(#00160)
“Honestly, that flask says ‘Do not open’. There has to be a reason.”
“Exactly why I’m opening it. To see why[1].”
Tarvek, at least, had the sense to duck and cover.
“Some kind of liquid…” Gil sniffed cautiously. “It’s coffee!”
“It’s in a sealed container with a warning label! That alone is enough to put it back where it came from!”
“…there was something important I was supposed to remember about coffee…”
Tarvek growled. “Oh, warm it up, then. I’m sure we’ll find out about it.”
*
“DESTROY! IMPERFECTION!” grated the clank. “DESTROY! IMPERFECTION!”
“How the hell did we make this out of three rocks and a cheese grater?”
“And the container the coffee was in?” added Gil. “I can’t remember. Everything was… perfect…”
“DESTROY! IMPERFECTION!”
“And how do we kill it?”
“Good question.”
[1] This tells you everything you need to know about humanity in general and Sparks in particular.
[Muse food remaining: 9 (fic war prompts, 4). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
(#00157)
“Aggil!” Xox roared, proving he was a proponent of Agatha/Gil.
“Targatha!” Hollered Drej, proving he was a proponent of Agatha/Tarvek.
“Aggil!”
“Targatha!”
“Aggil!”
“Targatha!”
“RRRHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!”
Pixo kept supping her soup.
“Hyu is not fightink?” asked a so-far casual bystander.
“Hy try to schtay out ov dese tings,” she admitted. “But hy am a liddle fond of Agthar.”
“Agthar?”
“Agatha/Othar.”
The bystander made a face. “Eugh. Hyu haz not goot taste.”
“Which is vhy Hy schtay out ov dese tings.”
[Muse food remaining: 8 (fic war prompts, 3). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
(#00156)
“He iss boy, hyu iss gorl. Vhat more could hyu vant?”
“How about a pulse?” she indicated the man in question. A rather well-preserved mummy in their current oubliette. He had fantastic bone structure, but then… all he was was bone structure. “Or flesh?”
“Hokay, so he needs a liddle of de fixink opp. Since vhen is dot new?”
“I don’t have the equipment, and I’m not exactly certain he’ll be worth the bother. That, and I’ll essentially be his mother. That’s incest. Euw.”
“Hokay. So dere is more dan vun liddle flaw to my plen…”
[Muse food remaining: 5 (fic war prompts, 0). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
(#00155)
“Why is there only a bottle of Siracha in the survival rations?”
“Because the people who packed it assumed that anyone needing it would be able to live off the land. And Siracha, as it says on the lable, makes anything more edible.”
“But I’m allergic and this landscape is entirely poisonous.”
“We shall write a scathing letter to the company the minute we get out of this mess. Pay attention, would you? I’m trying to build a Siracha-powered jetpack.”
“…it’s always jetpacks with you…”
“You’d rather walk?”
“Here’s the sauce.”
[Muse food remaining: 6 (fic war prompts, 1). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
(#00152)
They had called themselves the League of Justice. Ordinary folks who used sparky inventions to foil, imprison, or otherwise stop other sparks. And they caught Sara.
She, and her clank storage trunk, were the only things to come out of the resulting crater.
“I see you rescued yourself,” said Gil.
“I told them not to mess with my luggage. They should have taken me seriously.”
“What were they doing?”
“Changing the course of history, they believed,” Sara looked back. “They finished up changing the course of the river, alas.”
“Making a new lake,” Gil noted.
“I begged them to come into the box with me… they didn’t understand.”
“Some people never do.”
[Muse food remaining: 6 (fic war prompts, 1). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Challenge #151: One Stormy Evening at Genracon
Klaus + Da Boyz + Comic Convention = Wacky Hijinks
“Ve FIGHT!”
Lightning raged, both natural and artificial, through the iron catacombs where he and this idiot trio of Jaegers had decided to pick a fight.
“Not so close to the por–”
KRAKKOW!
“–tal…”
“Vot?”
The lights came back on. Crowds in varying degrees of unrealistic dress stared at the tangle of Baron and Jaegermonsters…
And burst into shrieking applause.
