma.”
As they continued walking to the next area, set off from the rest of the workshop because some projects being brought in for build or repair could be large but also because of the need for noise attentuation. Pneumatics, hydraulics, what have you, Fabricators’ Row could get loud. Sure enough, the common areas were equipped better than most custom auto or motorcycle shops could dream of. And whereas many of the other private labs kept a full set of incomprehensible tools, here the bays tended to be plastered with drawings of things to be made and schedules for getting all the pieces together at the right time to go forward.
From way down one of the spur passageways, Sara thought she could hear something that was outdated back when her Pa was still a young whippersnapper.
“Bobby Earl, am I hearin’ what I think I am?”
“I honestly don’t know. Can’t hurt to go look.”
When they got there, stopping for hearing protection along the way, it was exactly what Sara had guessed: a blacksmith had taken up shop back here. The most amazing thing might have been that the smith was a young woman. One much more healthily-built than the two gold-diggers, one might add. She eventually noticed that she had visitors, and set down the piece she was working on and her tools.
“Hello! Ah’m Abelyn Elliott, but call me ‘Abbie’ or ‘Smithy’ if you put a lot of stock in code names. Pleased to meet y’all?”
The girl looked normal compared to some of the folks they’d seen at the school, but the way that her eyes flickered red over brown gave away that she was a mutant.
“Er, Hi! I don’t recall that we’ve met yet. I’m Bobby Earl Fields, and this is my mother, Sara.”
“Pleased to meet you. I came up to see m’boy, and now Bobby Earl’s been showin’ me around this place. He’s what they call a devisor. Might I ask how you got all this here?”
“A friend of my Pa’s got our workshop all packed up and shipped before, well, some people aren’t as accepting of others as they should be if they’re going to go ‘round calling themselves Christians. But you didn’t come all this way to hear ‘bout that. First one as asked about the shipping, though. Let me give you the nickel tour.”
“I think Ma was also wondering about your powers?”
“Bobby Earl, there is a time and place!”
“That’s not a big deal here. Maybe it would be if I worked more with copper and your boy didn’t think to ask for help, but that’s different. The docs have me down as an Exemplar Three, Avatar Four, and Gadgeteer One, with some esper knacks thrown in. You want t’ know what my biggest power is? Not kickin’ the ever-loving crap out of a couple a’ boys who need their heads pulled back out of their be-hinds. I swear the one is fourteen-going-on-four!”
Bobby Earl paled just a little. Exemplar-3 meant this girl could bench-press him AND one of his stills if she got this mad at him.
“Abbie, the male of the species ain’t always the smartest. That’s why I ain’t married to this’n’s father no more.”
“Ain’t that the truth! So, anyway, as you can see here...”
All in all it was a pleasant tour, from high tech to (not so very) low tech. Sara just hoped her boy’s eyes were opened enough after all that nonsense with those two rich girls to notice that he didn’t have to settle for the first pretty young thing that happened to be nice to him.
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WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
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Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago - 2 years 6 months ago #1005
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Pungenday, Bureaucracy 44, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3178
(AKA 20 Sept 2008 e.v.)
And so it came to pass that the newly-titled Pope Ulvoh 33 1/3 (POEE, LDD, TGIF; Wearer of the Bell Bottoms of Doom) and her former rival (and soon-to-be boyfriend) Doktor Shwooshie the Slackfisticated (Master of the Dreaded Running Away Moan-euver) agreed to join forces against the ones known as Beltane and Thorn, and the legends of the days to come would be passed down for at least a while after the two noobs graduated four years hence...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 6 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Katssun
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2 years 6 months ago #1006
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Early Saturday Morning, July 2nd, 2016, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
She hit send, closed her email, and was about to log off her computer when she heard the clatter of a cheap plastic container on synthetic tile.
“Um…Tracey?
Before the last syllable was even out, Tracey Langford had shot across the room over the half-cubicle walls and pinned Alex Ibarra to the wall. The gray sash of her otherwise blue and white skintight costume settling behind her. She ran through several options in her head, but settled on what was arguably the lamest.
“Quiet! I’m glad I found you before they did. We need to get you out of here!”
Alex simply rolled his eyes. “Your desk. Your logon credentials…Macroburst. What the fuh-, hell are doing here Tracey? And like that?”
“What are you doing here?” she countered back, dodging the question.
“Software turnover. Didn’t go that well. Usually doesn’t. You should know that, because you were just checking your email.”
Tracey hadn’t gotten that far. She only dropped in to check on the progress with the Sidewinder contract. She had felt guilty about having to rush out early on Friday. After settling the paperwork up with the DPA, she had figured that nobody would be in at 6am to follow-up on what she had abandoned before finally heading home for some sleep. Not that she needed much of it, hadn’t for nearly three decades. Alex wasn’t about to give up, he had clearly made the connection.
“You can’t tell anyone!”
“What about the cameras?”
“AlphaMax doohickey,” she raised a small palm-sized devise made by her teammate. It worked in office buildings as easily as it worked in villain lairs. “You’d be in as much danger as I would be if my identity got out, you have to promise me!”
“We know that.”
Tracey froze. We? “Who else knows?!”
“Um…can you let me go first?” Alex said. She realized she still had him pressed into the wall four inches off the floor, and gently set him down. “Well…all of IT…”
“How do they all know?” she said, panicked.
“Uh, we talk. Duh. So…it’s like this…” Over the next few minutes, Alex outlined all the slipups Tracey had made the over the last year she had worked at the firm. Emily was smoking weed in the woods when she had seen Tracey slip into the trees by the back corner of the lot and fly off. Before that, the whole team had put together a spreadsheet that lined up her absences with appearances of Macroburst on Hero Watch. Before that, Alex and Tom both noticed that she looked an awful lot like Macroburst when compared to close ups on Hero Watch.
“Do I really look like Tracey Langford?” She glanced down at her firm and undeniably incredible curves, wrapped snugly in bulletproof materials before she gave Alex a suggestive and teasing look.
“Uh…Fatima heard you in the bathroom struggling to put your Frump-a-dump padding back in place. That’s kinda what started the spreadsheet.”
Tracey slumped her shoulders before nailing Alex with a very serious look. “You guys can’t tell anyone. I’m serious.”
“We’re not stupid. We’re IT. Whoever you had beef with could come here to kill you as easily as anywhere else.”
Tracey had had a number of other jobs over the years, and while she certainly had gotten complacent, and wasn’t one to talk with this latest series of failures, she knew that those first two statements were not necessarily mutually exclusive. “Who else knows?”
“Half the floor. A least three of the directors. Charlie. The three other girls, sorry, women, in contracts didn’t believe us until Fatima told them about the Frump-a-dump paddding. Now they hate you for being able to eat whatever you want and never show it in your uniform.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. Her boss knew. Her boss’ boss seemed to know. Her immediate coworkers were jealous of her eating habits. “Is that all?”
Alex looked toward the ceiling without really focusing on anything, “Uhhm…so half this floor, and I can confirm a corner of the floor upstairs, including Cecile.”
“She’s openly with Humanity First Alex!”
“I know! So…Emily was fixing Brandon Jacques’ computer in the next cube, he knows, by the way, and Emily was making sure they were loud enough so even Cecile could hear, and the two of them started deliberately going on and on about those fake gems you have there,” he pointed at the decorative plastic pieces on the belt she stored AlphaMax’s handouts in, “About how there those were clearly your power gems, and there’s no way you were a mutant, because mutants all look like freaks.”
Dammit! Tracey had been hoping to retire from heroing soon, after being active for almost 20 years, and she really liked this job for once. Even her little part of it, she felt like she was helping more people all at once, for good, instead of helping hand during a moment of crisis. But everyone knew.
“Just…just…try to keep it quiet. Please?” Tracey begged dejectedly. She’d figure out what to do after talking it over with her team. Right now, she just needed some sleep, or a least to curl up under the sheets. And hoped she still had some of that booze that affected her at her place.
“Woah, woah. I didn’t expect this, but now that you’re here, now, um…out...we gotta talk price.”
She turned back and glared at Alex with a look that made hardened gang members in Charlotte wet themselves. Alex’s eyes widened, but then he just frowned.
“And my fucking phone is on my fucking desk…Macroburst’s trademark glare. Close. Up.” He scooped up his cleaned container off the floor. “We agreed, IT I mean, that if it ever came out, at least to just us, and you didn’t like, leave immediately or something, that we wanted just one thing.”
High tech toys from her other coworkers, sex, someone from their past beat up, protection, hotline, photo ops, the whole list ran through her head at once. “Depends on what it is…” she relented, pinching her nose with her fingers.
“Supers gossip. Heroes, villains, both. You need to give us the latest dirt. Stuff that doesn’t show on Hero Watch. The juicy stuff.”
Fuck. The only thing worse than office gossip was that type of gossip.
XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 6 months ago #1007
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
This has been sitting on my system for close to 8 years, and has gone nowhere. Feel free to use or ignore it.
Accreditation Visit.
by Xaltatun of Acheron
Dave Steel walked into the corner office. “Hi, boss. You wanted to see me?”
“Kick the door closed and grab a chair,” Mike Darling said. “Got a question.”
“OK.”
Mike sat forward and folded his hands. “This is going to sound awfully strange. Tell me to go to hell, tell me it’s none of my business. Just don’t lie to me.”
“What the heck?”
“How do you feel about mutants?”
Dave frowned. “This is job related?”
“Yes.”
“So we’ve got some kind of mutant facility we need to do a building inspection on. Huh.” He paused. “I’ve never really thought about it. I just want to be far away when the fit hits the shan. Otherwise.” He paused again and then shrugged. “They’re people, and they deserve the same protection of the laws as everyone else.”
“Good enough. Are you up to heading the building inspection for Mutant High?”
Dave’s head came back. “You’re telling me it’s not a fable?”
“On the other side of the mountains.”
“There’s nothing in the files that even comes close.”
“Dave, Dave. You of all people should know better. You put as many fake reports in the file as everyone else combined.”
Dave rolled his eyes. “Politicians.”
“Yeah. This isn’t a whorehouse, though.”
“Well, someone’s got to do it. Where are they hiding it?”
“Whateley Academy.”
“Whateley. Academy. Hm. That’s Mutant High?” He steepled his hands for a moment. “Lots of things suddenly make sense.”
“I’ll bet. This is a Joint Accreditation Visit. Get everything done in one pass. Jeb always said the team they send up from the Pentagon is real pros. Pain in the ass, but still pros. You served in Desert Storm, that’ll help with them. It’s the teachers from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges that usually have shell shock.”
Dave grinned. “I’ll bet. So Jeb was doing it before? Did he leave any notes?”
null0trooper
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2 years 6 months ago #1008
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“...while the State of New Hampshire has no intention of adopting the South Florida Building Code, upgrading to compliant roofing, roof to foundation structural connection, and windows stands a good chance of becoming cost-effective over time.”
Dave Steel knew his reason for being here was an exercise in creative writing, and most of the school was over-engineered compared to code, but thanks to his kids he’d seen “The Sorceror’s Apprentice” countless times. Just the thought of roofing slates coming off in high winds reminded him that this place was way too close to Dunwich to rule out worst cases.
“Mister Steel,” Elizabeth Carson chose her words carefully here, “while our students may be quite exceptional, our funding is less so.”
“I’m sure of it, but the risk of loss from one conjured hurricane?”
One of the school’s maintenance supervisors looked to Mrs. Carson and mouthed “Thunderstorms in the bathroom.”
“However, in view of renovations being considered you make an excellent and timely point.”
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Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 6 months ago - 2 years 6 months ago #1009
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
23 September 2015
Melissa Samson rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time this month at the ‘rumor’ about Caitlin Bardue. She actually knew the truth - she had vague memories of ‘uncle’ Erik Mahren, and knew ‘aunt’ Cait was the same person - but she warmed up to once more trot out the cover story Daddy and Uncle Mike (even she had trouble telling them apart sometimes) said to use...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 6 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
null0trooper
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2 years 6 months ago #1010
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
As the Syllabus Doth Ever Evolve
Earth Mother, 1977 wrote: “Now we will be starting by teaching you how to make and use a wand. As you will find when you do your homework, there are different correspondences for different materials, just as there are different approaches to magic. The school store either carries or can order any of a number of suitable materials, so you are encouraged to experiment.”
“Dude! I have the wildest idea: why not use a chemically altered substance?”
“Because you’re an idiot?”
Caduceus, 2007 wrote: “Now we will be starting by teaching you how to make and use a wand. Because of past incidents involving nitrocellulose and lathes, we require that you use natural wood for this assignment. The school store carries the most commonly used woods: oak, thorn, ash (which we recommend for a general-purpose wand.) However, other woods can be ordered, such as ebony or rowan, or gathered from the wild.
“I’ve got just the thing!”
“I knew we should have searched your backpack more thoroughly.”
Miss Grimes, 2017 wrote: “Now we will be starting by teaching you how to make and use a wand, using one of these blanks. By which I mean, one of these blanks for each enrolled student in this class.”
Smoky huffed at the indignity. HE was a dragon! SHE - well, she probably could kick his scaly butt.
“As you will find when you do your homework, there are different correspondences for different materials, but we will start with Ash as we are going to make a more general-purpose wand. In years past, the Department used to allow students more leeway in their choices,”
“Miss Grimes, what was the problem with that? Harry Potter’s wand was made from holly.”
Her right eye twitched at the mention of That One, but she said, calmly, “Holly is a good good choice for many wand uses. It also costs three to six times as much as comparable oak or ash. The reason we now supply ash wand blanks is not to spite Ms. Rowling, but because we do not care to support further destruction of Yggdrasil.”
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WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
XaltatunOfAcheron
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2 years 6 months ago #1011
XaltatunOfAcheron replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
This one hasn’t been sitting on my system quite as long as the last one, but it’s also going nowhere. The excerpt I’m showing is stroking one of my pet peeves: the design of Arena 99. It might be early enough to redesign it for Gen 2. If anyone has any interest, I’d be willing to say a bit more of what I’ve been thinking.
- - -
Sted “Ponygirl” Lancaster sat in the Arena Stands, looking idly at the huge screen on the front wall. The screen went wall to wall and ceiling to the floor of the stage, covering the wall completely. It was one unit, built from a technology that made the latest display screens from the big manufacturers whimper from a sense of abject inadequacy. It wasn’t that there was anything impossible, well, except maybe the quantum dot light emitters, it was just that it wasn’t possible for anyone to fabricate a screen that big, with the backing electronics that could maintain a smooth 120 frames per second.
While the screen itself was a pure gadget - it obeyed the laws of nature - the technology that built it was equally pure devise. She knew how it worked: that was part of her talent, and she could build the devises that could repair this screen or build an equivalent screen. What she didn’t have down yet was the ability to do it directly, using the telekenetic abilities that let her make gems and small parts just by holding the raw material between her hands. Making *that* work was proving to be inordinately difficult.
Arena 99, of course, was not behind the screen. It was underground, over a mile away, and connected via the tunnel system. Arena 99 had invisible cameras that the human director, or cis backup AI, could manuver so the action would appear on the screen. It had to have something like that - the Arena was simply too big for a fixed viewpoint to be able to follow the action.
*That* technology was something that Sted didn’t understand. At all. Probably a good thing, too. If that kind of surveilance technology escaped....
She shook her head. In the last combat final, the two idiots had decided to fight it out between themselves before trying to rescue the hostages, with the predictable result: the hostages got killed and the perps escaped, leaving the building a smoking ruin.
The screen cleared to show various scenes around Whateley. Boring. Then it cleared again to show two numbers: 418 and 632. 418 was the number she’d been assigned. She decided to throw the bookies a bit of a problem and went invisible as she got up from where she’d been hovering, almost as if she was sitting. She floated down to the door to the waiting area.
. . .
Another door opened, and Gunny Bardue entered. He glared at the two students, as if their mere existence meant they’d inevitably screw up and earn his wrath, and he was getting an early start on that wrath.
“Listen up! A terrorist group called Storm Cloud hit Mutual Life a couple of hours ago. For a change, the local police SWAT unit was on the ball, and they’ve holed up in the upper floors of the Mutual Life building, with a gaggle of the corporation’s executives and workers as hostages. Your job is to free the hostages. Whether or not you eliminate the terrorists at the same time doesn’t matter, although the prosecutors would like a few warm bodies to persecute.
“Any questions?”
Sted cocked her head slightly. “What else do we know? Are the perps baselines, what kind of power set do they have, what does the SWAT team know?”
Gunny grinned. “They’ve got a projective empath and a fire manifestor. Beyond that the usual: AK-47s and other mayhem machines. Pony, you’ve got door 1.”
She walked toward door 1 and entered the teleport booth. A moment later she found herself in the Arena.
Schol-R-LEA
Schol-R-LEA’s Avatar
2 years 6 months ago #1012
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dec 2006
As they crossed the state line into Illinois on their way back to Missouri, Louie and Lloyd both felt that they could relax again for the first time since this insanity began. Just how The Reynard had known where they kept that accursed rock, and how to get at it without setting off any of their wards, remains a mystery; what wasn’t a mystery was what he planned to do with it. They found the damned fox just a mile outside of Cincy and making a beeline towards that convention.
Looking down at the box now handcuffed to his arm, Lloyd frowned. Word had gotten out about the debacle at the convention center that afternoon. If that fruitcake had gotten her hands on the Star of the South, there was no telling what horrors might have been unleashed. They had the Sly One bottled up tight, but how many others were going to come looking for that thing, hoping to restore it through that oddball’s power?
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
null0trooper
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2 years 5 months ago #1013
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Friday morning, September 1, 2007,
Office of Dr. Bellows, Doyle Medical Center, Whateley Academy
Before coming to Whateley Academy, Kris would have considered it an insult to be placed in ‘English 101’. His advisor, Dr. Alfred Bellows, explained that it was the regular course for freshmen, emphasizing that the other students were, technically speaking, native speakers.
“Perhaps this will help you understand.” Dr. Bellows walked over to several shelves of books, picked one up, and opened it to a well-memorized page. “It’s a song that many of your fellow students will have come across in middle school or grade school.” He handed the book to Kristian. “Please read this and tell me what it means.”
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
At first, Kristian wasn’t even sure if all of it was in English. After his third attempt at reading the text, he still wasn’t sure. “Errrr. It’s describing spring out in the country? But I don’t get what it has to do with singing... cuckoos, in the summer?”
“Would it help if I told you that when this was written, ‘summer’ referred to the time from planting to harvest, or roughly from May Day to All Saints Day? Cuckoos were often heard in late April and May, so they could be seen as a sign of summer.”
“That still doesn’t help out much, no.”
“Then let’s try the regular course and see how it goes, shall we?”
“I, er, think I see your point.”
Dr. Bellows smiled. “I’ll send you a copy to translate at your leisure. You might find it more interesting than it looks. By the way, if you start falling behind, please let me know so we can arrange for a tutor. Freshman English has as high a demand for good tutors as some math courses.
Monday morning, November 5, 2007,
Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
“Hey, Kris! How’s English class treating you?”
Mads was rarely this cheerful in the morning without reasons for which Kristian didn’t want to be implicated as an accomplice.
“Better than certain freshmen I could name, why?”
The lunatic grinned at that. Considering that he was the freshman in mind... “I heard you hadn’t finished an assignment, and thought you could use a little help! Here ya go!”
Mads laid a torn-out notebook page face-down on the cafeteria table, and walked off. That wasn’t suspicious at all.
Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ]
4th Period, English I,
Schuster Hall
Kris was still working on a translation to English at the start of fourth period. He had the words, or thought he had them, but he couldn’t reconcile the modern to the old. There were a few minutes left before class started, so he asked Abbie for help.
“Um, Kris, why are you trying to translate ‘Summer is a-coming in’?”
“Would you believe my counselor is involved?”
“Just how far did you get in Boy Scouts before coming here?”
“Why do people keep asking me that?”
Mrs. Devlin walked up from behind the two students. “Might I see what’s so interesting? Who knows, I might even be able to shed some light on the subject.”
Abbie’s face turned a light pink as she handed the paper to their teacher, even though she’d learned the song in grade school (or thought she did!)
