Challenge #00387 - A022: The Biggest Game of Fetch
Buddy the golden retriever/lab mix, and Igor, his thinking-brain Pug. Two Uplifted dogs, trekking together across the universe.
Their winnings from the Great Nufurria Lawsuit had paid for the custom space suits that allowed them to sniff out the universe. Which was very important, because Buddy tended to lead with his nose.
“Play time? Play time?” Buddy panted.
“Almost, my friend,” Igor said, sounding for all the worlds like Peter Lorre. “You see the ship? We’re going inside that ship to look for all of these smells.” He opened the sealed box that contained all of the can’t-lose materials.
Buddy sniffed eagerly at each one. His tail, already generating its own air currents, went into overdrive. “I seek,” said Buddy. “I find.”
“Good boy,” cheered Igor the Pug. He was more ‘human’ and his companion more 'dog’, but they had formed a bond in the Pound that neither wanted to break. Igor sometimes worried that he may be exploiting Buddy, who was simple-minded, even for a Labrador. Their counsellor/care-worker insisted they made a good pack.
And it was always surreal, having to parent someone who was chronologically older than oneself.
It was, as counsellor T'rex explained, perfect symbiosis. Igor had much to give to Buddy, and Buddy had much to give back.
And this was the acid test.
“We are also looking for anything new and different,” added Igor. “I’ll be smelling everything you smell. So we know what is good and what we can leave.”
“Good dog!” Buddy barked. “Play time! Play time!”
Igor never knew what reached Buddy, but he could tell that his friend was eager to get going.
They docked with the old relic, which was their only claim in the massive sargasso of abandoned wrecks known as Doldrum Nine. It never paid to bet that this occupation was the only one to support their independent, or co-dependant, lives.
There were many other things they could try, yet. This was just the one that happened to suit Igor the best. He didn’t like acting all… servile… whenever a human paid him positive attention.
Or, as he found out, anyone who fit sufficiently into the human silhouette.
Igor helped Buddy suit up, a problem doubled by Buddy’s forever-wagging tail. It could not be allowed to stick out of the suit, though, since any vent in a space suit was a very bad thing. He checked and double-checked the seals, the operational functions, the air supply and Buddy’s understanding of the simplified interface.
“Yellow good,” Buddy barked. “Red bad. Red house, go home!”[1]
“Good dog,” cooed Igor, handing Buddy a treat. The suit Buddy wore had also been rigged to dispense treats when Igor pressed the right button on his own chest-plate.
Helmets sealed, Igor helped Buddy through the airlock. Reduced atmosphere. Someone had already siphoned off most of the air in here.
Buddy already sniffed like a maniac, crouching and trying to go on all fours that his body did not possess.
Readouts spilled across Igor’s HUD, showing the relative worth of everything Buddy smelled/scanned with his snout-reader. Everything was working.
Then Buddy sprang away, barking, “Fetch! Fetch!” as he went.
The game was afoot.
*
Buddy wriggled in his suit-recharger. “More play? More play?”
“Play done, Buddy. Good job.” Another treat. Igor would have to get the lo-cal, high-taste ones, next jaunt. Otherwise, Buddy would need a stretchier space suit. “I filled our hold and now we fetch it back to the station.”
“Good dog,” Buddy kissed Igor’s face as Igor released him from the suit. Getting out was far easier than getting in. “Igor good dog!”
Igor was far more comfortable hugging his friend. “We’re both good dogs,” he said. “Time to go back. Time for calm.”
[1] Because dogs can’t see the colour green.
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Challenge #00386 - A021: One Disastrous Afternoon in the Offices of the Cogniscent Rights Commission
Certain dogs, when Uplifted, reverted to certain forms of speech. Pugs, for instance, always tended to sound…..minionish. Sort of Peter Lorre-esque, if you would, but with more lithping. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” proclaimed the first woman to Uplift a dog. "Much more pleasant than the shrill voices of Maltese and Shih Tzus, don’t you think? Not sure what’s up with the poodles - no matter what the size, they sound a lot tougher than you’d think, especially the little ones.“ And pit bull rescuers everywhere rejoiced when Uplifted pit bulls turned out to have mellow, easygoing voices that ran completely against their harsh reputation.
It is common for dog owners to say, ”(S)he thinks (s)he’s people!“ when speaking of their pet. Then came the genetic tinkering fad known as Augmenting. Artificially raising a companion animal to a stage where they were at least cusp-cogniscent and the topic of basic civil rights reared its un-telegenic head.
But periodic enquiries about registered Augments were nothing compared to the legal tangle that was Nufurria.
Pets uplifted to cogniscent status. The Uplifted then interbred with others on Nufurria. Especially their human masters.
But their core traits still remained. They were still dogs. And cats. And horses.