Maxim straightened first, fixing his hair and adjusting his hat. “Ladies,” he grinned.
Oggie followed him, elbowing him in the gut. “Hyu idiot, they is cheerink for me.” He struck what he probably thought was a seductive pose.
Shockingly, this earned more cheering and hooting.
“Clearly, the residents of this dimension are insane,” announced Klaus.
“Hy agree,” said Dimo.
More hoots.
Maxim and Oggie were busy bickering over who was prettiest, much to the amusement of the strangely-dressed crowd. Klaus decided to use the distraction to examine the portal by which they’d entered. “It’s… made out of cardboard. What kind of idiot builds a multidimensional portal out of cardboard?”
“Vun who has a budget?” suggested Dimo.
Again, the audience roared.
“And those idiots will cheer anything…”
They cheered. Proof positive.
“Up next,” said someone dressed in black and coated in glitter, “The Jaegergirls singing, _You Can Leave Your Hat On_.” He took the peculiar lump-on-a-stick away from his mouth and growled, “Get. Off.”
Klaus ‘borrowed’ the stick and started taking it apart. “I see… These take the place of valves. Boards full of circuits. Intriguing.”
The girls danced on the stage anyway. “Monster take off you coat…”
“Ho yes!” said Maxim.
“De GORLZ!” said Oggie.
“Komm to uz ladiez!” they chorused.
Chaos, as the narrators are wont to explain, ensued.
When they were finally back in their home dimension, Klaus rounded up all three by their necks and snarled, “We are never. Ever. Mentioning this again. UNDERSTOOD?”
*
Phil and Kaja, very special guest judges, blinked the after-images away.
“Okay,” said Phil. “That just happened.”
“If you pretend it was all an act, I’m willing to play along,” murmured Kaja.
“Sold.”
[Muse food remaining: 7 (fic war prompts, 2). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
COSIGNED. SEVERAL FIRES. WITH FLESH-CONSUMING ASBESTOS MONGEESE.
Signed,
Geekhyena (who will donate fire-breathing sheep to provide said fires)
Signed, InterNutter. Who will supply a horde of rabid, flesh-eating plotbunnies to tear any remaining flesh apart.
(Source: agathaheterodyne, via geekhyena)
(#00150)
[AN: Since I have a fic in progress with Sara turning up in the GG universe, I can get away with both!]
She really should not have followed master Gilgamesh. But she had and, having followed master Gilgamesh, found an adventure. This, though, was a lull-point. Fixing and repairing and building and, strangely enough, taking a well-deserved rest.
Which was how she met Mama/Jaegergeneral Gkika. She was all sharp smiles and, for a Jaeger, cunning.
They conversed for a while about recipes and this or that, and then she said it. “Und how iss der liddle one?”
Sara did her best to hide the frisson of terror that almost stopped her heart. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, cool and frosty. Outside, nothing had changed. Inside, it was shrieking panic and tempest in progress.
“Der liddle one hyu keeps in dat big-liddle movink box of yours.”
Islands shattered. Stars exploded. Civilizations fell in rains of fire. This Jaeger had found Jane!
Sara very calmly gave her a generous portion of mutton and clootie dumplings. She’d overdone the nutmeg, but that was the point. She needed this nosy Jaeger napping while she checked on everything.
Someone - possibly Gkika - had turned her tent upside-down. Contents and all. And without Sparky intervention.
Jane was fine. Thank the forces of Kismet. And it was a relatively minor matter to turn everything to rights. But Gkika knew. Jaegergeneral or not, everyone knew that the best way to get a Jaegermonster to keep a secret was to sew it into their severed head and bury it under half a mountain.
Ergo, in order to protect Jane, Sara had to keep Gkika… distracted.
Master Gilgamesh would notice if his best Jaeger suddenly lost her head.
Sara began by doping her dinner with Flattus Beans. Gkika retaliated by aiming her fart flares in Sara’s general direction. Sara concocted a fang paste that encapsulated any attempted vocalization in fuchsia bubbles. Gkika somehow painted Sara’s travelling box with unicorns and flowers.
But everyone agreed it was the trio of singing mimmoths that did the trick.
They were in a little cage, singing _Blue Moon_.