“Mister Holm. Miss Elliott was asking that question because she was, I’d wager, thirty seconds from a detention for lewd language.”
“What? Lewd? But that’s... I meant. What did I mean?”
“I suspect you were going to attempt to explain a usage for a certain verb of motion that is known to date to the 17th century poem “Walking In A Meadowe Greene”. Given the play on a well-known Latin homonym, and the similarity of origin and themes, the pun may date to the thirteenth century or earlier. Suffice it to say that we will not be discussing these things in this class.”
Monday evening, November 5, 2007,
Crystal Hall, Whateley Academy
Kristian slammed down his notebook next to Metro’s meal substitute. “What the hell is this poem supposed to be about?”
“You’ve heard of ‘the birds and the bees’, right?”
“How does a cuckoo have anything to do with that?”
“You see, even though a momma bird may love a pappa bird very much that doesn’t guarantee that all of her needs are met when summer haying rolls around. So there are some birds that give other birds the bird (or, perhaps, a hand if not a fist) in ploughing a well-tilled and fertile field. Nine months later a stork flies by with a parcel addressed to occupant.”
The verbal input wasn’t computing, but empathy is very handy at picking up intent. Metro’s mind could be dirty enough for two people without this much self-provocation.
“I think I hate you very much right now.”
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Discussion Thread
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 5 months ago #1014
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“We have Rollers coming up on our 40!” ‘Danny’ reported. ‘Miss Scarlet’ didn’t have her minions answer to numbers or ‘theme’ names, as some supervillains did. She felt it depersonalized them more than it hid their identities. So she assigned them cover names, and they were Ace, Bill, Charley- through Hank.
Miss Scarlet adjusted her trademark red cloud so that it billowed over the wheeled security drones, and then started potting them with her BFG. “How’s the Vault coming, Eddie?”
“We have 127 out of 184 combinations cracked,” Eddie replied as he monitored the computerized codebreaker. “Another five minutes, but we can kiss a clean swipe goodbye.”
“That’s already blown,” she pointed out. “George, how’s our exit holding?”
“We have Armed Security on our back porch, and I’m getting chatter that we can expect someone from the White Hat community soon.”
“Three minutes would be better!” Miss Scarlet snapped to Eddie as she shifted her BFG, so that instead of blasting the ‘rollers’, it disrupted them. She used that setting to shut down the drones that crowded the choke point. That kept the ones behind them from simply advancing over the blasted wrecks and blocked the choke points.
But, she mused as she shut down the rest of the drones, it also blocked them from using that as a means of exit as well. Once she’d fried the rest, Miss Scarlet let her BFG cool a bit. Then she switched over and loaded a slug the size of a spray can. As the slug charged up to ‘critical risk’ levels, she checked her smartphone for the floorplans of the lab and the Engineer’s notes. She picked one option and marked a spot on one wall with an X in grease pencil. She stepped back, and just as the BFG was beginning its ‘critical overload’ alarm, let off a blast. The blast knocked a large hole in the wall. “Well, Eddie?” she asked as she, Bob and Danny knocked loose bits from the edge of the hole.
“I have Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… BINGO!” The combination released the final catch on the last restraining bolt, and the vault opened.
“Why is it so cold?” Bob asked. “I thought this was an Engineering place, not Biowar stuff!”
“It is,” Miss Scarlet said as she pulled a solenoid-driven pry-vice from her red overcoat. She went unerringly to one drawer and opened it with a bang and a crack. “These are next-step liquid crystal AI cores. Before their core imprinting is done, they have to remain frozen.” She used insulated tongs to lift a dull white box that suspiciously resembled a quart of ice cream from the drawer. She put the box in one of the thermal ‘lunch box’ containers they brought. She expertly removed eight more boxes, stashed them in containers and handed them off.
She finished, had the boys get ready and radioed, “Ace, we are GO.”
With that, Miss Scarlet led her men through the hole, bypassing three Security checkpoints, a small army of Security guards, and more RC hardpoints than she cared to think about. As they moved, she prepped another slug, but not to critical risk levels again, and blasted open a pair of heavy armored security doors.
Past those doors, they rushed across an open stretch of concrete that offered absolutely no cover. But then they were pinned down by a beam of bright green light from above. “HALT, EVIL-DOERS!” blared a high feminine voice. “Surrender, or face the power of the Green Beacon!” Floating maybe fifteen feet above the ground was a trim young girl in a shades of green bodysuit with white gloves, boots and belt. She had clear crystalline bracers on her wrists, with matching visor and belt buckle. Her straight green hair was cut in a ‘bowl’ pageboy with bangs, and her lips were painted green.
*****
“’Halt Evildoers’?” Viv echoed hours later in the debrief room of the lair under the Harrow homestead. “’Surrender, or face the power of the Green Beacon’?”
“What are you complaining about?” Jessie asked as she pulled off her green polyester wig. “Thanks to me, Next Horizon’s™ Security put out an ‘answered’ bleat to their ‘Code Kent’ alert. Even so, Kid Galahad turned up. If I hadn’t been there, someone competent might have shown.”
“Yeah, the Kid seems to have decided that you’re his Catwoman, Sis,” JD said. “He was not happy that I got between him and your getaway vehicle.” He massaged the bruise on his chin.
“Oh, like you two were there to help me,” Viv grumped.
“What are you kvetching about?” Jessie demanded. “You got to blast me through a window!”
“What was I supposed to do, with you floating right in front of that window like a sitting duck?” Then a thought occurred to Viv. “That was deliberate. What were you up to?”
With a smirk, Jessie reached behind her and pulled a 3-inch diskette that Vivian recognized as the latest mass-market 3 Terabyte external data storage drive. “Next Horizon’s emergency backup disk for their superconductor experiments.”
JD gave Jessie a challenging grin and produced a shoebox-sized and shaped container. “The testing prototype for that very superconductor.”
Luke leaned over the table at the drive and prototype with ‘Mad Science’ greed showing through the eyeholes of his mask. “Annnddd… how much are you asking for these?”
Vivian scowled and gave out a low groan like an annoyed cat.
“What’s the matter, honey?” Nick asked his oldest daughter. “So JD and Jessie walked out of it with something. So what? Each of those frozen AI cores is worth an easy 50K on the Black Market, and you bagged NINE of them! That’s almost a half million. Even after operating expenses-”
Viv fell forward and buried her face in her crossed arms. “My fences are low-balling me,” she grumbled through her arms. “They say there was a mysterious rash of ‘break-ins’,” she made air quotes to denote the dubiousness of the claim, “in Silicon Valley, Denver, Cincinnati and Durham. Suddenly, AI cores are a drug on the market.”
Luke started to make a comment about not hearing anything about it, but he was shut down by a sharp look from his brother. It was a pathetically transparent example of fences driving down prices, once the object in question had been stolen.
“Still, you ran a very competent raid,” Nick said consolingly. “None of your men were hurt, let alone captured, you got in and out without any blood-shed and you accomplished your goal. And to be honest, you didn’t really need Jessie to show up; you could have handled Kid Galahad in your sleep.”
“Operating expenses ate up most of my profit,” Viv groused. “That new escape vehicle chewed up most of it.”
“Maybe, but it was money well spent,” Luke said. “A Vortexian™ VTOL airship with Stealth, Silent Running, a 6-missile rack, an AI auto-pilot and a screen generator for your trademark red mist. And you’re grooming a very good squad of henchmen, dear.”
“Yeah….” Viv picked up her head, still glowering. “But I’m not having any FUN.”
“hah?”
“I’m not having any FUN!” Viv repeated herself. “I mean, JD is having the time of his life running around being all spooky and grabbing everything valuable that isn’t welded to the floor. Jay-jay is having fun doing super-powered cosplay, and pulling off sneaky little grabs. You? You’re having fun as a criminal little league coach.”
“Pop Warner supervillainy…” JD mused.
“Pony League Smash & Grab!” Jessie countered.
JD was about to top that, when his father quashed that with a stern *ahem!*
“I mean, what’s the POINT of being a supervillain, if it’s just a JOB?” Viv asked rhetorically. “I don’t have a big social or political point to make, I can probably make just as much money psychically insider trading on the Stock Market if it’s just money, and as for power? Hell, I could get more tangible power by marrying into Old Money and running my husband’s political career for him. So, if I’m not having fun, then what’s the point?”
“You’re worrying too much, Viv,” Luke said with an avuncular pat on the shoulder. “It just means that you haven’t found your ‘voice’ yet. Let’s face it, you have a feel for supervillainy. Like Nick said, even without JD and Jessie butting in, you could have handled Kid Galahad with one hand tied behind your back. You’re learning, you’re developing a good store of gear, and your men actually trust and respect you. It would be a shame if you punked out now. You just have to find out what works for YOU.
“Heck, I remember my first couple of operations as ‘Cyber-Spider’,” Luke let out a laugh of mixed amusement and embarrassment. “Not only were they absolute debacles, but even when I managed to pull it off, I was just so frustrated! It turned out that I was trying to copy Nick’s ‘sneaky master criminal’ act, instead of going with my strong suit- Trained Engineering Logic. HE thinks in oblique convoluted tangles that rely on completely baffling his opponents; I just problem-solve. Figure out what tool is needed for the job, and get it there.”
Nick gave his brother a glower for the less than flattering description of his operating technique, but let it slide. “Luke’s right about one thing, Hon: you just need to find your own special style. Once you’ve got that figured out, the rest will come. And you’re right about something too, Viv- if it ain’t fun, then why are you doing it? In the immortal words of Henry Gondorff: ‘There’s no sense in being a grifter, if it’s the same as being a citizen.’”
*****
Viv listened to Madison whine on about what Emily said to Sarah, and it was all she could do to not throw the phone across the room. WHY was putting up with this? She didn’t CARE what was happening at that stupid medium-rate private school for the middle-management losers of tomorrow! Before she figured out how Jake had been playing her, this had been meat and drink to her. Now, it was like her old Barbie™ dolls; she rarely even looked at them. But she still had to go to school to keep her grades up so she wouldn’t be stuck with the retards when she went to Whateley next year.
Then she noticed something that was only slightly less annoying. Asha was standing there with her doll, Musette, clutched to her chest. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet slightly, and her eyes were sparkling. Which meant that she had some choice information she was looking to sell.
Viv thought about it for a moment. On one hand, Asha was even more annoying than Madison. On the other hand, she might actually have something useful to tell her. And she couldn’t just pick it out of her head; Asha was her sister, after all. Worse, Asha was sharp enough to know it, and would rat her out to Mom in a second. Besides, she could always get back to Madison; what Asha had might not stay fresh that long. “Madison? Gotta go. Family stuff. Lates!” she cut the connection and looked at Asha. “So, Squirt? What’s the deal?”
Viv didn’t need to probe Asha to hear the ‘I know something I won’t tell’ chant going on in her mind, the little spore was practically podcasting it. “Well, I was playing in Jay-jay’s new wagon-”
“Y’know, Mom doesn’t like it when you do that,” Viv reproved her annoying kid sister. “They still haven’t taken care of all of Akelarre’s security wards, and the old goat was so sneaky, she could have something really nasty still waiting to-”
Asha cut off her sister with a ‘who do you think you’re kidding?’ look. “Anyway, Jay-jay was working on a big heist, a big ol’ power jewel or somethin’, but Mom said she hadda put it off, ‘cause of some magical training thing, and Mom’s all ‘discipline this, discipline that’.”
A magical power jewel? “What kind of jewel? How big?” It was cutting it very close to poaching someone else’s score, but JJ had been one-upping her every step of the way ever since that stupid birthday fiasco. Viv needed to pull off something right under JJ’s nose, just to put the little weirdo back in her place. And a magical jewel was almost automatically worth 100 times than a stone of the same size and clarity.
Asha mimed holding a stone between thumb and forefinger, about 3 inches apart. Woof! No wonder JJ was interested in it! If Viv could swipe that stone, not only could she sell it for enough to pay for Whateley and a sports car, but she’d be one up on JJ- where she belonged.
The negotiation was long and hard. Asha was only six years old, but by that very virtue, she regarded the world as hers by right, and that big people were getting in the way of it. Asha wanted to be able to use JJ’s wagon as a playhouse; she settled for Viv’s Barbies.
*****
Asha also provided JJ’s notes and research on the Heart of Azdaja; well, it wasn’t like Viv was ever going to use that Barbie™ Dreamhouse or sports car again anyway…
Though losing the Fab Fashion Accessory Closet hurt…
JJ’s target was a super-sorcerer known as ‘the Gatewarden’.
Ugh. And Mom wondered why Viv passed on the whole magic scene.
At any rate, besides a doohickey called ‘the Key of Cinvat’, which was supposed to be major, the Gatewarden’s big deal was an amulet that had the ‘Heart of Azdaja’- Viv wondered what it was, that all these big deal mythological beings were always leaving their eyes and hearts and hands and other parts of their anatomy lying around where mages could work them into amulets?- a large blue stone. The Gatewarden as supposed to be a super-sorcerer, which meant that he was powerful, but old school mages like Mom and Gran’Pere got up on their Old Money horses and looked down at him like he was nouveau riche or something.
He was probably pretty dishy- if you were into old guys who ran around in silk pajamas .
According to JJ’s notes, the Gatewarden got his nom de guerre because he styled himself as the guardian or ‘warden’ of some kind of mystical ‘gate’ that was under his house. The picture of the house looked like a backup location for an ‘Addams Family’ movie. Obviously that ‘key’ he had was supposed to be for that gate. Viv wasn’t sure how and she didn’t really want to know.
Nobody in the area messed with the Gatewarden. Viv wasn’t sure whether that was because he could tap into the power of the gate, or they didn’t want to keep him from standing guard on whatever was on the other side of that gate. So trying to take the key was stone-cold out.
But the Heart of Whoever was totes a whole other matter. The Heart buffed the Gatewarden’s ability to scry and sense and see through illusions, and all like that. Basically it was a Hi-Def, Max-Rez Directional Radar dish for magic. He wouldn’t be as kickass without it, but he could still do the job. Which struck Viv as cutting it a mite thin, but if JJ thought it was okay, and Mom agreed, so what?
The bitch really was getting the Gatewarden off his turf with all the protections and gargoyles and wards and crap, where he was so badass. The trick was going to be getting him out of that Munsters-knockoff house, while he was still carrying the Heart with him. Viv grinned evilly. Fortunately, if JJ’s notes were right, she wouldn’t have any problems with that.
*****
“Are you sure about this?” Mr. Fixit asked as they peered around the gloom. The Halliwell Refuge for the Troubled had been a product of a very nasty period in the history of Mental Health provision in America, and it had an equally nasty local reputation. But then, most abandoned insane asylums do.
“No,” the Silver Sorceress admitted. “But if we’re going to find a whole unbound dynamorph to power your new Effects Generator, we’ve got to explore the possibilities.”
“Yeah,” Maxiwoman grunted with annoyance as she panned her flashlight across the dusty corridor. “No offense, Stan, I know you’re doing your best with what we got, but the rigs we’ve got now manage to be very straining and still manage to be lame. I can barely punch through a cinderblock wall with this.”
“Right,” Captain Intrepid said. “But why are we doing the ‘Scooby-Doo’ shtick? What’s with the flashlights? Why don’t we just turn on the power?”
“According to our source, the mysterious lights have only been seen at this hour,” the Silver Sorceress answered. “A bunch of paranormal phenomena is photophobic- that is, it doesn’t like light- so looking for them during the daylight would be counterproductive.”
“Okay, then why am _I_ here?” Guiding Light asked nervously.
“Because if whatever the lights are are photophobic- and hostile- you’ll be our ace-in-the-hole,” Moonbeam explained.
“Besides, Major Speed is a-scared of the dark,” Maxiwoman sneered.
“And there’s the fact that the property management company wouldn’t give us permission to search the place,” the Silver Sorceress pointed out. “At least not unless we signed over all rights to anything we find,” she added sourly.
“You mean we’re here illegally?” Guiding Light squeaked.
“It will only be an issue if we find anything,” Maxiwoman assured her.
“And as for the darkness,” Mr. Fixit cut in, “this place hasn’t been maintained or repaired since that nasty incident in 1980. Between vandals, water damage and vermin-” he fixed a scuttling rat with the beam of his flashlight. “- if they turned on the power, odds are the most it would do is start an electrical fire.” He peered at the tricorder-like packet in his hand. “I’m getting a reading.”
“Is it Life- but not as we know it?” Captain Intrepid quipped.
Mr. Fixit put his flashlight away and focused on his ‘tricorder’. He swung the packet around and finally said, “From the input I’m getting from the sensors we planted as we searched, I’d say that the phenomenon was on the Third Floor, in the East Wing, and heading North… towards… the Chapel…”
“But…” Guiding Light whispered, “that’s… where the 1980 incident happened!”
Captain Intrepid took his cell phone from his ear. “Speed just called. He said he saw lights. Third Floor. East Wing. Heading North.” Through the half-mask of his hood, you could see his expression saying, ‘this is what we came here for.’
“Okay!” Moonbeam snapped. “But if 1960s bubblegum pop starts playing, I’m leaving with Shaggy and Scooby!”
*****
Dim lights shone through the stained glass insets beside and built into the heavy wooden double doors to the infamous chapel. There was decades’ worth of graffiti everywhere and the ‘Police Scene’ tape was still there, but the lock and heavy chain lay at the sill of the doors.
Mr. Fixit pointed his ‘tricorder’ at the door. “It’s in there, whatever it is. Okay People, power up.” With a mental command, servos and components unfolded from his backpack and configured themselves into a high-tech instrument- though more slowly and stiffly than his old rig had. The others also hit their triggers, though they paid a lot more attention to the charge and time threshold indicators than they had with their old rigs.
“Hold it,” the Silver Sorceress said, pulling out her cell phone. “If it’s a dynamorph, we’re good- but if it’s not, we should have some backup ready.”
“You don’t mean HIM,” Guiding Light said with a tone of dismay.
“He brought us into this thing in the first place,” the Silver Sorceress reminded them.
“But he’s so obnoxious!” Maxiwoman groaned.
“If it’s supernatural, he brings the big guns into the fight,” Cap pointed out.
Mr. Fixit screwed up his face with inner conflict, clearly having a ‘being the leader stinks’ moment. Finally, he said in a cold, flat dead voice, “Make the call.”
The Silver Sorceress made the call, cut a deal, and 15 minutes later, she said, “He’s good.”
Mr. Fixit gave Captain Intrepid the go-ahead, and Cap kicked in the doors, knocking them off their hinges.
A soft eerie light filled the desecrated chapel, casting a creepy pall on the pews, regalia, icons- and decades old bloodstains. The light came from a pair of shiny brass oil lamps that hung in the air a good three feet off the floor.
“Is… it a dynamorph?” Guiding Light asked, poking her head in the door. “Or… something else?”
“How would _I_ know?” the Silver Sorceress asked back. “I only play a witch on TV!”
“It’s… reading… something,” Mr. Fixit admitted as he fiddled with the ‘tricorder’. “Just not bands or patterns that I’ve identified for dynamorphs.”
“Oh, this is just pathetic!” Maxiwoman groaned. She strode forward, her cap flowing behind her. She strutted up to the two lamps and sneered back at her confreres, “Big brave superheroes.” She gripped the lamps, on in each hand, and they came free. She turned and showed the lamps to the others with a ‘see, that wasn’t so hard’ smirk.
“Thanks Babe,” growled a low raspy male voice with a noticeable accent. “It would’a really screwed me over if I’d broken those free of their plat myself. But since yer mundane, it worked like a charm.”
Maxiwoman looked through the doors and saw behind the Sensational Seven a group of men and women in oddly tricked out biker denims. And that was the last she saw of that, as the doors slammed shut in her face.
As the Sensational Seven (less one) turned, the speaker stepped forward from the pack with the mien of a leader. There were ten of them, six men and four women. Most of them wore biker’s mixture of leather and denim, with a lot of strapped on bits of plate armor. Most of them bared their arms, as to display a lot of ritual scars in the patterns of Futhark runes, and they’d just cut themselves on one or more of the runes, as they were bleeding. The bleeding did nothing to diminish the eager gleam on anticipated battle on their faces. Here and there, one or more of the runes, either on the scars or on the bits of armor glowed red. The sole exception was a tall strapping blonde woman in a leather duster over a leather halter top and leather trousers. She showed no scars, though her golden eyes burned with a different power.