Jenrii summoned a smile for her next client. A cogniscent of Pit Bull descent. All muscles and intimidating, top-heavy bulk. There were scars of old battles all over him, but he sat down as meek as milk.
"What’s your name?”
After twenty aggressive poodles, Jenrii half-expected more snarling, but she got a, “Please, my name is Rough Patch, thank you ma'am,” in the softest, gentlest voice ever possible.
“And what did the humans have you doing on Nufurria?”
Now his voice got smaller. “…theyhadmefightinginapit…”
Humans. The instant they established a monoculture on the planet, technology and society both collapsed into sheer barbarism. “I take it you didn’t like that.”
“No! Sorry. It was horrible. I didn’t want to, and they said they’d kill my pack-mates in front'a me if I didn’t and…” tears fell. Jenrii handed over a box of tissues. “Thank you ma'am.” he mopped his face. “The worse i was, the better things got. Except for the ones I beat.” Sob. “They died. I’m so sorry about that…”
“It’s okay,” soothed Janrii. Inside, she seethed. “You were not in control. You can be in control now, with help?”
His demeanour changed instantly. His tail wagged shyly. “Really? What do I gotta do, please?”
Janrii ran through his current options, which included legal action against his owners and seeking reparations for the families of the dead. Then there was schooling in the very wide range of educational possibilities. Followed by a basic run-through of galactic ally accepted cogniscent rights.
“Please, ma'am? Our… our pups.”
“Yes. What about them?”
“Uplifting… doesn’t breed true. The humans decide which ones… get the treatment. It’s almost torture for the poor babies, but… we don’t like to see them become… just dogs.”
Great. Another legal wrinkle in the already rumpled fabric of justice.
“We have a B'Nari gene consultant team already on staff. If anyone can work out your genes to your satisfaction. I’ll send them a memo and set up an appointment for you and your chosen spouse.”
“Excuse me, ma'am. Does this mean no more tortured babies?”
“Yes, Mr Patch. No more tortured babies. No more… development troubles either. It may take some time, but Uplifts will be recognised as a legitimate cogniscent species.”
He fell across the desk between them and licked her face half off. Janrii had to get used to dog gratitude. There were plenty more to interview, yet.
A whole planet-full.
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Challenge #00377 - A012: Fandom Follies
You mentioned once in a fic that Kurt was a B5 fan. Mind ficcing more about that? (I’ve been bingeing on B5 lately). Bonus if Sara is involved. ^_^
“And then Marcus pops up out of nowhere an–”
“Wait. This is a fanfic, ja?”
“Ye-es. What part of AU did you fail to understand?”
“The AU part. I was hoping further conversation would help me decode you.”
“Just put your hand up when I talk sideways,” protested Sara.
“Fraulein, I would have my hand in the air all the time.”
“Okay. From the top. AU - Alternate Universe. The author didn’t like the cannon and decided to make their own. Crackfic - fic from a wild idea that is in no way expected to be taken seriously. Smut–”
“I know what smut is, danke.”
“Naughty elf… So I don’t need to explain the citrus family?”
“Heheheheheh…”
Jean poked her head in to find Kurt and Sara cooking massive volumes of Swedish Meatballs. “What in the name of sanity are you two doing?”
“This isn’t sanity, it’s science fiction,” sniffed Kurt.
“Yes,” said Sara. “Try to keep up.”
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Challenge #00359: Shining, Gleaming, Silken, Flaxen, Waxen…
Here’s a good challenge - write something that involves someone finding a way to explain Wolverine’s hair. Seriously, whether comics, cartoons, or movies, it’s always the same winged sorta puffed-out spiky thing that looks near-exactly like the sides of his costume’s mask. Does he style it that way intentionally, does he just have the world’s worst case of Hat Hair, or what?
They had been hiking for hours. Everyone’s hair was plastered to their heads with their own perspiration. Everyone… except Logan.
Sara spotted it when they took a break by the brook. She, like everyone else, had taken a moment or fifteen hundred to soak their bare feet in the cool flowing water.
Logan took off his hat and, much to her surprise, his hair popped up in those two, distinctive ‘wings’ that sort of echoed his hero uniform.
“How?” Sara managed between exhausted pants.
“How’s that, Tallwater?” he famed himself with his hat.
“How do you… get your hair… to do that?”
He reached up. Felt it. Snorted and shook his head. “When Nikola Tesla asks you to hold two wires? Don’t.”
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Challenge #00337: The real reason why you don’t cross your own time stream
“It’s not the whole risk of changing-historical-events/becoming-your-own-dad/killing-your-ancestors thing that aggravates me most about time travel, it’s keeping all the damn tenses and grammar straight - when you try talking about something you already did, but that you did in the future, that will lead to something you’re going to do, that you’ll do in the past - it’s enough to drive a person insane, it is.”