Gkika, gently sizzling from her last attempt on Sara, said, “Them vuns, hyu don’t want to eat all at vunce.”
“Please, I spent hours on their little tuxedoes.”
“How…?” said Gil.
“Well, the bow ties were a bit bothersome, but once you have the correct magnification, you just miniaturize a 37 Gargantuan. They’re a surprising match to the humanoid frame.”
“How do you get them to stop?”
“Oh.” Sara faced the cage and bowed slightly. “That will do, gentlemen.”
The mimmoths trumpeted a final ‘ta-dah!’ with their trunks and began to graze on their bedding.
“And now,” said Gil, in the manner of all men battling an incipient migraine. “WHY?”
“She iz very goot mama,” said Gkika. “Hy don’ mind at all. She’s schtopped me tellink you about der liddle vun so often, hy almost forget she’s dere.”
“I knew I should have arranged a more permanent accident,” muttered Sara.
“Little… one…” Gil boggled. “I would know if there was a baby in the camp. And Miss Adrien is far too young to have birthed an older child. Just… stop this nonsense and stay focussed on our primary task, if you please.”
Oceans of relief almost drowned her. Sara breathed out. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” She watched him leave to fix the latest incipient disaster and laughter bubbled up out of her. “How about that,” said Sara. “An improbable truth is invisible! I needn’t have worried so hard.”
“Hy just vanted to help make der liddle dresses. Und put der liddle bows in her hair.”
Sara reluctantly offered her hand. “Pax puero?”
“Ja!”
Ever afterwards, Gil would only ever glancingly worry about the tea parties in Sara’s tent…
[Muse food remaining: 8 (fic war prompts, 3). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
(#00148)
The Queen of Skifander was never weak. Though she rode a palanquin, it was a tactic. Four sets of feet were faster than one on their own. Her bearers were gaining on the interlopers. Zantabraxus coiled on her throne like a cat readying itself to pounce. Soon, they would be in range…
“HALT!”
“What?” said the usurper. “How the heck did she get here?”
She was a giant of a clank made of silver and gold. Her wings were in sad disrepair, but that did not stop her from making an almost Skifandran leap between her and the interlopers.
“These children are under my protection,” said the clank. “You will not harm them.”
“These children are grown warriors,” argued Zantabraxus. “And they are threats to the Skifandran empire.”
“I am sworn to protect—”
“While that boy lives, my daughter only possesses half a soul! See how he has corrupted her against me. See how he brings usurpers to my court!”
The blonde usurper’s voice carried through the greenery. “I wouldn’t take your empire if you dipped it in chocolate!”
“And what is wrong with Skifander?” Zantabraxus roared back.
“Aigh, not again…”
[Muse food remaining: 7 (fic war prompts 2). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
(#00147)
Logan stared at the view from the observation port. The brats were battling on twin dirigibles. One team with blue bandannas, the other with red. There were swords, steampunk machines, flying apes, strange beasts and… orchestral music?
Elf was enjoying every last minute of it.
“Have at thee, foul miscreants,” he cried, swinging all over the place like a monkey on a bender. “However many you may be, you can not match the heart of a true musketeer.”
Tallwater was singing her own theme music, for God’s sake. Red was zipping around on some mini-dirigible with bat wings and propellers, shooting what he hoped were harmless weapons at her foes.
Logan hit the ‘kill’ button.
“Ah, noble D’Artagnion. Valiant Cyrano,” Elf was waxing lyrical. “Cyrano and Captain Blood… If you could only see me—”
The figures and most of the set-up faded. The machines round to a halt.
“—n—aaaaAAAAWWWwwwww…”
Logan turned the intercom on, “What the hell, Tallwater?”
“Who said it was me?”
He waved a thick volume left in the control center so she could see. “Your source material.”
“Is there a rule that says that heroics aren’t allowed to have a little style?” she countered.
“That’s my line,” objected Elf.
“You’re all walkin’ the road with garbage bags, tomorrow. Try getting this nonsense authorized, next time.”
“But you’d’ve said ‘no’,” said Sara.
“Tallwater…”
[Muse food remaining: 7 (fic war prompts, 2). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]