The leader wore a ‘viking’ helmet with wings at the temple and a mask like face guard. One eye was covered by an eye patch. He wore a steel gauntlet on his right hand, which carried an over-elaborate battle axe. More red runes glowed with power on his eye patch, gauntlet, paldron, belt buckle, cross-belt, and on the blade of that axe. He also bled from the scars on his arms, and the joy of expected bloodshed shone in his eyes. He was as Metal as you could get without a grinding electric guitar riff. “Good Even,” he said through his grin, “I am SKJAEREN, the BLOOD VIKING, and these are my Berserks.”
“WHY are you telling us this?” the Silver Sorceress asked.
“Because it’s part of the ritual of combat to announce yourself to the gits yer gonna kill,” Skjaeren said. “And the working I’m to do now requires the blood of heroes. But heroes are thin on the ground at the best of times, so you media whores will have t’do.”
With a barbaric yawp of vicious glee, the Berserks launched themselves at the Seven. Moonbeam managed to spoil their opening move by decreasing their mass to the point where their leaps carried them up to the ceiling, where they hit their heads and came crashing to the ground. But that was pretty much it for the ‘Sensational’ Seven. Skjaeren cut into Captain Intrepid with his rune-axe. The blade sliced through the composite metal ‘I’ logo on the captain’s chest and cut through the body armor under it, but all the blood it raised on his chest was a gash. Which was more damage than the Cap had taken in years. But Cap toughed it out and punched Skjaeren-
-to almost no effect.
The rest of the Seven were taking it in the chops. The Berserks completely ignored the Silver Sorceress’ illusions (if not their PK effects), and the Sorceress found herself on the end of a nasty beating. She threw subtlety aside and concentrated on erecting a wall of PK force between her and the snarling heathen. With that brief respite, she pulled out her cell phone and hit speed dial. “GET HERE!” she snarled into the phone as the force wall was battered down.
As the Silver Sorceress put all of her focus into avoiding the Berserk trying to wail on her- for all his strength and speed, his technique was sloppy- a light erupted from the brooch that clipped her silvery hooded cloak shut. The beam of light ‘melted’ a hole in the very air, and a portal formed there. A spherical glass flask with a different color liquid in each hemisphere came out of the hole and broke among the combatants. The liquids bubbled and produced a thick vapor that stung the noses, eyes and throats of both sides.
Then, with a lusty roar, a very large man wearing what looked like a mix of football padding and combat armor (with his lower face protected by a breather mask) charged from the portal swinging a metal-capped baseball bat. He added the force of his charge into his swing as he brought the bat across the small of Skjaeren’s back.
Just behind him came a lithe woman in combat leathers with rows of tubes strapped to her biceps, thighs and shoulders, carrying an odd looking pistol in her left hand and a gleaming crystal dagger in another. She also wore goggles and a breather mask. She aimed her pistol at the Berserk who was giving Moonbeam a drubbing and fire, sending a spray at the thug. He was covered by the mist. The vapor cleared, and immediately the man fell down giggling uncontrollably. She ‘broke’ the pistol like a breach-loading shotgun, removed two tubes and replaced them with two from her rows of reloads.
The blonde woman in leathers pushed her fellow Berserks aside and glowered at the pistoleer. There was an instant recognition, that they were both dynamic forceful women unafraid of violence. They were too much alike to be anything but the best of friends or the deadliest of enemies.
And there was no way those two were going to be friends.
Bringing up the rear, brandishing a staff with an elaborate clockwork instrument at the head, came an athletic man in his prime. Besides the goggles and breather as the first two, we wore a long leather ‘lab coat’ with rows of tubes strapped to his shoulders, sleeves and thighs, as the woman did, and he had an ornate ‘badge’ pinned to his chest and a large square-cut red crystal dangled from a chain as a pendant. Looking around, taking the Berserks’ measure, he slipped a liquid filled tube from one of the loops on his sleeve and fit it into a niche on the clockwork doohickey. He brandished it, sending a roiling stream of strange unearthly energy at Skjaeren, who was still mixing it up with the big man.
Skjaeren turned to face him. The big man tried to take advantage of that, but he fell under five of the Berserks as they dogpiled on him.
After tense facedown, the woman with the pistol holstered it, shifted the crystal dagger to her good hand and set herself. Then on some unspoken agreement, they launched themselves at each other.
The fight went on with the alchemist slugging it out with Skjaeren, the pistol-woman scrapping with the leather-blonde, the big man trying to get out from under the five Berserks, and the three remaining female Berserks keeping the Sensational Seven from getting their wind back. Maxiwoman was unable to join the fray, despite beating on the doors with fists that should have been able to batter down a cinder-block wall.
Finally, Skjaeren snapped, “ULRIKE! Enough of this shit! Get them and GO!”
The golden-eyed blonde broke from her catfight with the pistol-woman, letting the three female Berserks handle her. With a frustrated snarl, she stalked over to doors to the chapel and kicked them in. She marched in on a startled Maxiwoman, and the doors shut behind them.
The man with the staff switched out tubes on his staff, and a snarling demonic appearing figure flowed out of the staff. The horrific figure oozed towards the doors of the desecrated chapel and tore them off their hinges. The blonde, Ulrike, stood there with the two lamps in her hands. Maxiwoman lay unconscious on the floor behind her. The vaporous fiend snatched the two lamps from Ulrike’s hands as she stood there startled.
But Skjaeren gave a blood-curdling scream, leap and sundered the manifestation with his rune-axe. He picked up the lamps and tossed one to Ulrike. “Cha-cha! Go Long! Ulrike! Make Tracks!” Ulrike and one of the female Berserks charged down the hallway. Skjaeren cocked the lamp as though he was going to pass it like a football. But when he threw, the man with the staff gestured with it, and a light appeared around the lamp in midair. It floated to his hands, and his two companions put themselves between the Berserks and him. “This isn’t over, Gatewarden!” Skjaeren snarled. He pulled a knife from his belt and cut one of the scar-runes on his biceps. On that cue, the remaining Berserks did likewise, and then in formation, they ran down the hallway, disappearing as they ran.
The Gatewarden looked at the groggy Silver Sorceress and said, “I’ll get in touch with you as regards our payment. Aslan, Demetra, let’s go.” The three turned and retreated back into the portal.
A battered Guiding Light groaned, “We’re never gonna live this down…”
*****
As they stepped through the Eastern Gate of the Bridge of Cinvat, Aslan asked the Gatewarden, “So, Boss, why did you send those losers, the Simpering Seven, to investigate that place?”
“Because it might have been a dynamorph,” the Gatewarden answered as he removed his mask. “The Halliwell Asylum’s dark reputation vastly exceeds its reality. The only reason that pile hasn’t been bulldozed is its remote location. There are the usual rumors as to Indian burial grounds, sites of massacres, strange beasts and so on, but they’re all just campfire stories. The readings that occurred near that place were probably flukes, but the odds were a lot better that it might be an eccentric dynamorph than anything supernatural.” He looked at the lamp in his hand. “Which begs the question: if Skjaeren arranged that to break these out of a plat, but didn’t want to risk it himself- then exactly what ARE these, and how did they establish that plat?”
“Plat?” Aslan asked as he shucked out of his armor. His English was very good for someone who spoke Turkish as his mother tongue, but English was always coming up with new words to spring on him.
“A ‘plat’ is an archaic term for a plan or design,” the Gravewarden answered. “In Metaphysical circles, it’s used as a term for the cyclical patterns that some ghosts and other repetitive phenomena develop. You can break the pattern and disrupt the plat, but it’s dangerous, and even more dangerous for the magically active.”
“Any idea who that tow-headed bitch ‘Ulrike’ was?” Demetra asked as she checked the nasty rends the subject of her question had torn in her armor. “I don’t remember her running with Skjaeren’s crew, and she’s a step above the rest of his Berserks.”
The Gatewarden pulled out his cell phone and went to an online resource that, among other things, had a ‘Mystic Offenders’ database. “I think I have a hit. Last Christmas, the California Crusaders raided the estate of a cult called ‘the Wolves of Ragnarok’. While the leader, Lykarax, and most of the rest of the cult were captured, one of the four who escaped was listed as ‘Ulrike’. She’s wanted in California for Grand Larceny, Aggravated Assault, Kidnapping and Fraud, and the Police departments there would like to ask her some pointed questions about some people who’ve disappeared without a trace. And Dimi? The Wolves of Ragnarok practiced a form of lycanthropy.”
Demetra just gave a stark smile. “So? That just means that I don’t have to hold back, the next time we run into each other.”
“No, it means that you’re going to the infirmary right NOW, and rub some essence of St. Hubert’s Root into each and every scratch you got.”
“You mean you’re not going to help me with the hard to reach places?” Demetra asked coquettishly.
“ah, No, I’m going to take this to the lab, and analyze it,” the Gatewarden hefted the lamp and carefully backed away. “Oh, and Aslan, don’t forget to do your acidity tests.”
“Can’t it wait until after a nice hot bath?”
“Aslan, we need to keep track of what those elixirs are doing to your metabolism,” the Gatewarden said, sounding far too much like a dentist reminding a patient to floss. “To do that, we need fresh data.”
As Demetra slinked off to the infirmary, Aslan wondered how sincere the Greek woman’s flirtations were. But either way, he thought that the Gatewarden was wise to play at being oblivious. Greek legends were rife with the horrors that Greek women visited on their men. And Turkish rumors were full of similar terrors.
After he finished stowing his armor in his locker, Aslan joined the Gatewarden in the main lab. The main lab was an awkward blend of SOTA, ‘steampunk’ and ancient technologies, with the main features being an ‘alembic’ which did strange things to the nasty critters that seemed to be magnetically drawn to the house, and three large brass ovens that the Russian called ‘athanors’. Aslan didn’t know what they did, and he didn’t really want to know what they did. All that he knew was that the Gatewarden captured vile critters, boiled them down, and made useful potions out of ifrit sent by Iblis to torment the world.
With a martyred grunt Aslan settled himself onto the couch. The Gatewarden affixed chemical exposure strips to various parts of his body. The hard part was waiting the two hours for the strips to be saturated. By that time, both the elixir he’d taken to bolster his strength and protect his body would have worn off- and so would the adrenaline that kept him from feeling the beating he’d taken. When the two hours were over, he’d NEED that hot bath- and a massive aspirin.
The Gatewarden clamped the lamp into a vise that was connected to an array of things that included lenses, mirrors, prisms, lights electrical and otherwise, and fiddled with it for the better part of an hour. Aslan was getting that sour taste in his mouth that said to him that the elixir was wearing off, and for another hour, he would wish to only be massively bored. Demetra had finished touching up her wounds and had changed. She was watching the Gatewarden with the muted curiosity of a lay person watching a trained professional do some esoteric work. Aslan was considering asking the Greek woman to get him a book or something to read to take his mind off it, when there was the sound of a crash from upstairs.
Aslan struggled to get off the couch but wound up falling on the floor instead. Which did not suit the bruises that suddenly were letting themselves be known. Demetra scrambled through the labs’ stores to find some crystal daggers. She fumbled around a bit, but managed to collect a fan of them in each hand. The Gatewarden was hurriedly trying to pull his leather longcoat on while still holding onto his staff and scrambling around for his badge at the same time. Then the door to the lab came crashing in.
The Gatewarden, Demetra and Aslan did their best to prepare themselves and faced-
-a wall of guns. “Guns?” the Gatewarden yelped, “Why would anyone who could get through our wards use Guns?”
“Well, you know us Amurricans,” Skjaeren sneered in a bad faux-American accent over the barrel of a Mac 10 machine pistol, “we just luuuve us our bang-bang toys.”
“Sides,” one of his Berserks, who was wielding a sawed-off shotgun, said in a genuine American voice, “if it works, it works.”
“Every mage worth his seal knows at least three anti-bullet spells,” the Gatewarden warned them, even as he delicately braced to put his badge between himself and a barrage of gunfire.
“And _I_ know a charm that will let prepared bullets slip right past those spells,” Skjaeren jeered back.
“ENOUGH of this!” Ulrike snarled as she shoved her way through the doorway past the Berserks. She had Mrs. Bezhukov in front of her in the classic hostage grip, with one arm twisted painfully behind her back. She had a prosaic snub-nose set against the woman’s jaw. “You can keep your toys, you can save Mrs. Hudson here, or you stay alive. But you can’t do all THREE.”
“You’re going to kill us all anyway, so we might as well take a few of your with us,” Demetra said, hefting a crystal blade.
“CHILL,” Skjaeren said. “Odin’s Blood, and women are always ragging on MEN! We’re not here to take the Gate or do a blood working. We’re just here for a simple rip-off. Ripper, Tommy-boy, look for the cultured crystals he’s been flogging. Cha-cha, Huldre, Foxy, find the balms and elixirs. Hoss, Torch, Slats, pack up the genies in their bottles; I got plans for those.”
The Berserks shoved Aslan, Demetra and the Gatewarden to separate corners of the lab, and they kicked the Key of Cinvat in the fourth corner. Skjaeren took the Heart of Azdaja from the Gatewarden with no small amount of personal satisfaction. They quickly ransacked the lab, though for some reason, Skjaeren was keen on them not doing any damage. When they had a crate of crystals, two crates of liquids, and three crates of the ‘genies’, Skjaeren told them they had enough. “No sense in slowin’ ourselves down with too much swag,” he said.
“Well then,” Tommy-boy said with a big nasty grin, “there’s no sense in leaving unfinished business.” He ratcheted a bullet into his Uzi and got set.
“NO,” Skjaeren said firmly. “We ain’t getting’ paid to off ‘em. And I got firm religious convictions against doing dirty work fer FREE.”
“Okay, but what about Little Miss Badass here?” Cha-cha asked, shoving her SMG into Demetra’s ribs. “She’s been giving Ulrike the evil eye ever since we walked in. And Ulrike’s been spoiling to finish that fight they started back at the nuthouse. Why not let them finish it, and be done with it?”
“Cha-cha…” Ulrike purred through a feral grin, her amber eyes dancing. “I knew there was a reason I liked you…”
Demetra returned the feral grin, her near-black sloe eyes also merry with the thought of mayhem. “As you Americans say, ‘Bring It.’”
“We’re in the middle of a RAID!” Skjaren barked.
“C’mon, Skej, we got ‘em cold!” Hoss laughed. “Think about it, a good old-fashioned chick fight!”
“Better!” Torch said with a big grin, “A Macho Chick fight! All the crunch of a Guy fight and all the nasty of a Chick fight!”
“We’re in the MIDDLE of something here!”
“C’mon, Skjaeren!” Huldre jeered, “Let’s see if the Wolf-Bitch is good for more’n how she fills out her pants!”
Skjaeren was massively conflicted: on one hand, simple common sense said to get out fast without any fucking around. On the other hand, sometimes you got to give the dogs their bones, or they get snappish. And, well, he wouldn’t have gotten into this whole scene if this sort of thing didn’t appeal to him on a primal level. “All Right! Handcuff the Chem Wonk to one of his ovens, and the big goof to that standpipe! Ulrike, let’s see you live up to your woof!”
Demetra pulled her arm free from Foxy and snatched up a beryl dagger from the crate. She spun the glittering blade in her hand and gave Ulrike the ‘come and get it’ gesture. Ulrike charged right at her, completely ignoring the gash the blade cut. And from there it was two very tough women letting it all hang out as the Berserks cheered them on.
The brawl was equally matched: Demetra was faster and had better technique, but Ulrike was tougher and she was fighting through the cuts she took. Ulrike was bloody but game, but Demetra was taking lumps and slowing down. Ulrike smeared some of her own blood on her face to make a rune, grinned savagely, and took control of the fight. Then a small missile flew between them, embedding itself in one of the tables. It opened like an umbrella and gave out a yodeling wail that was like an icepick in everyone’s ears. The rest reeled, but Ulrike fell to her knees, her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to shut out the din.
Four more missiles came from the door. Two of them opened up into more sonic weapons. The other to also opened up, but into rough spikes. They emitted short-lived but powerful magnetic pulses that drew everything ferrous that weighed less than 15 pounds to it, including (especially) the Berserks’ guns and knives. Skjaeren’s great axe slowly moved out of its holster on his belt, but he managed to keep a hold on it. Not this Mac-10, but at least he had his axe.
The screamers stopped and Ulrike turned to the door with a lupine snarl of fury. She was immediately knocked back into one of the athanors by a blast from an energy weapon. As the Berserks turned to the door, a woman in a wide red hat, matching long coat and scarf mask entered the room with the energy weapon in question drawn. She was immediately followed into the room by men carrying polearms that crackled with energy at the tips- and spray bottles. The woman in red shifted the configuration of her weapon and fired snares at Skjaeren, Ulrike and Demetra, wrapping them tightly. The Berserks charged at the men in red, but the newcomers sprayed them with the bottles. And then they laid down a beating on the Berserks with the polearms.
As the Berserks recoiled from their attackers, the woman in red said in a cultured contralto, “Skjaeren. I thought we had a deal.”
“Dammit, Scarlet, I need the Heart!”
“That wasn’t our deal,” Miss Scarlet said severely. “I set up the Halliwell sting, you set the hook, we make the raid together. I get the Heart of Azdaja, you get the rest. That was our deal.”
“What’s IN those bottles?” Slats demanded, noting how weak he felt.
“Holy Water,” Miss Scarlet answered smugly. “Blessed by a Priest who’s proven that he has the mandate, and cut with 6 drams of water from the Grotto at Lourdes. More than enough to wash away your blood magic. And without your blood magic, you ‘Berserks’ are just pissy.” Then she turned to her men. “Grab the crates with the crystals and the liquids. But leave the three crates with the brass bottles. They’re nothing but trouble. If the Blob Viking here wants them, he can have them.”
Then she went over to Skjaeren and took the Heart of Azdaja from his belt. “I’m getting what I wanted anyway. If you’d played square with me, you’d have walked away with all the crates. Stinks being a rat, doesn’t it?”
Skjaeren’s only reply was to kick Miss Scarlet with both his feet, sending her tumbling back. Having cut through the snare with the edge of his axe while his men were getting beaten up, Skjaeren burst out of his bonds. He hefted his axe and gave an ear-splitting scream. But he didn’t charge Miss Scarlet’s Redcoats. Instead, he hacked away at the ‘brass’ bottles in the crate, splitting them open. Roiling vaporous figures came screaming out of the broken bottles, zipping around the room and launching themselves at the various players.
“Oh crap,” Miss Scarlet said in a very small voice.
“No!” the Gatewarden yelled, “You can’t let those unclean spirits escape before I have a chance to process them into something safe and useful!”
“Not to worry!” Skjaeren laughed heartily. “I have just the thing!” He pulled a white, metal rimmed horn from his belt, put it to his lips and blew it loudly. The wraiths swirled around Skjaeren, shrieking like a storm.
“What are you doing?” the Gatewarden demanded, pulling at his shackle.
Skjaeren said nothing but blew a tantara that slid into a complex melody. The wraiths concentrated themselves, merging and melding into a single swirling entity with multiple whip-like tendrils extending from a central body. Miss Scarlet, suddenly regretting all those lessons in the Occult she’d blown off, made a total ass-pull guess, and fired a nerve-stunning blast at the Blood Viking. If Skjaeren could command that thing, a rampaging uncontrolled whatever-that-was would actually an improvement. It would probably go after Skjaeren and her Berserks.
Unfortunately, the amalgam-spook blocked the blast, and Skjaeren gave Miss Scarlet a nasty grin.
Demetra took advantage of this to completely disengage from Ulrike and dove for the corner where the Gatewarden’s staff had been tossed. Exploiting the fact that everyone was paying more attention to the evolution of the spirit-mass than what was going on on the floor, she kicked the Key over to the Gatewarden. The Gatewarden snagged the staff and immediately used it to free his cuffed hand.
Skjaeren blew another tantara, and the spook-mass congealed even more. Miss Scarlet got the distinct impression that Skjaeren was forcing some pattern or concept on the mass, trying to mold it into something that suited him better. Lacking any better ideas, she fired bolts at Skjaeren, to the same general lack of effect.