Paul had not been careful about his temporal calculations. Now there were five of him. Sequestered at the base, of course. Waiting for the time-streams to catch up with themselves and only one Paul to be left behind.
There were already a team of mathematicians working on the pay rates for this.
“More paperwork?”
“You didn’t fill it out properly.”
“Ugh, I’m going to do that yesterday!” Paul handed it over to another Paul. How he knew this was one from a previous time stream was a mystery to the observers.
“I have to hurry,” said the Paul filling out the pages. “I have a mission in five minutes to go back and record the Grassy Knoll. It never got taken off the schedule. I’ll be back two days ago.”
Doctor Aldred winced. “You are not allowed to discuss your time streams.”
“We don’t,” said all the Pauls in unison. “We remember.”
Okay. That was creepy. “And you still can’t figure out which one is Paul Prime?” she asked.
“No. We all know we’re Paul Prime.”
“Given enough time,” added another Paul. He handed a device over to a different Paul and saluted the rest. “Be one of you soon!”
“What are you working on?” asked Doctor Aldred.
“Temporal limiter,” said the one reading tech specs. “Make sure this level of fuckup doesn’t happen again.”
“Or since.”
“Or while.”
“The good news is, it has to work,” said one of the Pauls. “None of us have any memory past the point of completion.”
“Wait. You’re all working from a script?”
“Temporal paradox in motion,” said Paul. “We’re doing what we remember doing because we remember doing it. It’s like having one of those dance charts put into the floor, and the only way across the room is to follow the numbered feet.”
“It pisses all of us off, we can tell you,” said another Paul. “Do you know how hard it is not to just wing it?”
“Winging it’s what got-gets-will-get you into this mess,” said Doctor Aldred.
“That’s why we’re working on the limiter,” said the Paul who was doing math.
“Or doing what we remember doing to work on the limiter,” the Paul reading tech specs turned a page. “Just in time. You need to tweak the neutron flow north, not south.”
“Damnit.”
“I’m in your script, too, aren’t I?” said Doctor Aldred.
“Yes, but you have the benefit of being a free agent in this.”
“We literally can’t tell you what to do.”
“And the reason you’re not talking to each other…?”
“Aside from the script? It’s a pain in the ass to talk about time travel.”
“Haven’t you noticed?” said the Paul who was fiddling with magnets. “When you get to multiple applicable tenses, you sound like you have a stammer.”
“It’s cute, though,” said the Paul doing paperwork. He finished with a satisfied, Ha! “My turn in the barrel. I’ll see you last week.”
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Challenge #00334: The first Christmas in Space
Someone has set up a little model nativity scene, and then has to explain to the others “why they are sacrificing that baby to the animals”
The ships’ human had set up a small altar in their assigned space. There was a small pine tree (live) that had been stasis-shipped from Britania. There was assorted sparkly lights, a metallic plastic substance referred to as ‘tinfoil’ and numerous spheroids hung about the little branches.
The saurians who were the rest of the crew observed in shifts. Everything the human did was recorded out of understandable paranoia, of course, but watching it happen in person was part of the experience.
When the human was done with the tree - not very many leaves showed through by the time she was done - she began on another strange ritual.
It was a diorama, they were certain of that. The scene was contained - more or less - in an effigy of a wooden hut. Sheep, cows, goats, chickens, a horse and a dog turned the hut into a barn.
There was a human figure with wings. Enquiry revealed it was an angel. A divine figure of some bizarre human theism. And they were all bizarre.
There were other humans in strange garb. Three very ornate ones were the 'wise men’. A man and a woman in simpler robes were called 'Mary’ and 'Joseph’.
It was the centerpiece of the diorama that caused shock and alarm. The tiny figure of an infant, lain in a sacrificial bowl.
It took days of explaining for the human to help them understand that it was not a scene of sacrifice, but one of celebration. There was a lot of singing involved. And three documentaries. And five story-books.
The human, by the end of it, didn’t want to get started on Santa Claus.
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Challenge #00328: …and Wherefores
Gil took longer than most children to grow out of the “why?” stage (either Klaus or Von Pinn dealing with him at that age, you pick, I just want to see toddler!Gil and hilarity)
It was a little celebration amongst the rigger rats. They called it Family Day, and used it to remember the people they had left behind. Gil enjoyed the stories the others told but, when it came to his turn, his joyful mood fell to ash.
“I don’t have a family,” he confessed. “I don’t know where my home is.”
The others laughed at him. He ran away.
Von Pinn found him in the Escape Rig hangar, hiding between the emergency supplies and the mammoth baits. She reacted to his tears the way she reacted to anything outside of her field of order. With anger.
“Who harmed you?”
Gil automatically unfolded to show a lack of injuries. “They jus’ laughed at me, m’m,” he quavered. “Why don’t I have a family?”
“You do have a family,” Von Pin soothed. Or the closest thing she could get to ‘soothed’. “They are just… not here. Come along, this is a dangerous area.”