Shifting the horn to his off hand, Skjaeren drew a long thin knife. The spook reached out and grabbed Miss Scarlet and her Redcoats, pulling them off their feet, and drawing them closer. Vivian’s panicked telepathic probing of Skjaeren gave her the distinct impression that he needed blood to complete his mastery of that creature- and he didn’t intend to get that blood from anyone on his side.
Vivian prepped her multi-gun for another setting, though she was just doing that to cover the fact that she was about to lay a psychic smackdown on Skjaeren that would- should- might cause him to lose control of the spook.
But then the room was filled with blinding light. “HALT EVIL-DOER!” came a high soprano voice backed by a trilling that gave her pronouncement the tone of a heavenly proclamation. “Though choked in Sin, those ones are as pure as the driven snow compared to your own evil! I am the LIGHTBRINGER, and I shall shatter the darkness!”
The dazzling brilliance dimmed a little, to allow the sight of a slender young girl with her golden hair done in an elaborate hairstyle, wearing white robes trimmed with gold, carrying a golden lantern on a long pole. She gestured slightly with the pole, and a beam of light shot out of the lantern, striking Skjaeren and knocking him back.
The Berserks reacted to that, but their attack posture was broken when the semi-complete spook went even more berserk. It immediately grabbed Slats and Tommy-boy. Cha-cha and Huldre just barely managed to avoid being grabbed. Ulrike looked around, took in the fact that the Gatewarden was free and was in the process of liberating Aslan, that Demetra was digging around in the crate of elixirs looking for… something, and the weird bright chick was waving her lantern around, making a strange symbol in the air. That last bit did it for Ulrike, and she lit out the door as quickly as her enhanced speed would take her.
Miss Scarlet shifted her blaster to a photon barrage setting and zapped the spook, making it drop her and two of her guys. Then she shifted to the stunner setting again and zapped Skjaeren before he could get up. Then she shifted back to the photon barrage setting and was about to liberate the rest of her guys. Then there was a massive explosion, and the near-demon dropped everyone in reaction. Looking where the blast came from, it turned out that one of the athanors had exploded for some reason. “Boys, our score is a done deal; let’s not push our luck going for pocket change.” There was a general consensus that this was only good sense, and they exited through the door as Miss Scarlet covered their retreat.
Aslan and Demetra tore into the un-buffed Berserks. The Gatewarden did something with the Key of Cinvat that ensnared the mega-spook. Once he had it securely, the Lightbringer forced her lantern into the center mass of the mega-spook. The mega-spook bucked and writhed, but the power of the Key of Cinvat kept it in place. After much fishing about, the Lightbringer drew out her lantern, which was wreathed in coruscating energies. The mega- spook sort of fell apart, dissolving into smaller wraiths that sort of petered out. She gingerly held the lantern as the Gatewarden and Aslan wrestled a barrel-like canister under the lantern. When it was ready, the Lightbringer carefully lowered it into the barrel. Aslan and Demetra barely had time to slap the halves of the lid of the cistern shut before the liquid in the cask before the liquids reached some sort of boiling point. When the boiling died down enough, the Lightbringer pulled her lantern out. It shone brighter, but it was a controlled light.
The Lightbringer cooed, and turned her nubile young charms on the Gatewarden. “Oh thank you! I’ve been waiting for so long to get to know you! I’ve admired…” Then she stopped. “Skjaeren! He got away somehow! We’ve got to-”
“Yes,” Demetra cut her off through a feline smile, “I’m sure that it’s very, very thrilling, but we have a horrible mess to clean up, and we DO have to find those hoodlums, all of them.” She firmly gripped the Lightbringer by her shoulders and turned the girl around. Nattering away in strictly polite words, but letting it be plainly clear that the Lightbringer wasn’t welcome in her parlor, Demetra walked the girl out of the laboratory.
Aslan and the Gatewarden exchanged uneasy looks. Several minutes later, Demetra came back and fixed the Gatewarden with the annoyed look that every girlfriend and wife has down pat. Aslan carefully stepped away from the confrontation.
*****
Later that night, a figure in a long tan duster with a black Stetson waited on a landing on a nearby river. After waiting a while, the bizarre figure of a large black swan appeared on the river and came toward him. It pulled up to the landing and the head and neck of the ‘swan’ lowered to the edge. The wings unfurled to reveal three women, one in a red longcoat with a matching wide-brimmed hat, other in a long black dress with a headdress styled to resemble a swan’s head, and a girl in white robes with gold trim. In front of them was a table.
Cardsharp stepped onto the swanboat and favored the ladies with a genial smile. “Well, good evening, ladies! It looks like I’m gonna have to find some other way from Skjaeren to pay to get his rune stones back. Man, you have no idea how annoying it is to listen to 6’4”, 220 pounds of badass blubber like a little girl!”
The three women said nothing. The woman in red lifted her hand, displaying a large square-cute red stone on a gold chain.
“Huh,” Cardsharp grunted. “There’s no manners anymore, no ‘howya don’, how’re the wife and kids’; it’s all rush, rush, keep it business…” He reached into the Gladstone bag he was carrying, and pulled out a familiar white horn. He placed the horn on the table. The three women gave him an ‘and?’ look. With an aggrieved sigh, Cardsharp reached into his bag and produced a bundle of $100 bills. At the three women’s prompting, he produced another. And another. And another. And another, until he put $80,000 on the table. Then the woman in black gripped the side of the table and turned it so that the Heart of Azdaja was on his side, and the horn and cash.
Cardsharp picked up the jewel and said pleasantly, “Well, it’s been a slice, what with your lively and witty conversation.” He turned and walked off the boat, wasting no time as the ‘swan’ pulled itself together and floated off.
*****
“Why did Jessie get half of my cut?” Viv demanded as the three of them entered Mara’s concealed tower.
“You know why,” Mara told her oldest daughter sternly.
“I see that you’re all still alive,” Gran’pere said heartily, looking up from the stacks of books on the table that he was picking through. “How did it go?”
“What are you doing here?” Viv asked, “I thought that men weren’t allowed in the tower?”
“Your Gran’pere is an exception to many rules,” Mara said.
Gran’pere nudged little Asha, who was only still up at this late hour because her grandfather had a hard time saying ‘no’ to her, awake. “So, what happened?” Asha asked.
“It went off more or less as expected,” Jessie said, holding up the ivory horn that Cardsharp had traded.
“What IS that thing, anyway?” Viv asked, taking off her ‘Miss Scarlet’ hat and coat. “How did Cardsharp get it away from Skjaeren?”
“It’s the Horrid Horn of the Darkling Hoard,” Mara said. “It’s a rather routine olifant-”
“Olifant?” Vivian, who’d grown up hearing the legends of the paladins of Charlemagne repeated. “Roland’s horn?”
“Not quite,” de Maugris corrected his grandchild. “An ‘olifant’ is a rather generic term for a hunting horn made from an ivory tusk. It was rather chic for noblemen of the 9th Century to carry one. However, Roland was known to have been carrying an olifant at Roncevaux, and fanciful tales of Roland’s prowess sprang up, including a bit of nonsense about his horn only sounding at battle and so on. In time, ‘Olifant’ became a term for a device to call and command trooping spirits.”
“Remember, Jessie,” Mara told her daughter and apprentice, “The idea is to use the horn to study how it works, not to use it as a crutch, relying on its power instead of developing your own skills in Conjury.”
de Maugris waved the trivia aside. “Now for the important issue- did it work?”
Jessie held out the lamp from its pole with a big grin. “Like a charm. It didn’t go down quite as planned- the Gravewarden didn’t have a chance to pull off his big ‘whoops’, but Skjaeren was kind enough to try and whip up his own Wild Hunt with a bunch of the Warden’s captive ‘djinn’. He tried to merge them into a big mega-spook, and he just had a Heart Monad formed when I stepped in.”
“And the Rose you seeded the lantern with?”
“Fully restored,” Jessie assured him. “And there’s enough of the Heart Monad still intact that we should be able to jumpstart your athanor.”
Du Maugris gave a wicked chuckle and sprang from the table. He hurried over to a large brass assembly built around a bronze cylinder surrounded on four points by bronze statues of women in Classic Greek dress holding forth goblets. As du Maugris opened a hatch in the cylinder and started fiddling with something inside, Jessie took the pole and settled the lantern in the ‘Mercy Seat’ between the two kneeling ‘Seraphim’ on the replica ‘Ark of the Covenant’ that was one of the arks that she’d taken from Akellare. Electricity arced from the winds of the two angels. When the electricity stopped sparking, Jessie held her hands forth as though beckoning. A glowing rose of purple energy rose up from the lantern. Jessie took it into herself, as though inhaling it.
“Et viola!” du Maugris cried, stepping back from the athanor. Jessie gingerly lifted the lantern from its place on the Mercy Seat, carried it over to the athanor and carefully inserted the lantern into the hatch. Stepping back, Jessie let her grandfather fuss over the athanor, saying things in Classical Greek as he waved his hands, pouring liquids over it and generally being mysterious as all get out for the better part of a half-hour. Then the athanor glowed hot, and he pulled the lantern out. “More than enough for my purposes, my dear,” he assured Jessie as he handed her the pole.
“Okay, yet again, I’m the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on,” Vivian said with a scowl. “Exactly what did you guys sucker me into?”
“Nothing,” Mara said serenely. “YOU inserted yourself unasked and uninformed into a delicate magical working, one you exempted yourself from by your refusal to take up the family traditions in the Mystic Arts. We simply made sure that your interference didn’t upset our plans.”
“Vivian…” du Maugris started. Then he stopped, visibly though it over and started over. “Vivian, for foundation, you understand that the reason for the Gatewarden’s nom de guerre is that he acts as the guardian for some mystic gate, protecting the world from vile spirits that reside on the other side?” Viv nodded. “Well, that’s complete and utter tripe.
“The Gatewarden’s estate is NOT built on an extradimensional gate, nor are there vicious demons waiting on the other side to enter this world. Rather, that hideous house was built by a vile mystic at a junction, a place where multiple streams of Vis, or the flow of mystical energy, which were contaminated by miasma joined. That mystic constructed a cistern under the house which gathered and concentrated it, for… some purpose I’m all-too-willing to ignore.
“The Gatewarden is a super-sorcerer, which means that for some reason, he is able to wield fantastic amounts of magical energy and ignore the consequences, which is why more conventional mystics, such as your mother and myself find them so noxious. However, while they can ignore them, they are not entirely immune to them.
“When the Gatewarden exerts his magical powers, like all magicians, it causes an equal and opposite reaction, to borrow a phrase from the Englishman Newton. In the Gatewarden’s case, it reacts with the cistern of miasma beneath his house, which he taps into for his alchemical quests. The reaction takes the form of noxious miasmic spirits, which the Gatewarden has the decency to regard as his responsibility. Of course, there is the fact that when he captures one of these ‘ifrit’ as he styles them, he boils them down to form crystals and balms and elixirs and so on.”
“So, basically, he’s recycling toxic magical waste,” Vivian summed it up. “Then why did you steal one of his athanors, which I’m guessing he used to pull all that off.”
“Not HIS athanor, Vivian,” du Maugris said heavily. “MY Athanor.” He reached over with cane and tapped a coat of arms worked into the bronze. Vivian looked closely, and sure enough, it was the du Maugris coat, three cups separated by a chevron. “I designed and constructed this is 1836, under the strictest Virgilian standards. I all but refined the plaster and wax for the molds myself. I cultivated the roses of power within for over a hundred years. Then circumstances forced me to leave it behind when I fled France for Brazil in 1940. For decades, I mourned it as lost.
“Then, ten or so years ago, I learned that it still existed, passed from hand to hand, and somehow it wound up in the custody of the mystic who owned that property before the Gatewarden. I have been scheming for years to find a way to recover this.”
“What? Why didn’t you just go in and take it?”
“Well, beside the fact that the Gatewarden’s estate is heavily warded- though I do admit that your way past those wards was very clever, well done, Vivian!- the Gatewarden performs a valuable service for the region. He cleans up a nasty mess that most mundane are completely unaware of. But the magical community is well aware of it. I couldn’t afford to act against the Gatewarden in a way that would antagonize both sides of the magical community.”
“Then… why did you go after it now?” Viv asked.
“The benefits of working with novices; they don’t know what can’t be done, so they try the impossible. And sometimes, they succeed.
“Jessica learned of the Gatewarden, and concocted a scheme to simultaneously renew one of the roses she won from Akellare, and create a counter-balance to her efforts by martyring the Warden’s reliquary.”
“HAH?” Viv bleated “Renew her roses? Counter-balance her what by martyring her what?”
Du Maugris gave his daughter a sere look and muttered, “It may have been for the best that she declined her instruction.” He let out a breath. “When Jessica bested Akellare, the witch thought she had four arks of power to draw on, and a tap on your mother’s power. So, she drew ruthlessly to achieve her various effects quickly, when normally, she would have been far more circumspect. So, when Jessica took the roses of power from Akellare, she gained a respectable 26 roses of power. Unfortunately, of those 26, only five are still viable. The others are… intact, but shriven of power. They will need to be restored.
“Jessica’s plan was to trigger a balancing reaction by tricking the Gatewarden into overextending his power, and so creating one of the ‘demons’ that plagues him so. Jessica would then insert that lantern, which had one of her roses of power embedded in it, and fuse the rose with its Heart Monad, which is the primary stable pattern of magic energy within a spirit.
“That done, she would create a connection with the Gravewarden’s Ark, his primary reserve of power, which was intimately connected to his series of athanors, by touching it with that lantern. When the connection was sound, she would return here, and touch one of her own arks,” he gestured at the ‘Ark of the Covenant’. “Thus creating a connection between the two. So when, the Gravewarden commits one of his blunders, the force of the balance will feed raw essence to Jessica’s arks, while the counter-balance feeds the stored miasma from her various workings into the Gravewarden’s system, particularly that cistern I spoke of. The ‘martyr’ term comes from the unsupportable habit of foisting miasma off on one’s neighbors, effectively making them martyrs to your mystical ambitions.”
“That means that every time the Gatewarden screws up, instead of created a faux-demon that might escape and eviscerate someone,” Jessie clarified it for her sisters, “that power gets shunted over to one of my arks, after being cleaned of all the miasmic icky. And the miasma that my magic will create gets shuttled over by the balancing effect into the Gatewarden’s cistern of crap. That means that he won’t be creating as many cultured power gems or elixirs from the creeps he’s been accidentally creating, but considering the damage that one of the *ahem!* ‘demons’ that do escape the Gatewarden’s estate do, I’d say that we have the Greater Good on our side on this one.”
“Which means that in a few months, these will be worth far more on the Gray Market,” Mara said, opening a crate, picking up a handful of crystals and letting them spill through her fingers.
“Where did you get those, Mom?” Viv asked, recognizing the crate and the crystals from that scene only a few hours before in the Gatewarden’s lab.
“Oh, Johnny got them out under the cover of your red mist,” Mara explained carelessly. “Along with a crate of elixirs and that athanor.”
“HOW?” Viv demanded, feeling yet another eclipsing bearing down on her. “Come to think of it, how did he carry that athanor out of there? That thing must weight a TON!”
“Don’t be melodramatic,” du Maugris sniffed. “It only weighs 753.22 kilos.”
“AND?”
du Maugris kited Vivian a look of tried patience. “The same way I got the athanor into this tower.” He pulled Iron Ox’s superstrength talisman belt out from under the table and shoved it in Viv’s direction.
“Oh, I also borrowed Guiding Light’s light-generator bracers, for those ‘light spells’. They really knocked Skjaeren and this Bozo-ks for a loop, and they never caught on.” Jessie removed those bracers from her wrists. “Mom said it was okay.”
Viv bristled and said, “I would have done better, but there as a bunch of stuff-” Viv stopped short and snarled at Asha. “You ratted me out! You told them what I was doing!”
“You should thank her-”
“AFTER you set me up to fail by selling me incomplete information! I gave you all my Barbies, the Dream House, the Sports Car AND the Fab Fashion Closet- when you stiffed me on the information!”
Asha, despite the late hour was suddenly wide-eyed awaken. Clutching Musette to her chest, Asha looked around, and for the first time in her life, neither Mommy nor Gran’pere were offering any protection. Not needing ESP to sense a spanking coming her way, Asha let out a steam whistle scream of fear and sprinted out of the chamber.
Vivian was immediately on her heels, vengeance gleaming in her eyes.
du Maguris started to rise to Asha’s defense, but Mara stopped him. “NO, Papa. They have to learn. This is the best way for Viv to learn that she shouldn’t hijack Jessie’s projects- especially when Magic is concerned- and Asha needs to learn to provide value when she deals with Family, and not sell incomplete information.”
Katssun
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2 years 5 months ago #1015
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mrs. Ryan watched over her normally-sleepy Saturday Costume Shop II class, giving helping hints here and there about construction techniques, the necessity of including felled seams in lieu of overlock stitching for long-term comfort in skin-tight costumes, and even the occasional advice concerning aesthetics, often to the surprise of her charges given her current personal taste. She was helping a male student grasp the basics of overstitching runes into the interfacing of his punk-styled leather jacket when an argument erupted on the other side of the classroom. This happened at least once a year, and Mrs. Ryan had learned that such feuds needed to be hashed out on their own until they became a distraction to the entire class. Most ended without her intervention, but she made sure that the ones that did were always used as a lesson for the entire class. Christiana Medeiros and Wendy Navarro were the primaries, with Meredith Langstrom being incapable of the grace to recuse herself until she ended up complicit as well.
“That sash is sexist and soooo ancient,” Christiana instigated the imbroglio by harshly criticizing Miss Navarro’s choice in accenting, “My armored jumpsuit is practical, has better protection, and easily accessible pouches on the belt.”
“Sexist?!” Miss Navarro spurted. “Sashes are classy and feminine! Yours is practical? It’s trivial for someone to grapple you with that monster belt. The buttons on the sleeves do nothing, and besides, if you want to look ugly, that’s your prerogative!”
“The sash is kinda dated Wendy, and it clearly doesn’t obey the laws of physics,” added Meredith, unsolicited.
Mrs. Ryan had stepped away from her other charge and his leather jacket to loom behind the three bickering girls, which had the added benefit of temporarily keeping the rest of the class out of the fray. Miss Narvarro’s dark-hued, form-fitting suit showed off the girl’s natural curves, with a brightly contrasting flowing sash that seemed determined to spread along her waist as much as the opposing knot would allow rather than gather as physics and nature intended. As one of the tech students, it seemed odd that she would forgo any type of storage, but she allegedly already had an, “extremely durable,” satchel that she carried just behind one of her hips. Practical, flat-soled wrestler boots rounded out the ensemble. Mrs. Ryan had approved of the design during the first few classes, despite her unspoken reservations about lacking a cohesive styling.
“You’re not even a flyer! The sash does nothing for you. And I don’t know anyone in my Flying class who would wear one either,” Christiana had started to elevate the volume of their discussion. “And oh, BY THE WAY, I am not going to get thrown, you know I’m an Exemplar 4 on my MID!”
Wendy Navarro audibly scoffed. “Never underestimate the power of charm on a street thug. All they’ll see with you is a butch wannabe ‘Grrl Power’ cliché, which makes you a big target in their eyes…and By. The. Way, obeying physics is for freshthing devisors.”
Mrs. Ryan mentally reviewed the armored jumpsuit of Miss Medeiros. The way she had arrayed the plating within was quite clever, but while the costume was fitted, it was in no way flattering. She had also advised against the decorative buttons that Miss Navarro had called out earlier, but, that was Miss Medeiros’ choice. Settings for false power gems, gadgets, etc. were all somewhat better choices. With her above-average exemplar rating, the buttons were unlikely to become force concentrators when blocking with the forearms, so at least they weren’t a liability. She had opted for a more overt storage solution approach with the belt, and Miss Navarro might be surprised at how difficult grappling would actually prove in real world applications of close quarter combat with an exemplar and flyer. The costume would serve Miss Medeiros well in the Junior’s combat finals this year.
The three girls had gone back and forth over the perceived flaws of the two costumes before the rapid fire criticism finally shifted to Miss Langstrom’s project. Something about her being a constant tripping hazard to herself. The costume was rather plain, particularly for a magic track student, currently a monochromatic faux-wrap top in undyed Kevra, and a multi-layered skirt in the same fabric that incorporated a great deal of hidden pockets and holsters for her athame and holdout weapon of choice. She had given quite a few comments to Miss Langstrom about how to prevent the three layers of material in the skirt from entangling her legs, and relieving at least some of the heft from all the items she elected to carry. The costume was easy to put on and provided a fair amount of protection, but Mrs. Ryan cautioned the young woman about putting all her equipment into a single outfit that she would need to wear all the time. Mrs. Ryan had thought to give Meredith a short lesson on how to add pockets to any skirt, but had yet to find the time. Perhaps she would pull her aside at the end of this class.
The irony of the first two girls now berating the third was that Miss Langstrom had actually bridged the gap between aesthetics and practicality. As the first of the hair-pulling began, Mrs. Ryan briskly swooped toward the trio to intervene. The lesson to the class would be about providing, and also accepting, constructive criticism. One of her particular favorites for exactly this scenario…
Cryptic
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2 years 5 months ago #1016
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
There was a knock on the door of Nichole Reilly’s teachers village apartment. The Sidhe woman glanced around her still not quite organized abode and sighed.
“Toni, I said I’d call when I’m ready for...” She said as she whisked open the door. Standing on her door step was not the expected hyperactive Ki master, but Dr. Wyatt Cody. Something about his stance and the eyes told her that the being before her was not the man she had known through Elain Nally, but a being far older. “.. a house warming party. Kodiak, what do I owe the pleasure?
“I’m worried about something you might have inherited from The Queen Who Was.” The Bear rumbled.
Nikki nodded slowly and stepped back. “Well come in, something tells me this isn’t something to talk about on the doorstep.”
“Thank you.” he said stepping over the threshold. “This is something I’ve wanted to talk to you about since... well since I first realized who’s daughter you where.”
Nikki raised an eyebrow. “What is so special about who’s daughter I am?”
“Well, as Aunghadhail’s daughter...” He saw the redhead blanch and he slipped his hand under her elbow as the new teacher staggered. “She does leave a long shadow.” he rumbled.
“Yes, she does. So, what did she maybe leave me besides the crown?”
The Bear looked off into the past over Nikki’s head. “I still feel bound to the oaths I gave her about her privacy, but...” He drew in a breath then let out a huff. “One of her fellow Queen, I had my suspicions but never know for sure, hit her with something that left her sterile.”
Nikki’s knees went week, and she likely would have gone down had the Dr.’s big paw of a hand hadn’t been there. While unlike the other changelings she hadn’t put much thought into kids, and while she enjoyed visiting with her friend’s kids, she still hadn’t put much thought into it. With her long life ahead of her she’d thought she’d have time, but now...
The Bear could read her emotions as they played across her face. “Don’t assume the worst until I check you out.”
“Ok.” Nikki said in a small voice.
“We can do this here in private.” he added as he pulled a stool up to a comfortable looking chair.
“Do I need to undress?” Nikki asked, and both Wyatt an the Kodiak where amused by the blush that colored the former model’s cheeks. The Bear allowed his amusement to creep out as a gruff chuckle. “Age has only made you easier on the eyes, but no it isn’t require.” His nose twitched. He could smell the teacher’s... he wasn’t sure what Nikki considered the lesser fey as now. Back in their schooldays she’d been a handmaiden doing what Nikki had wanted, or not. Koehnes was lurking somewhere close at hand and he turned, saying into the air. “As long as you don’t do anything as foolish as attack me as the Old Queen’s guards tried long ago, you may come out and be here for her.”
The spirit crept out of hiding as Nikki sat in the chair and he took the stool. “Give me a moment to weave the spell I need.” He stated as Koehnes took Nikki’s hand giving him a fierce but worried look. He took his time with the casting, showing Wyatt as he did so. “You might feel some discomfort... shouldn’t be anything worse that what you’d feel from a gyno trip.” He caught her flush of embarrassed red, and he had to hold back a chuckle. Ah the young where so amusing sometimes. The exam was swift and through.
He sat back with a released huff. “You’re clear. Nothing magical of natural is going on there. Come the day, you can concise and carry to term.”
“God, you sound like my Mom...”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Cryptic
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2 years 5 months ago #1017
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
About 8 months Post Vanishing Day
Konrad Radu looked down on the war torn countryside, and sneered at the troops below. Who did thet think they where, trying to ‘reclaim’ the lands that his Lord had claimed under his banner. So Paramount was missing, he would return, and he had a strong Right Arm defending the gates until that time, or when the heir came of age.
“Regent, we are over the engagement. The Calvary is seeing that the civilians are clear while the Wolves are harrying the Soviet troops. They are making them chase their tails. Do you wish there to be survivors?” he asked glancing at the projection of a more then a little pregnant Amelia Hartford who was back at the palace fighting on a different battle field; keeping Soviat hackers from turning the Wallatcha Nuclear Power Plant into the next Chernobyl.
“They haven’t learned from those we left to carry word of their defeat back to the Cremlin. Make them all disappear.”
“As you command, Regent. It will be my pleasure.” Konrad said with a slight smirk as he lifted his flesh and blood right hand de-cloaking his, and the rest of the airships. It hurt like hell to extend his invisibility ability like that, but from the pause in the action below it was well worth it.
One of the crew, the one manning the ground to air communications called out, “Civilians are clear. Calvary says thanks.”
“Tell them they’re welcome, and they’re the anvil, we’re the hammer. Weapons, trget the rear of the target, drive them into the Calvary. Stalker units, aid in containment. Konrad ordered. Soon the airship cannons where pounding rhythmically. From the ruins of the town the heavy weapon carrying horse breed rose up laying down a rain of lead that ripped through the human troops The Soviat troops didn’t last long.
“Ships two through four, land and take on troops. Call in the Relief & Rebuild units, I want this village livable and fortified by the end of the week. They are also tasked with figuring out why the early warning system failed. They should not have been able to get this far.” Konrad growled, part of him regreting he hadn’t lead like Paramount; at the head of the ground troops. But Wallachia would be hear when his lord returned.
Even if he died defending it.
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 5 months ago #1018
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Extremely uncomfortable, Cardsharp knelt in front of the mirror and made the evocation. This time, the visage came immediately, eagerly into view. That did not bode well, not at all. Well? she asked, her one blue eye glittering.
Suppressing an aggrieved sigh with all his willpower, Cardsharp held up the Heart of Azdaja. Mabd gave a wide grin of realized hope. The large red crystal shattered on the end of its chain, revealing a smaller green crystal, which floated in the air. After a moment, that crystal shattered as well, revealing a smaller blue crystal. Ah! Mabd sighed, and the blue gem floated into the mirror.
Well Done, My Champion! the Queen of Air and Darkness exulted with an uncharacteristic wide grin, her two blue eyes glittering (even if one was blinking rapidly). A skeletal hand reached out from the mirror and inscribed a new rune on the amulet that served Cardsharp as a belt buckle. Now our Quest begins in earnest! Before, we were fumbling around in the dark. But now, I can actively see where the scattered bits of my soul have been locked away. Soon, I will be able to call upon by servants flung far across the globe. Soon, I will be the Weaver of the Midnight Veil in truth once again!
And for hardly the first time, the Scapegrace Knight wondered what lay at the end of the Forgotten Moonlight Quest.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 5 months ago #1019
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted (Part 3) wrote: Ms. Grimes tapped her fingers on the tabletop. “Morgana is a student here, she is in our care. Any payment will be made by the school on her behalf.”
Thulia gave her a long look, then nodded sharply.
“The traditional payment for this service is twelve minutes of passionate cuddling. I will accept it from you on her behalf.” She paused for a moment with an expectant look. “I require half up front, of course.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Anne
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2 years 5 months ago #1020
Anne replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The fabulous Imp had been violently ill every morning for a week. This is Imp-ossible she moaned to herself, still she made an appointment at Doyle medical.
I need to confirm that I’m pregnant, she told the person taking the appointment.
How am I going to tell Chickenhawk that he’s going to be a dad, and what is Melissa going to think? Actually she was pretty sure Melissa would be looking forward to teaching her younger sibling all sorts of Mischief!
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
E!
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2 years 4 months ago #1021
E! replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Mirror yawned as he made his way through the dimly lit hallways of Twain Cottage. The house father Mr. Filbert was out of town on business, putting him and Thuban in charge during the off hours. After checking the sophomore hall, Mirror headed down the freshman hall. Rubbing his tired eyes he spotted a splotch of crimson plastered on the wall just before the bathroom. Carefully opening the door, Mirror spotted a freshman kneeling on the floor with a medkit opened in front of him.
Mirror recognized him as AP, one of the few permitted to leave early to work at Doyle. One of the freshman’s eyes was swollen shut while the other was staring to show signs of the “raccoon eyes”. AP, looked at Mirror while holding a splint between his teeth.
“Jesus, man what happened?” The Cottage fixer asked storming in kneeling looking at AP.
“Naawwthing…” The injured boy growled through the splint he held in his mouth.
“Really because it doesn’t look like nothing.” Mirror stated, before noticing the arm that was bent at an unnatural angle. “AHhhh!!” he screamed in reaction.
AP paid no attention, to him instead turning back to his arm. With a deafening pop, and a gagged squeal from the boy, the arm snapped back into place.
“I think I’m going to puke.” Mirror said while looking at the floor.
“Well there is a toilet and there is a toilet.” AP pointed out while he wrapped the splint around his arm bracing it, and putting it in a makeshift sling.
“Are you in pain?” Mirror asked.
“Only when I breathe.” AP coughed as he fished for something inside the medical kit.
“I’m calling Doyle.” Mirror affirmed.
“Don’t. I’m fine.” AP yapped as he pulled out the Stabil Pen.
“Hey, that is for emergencies!” Mirror asserted.
“I think this counts.” AP snapped, injecting himself with the devisor drug. With a slight breath of relief AP got up from the bathroom floor. Shuffling towards the tunnel elevators.
“HEY, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?!” Mirror yelled.
“Doyle.” AP lied though the haze of euphoria he was feeling. “Someone, has to clean that up.”
“Oh, yea…”Mirror looked at the mess in the bathroom. “Hey, you owe me one!” Mirror finished as the drugged boy walked away.
AP however did not go to Doyle. Instead he went to his office deep in the tunnels. There he used his key to open the locked door. Walking in he made a beeline for the chalkboard he kept on the side of the room. At the center were two names both circled and connected by a solid line. Naomi Jaeger and Elizabeth Carson. In the middle of the two names AP drew a third line and circle.
There he scribbled the name of the group that jumped him, and told him to stop searching for his sister. “THE AMAZONS”
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 4 months ago - 2 years 4 months ago #1022
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Inspired by this video , and with references to some of my earlier micro-scenes
“I think you’re being too fucking ‘subtle’ for your own good,” Chris whispered to his fellow deity as she fumed over a colleague’s slight. “Do you really think you can outwit Athena? Fuck that noise. If you really are that pissed off, go over there and make her hurt.”
Victoria looked at Counterpoint, and behind him his new lackey Centurion, as if they were crazy. Crazier than usual, she amended to herself. “Carson...”
“Shit on Carson! She may be best friends with your former self these days, but she’s still mortal. What is she going to do if the two of you get into it? What could she do?”
“I’m no fighter...”
“Oh, but I remember a time when you were, now, don’t you? The Spartans quite loved their dear Areia. Surely you can do this for old times’ sake? Just like back in the golden days of the Trojan War?”
Cytherea seemed to think this over, then a steely look came into her eyes. Yes, it was far too long since she’s really shown her claws...
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Cryptic
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2 years 4 months ago #1023
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Hank 3 wrote: Turning to the silently fuming Nikki, so caught up in her own world she hadn’t even noticed her friend’s departures, Hank stepped close and waited. Ever since Mrs. Carson delivered the news to Nikki, both that Solicitor was suing her and that, far from fighting the suit, the school’s response would be to give him her modelling earnings, Nikki had been upset.
~*~
Hank guided Nikki to the Homer Gallery, up to a dusty pile of metal bars. Hank stopped, staring down sadly at the piled gold bars. “It’s only money Nikki,” he repeated softly. “Yes, it’s your money, but still.” Turning he looked to Nikki, glassy-eyed as he gestured.
“For God’s sake you’re an ELF not a gold hording Dwarf or Dragon, and I start checking your chin for whiskers or scales.”
Somehow that statement cracked through Nikki’s Angry At The World and the red head gave her friend a weak smile.
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Katssun
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2 years 4 months ago - 2 years 4 months ago #1024
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The Black Mask:
Blue Diamond, the World’s Most Loveable Supervillain™, saw a familiar face, but an infrequent patron, eating in a shadowy corner of the supervillain bar as she walked in that evening. It wasn’t typical in her M.O. to be so intrusive with her peers. One didn’t become the Most Loveable by being nosy. But she couldn’t resist! She had recently heard a fantastic rumor from Pinball, and just had to confirm it since the rare chance arose.
She ordered a drink from Carl and sashayed over to her target. While his features may be nondescript, the tricorne hat she leaned near was unmistakable.
“Milady?” he inquired, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” she replied before leaning in a little closer. “A little bird told me you recently picked up a pet...a rescue no less.”
Instead of responding, Highwayman slid a smartphone partway across the table. The image of little motley white, black, and orange kitten sleeping up against a normal looking pillow on a couch shown on screen.
“Aww...what’s its name?”
“I named her Nature,” he replied and pocketed the phone.
“Unusual name for a cat...”
“Not at all, milady. Nature abhors the vacuum.”
Last Edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Katssun.
Cryptic
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2 years 4 months ago #1025
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“The diamond? You know the trick where Superman heats up and compresses a lump of coal? That’s the result of a Brick being dared to prove they had buns of adamantiam. “ Nichole waited a beat, studying the kids expressions. “Wow, you believed that? I owe Toni a dollar. Seriously, it’s cursed, but Doctor Alexander, contained it. Someone figured ‘why leave it gathering dust? Let’s put it on display.’”
“Is that safe?”
“So long as it doesn’t leave school property, yes.”
~*~
“No, I don’t know why one of the first students would make a Raisin gun or why anyone would put it on display.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Sir Lee
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2 years 4 months ago #1026
Sir Lee replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The FSA evaluating board looked at the two freshmen applicants.
“What are your codenames and powers, guys?”
“I’m Gorm. I have very good senses, can go one week without sleep and don’t get distracted easily.”
“I’m Feck. I can increase the efficiency of chemical reactions.”
“I see. Those are... interesting powers, but not really combat geared. I suppose they would be useful for a watchman or a chemical industry, but as far as superheroing go... sorry, guys.”
“Wait, we know our powers are not that impressive, but you really should sign us up.”
“Why?”
“Because without us, you will be gormless and feckless.”
Don’t call me “Shirley.” You will surely make me surly.
null0trooper
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2 years 4 months ago #1027
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Party Like It’s 1999
Melville Cottage, Whateley Academy
Hikaru Myoujin was the very model of decorum as she took the call from Princess Kako. The call had come while she was performing her RA duties, so she’d maintain that decorum if it broke her.
“Hikaru, do you remember me telling you that the IHA would be happy to arrange dates with suitable gentlemen? As it should happen to turn out, the Household has learned of Whateley Academy’s traditional Halloween Party. Some feel that it would be a shame to pass up such an opportunity...”
MIT&T, Massachusetts
“... but I’m twenty-four, give-or-take some! Having me escort a fourteen-year-old to her school’s dance has to be ten different kinds of wrong.”
“Drop your illusion and try saying that with a straight face.”
“So I look a little young.”
“For pushing forty, I have to say the princess has you beat in the looks department. But you both could stand mingle more, actually risk contact with sunlight and other people, maybe gain a couple of pounds.”
“Keep that up, and I’ll invite Cousin Brigitte to drop by early.”
“See? You two have so much in common!”
Melville Cottage, Whateley Academy
“... What do you mean ‘nothing in common’, my sweet Okami? I’m told that the young count can turn into big puppy. So adorable!”
“This has already been arranged, hasn’t it?”
*It would appear so, Daughter. I admit to being intrigued as to what Kako is planning.*
“We only need to finalize what you’re going to wear so he can make suitable arrangements. You don’t want to both arrive wearing the same colors! That would be almost as bad as coming as yourself.”
*Something cut for dancing, I should think!*
“It’s being narrowed down as we speak.”
*But to present us as other than us. That presents difficulties.*
*Aren’t you on speaking terms with the other Kami?*
*Of course! If it is to be for only one night, sacrifices can be made. I could even bear to wear... I have an idea!”
MIT&T, Massachusetts
“Why now? Rikke, you of all people should know the red-letter tabloids would have a field day with this.”
“Because Thomas is off-plane and you mope. When you mope, my only nephew gets sulky.”
“But!”
“Because we all know what happens when you get bored and there’s no adult supervision. No, the Crown Prince does NOT count except at State affairs! Now, Amaterasu is known to favor red and gold...”
“Blood and money. I can respect that.”
“Thank God it’s a costume party. Come as you aren’t.”
“That can be taken in so many ways. Rikke? What aren’t you telling me?”
Monday evening, October 31, 2016, Melville Cottage, Whateley Academy
It had taken more work (in the case of onlookers at the salon, tears) than Hikaru had expected, but she managed to get her hair cut, dyed, and styled to fit her chosen role. White shirt trimmed in green, green cargo pants, and sneakers completed the look. Kurenai pitched in by projecting a hard-light disply that hid her own equipment. Whenever she suspected Hikaru to be paying insufficient attention, she added bright green sprites to the display.
Downstairs
Mads grinned and bore the attention of a Security escort to Melville from the Guest House. If he could put up with getting the body and face makeup right ( and the hair! ) he could put up with this. What had completely surprised him was that Thomas had been in the mood to pitch in after getting back early.
Another surprise was that he’d managed to cross the entrance lobby to Concierge’s desk before the catty comments drifted to his ears.
“Who does she think she is?”
“More like who was desperate enough to hire her for the evening.”
“May I help you?”
Mads choked back the first few suggestions that came to mind, and said < I believe that Myoujin Hikaru is expecting me. >
Well, it looks like the name-drop worked.
< Who should I say is enquiring? >
< Her escort for the evening, of course. >
Hikaru
“My WHAT?”
“’Escort’ was the approximate term used.”
Hikaru fumed. “I will be there shortly!”
Downstairs
“She will be down here soon.”
“I look forward to it.”
Both pretended not to here the giggling coming from their observers.
*Daughter. Even when provoked, we do not stomp our way to, our, oh, my.*
Hikaru and Amaterasu had not been expecting their “date” to be wearing a Little Black Dress, halter top, mini-skirt length, paired with black chelsea boots. A simple belt, large silver ankh, and a realistic raven completed the ensemble.
*Do try not to drool*
Mads took in the short brown hair, the green and white clothes, walked over and smiled.
“Ben 10! I’ve been dying to meet you!”
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Kettlekorn
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2 years 4 months ago #1028
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“It’s sort of working, but I’m doing something wrong,” Morgana muttered as her hand healed in a burst of orange flame.
Thulia eyed the working critically. “No, everything is in order.”
“But it isn’t green like yours.”
“Oh, that?” said Thulia with a grin. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a pouch of powdered blue crystal. “Just sprinkle this into it.”
“Oooh. Magic crystals? They enhance the healing?”
Thulia laughed. “No, silly! Just copper sulfate. It burns the prettiest green.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Cryptic
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2 years 4 months ago #1029
Cryptic replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Tia spun around glaring daggers at the Wondercute girls and Karma. “Stop following me!! I’m not the Easter Bunny, which means I . DO NOT! HIDE! EGGS!”
“I made a bunny that lays colored eggs” Petshop stated proudly. Then she deflated a tad. It doesn’t hie them very well though.”
“Wait. What? No, no, I don’t want drawn into your insanity.”
I am a caffeine heathen; I prefer the waters of the mountain over the juice of the bean. Keep the Dews coming and no one will be hurt.
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 4 months ago #1030
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The predator crouched on its perch and surveyed its domain for prey. There, sneaking along the edge of the hallway. The predator set, tensed, twitched its tail and launched itself from its perch. It spread its wings and dodged among the started obstacles, almost losing sight of its target for a moment. But the prey was too sure of its defenses, and wasn’t being wary enough. The predator folded its wings into a power dive and piled into its prey.
A feminine scream filled the corridor of Dunn Hall. “What was that?” someone said. “I heard a girl scream.”
The students watched as the small dragonet furiously wrested with… thin air? After some spirited tumbling around, Smokey seemed to get a mouthful of something and started shaking his head back and forth, like a dog with a pillow. The screaming sound got louder, and students gathered around to figure out what was going on. Then there was an audible snap, and suddenly Smokey had a fuzzy mottled white-and-brown rabbit by the scruff of the neck. The rabbit was still, except for a noticeably weakening twitch of a hind leg.
“Oh,” said one of the older students. “Invisibunny.”
“Invisibunny?” echoed another student. “You mean someone made an invisible bunny? Why would they do that?”
“Because they could.”
“Aren’t we gonna do something about that?” Asked a female student gingerly.
“Why?” asked a boy with an noticeable Australian accent. “They’re invisible rabbits!” he said it with an inflection that suggested that he considered rabbits to be large hopping rats with fluffy tails. “If that little lizard is good for bringing down rabbits… nah, something would go wrong. Something always does…” he gave a sigh for the fact that despite its notoriously vicious wildlife, Australia still had to produce an effective natural predator for rabbits.
Smokey adjusted his grip on the rabbit’s scruff and started to haul the body off. “He’s gonna EAT it?” someone asked.
“Who knows? None of my business, as long as he doesn’t get blood on the floor.”
*****
There was a scratching at the back door of the Crystal Hall kitchens. One of the cooks went to the door and opened it. Smokey was crouched there, the rabbit in front of him, and he was looking up as his tail wagged eagerly. “Oh! You caught another one?” the cook said appreciatively. “And he’s a big one! Well, you’ve earned it, come and get your reward.” The cook picked up the rabbit and carried it to a counter. Smokey pranced after him, clearly anticipating his reward. Setting the rabbit on the counter, the cook lifted up a fresh éclair and placed it on a plate. Then he filled a demitasse cup full of cappuccino and set it on the plate. He set the plate on the floor. Smokey picked up the plate and gingerly carried it out the door.
The cook hefted the dead rabbit and said, “Well, at least we’ll have a steady supply of hasenpfeffer for a while.”
“If that little lizard could get fat, he’d roll,” chuckled another cook.
“But is it okay to cook a bio-devisor’s project?” a third cook asked.
“We’ve tested it,” said the first cook, “and it’s safe so far. Besides, if Smokey didn’t keep their numbers down, they’d breed until they started to threaten the local squirrels. And you do not want to piss off the local squirrels.”
Katssun
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2 years 4 months ago - 2 years 4 months ago #1031
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“Hey Mom...is it okay if my girlfriend is comes over tonight? By the way, she can only eat meat.”
Last Edit: 2 years 4 months ago by Katssun.
Bek D Corbin
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2 years 4 months ago #1032
Bek D Corbin replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Out of necessity, some stories go through a LOT of revisions from original concept to what finally gets posted. This is how what ended up as ‘The Final Trump’ started out.
****
I adjusted the fit of the dress. I looked good in it, if I had to say so myself. And why shouldn’t I? I was gorgeous in a gazelle-slender freshman high school way. There was no way that anyone would ever be able to tell that I’d been born a boy. I turned this way and that, and reveled in it in the privacy of my own bedroom. I was in mid-twirl when Mom barged in without knocking. I reflexively froze. She took one look at I, and a look entered her large, almond-shaped eyes. She drew herself up and declared, “Avery! Look at you in that dress!” She swept me up in her arms in a hug that would have crushed a normal person. “I am just so proud I could BUST!”
What a difference a summer makes. I looked into the mirror and liked what I saw. It was one thing to know that I’d probably turn out to be a mutant- rather a foregone conclusion, what with both Mom and Dad not only being mutants but supervillains. But it was another to realize that instead of weedy facial hair, underarm odor, zits, a voice that broke every five seconds and an Adam’s apple the size of a grapefruit, puberty brought the gift of beauty. And femininity. I smiled at my reflection, and was agreeably impressed. My old boy-face had been… well… serviceable enough. But boy-Avery had had brown eyes and a boy’s face. Now I had eyes that were flashing emeralds set in a visage of feline beauty and grace. I was definitely my mother’s daughter, even if I’d inherited Dad’s control over ectoplasm, instead of Mom’s super-strength, near-invulnerability and flight. But so, I’d gotten the things that really mattered, the face, the hair, the sleek physique, and in time, the great boobs. I was only fifteen, and I could hardly expect to have Mom’s great cleavage- yet.
And it was so good to be able to try on dresses and makeup and experiment with my hair, without sneaking around, worrying that the ‘rents or little brothers would find out! Not that sneaking around hadn’t been fun- and good training.
Mom minutely adjusted the fit of the dress on me, more out a desire to get in that last little molecule of mothering than any sartorial need. “So, have you settled on that for your trip to Whateley?”
I held up one of the other dresses and worried my lower lip, more out of seeing if that bit worked than any real worry. “Yes, I think that this will have to do… Oh, this would be so much easier if I’d had the time to find out what my own personal style is!”
Mom grinned indulgently and chuckled. “It must be nice to think that. Well, what can I say? No more time for any wardrobe changes, we have to go get to the airport!”
“Mom, do you have to come with me?” I asked plaintively. “I mean, I’m fifteen! I can travel by myself!”
Mom patted me on the cheek. “Of course you can, dear. But due to your… change in status… I think that it might be best if I went along to make sure that everything is taken care of.”
“errr… Mom, if by ‘change in status’ you’re talking about my sex change, they’re used to that! Remember, in the brochure, there was that bit about ‘my mutation is causing me to change sex’?”
Mom let out a fluttery exhalation of exasperation. “Oh, PLEASE! That? Avery dear, the Hellers haven’t gotten where we are by taking things on face value! No, I’ll go and make sure that there are no ‘unfortunate misunderstandings’. Besides, I haven’t been to Whateley in thirty years; it will be good to see the old place after all this time. And, it will give me a chance to finally meet that delightful Miss Hartford that was so helpful with laundering the proceeds from the DeSilva project.” Mom leaned in, “And besides, there are a few things that a girl really does need to hear from her mother, and what with all the craziness and Grand Opera, we haven’t really had a lot of chances for ‘Girl Time’.”
I flinched at the thought of ‘girl time’ with Mom, but managed to keep my peace. I watched with steely patience as Mom looked through how I’d packed everything and then showed me how it should be packed. Okay, she DID have a point or two but still… Mom had Javros gather up the luggage. She could lift over six tons, and I was in the thousand pound area, but Javros had been with the family since before I was born, so he handled the bags. ‘The reason why supervillains like the Crimson Claw are always yelling that they’re surrounded by incompetents is that they ARE surrounded by incompetents; those are the only people that abusive idiots like the Claw can HIRE’, I recall Dad telling me once. The Hellers were very big on pointers for future careers in super-crime. ‘Hire competent people, treat them well, and HOLD ONTO THEM! Equal parts Loyalty and Terror! I’ve been in the business for 25 years, and not a single underling as rolled over on me!’ Still, I reflected, there may have been something to the Dad’s pontifications.
Mom stopped Javros. “No, there’s still one thing left to do.” She stopped at a bookcase, lifted up a statuette, moved it to another spot until she heard a click, and then replaced it in its original setting. The bookcase pushed out slightly and slid to one side, revealing a stairwell going up. “Cardinal?” She called up. “Cardinal Sin? Come down, there’s something that needs your personal attention!”
Dad’s voice wafted down and snapped irritably, “I’m in the middle of something!”
Mom scowled and called back up. “But we’re leaving!”
“I’m BUSY!”
Mom growled and stalked up the stairs. Javros and I looked at each other awkwardly as the sounds of Mom and Dad yapped at each other up in his Lair-away-from-Lair. My brother, Vic (age 10) wandered up and asked, “What’s all the noise about?” Alex (age 5- my folks are very big about having their children five years apart. Alex hasn’t caught on that his time as the ‘baby’ of the family is running out) was tagging along, and wanted to know too. The noise upstairs went violent, and there was the sound of a few things breaking.
“Mom and Dad are, ah, working through a few difficulties,” I told them. Alex ducked behind the protection offered by Vic’s back. Only five years old, and he already knows how things work around here.
Finally, Mom came tromping down the stairs with Dad literally kicking and screaming slung over her shoulder. The dreaded Angry-Mom look all over her face, she set him on the floor and snarled, “Was that a HOSTAGE I saw up there?”
“Doctor Proteus is in town, and all the decent Hostage Hotels are all booked up,” Dad said defensively, adjusting his robes. Dad’s supervillain name is ‘Cardinal Sin’ (yes, we know about the guy in the Philippines, don’t let it bug you), and he affects a sort of ‘techno Cardinal Richelieu’ look, with the dark scarlet cassock and a false mustache and van dyke beard. “I HAD to put him SOMEWHERE!”
Mom put her hands on her hips and glowered, “We had an understanding: No Weapons of Mass Destruction, No Demonic workings of ANY kind, and NO HOSTAGES in my house!”
Dad started to quibble, but Mom waved him down. “Later! Believe me, we’re going to talk about that later! But now… Now, you have a few things to say to your daughter.”
“I don’t have a daughter,” Dad said mulishly. He refused to even look at me!
“DAMIAN HELLER, how can you SAY that?”
“Shhh! I have a hostage upstairs!”
“Which is one reason why I won’t have them in my house! Now, Damian, you need to talk to Avery.”
“Wont!”
“Damian, you always say that family comes first,” Mom said in her most Mom-ish tones. Well, Dad was acting like a little boy, so… “Avery is going away to school, and we won’t see her for weeks. She didn’t ask to be changed into a girl. Now, how do you think that she’ll feel, going away to stay with complete strangers, if you won’t even talk to her?”
Dad pulled a face, and finally gave me a look. I was waiting with the deadliest ‘sad kitten face’ that I could pull off without breaking out laughing. Dad took it straight in the face, and seizing the drama with both hands (as per uze), he swept me up in his arms for a crushing hug. “Avery… I’m sorry… I’ve always wanted a daughter…But you were my son! MY SON!”
What did I tell you? Drama Queen or what? “I love you, daddy…” I mewled, <note for the future: always begin any negotiations with Dad with, ‘I love you, Daddy’. Apparently the Dadinator is an absolute sucker for this; if I’d been born a girl (as I should have been!), I would have mastered this by age Five!> “And you still have Vic and Leggie!”
He looked down at me with tears in his eyes and paternal pride gleaming from his face. If I didn’t think that Mom wouldn’t raise the roof about it, I’d hit him up for a Porsche for my sixteenth birthday right about now. “You’re absolutely right, Princess!” Princess. I can now officially get away with murder.
null0trooper
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1033
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Debriefing a notable Charlie-Foxtrot Exercise,
Team Tactics I, Whateley Academy
Gunny Bardue: Where do you get the idea you can sit around all day and do nothing?
Absinthe: Do you think I sit around and do nothing?! I haven’t had a chance to sit around and do nothing since the day I arrived at Whateley, I’m too busy running coffee and doughnuts for the MCO on weekends - do this Wylann, do that Wylann - and when I’m not running around after closeted H1 members, I’m doing extra studies with Mrs. Lauriant, and if I’m not doing that, I’m fulfilling my destiny - do you know how many times I’ve had to deal with superpowered bullies? I’ve lost count - do I get any thanks? No - I have fought dragons, witches, bandits, I have been punched, poisoned, pelted with fruit - devisor bananas to be exact, and all the while I have to hide who I really am because if anyone finds out, The Queen To Come might decide to have me executed after all. Some times I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions I don’t know which way to turn!
Gunny: And what do you Pu- people - have to say for yourselves? You do concentrate on Absinthe a lot.
Vapaat Taivas: Geek the mage first.
Gunny: What?
Vapaat Taivas: Exhibit A is sitting in front of me; Exhibit B is his wingman.
Metro: Hej! Why is it-
Gunny: Pipe down, son, they’ve met you. Your team makes a habit of taking Fixx down next. Could someone explain why him and not Jinx, Porcelain, or Flytrap?
Rorsmand: Gunny? These two (gestures at Metro and Smithy) take notes.
Gunny: That makes more sense than I am comfortable admitting to.
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Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by null0trooper.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1034
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Trish glanced from her Sudoku puzzle to Lifeline, then started. The girl was asleep at the table, her pen set neatly beside the closed spell book she’d been writing in. “She’s finally finished.”
Caitlin placed one last precisely bent paper clip into place and then flicked the cardboard pinwheel, causing her contraption to hum to life. “Perfect timing.” She stalked into the other room and snagged the book, then backed into the corner as a security officer carried Lifeline back to her cell. Sparing them no attention, Caitlin withdrew a flashlight and The Space Blanket of Absolute Protection from hammer-space, the latter of which she threw over herself before beginning to read.
Half an hour later she emerged from the blanket’s shiny, warded embrace and rejoined Trish in the observation room. “Bad news. This isn’t a spell formula, a ritual, or anything remotely useful.”
“Then what is it?”
“A creepy fan-fic.”
“...What.”
Caitlin tossed the book on the table and it fell open to a random page, so Trish leaned over and read a line. “’Nikki found herself wrapped in Bunny’s arms and staring back into those wide, teary blue eyes.’ But... but why?”
“Hell if I know. Talk to Bellows or Horton.”
“But-”
“Nope, I want nothing to do with this. Besides, I’ve got a date to keep.”
“A date.”
“Mmm hmm,” said Caitlin with a shit-eating grin. “A date at the range with Kid Glock. We’re gonna pew click ka-pew, and bang kabang, trigger-trigger-trigger, shoot the figure, set up, shoot the figure.”
“This is not an appropriate time for jokes.”
“Any time a problem’s not my problem is a time for jokes, and a student writing TG slash is very not my problem.”
“Tee-gee? Slash? What do those-”
“Uh uh, nope. Talk to Bellows and Horton, not me.” She pulled a black disk from hammer-space and attached it to the wall, then flicked it to reveal a short tunnel outside. She stepped through and began peeling it off from the other side. “Eldritch has left the building.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Kettlekorn.
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1035
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Dickinson Cottage, November 16th, 2016 - Evening
Nana had burnt her hands while trying to keep Hannah off of the poor kid from Hawthorne. Once again. The staff in Doyle said she’d be fine in no time, but they had a scheduled match in a half hour! The boys over in Twain could not be allowed to hold on to the current record going into Thanksgiving.
“So…who has the steadiest hands in the building?”
The three girls looked at each other. One rushed down the hall as quickly as she could.
----
Darcy Gleason found herself seated at a table in the common room, no idea what was going on. Five minutes ago, a girl she had seen around the cottage but never talked to was pounding on her door. Four and a half minutes ago, the two of them had been thrown out of the room by Darcy’s roommate Viola, Darcy’s bag in tow to deal with whatever emergency this was. It was getting late, but Darcy was always ready to help with crises of a cosmetological nature.
Two minutes ago, three girls including an RA explained what they needed Darcy to do for them, and six seconds ago, a ten-minute timer started on the hefty bomb made of hard light in front of her. Metal panels had slid aside every which way as the timer started.
“This is just a practice round Beautician,” said the girl with bandages on her hands. “No need to get nervous. Just describe what you see to Milena and she’ll tell you what to do.”
She couldn’t see the RA seated across the table from her due to the huge opaque screen made of hard light from the projector that sat in the middle attached to somebody’s laptop. But she had seen the huge stack of paper held together with a binder clips and sectioned off with stickies before they got started.
A calm voice cut through the faded Harlequin green wall. “Always be descriptive. Can you read a serial number? Oh wait! First tell me what it looks like before you move it.”
Darcy nervously brushed her fingers down her fat Dutch braid and leaned up to look at the top of the fake bomb. She saw a little box of wires, two boxes of buttons, a little radio thingy, a glass dish with a glob of silver liquid in it, and a big button. She relayed the information as best she could to Milena who recognized each of the pieces despite Darcy’s lack of familiarity.
“Okay, DON’T move the box if you can help it, there’s a mercury trigger. Use the mirror to read the serial number and look for batteries.” Darcy leaned over to her bag to fish out a compact. One of the other girls stopped her.
“You can use the mirror from the game’s toolbox, it will pick up the info and display it through the projector.”
“One, Bee, Cue, Dee…”
“Stop. Phonetics please.”
“Okay…One, Bravo, Quebec, Delta, Romeo, Seven.” She repeated quickly. One of the two girls on her side of the screen glanced at her.
“Okay, thanks. Which box has a red light on it?”
“The little radio thingy.”
“It’ll make some beeps that only you can hear when you hold the square button in. Let me know what they are, long or short.”
Darcy listened to the series of beeps and simply replied, “Whiskey7.”
The other two girls blinked at Darcy in surprise while she heard Milena flipping through pages. “Daddy is a HAM operator. My brother and I both have amateur licenses in case he’s away at work after a hurricane takes out the power in the state. We usually have power when the shoreline doesn’t.”
“How much time’s left?” Milena asked as she was still flipping through pages.
“7:30.”
Darcy heard a soft curse, “I know why the codes are randomized but come on! Ah. Tune it to Three Point Two Eight Seven.” Darcy did and the red light went green.
The girls continued talking back and forth over the next six minutes as Darcy cut wires with fake tools, rapidly tapped buttons, did her best to describe weird symbols that Milena had to ask clarifications about, and finally got to the big button.
“What colors is the button?”
“Spanish Veridian.”
“So green.” Darcy heard her flipping pages.
“No.”
“No?!”
“Maybe more of Teal, or even Pine Green? There’s a fair amount of blue in it.”
“So it’s green. Or is it checkered blue and green?”
“No.”
“No what?! We have less than a minute.”
“Fine. It’s Green. But there are blues in the ultraviolet.” Darcy put up air quotes as she said ‘blues.’
“Whatever!” After another burst of frantically flipped pages, Darcy heard, “Hold the button down and tilt the box until the mercury hits the edge of the glass dish and then immediately let go of the button.”
Darcy stood up and did as she was told. The button box LED went green and the timer stopped. ‘00:08’ The box made a very loud click.
The other two girls cheered. Her partner came around the other side of the table and smiled. “Ten minute break, and then we do the real thing…”
Darcy swallowed hard. “The real game thing? Right?”
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Katssun. Reason: Fixed internal continuity error
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago #1036
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The March of Dreams
Elise Crewe walked out of the stone and slate cottage at the very core of her dreamspace and across the small but immaculately maintained lawn via a well worn packed dirt path.
She adjusted her floppy beige sunhat and pulled open a well-oiled wooden gate in the fieldstone rock wall before steeping into the sea of garbage that ran from horizon to horizon. Bright rays of light cut through the sickly indigo hue that filled the sky like the sun peeking through clouds, highlighting specific patches of abandoned belongings.
Elise carefully threaded her way through all manner of things, careful not to step on any of them with her opened-toed wedges. A few baubles were delicately nudged aside with the edge of her shoes. Something robin’s egg blue caught her eye in the distance. Moments later she stood before a beast of a car. The word “Dodge” emblazoned on the front in chrome letters. Her hand extended out to touch it when it was yanked back with a very firm grasp around her wrist.
“Not yet. Maybe in a few years,” her spirit Meadow said sharply. “Depends.” Elise’s spirit was all-business tonight. No stained dresses like she usually preferred. Instead she wore her vibrant red hair piled elegantly on her head. Ruched black trash bags forming a floor-length gown. The look on her face was insistent, but not confrontational.
“It’s just a car…”
“They’re never ‘just a car’ Elise. Not ones like that.”
“Fine. I trust you,” Elise twirled around looking for something simple. A tube of lipstick lay on the bare earth a few steps away. A quick glance at Meadow, a subtle nod in return, and Elise picked up the gold and brass plastic tube.
Her completely white embroidered sundress morphed into a floral dress that nipped in at the waist and a burgundy cardigan settled on her shoulders. Elise felt a strong squeeze on each of her legs as tights rolled up them. She sank an inch or two as her sandals became Velcro sneakers. Her world turned in on itself.
A bedroom laid itself out before her. Her view shifted to the vanity. A black and white photo of a well-groomed man in uniform. A later color photo of two old people leaning against a railing, maybe of a ship, all smiles. Pure white houses on rocky cliffs behind them. A necklace stand rested on the other side of the vanity, a simple gold chain with three rings hanging from the bottom. A chime of a doorbell came from somewhere else in the house. The lipstick still in her hand, she placed it on the vanity next to the necklace.
The scene shifted. She felt a pinch on her left hand. A small room, a blaring television. The curtains drawn. Raising her hand, she saw a different ring encircling her finger than the ones on the necklace. The lipstick tube sat next to her on a small table, alongside a glass of water. A rumble of a cart came from the open door. The usual string of overly-quick impressions rushed at her and the world compressed on itself.
ApprehensionNervousPrideLUCKYFondnessKeepsakeForgottenKeepsakeForgottenKeepsakeForgottenTAKEN.Disposed.
She returned to her dreamspace, her clothes shifting to normal. The lipstick shone brightly with inner light. It compacted itself into a pinprick and burst into embers, quickly fading before they came close to the surface. She let out a sigh to shake the memories.
Elise’s eye landed on a stone wrapped in bits of leather. She picked it up and her clothes evaporated, but weren’t replaced! Trees sprouted from the garbage piles and a sea of leaves replaced the toys, broken electronics, and occasional recliner.
BetterBESTWorn.Dropped.
The stone exploded into light. Elise smoothed out her dress and thanked her lucky stars that was a quick one.
“Here,” Meadow said, holding out an empty soda can. “I’m curious,” she said with a smile.
Elise reached for the can and four walls pivoted into place around her, zigzag wallpaper rolling down the surfaces. Elise grunted softly as she was squished by her shifting ensemble. A tight red shirt that failed to cover her midriff, denim overalls that fit more like a romper at least a size too small. She quickly popped one of the buttons on the straps before her breasts got crushed as she shrugged the other off of her shoulder.
Usually things shifted to fit. This happened sometimes when the memories were from toddlers.
There wasn’t a can in her hand, but a tiny painted soldier in its place. The scene collapsed as quickly as it came.
HeroFUNWornDisplayedRemeberedExamined.Recycled.
“That’s a first,” Elise remarked, brushing the fading sparkles of light from her hands.
“I very much doubt it’s the last though,” Meadow replied. “I’m surprised the emotions clung on even after that though.”
Elise glanced behind a stained couch that Meadow wouldn’t let her touch and picked up a partially burnt record player. Polished wood floors, and an unattended and empty bar off to the side. Her dress split at her waist and the top rewove itself into a fitted blouse with floral-looking trim. Her skirt swelled into much thicker fabric as it became swing skirt with a cat sewn onto it.
“Hard Nope!” She dropped the player back to the ground and rapidly shook the remnants of the memories from her hands as she returned to her dreamspace. She hated the Fifties! “Uggh!”
“You have to get to them sometime…”
“Not today I don’t!” She twirled at her spirit with a raised finger.
Meadow silently shook her head in response.
Compulsively wiping her hands on her dress, Elise picked her way around more things. Shadows from above ran across the pair as they passed a pile of bright satin dresses and a heavy desk with a few pens scattered on its surface. Then there, in a isolated patch of earth, sat a small stuffed animal. Elise snatched it off the ground.
The space around her built itself piece by piece, even shifting over time. Pale pastel pink walls with a border of wallpaper blurring into bright magenta before turning a very dark red and then finally white. A cradle faded into a small bed with lace trim before surging into a full size bed with satiny sheets and then ending as a treadmill.
But her clothes stayed constant. A pink, lacy dress, a little short on her, sure, and what felt like buttons going down her back. The stuffed animal felt soft in her hands.
SoftWarmLovedFavoriteLovedHeroREALMissedCozyChildishCOMFORTINGCherishedForgottenNostalgiaDingyFondness.KissedGoodbye.
The bedroom faded, and the toy shone with a brilliant glow…that promptly faded. The soft feeling replaced by a sensation that was both warm and rough. Her eyes widened with momentary panic.
“Meadow! It happened again!”
The pair walked briskly back to the cottage at the center, Elise carefully cradling the bundle in her hands. Meadow opened the gate at the wall. Elise knelt to the ground and placed a miniature, but very much living and breathing Stegosaurus on the grass. It squeaked happily. Elise glanced across her small menagerie that included a squirrel, two micro-sized horses, and four rabbits already munching on the lawn.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1037
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
This is a bit of pov from a side character in a non-Whateley story I’ve been working on. Thought I’d share.
Lynn, Aug 4, 2018
Feet flash below, windows glitter to the sides, and the sun shines above. Life is great. Okay, the bullets aren’t so great. They’re almost fast enough to be a problem. Almost.
No, I’m not faster than a speeding bullet. I’m not even faster than a cautious, law abiding bullet. I am fast enough to see them coming and dodge them without much trouble, and they don’t do much more than bruise even when they do hit me. Mostly, anyway. Some rifles can get pretty darned fast. But this chump? Handgun. Yawn.
Oh hey, a sale on skirts. Nice. I skid to a stop, hop over a spinning bit of lead, then slide past a granny blocking the door. Bad spot to be, really, with all those bullets zipping about. I take a look through their stock, select a nice green and blue one, and leave the cash and price tag on the counter. Then I’m gone. I’d stay and chat with the cashier if I could, but it’s not possible. Honestly. Really would. He’s pretty cute, and those sideburns! Unfortunately, I literally can’t stop moving.
Two months ago I turned fourteen. Big party, all my friends, amazing cake. Two weeks later I got the jitters. Family brought me to the hospital on the second day. We waited in the emergency room, and waited, and waited. Time was moving so slow, you know?
Yeah, you see where this is going. Calendar says it’s been six weeks for the rest of the world. For me? Hard to tell exactly since I don’t wear a watch. Thirty-one periods, whatever those are worth in this state. I mean, I don’t even sleep anymore, so who knows? But it seems like I’m running at about twenty times normal speed, give or take a bit depending how excited I am. I’ve gotten better at not making a mess of everything around me as I live my life, but well, crap happens. Literally. Using the toilet like this is so embarrassing!
Anyway, whatever else is going on with me, I’m clearly still a growing girl, and a growing girl needs clothes. I swap skirts in an empty alley as I loop the building, then I wad up my old one and throw it hard at the head of the gunman who’s endangering the poor granny ever so slowly hobbling her way out of danger. I’d help her inside, but I’m really tired of accidentally hurting people. Yeah, turns out inertia is mostly a thing. I can interact with stuff if I concentrate, but it’s hard, and it’s harder the bigger and heavier they are. Pushing on people is a no-no. Even lightly patting somebody on the shoulder comes off more like a slap if I don’t focus. Learned these things the hard way.
I could use a hug so bad.
I settle for a bagel instead while I wait for the chump with the gun to fall over. I haven’t paid for the bagel yet, but I’ll get to that in a moment. I used the last of my cash on my new skirt. My reflection in the shop’s window is stunning, as usual. Green is the best color.
Outside, Thuggy McDogface is ever so lethargically kissing the pavement, so I swipe and empty his wallet. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. Glute might be a little bruised, but that’s the least of his problems. I throw the wallet at his gun hand, then I go pay the bagel guy while I wait for physics to catch up and make Thugster drop his gun. I give it a closer look, but it’s just another boring Glock. I’ve already got this model in my collection. Boring. I unload it, pocket the magazine, and double-check the chamber as I run laps around Thuggy, then I drop it on his head. Dropping things is safe; just good old gravity. Of course, normal-speed guns still hurt when they fall on your head. Eventually. While it floats down, I go back to the alley and start getting garbage bags out of the dumpster. Two of them burst along the way when I get distracted, but I manage to get the rest into the air above the chump mostly intact. He won’t be going anywhere soon.
Now, what was I doing before I got sidetracked burying this guy? Oh yeah! Photo bombing!
The tourists who were taking a picture of Museum Tinkster are now filming the garbage bags as they drift toward Chumpster. I get into the shot and jog in place while holding a peace sign as steady as I’m able. Tricking my power into thinking I’m moving only works for so long before I start getting antsy, but it’s long enough that I’ll be visible in their video. I repeat the process for the four other people filming my shenanigans before I can’t take it anymore. Gotta move move move!
By the time I chill out enough to slow down to what a radar sign tells me is a sixty mile per hour saunter, I’m at the park. So is Raul! I saw him and our friend Patty heading here earlier today, which was hours and hours ago from my end. People are so slow!
I used to have such a big crush on Raul, but it’s been a long six weeks, and now he’s too young for me. Not that it will stop me from teasing him forever. Or until I die of old age in a few years. I fix my lipstick, then dart in and give him a series of quick, careful pecks on both cheeks, and a few on his forehead for good measure. After that I have to run laps around the park for a while to calm down. I get back in time to see Patty’s eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Well, that’s just asking for it. I wrote them a letter earlier while I was waiting for them to get to the park, and now I roll it into a tube. I have to be careful not to touch her lips with it as I wedge it in there, but her teeth will be fine. I step back and do jumping jacks while I watch her eyes bulge and her hair flutter from my wake. Nice.
I’ve been still too long, so I sprint back and forth across the pond, spin up a dust devil in the sand box, and then jump over all the dogs. Calm again, I return to my friends. Patty spat out the letter while I was gone and Raul is unrolling it. So slow. I vault over them and go back on the pond to look at the ducks. They’re starting to freak out a little. I felt bad about that a long time ago, but nowadays I just roll with it. Does a lion tiptoe around to avoid scaring the poor antelope? I yam what I yam. I miss yams. It’s going to be like six more years until Thanksgiving. This is the longest summer ever.
Back at their bench, Patty has the letter and Raul is writing something. Oh, hey, there’s an envelope lying on the arm of the bench now, and it has my name on it. I nab it and give it a read as I power walk in circles around Dude-Bro on the jogging track. I’m sure you know a Dude-Bro or two; some of them are alright, but this one liked to leer at me back when I was a slowpoke three years his junior. I love watching the expressions he makes when I show up nowadays. I guess it’s pretty frightening to have somebody circling you at about a hundred miles an hour. I’m a lion!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Kettlekorn.
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago #1038
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, September 5, 2016
Craig Maxim wasn’t particularly surprised that his pants, shirt, and shoes still fit him. He stretched outside the gates of his home for the last five years, federal prison. All that was left was to wait for the taxi that would take him to the bus station. He pulled out his wallet and flipped through most of what was left of his belongings. The ones that he wasn’t already wearing anyway...
A quick inventory: Driver’s license, barely still valid. Public medical insurance card, expired, no worries. Three-hundred dollars in cash. A bus ticket voucher from Uncle Sam. One MID. Social security card.
Three-hundred dollars wasn’t a lot, but it would buy him a bed to sleep in, and one brand new flask. It was a start. He’d still need to find a job in order to get back on his feet, and then get the rest.
Where the hell was that taxi? The sooner he got out of here and slipped through the cracks, the better. Thirty-seven screaming relatives of his alleged “victims” might still have an interest in looking him up. Good thing he still remembered each and every one of their faces.
Feelings were hurt, tears were shed, but in the end, the state hadn’t proved a damn thing. So people had seen him around some of them. So all of them died in the same way, more or less: High. As. Fuck. Wasn’t his fault their hearts gave out, or that they had stopped breathing. MCO couldn’t prove a damn thing either, even with all their fancy shit and Benedict Arnold pet mutants.
Craig had cooperated. There wasn’t an inventory in his house, just raw materials (which he had a license to handle and stored properly, thank you very much), or any inventory hidden in any property he was affiliated with. He never hid his recipes. Nobody could reproduce them, that’s all. They might as well have been gibberish. Burden of proof was on the state, and they failed. The System worked.
‘Cept that bitch of a D.A. had called up her lover in the Justice Department. Prolly with a big ol’ pout and some crocodile tears. And then The State with a capital ‘S’ got him with what they got every other “entrepreneur” just like him with: tax evasion.
Taxi was rolling up now. He took a quick look at the driver, didn’t recognize him. Coast was clear. Craig shoved his wallet back in his pocket, and hopped in the cab. The driver already knew to take pickups to the bus station.
Craig pulled out a folded piece of paper from his other pocket. A simple map he had printed from the library a few days before he left. Far as the Feds knew, he was looking for cities to find a job in. Away from the shaded areas of the map. But everyone in his line of business knew that this was a heat map for potential customers.
“Unemployment Rate - July 2016”
Baton Rouge it is.
Katssun
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2 years 3 months ago - 2 years 3 months ago #1039
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Officer Szczepanski desperately wanted to tear his hair out, pinch the bridge of his nose, or simply facepalm. Anything to relieve even the tiniest bit of frustration he was having with this devisor. But Sergeant Clauser had made it clear during the briefing to him and all the other hasty replacement security officers. Do not, under any circumstances, show teenagers any weakness. It reduced your effectiveness. Period. At six-foot five, he towered over most of the students and a lot of the staff, but presence was independent of stature at an institution where pubescent children could hurl trucks around with their minds, or worse. Presence mattered.
“We’ve been over this Miss Quintero. That,” he pointed once more at the bulky rifle slung over her shoulder, “Is not a holdout. You may have passed the firearm safety class, and gotten it cleared through the range officer that you know how to operate it saf-”
“Nobody back home would care if I carried it around…” the five-foot two inch tall girl muttered back at him.
“What was that?”
“I said, nobody in the neighborhood back home would care!” she blurted out, apparently in equal frustration. At least he was winning by keeping his cool until now. “Roddy, Tony, and Johnny walk around with Lucas’ gear all the time. This one’s mine. And it’s better!”
“That may very well be Miss Quintero, but it’s a Yellow Flag day. You’d know that if you checked your phone this morning. Open carry of outside of the tunnels or ranges is restricted. That’s not a problem if this was concealable…”
“How does an Energizer conceal their own two hands?! What about MY safety?!” The girl was starting to get heated and flushed. Maybe it was time to back off a little…
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flyer harassing a group of students on their way back to their respective cottages. It wasn’t a violation in particular, but the flyer clearly hadn’t noticed that she was in the range of at least two cameras. She also clearly hadn’t noticed him either. Another quick assessment showed that the situation was about to get out of hand as one of the other students in the group was a known rager with a UV band on their arm. He brought his full attention back to Miss Quintero, who was conveniently outside of the range of those same two cameras.
“Tell you what. I’m going to look over there,” he pointed both thumbs over his shoulders and toward the Quad. “If some…situation…happened to resolve itself while I was performing a routine surveillance of the Quad for the next sixty seconds, I’ll overlook this as a minor infraction and merely…recommend that you look into purchasing or building your own dimensional storage container if you would like to continue using your…”
“Arc Discharge Rifle,” the girl supplied.
“Energy dispersal device,” Officer Szczepanski corrected, “Outside of the official ranges and simulators.”
Ana Sofia Quintero scanned the area around her and turned back to him, “But she’s not grounded.”
He picked at his ear with a finger. “I’m sorry, did you have a problem?”
The girl’s brows knitted together. “It just means I have to aim high after the beam connects to reduce the risk of accidental leaders.”
He turned around and planted his hands on his belt, ignoring that last sentence, “Wow, what a great New England day! The air is so crisp up in the mountains.” Behind him, there was the sharp whine of a very big capacitor charging. Approximately 30 seconds later, a quick and rhythmic popping noise followed. Then a dull thud. He turned back around to see Miss Quintero pulling a chunky silver and orange cylinder out of the back of her rifle, rendering it safe again. “Interesting. It seems I have a more pressing issue to deal with Miss Quintero. In the future please ensure you follow all school regulations.”
“Yessir,” he heard behind him as he called in what ‘appeared to be a powers control issue with a student.’
Last Edit: 2 years 3 months ago by Katssun.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago - 2 years 1 month ago #1040
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
2007-09-05
“As for you two,” said the Assistant Headmistress as she pointed to Miranda and Morgan, “may I remind you that family ties hold very little weight around here. You and your ‘team’ are lucky this didn’t rise to the level where I would have to call in Headmistress Carson. I expect you to show at least a little more sense in the future, or then next time you might not be so lucky.”
Both Angie and Revekah gave Shifty a sideways glance at that, unsure why he was being singled out along with Miranda; they knew Miranda had an older sister here, but what was up with him?
later that same day
“She’s your GRAMMA?!?!” Pahelee, Miranda, and Ember said almost in unison.
“GREAT-grandma,” he correct them. “I never knew Grandma Sam or Grampa Roy, Dad said they both died before I was born.” After a pause, he added, “Every time someone talks about them, they all get quiet and sad, so I guess whatever happened musta been pretty bad.”
“Wow. That’s must be weird. I mean, like, weird even for Whateley weird.” replied Angelina.
“Tell me about it. Great-gramma Liz told me I have an aunt or sumptin’ whose here right now, and she’s only a few years older’n us, which I don’t get. There’s something about a time warp I think, but I haven’t met her yet so I don’t know.”
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 1 month ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Kettlekorn
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2 years 2 months ago #1041
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Author’s Note: This is set during the gap between this scene and this other scene. It exists because Sir Lee tried pointing out some errors in that second one. Alas, I do not make errors. I only make happy little accidents.
“You bitch!” Hartford yelled at her phone. “How dare you!”
The phone didn’t reply. It remained lying on the the Headmistress’s desk displaying the last message from Liz, received seconds before she’d disappeared off the tunnel sensors along with Paramount and the others. “Gone 2 save Ty’s world. U hold down 4t. BBL.”
“This is bullshit! I am not going to stay here babysitting a bunch of children while you and Fredrick are off gallivanting around having an interstellar space adventure without me! I am going to find a way to get over there, and then I’m going to kick both your selfish asses all the way back to the Oort Cloud! You fucking assholes! You’d better hope-”
A flashing light at the closed door interrupted her. She paused for a moment to collect herself, then disabled the room’s privacy field. “Enter,” she said coldly.
A slightly unkempt young man wearing an outdated suit walked in and beamed at her. “Singing telegram, ma’am!”
“Leave. Immediately.”
“Wow, that is exactly what she said you’d say!”
“I’m calling security.”
“Yeah, said you’d say that too. Said that I should respond by reminding you that clay shouldn’t bite the Potter that sculpts it.”
Hartford groaned. “Please tell me that was not a capital P. I thought she was dead.”
He smiled and pulled an old yellowed paper from his pocket. “Yes ma’am, a capital P is how she signed this. Assuming it’s a she from the handwriting, anyways. This order was lost behind a desk. Must have been years and years ago. Just found it this morning.”
“...Fine,” she said, steeling herself. “Get it over with.”
The man cleared his throat.
“While I know that you really would prefer to get this over with,
I’ve information to convey and it is rather copious,
So listen up and be a dear, sit down and do not throw a fit,
For though this is annoying you, I simply do not give a shit.
“I’m very well acquainted to this obstacle that you have met,
And if you’ll listen to my verse I’ll tell you how to conquer it.
To start this odyssey moving I’ve sent to you a red caboose
With many heavy pounds within of fragrant fresh manure to use.
“Earth Mother is a hungry girl, you’ve really got no time to lose,
So plug your nose and lure her in, then lock the door and light the fuse.
Though now this surely sounds to you like it is pathological,
I promise it will make of you a modern space adventure girl.
“Amanda will transform into a woman who is wrapped in myth.
Earth Angel will unfurl her wings and carry you to space forthwith.
And so before that you should don your spacesuit and please pack your bags
With seven dozen MREs, some chocolate bars, and stun grenades.
“The aliens love contraband, so spend your cocoa carefully,
And when they try to worship you, I’d bail out of there hastily.
Don’t put your trust in Zorbons nor in Boglos who have tentacles,
But Boglos without tentacles are quite the pleasant spectacle.
“Inevitably you will find space pirates on sabbatical.
Please ally with them or your mission will be insurmountable.
Earth Angel’s fast, but their spacecraft is faster by a large margin,
And shortly you will need help from their qualified physician.
“Their medicine is leaps and bounds ahead of all that we have here,
Though on it’s own it won’t be quite enough to save your lives, I fear.
But fret not, I’ve prepared for this; I’ve sent you off with all the tools,
For now is finally the time: Amanda and Hartford must fuse.
“The doc will help the mind transfer and you will learn to share a skull.
I’m sure it will be crowded but I promise it is never dull.
You’re thinking now of Paramount and matters that are sexual,
But trust me darling, I promise his love will be perennial.
“Of course you’ll have to save him first from inter-planar slavery,
and the solution to that you will find to be unsavory.
It’s not for naught and though this path may frequently lead you to hurl,
You’ll be the very model of a modern space adventure girl.”
The man sipped from a flask while Hartford’s mouth moved soundlessly. “The note said you won’t need me to repeat that, but I totally will if you want.” Hartford shook her head, so he nodded. “Alrighty then. Last item on the list.” He tossed her the flask. “You have a great day, ma’am!”
As the messenger left, Hartford rubbed her temple and then dialed a number. “Chulkris? This is Hartford- ... Yes, I’m sure that- ... Amanda, hush, I have bad news. I need you to pack a travel bag and meet me at the parking lot. Potter’s orders. ... She wrote a damned letter, how do you think? ... I know, right?” She hung up the phone and groaned at the ceiling one more time for good measure, then smiled slightly. “Hindmost is going to space.”
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Katssun
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2 years 2 months ago #1042
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
The cool September breeze wafted through the fern-like fronds on the top of Ashley Pham’s head, servicing as hair for her generally-human appearance. She still struggled with her new...less active existence, but sessions with Oak each morning were helping her come to terms with a more...contemplative approach to life. Mrs. Chulkris had suggested that Oak might help, and he indeed had been a great deal more successful that the psychiatric staff had been early after she transferred. The first-hand experience and perspective that Oak had with a similar manifestation made her feel less alone.
Ashley sent successive waves of pheromones toward Oak, mostly wishing him a good day and for luck on the tests he had mentioned he was stressing about. Chemical reactions instead of muscles contracted a particular series of cells of her face, eventually forming a smile. She tore the tiny hair like roots out of the ground that had sprouted during their sunning/meditation session and slipped her feet into her shoes lined with copper sulfate. Nothing was worse than wasting precious energy tearing at her own feet to take off her shoes at the end of the day.
She slowly collected her bag and ambled steadily toward Crystal Hall for her daily meal.
---
A pile of soft-boiled eggs, uncured ham, shredded chicken, and a few toasted crickets for flavor lay in a massive heap on the two plates weighing down her tray as she settled in at a somewhat empty table on the first floor of the impressive cafeteria. She took in the scents in the air and determined that the attention of most students was elsewhere, at least for the moment.
A seam formed starting below her “nose” and down to where her sternum used to be. The sides of her neck rolled outward, unfurling, revealing pliable modified cilia, their lengths covered in hundreds of smaller stalks, each sparkling in the fluorescent lighting with bright pink sap-like secretions. Ashley leaned down into the plates one at a time as the cilia rolled back in. Several minutes later, the seam on her face closed, her neck-stomach bulging with her daily meal.
Thunk. A large tablet had dropped on the floor next to three pairs of feet. She looked up to see a blond girl, an east Indian girl who had dropped the tablet, and a girl-maybe-boy, all the same age. The latter’s features crawled, finally settling on the features of a young boy. All three had their mouths wide open.
“You said nobody ate cooler than Porcelain and Fubar!” the shifting boy exclaimed.
“Did not!” the blond girl argued back.
“Did too!”
Inwardly, she smirked, but didn’t bother to match the expression visibly. Waves of contented pheromones would do. The airborne hormones worked on most, whether they knew it or not; emotions still translated in the subconscious. “You’re welcome to watch me eat any time,” the chemically-triggered vocoder strapped to Ashley’s arm trilled softly.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago - 2 years 2 months ago #1043
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“... and, you, you glorified lab rat, if I ever catch you on campus again, I’ll turn you into a pair of gloves!” She knew that it was a hollow threat, but it was enough to convince the adorable monstrosity in front of her to vanish.
Turning back to toward the two girls next to her, Eldritch added, “Don’t you two even start. I know you both want magic power, but trust me, you don’t want what that little bastard is offering. Damn it, Cassie, I get that Screech doesn’t know better, but you have actually taken enough Magic classes to realize what sort of price a Faustian bargain can have. Now both of you, get your sorry asses over to Grimes’ office! And don’t stop to moon over Jay-Arm on the way there this time!”
With that, she tore up the - fortunately unsigned - contracts, and began working out the safest way of erasing the summoning circle the two Goths had made.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago - 2 years 2 months ago #1044
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
2017 Feb 23
The members of MMM were sitting at their table in the Crystal Hall when one of the newer students - A Melville resident who had come in after Christmas break - rushed over towards them, crying. The junior high girl began babbling towards Hikaru in Japanese, whose suddenly thunderous expression was matched by the shock on Taka’s. As the girl - Emi - continued speaking to Okami, what appeared to be a classmate of hers approached. Those who had been to the previous month’s Gender group meeting recognized the goth-loli ‘child’ as actually being one of the grad students working in the powers testing labs.
Miss Morgan joined into the conversation - being only briefly interrupted by Taka, who then stayed quiet after she replied to him - and soon the three of them seemed to come to a consensus. Hikaru stood up, and with a stern glint in their eyes, Ribbon and Okami escorted the younger girl towards a table where together they confronted an Asian boy about the same age as Emi.
When the others at the table asked what that was all about, Taka simply blushed, putting his hand to the back of his head in a gesture which Laura, at least, recognized as a sign of embarrassment. “Codename trouble.” he finally blurted out.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Morgana.
With a sigh, Kenshin continued, with obvious reluctance. “Emi mani... is a manifestor, creates rope and cloth. Miss Morgan is tutor, said she learned Japanese for her. Emi-chan had trouble picking codename for herself, so twin brother said, ‘use ‘Shibari’ as codename’. Not know word have two meaning, so she used it. Was a very mean joke, I think.”
“Huh?” was the general response, but he didn’t explain the rest.
Frustrated, Laura began to poke at her cell phone, but before she could finish, Jimmy said, “Tavi, did you hear that? Could you translate that for us?” By the time he’d said that, Laura had apparently found the answer, as the blue-skinned girl blushed a deep indigo and her hand flew to her mouth.
“Tavi not translate that! Jimmy should have mouth washed out with soap for asking!”, the VI said, with all the righteous indignation which a holographic ferret could muster.
Bianca peeked over at Laura’s phone, and once she read the word on the screen, she frowned. “Tying in a decorative manner doesn’t sou...”, she began, then burst out in awkward laughter as the combination of the wiki article and her own translation powers brought the double entendre home to her. “Ceremonial bondage?” she spluttered, leading to tittering from several of those in earshot, then a yelp as Tanya gave Vic a kick in the shins for laughing.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Last Edit: 2 years 2 months ago by Schol-R-LEA.
Schol-R-LEA
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2 years 2 months ago #1045
Schol-R-LEA replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
“What’s wrong, Emi-chan? Has Tako been harassing you again? I swear I am going to...”
The rest of MMM watched as Hikaru stormed off... and all eyes turned to Kenshin.
“What did you do to piss off that little girl?”, asked Invictus angrily.
“Nan de? Oh... no, not Taka, Tako.”
“There’s a kid called Taco? Does he have food powers like Donut or something?”
Laura’s eyes lit up. “Oh, no, you mean ‘tako’ like in sushi, right? That’s,” she racked her brain to remember the time her mother took her out for that type of food, then her eyes went wide. “Octopus?”
Every girl at the table shivered in unison.
Out, damnéd Spot! Bad Doggy!
Kettlekorn
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2 years 2 months ago #1046
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Oh, we don’t want to kill no pedestrians, no
No, we don’t want to kill no pedestrians, nope-nope
No, we don’t want to kill no pedestrians, no
Soooo we’d better drive slow!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
null0trooper
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2 years 2 months ago #1047
null0trooper replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Monday, February 25, 2008,
Boston, Massachusetts
A foreclaw clicked against marble as its reptilian owner turned a colorful card set amidst a complicated arrangement: the Hermit, reversed. Objects at rest do prefer to stay that way; so much for the wishes of pawns. The reader reached out to set the card aright, to see how that might affect the others spread out. Under usual circumstance, the resulting changes would ripple out until the energies balanced out, but instead, many cards close by stayed unaffected as if protected from outside influence. Curious. What would one of the bog apes do in this situation? Ah, yes. Poke it with a stick.
The task would cost him a couple of bottles of rum and an evening spent over a backroom pool table in a dingy Boston watering hole. The German marks may have broken the rack on this money game, but the push-out was his. They never should have pocketed the cue ball where he could find it.
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Katssun
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2 years 1 month ago #1048
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Tania Crossett typed out her annual message while waiting for her client to show. She selected a new spoofed number at random from a list of unallocated and inactive phone numbers and hit send.
“I will always fucking hate you. And I can always find you
”They thought they had gotten smart this time and switched their numbers a week before she usually sent the message, the day of their anniversary. Working for the Syndicate paid off in more ways than one…
She had just picked up her Principles of Management textbook out of the tote on the floor when her client rolled up. A little flare of annoyance, followed up with a sigh got her back into business mode. Blazer pulled taut, skirt smoothed, 4-inch pumps…no…2-inch today, her client’s representative was short. Her wig’s golden blonde hair complying with the Sales Department dress code that had been selected for the Fall 2016 season; perfectly aligned straight locks, cut to hang precisely 3 centimeters above the curvature of the shoulders of her blazer. She popped open the door of her huge black SUV and put on a plastic smile to greet the man.
A tight sashay brought her to her client’s rep as he stepped down from his truck. Nobody walked this way in real life, but in the Biz, you kind of had to. Their clientele expected a show and presentation. Tania gave one. The man turned to her and she noted that his appearance matched the visual ID displayed on her convertible tablet, his assumed name and key phrase responses listed below the image.
“Mr. Vilnius?” she asked.
“Ms. Werner? I’m glad you were able to meet me before my flight to Denver.” He replied, matching the response phrase verbatim.
“Miss,” she corrected, starting her own response phrase, and extended her hand, which he took. Their phones both chimed together. “Please, no need for formality. Call me Madison.” Her badge was clipped at her waist, displaying ‘Madison Werner - Rocco Realty LLC.’ It had shifted as she called up the specific appointment on her paired tablet.
All three security checks passed, both eased almost imperceptibly.
“Shall we?” She gestured to the nondescript building that fit in planted in any industrial park. Simple double doors that were anything but the glass they appeared to be, and a ramp to a loading dock down the side. The painted aluminum superstructure hiding the non-explosive reactive armor of the true structure.
They entered the building, skimmed over the warehouse, shipping and office areas, and headed to the primary bulkhead doors hidden in the inventory shelves. Tania answered the client rep’s questions about personnel limits, water purification facilities, electronic and surveillance countermeasures, whether they’d be compatible with the control stations their organization had previously purchased from Steph. They would integrate into the facility’s systems, but she would arrange an appointment with FELICITY after they signed the paperwork, after providing an additional fee to both organizations. This resulted in a minor panic, a hushed phone call, but Tania had the standard contract for both the leasing company and FELICITY on her tablet, if this little oversight came to a bit of lawyer-type discussion. It was hardly the first time that had happened.
That cleared away, they moved onto power requirements. Tania brought up an elevation diagram of the facility, and gestured at a red-and-black striped block below the last sub-floor.
“A small nuclear reactor stored below the floor, resilient mounts in case of localized seismic perturbations,” sales department code words for superheroes smashing things nearby or within the facility, but it impressed the clients. “We guarantee a 99.5% uptime over the period of the lease, accounting for scheduled maintenance periods. Optional high-capacity surge load backup generators can be installed on the roof to ensure you have power for any and all experiments.”
The tour ended with the barracks and executive offices and quarters.
“Madison, it all looks in order, and I think your offices will be receiving a signed copy of the paperwork shortly. Digital is okay?” She nodded, the tech weenies took care of that. “But I do have one question. Why was there a pamphlet rack in the break room? I thought your organization’s post-client cleaning policy was more stringent.”
“Those were for the Witch Queen. This facility is well within her territory, hence the pricing on the lease. We do advocate that your organization check with her own, just in case. Our previous client found that she was more than satisfied with the installation of the display as the only...’consideration’ for operating this facility in her region. She does know the facility is here, and will likely attempt to infiltrate your ranks, if only to restock that display when she releases new product lines.”
“I will have to clear that with my management.”
“Please do. If you have any questions, direct your call to the main number. They will direct you to me, or my
management. If you’ll step this way, I’ll guide you back to the entrance.”
Tania returned to the freeway before dialing another number into the phone. It rang and rang. It was 6 pm! Her annoyance rose.
“Szczepanski.”
“Oh baby…I’m hot for teacher.”
“I’m a guard. You know that. Was before, still am.”
“But it’s so much more fun to say…” she purred to her favorite boyfriend. “How’s my alma mater doing?”
“Pure chaos. But I’m starting to settle in because that’s normal. How’d your day go?”
“I didn’t get any time to study between clients, but things went smoothly today…”
They talked until Tania got back to her empty apartment before hanging up. Tania wasn’t in the mood to call one of her other boyfriends. She never was after talking to Dave…
Kettlekorn
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2 years 1 month ago #1049
Kettlekorn replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
Janak sat back and smiled as the girl skipped away down the hallway to get her own injuries looked at, then she glanced at the young guy behind the desk. He couldn’t be more than a couple years older than she was. She made a production of stretching, even giving a happy little moan as the movement pulled her dress tighter against her chest. Feeling warm and limber since her safe return to the ground, Janak flowed to her feet and slinked up to lean on the counter before him, making sure the angle was just right. “Hey... I was wondering, do you guys have any Burn Begone? I got kind of... carried away doing something a little too... hot, you know? So now I’ve got these burns on my chest, and when I was rubbing on my lotion a little while ago I realized I was almost out. Things are going to get pretty sore without frequent attention. Do you think that’s something you could help me with?”
“I, um. Yeah. Yeah, we have Burn Begone. The pharmacy is just down that hall and to the right.”
“Mmmmm,” she purred, sinking just a little closer to the countertop. “That’s good to know, but I’ve had a really long day. My feet are so sore. They really need a massage. Hell, all of me could use a good long massage. Do you think... do you think you could do me a favor and fetch the lotion yourself? I’m sure you know exactly where to go, and then I could just stay here and rest.”
“I’m really not supposed to leave my....”
He trailed off as Janak stretched her neck and shifted her shoulder just so. “Mmmm, that’s okay. I guess I can limp over there and get it myself.” She sighed. “But I’m just... so tired.” She grinned slightly, transitioning from an exhausted voice to a comfortably lethargic one. “And this lobby is so cozy.” She slumped a little bit more, letting the counter push her chest up while she smiled lazily at him. “I’d rather just stay here, you know?” She laughed faintly and let her eyelids lower a bit while her smile widened. “I could almost fall asleep right here at your counter....” The guy was looking a little warm now and seemed pretty conflicted. “Hey...” she drawled, “you wouldn’t happen to know a good masseuse you could recommend, would you? With nice, strong hands like yours?” She shifted a little without picking herself off the counter. “Someone who could give me a good rub down after I grab that lotion? Because I don’t wanna keep bothering you here. You’ve probably got a long, busy shift ahead of you. I’ll just... go get that stuff and get out of your hair....”
She started to straighten up, but the guy almost knocked his chair over as he leaped to his feet. “N- no,” he said. “That’s- You can stay right there and rest, and I’ll go grab your lotion. Not a problem at all! I’ll just be a minute.”
“Aw, thank you!” she purred as he slipped out from behind the corner. She didn’t miss how he angled his pelvis away from her; she rested her head on her arms to hide a smirk. As soon as he was out of sight, she channeled into her new silence ring and slipped over the countertop. She stopped channeling as soon as her feet were on the ground, not wanting to be caught by surprise if anyone approached, and began rummaging through the records from the previous night. “Ah, here you are,” she whispered. The name Krizz Kad was written in sloppy print between lines of script, followed by a silly little doodle and then some cramped notes about an infection written in another hand. All the way at the right was a file number. Janak took the pen and carefully modified the name to Krizzon Kad-Nar, then corrupted and smudged the file number. She glanced down the hall the receptionist had used, then bypassed the cheap lock on the file cabinet and rummaged through it for the referenced file. As soon as she was sure she had the right one, she slipped it into her satchel and retreated to the lobby’s sofa. Mission complete, she curled up and faked sleeping.
When Janak felt the guy enter her sensing range and set the Burn Begone gently atop her satchel, she cracked her eyes open for a moment, smiled, and snuggled the sofa with a soft hum. The new position she settled into presented her shoulders to him. He lingered a moment before leaning over her and reaching his hand toward the base of her neck. She held her breath as he hesitated an inch away, but then the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall and he snatched his hand back. Janak sat up and tried hard not to laugh as he rushed back to his spot behind the desk, shooting frequent glances at the hallway. She wouldn’t have minded the massage, nor the look on Krisik’s face when she walked in on it. Oh well!
I am the kernel that pops in the night. I am the pain that keeps your dentist employed.
Katssun
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2 years 1 month ago #1050
Katssun replied the topic: The Micro-Scenes thread
She looked over the translated words that hovered magically above the sheet, the details perfectly matching what had been explained to her. Dipping the pen into the small container filled with her blood, she signed her name on the elaborate contract and completed the seal with a press of her still-bleeding finger. The words on the page, which she knew wasn’t paper, flared with an eerie light before fading.
“Come,” her new master stated. “I will fulfill my end of the contract immediately, as detailed within.”
The being led her through endlessly twisted hallways that appeared to have infinite branches. She wasn’t sure if she would ever find her way back to the portal she had entered on her own, but then again, she had the next five years to learn the layout of the atelier.
After walking what felt like miles and miles, they approached a set of simple bronze doors. She should be exhausted, but the cameo around her neck seemed to be doing its job at granting her super-human endurance.
Her master pressed a claw-tentacle to the door. “As promised, The Karmic Engine.”
She slipped into the narrow gap created between the doors, and tried to take in the enormity of the machine before her. The closer she looked, she more detail she noticed. Gears, cogs, bevels, planetaries, tracks and vacuum tubes, and bubbling flasks. Shapes she had never seen before and could barely begin to describe. A low hum stood above the rest of the whirring sounds, and there was an undertone of something that she couldn’t hear or feel physically, but made her very mind vibrate. The more she focused to try and recognize the sensation, the further it slipped from her description. In front of all that, there was a simple stool of rosewood, and a tiny console with orbs inlaid in a lustrous metal. As she approached, the console shimmered and reformed into what looked just like an All-in-One PC and a standard QWERTY keyboard.
“For your benefit,” her master intoned behind her.
“How does it work?”
“Sit, and I believe you will figure it out rather quickly. The interface only requires a name, a sample from them, and it will handle the rest.”
She fished out the small plastic case from the pockets of her skirt and popped it open. A lock of hair rested within. She smoothed her skirt behind her as she sat down on the stool and the “monitor” came to life. There were only three icons: Target, Sample, Activate/Deactivate.
“I just want him to suffer.”
“That, my dear, is where patience comes into play. Every little bad thing they do, so long as the engine is focused on them, will come back several magnitudes. But the good too. That’s why you have to be patient. It will hurt you a great deal, seeing the temporary successes. Staying away and out of the way is key for you. The very nature of my price is what guarantees the outcome you desire, and keeps you far from the ever-growing storm that you are about to initiate.”
“But what good does it do me if he gets a promotion or wins the lottery! What about ME!?”
“That’s where you must have faith in the nature of the target, when combined with the power of The Engine. That, and the funny thing about good karma versus bad. You humans tend to gain some degree of ephemeral happiness from the results of amplified good karma. On the other end of the scales, you tend not to survive the results. The outcome you want? Simply a matter of turning off The Engine at the right moment.”
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