“Why?”
“Child, you are sitting next to poison in an area full of flying machines, with a door that leads to a five-thousand-foot drop. Which one of these features escaped your notice?”
“No, why is my family not here?”
Von Pinn picked him up by his suspenders and carried him at arm’s length. “Because they are located elsewhere.”
“Why?”
“Because they could not be here.”
“Why?”
“For your safety.”
“Why?”
Von Pinn tutted and rolled her eyes. “Young master Gil, are you asking to know or are you asking to annoy?”
“I wanna know. Where are they? Why aren’t they here? How can I be safe if I don’t have a mama or a papa? Who am I?”
“I give you leave to come to me after bedtime. I will tell you then.”
“Why?”
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Challenge #00327: A Gru-some Predicament
The minions have unionized and gone on strike
[AN: I just fell over backwards in the bathroom and did something horrible to my right arm. This fillet is being typed left-handed LIKE A BOSS. PS: it’s not broken, but it hurts like fuck]
“DE BA DO! DE BA DO!” the minions chanted, marching in circles in the underground complex that was both their workplace and their home. They carried placards with their grievances.
Alas, they were written in minionese.
“Gu ba de nuka se?” read Lucy.
Gru glared at her. “This is your fault. All your ’freedom’ and ’inalienable rights’… Now they are all wanting the upstairs bedrooms.”
“You can read that?”
“Of course I can read that. I created each and every one of them. I know them like back of my hand.” He sighed. “I just can’t afford what they want. Being hero is not so good on the budget.”
“So move into my place.”
“What, that tiny little flat in city? We’d never fit.”
“Not my cover-place, silly. My secret base place.” Lucy grinned. “I have an island…”
“You have island? How you manage island on hero salary?”
“Oh, some king gave it to me, one time. Want to see?”
Gru got puppy-eyes. “Does it have volcano? I have always dreamed of having villain base on volcano…”
“But you’re a hero.”
“I still have needs!”
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Challenge #00325: The Unnypical
I’m tired of villains being the only representation of people who aren’t 100% mentally typical. Show me a hero coming out as having anxiety disorder/depression/Asperger’s/something (I know not all of those are equal but you get my drift). Show me a place in heroics for people like me, that isn’t either as a villain or locked up in an asylum, or both. (Marvelverse or DCverse would be awesome
[AN: Attempting to do this while also staying away from the Magic Cripple trope]
There are fine lines between ‘mild-mannered’ and 'antisocial’. And why not be antisocial. All my attempts to be social resulted in infamy, ignominy and just outright humiliation.
It took me a very long time to learn how to seem normal. It took me longer to even want to. I had to, and there is a gulf of difference between having to and wanting to do anything.
Normal is cruel. And I could never bring myself to be cruel to anyone. Not on purpose.
Normal is self-centered. But in order to understand this, I had to step out of my own head and imagine what it must be like. I just can’t be normal, there.
Normal doesn’t care if the wrong amount of pressure can hurt someone else. I had to care about that since puberty.
I don’t know how or why it happened, but it did. I’m one of the very many supers out there who can fly and are strong and are almost invulnerable.
Nobody sees where I come from because Normal doesn’t pay attention. They ignore the weirdo on the train with the rainbow stockings. Or on the street. Or -youknow- anywhere.
All I gotta do to go from weirdo-on-the-street to The Unnypical is take off the big coat that helps the Normals not bother me… and after that, they’re all looking at the silver dress and the rainbow stockings and the combat boots.
It took me a while and I really don’t wanna hurt your feelings and that? But Normal is also kind-of stupid.
I asked Nightcrawler about it, once. How he can get away with not using the image inducer if he just puts on a hoodie and keeps his hands in his pockets. I mean, he doesn’t even hide the tail! And his shoes have to be made special.
He just said, “People don’t look that far down. Usually.”
I’ve lost count of the crimes I stopped just because I saw things other people would miss. I had to learn to wait until things actually started to happen, though. You can’t arrest folks for attempted crimes.
Well, most of them. Murder’s the big exception. Of course.
Oh, and don’t look at me about the name. That’s the news at work. They had no real name for me and 'eyesore’ doesn’t sell papers or get an audience for CNN or whatever. Someone analyzed my voice patterns or something during a fight? And they said I wasn’t nypical and it sorta stuck.
It’s way better than some of the things I get called.
Normal is cruel.
It’s why I hang out with all of the visible mutants. They get it. They get me. Sure, some of them think I’m 'slumming’ just because I can scrub up okay, but then we get talking and… well… they know I’m not 'slumming’.
Normal came up with 'slumming’.
But Normal also came up with heroes. And helping folks because it’s the right thing to do. And learning about things. And social justice.
It’s why I gotta keep being nice. It’s why I have to be the hero. It’s why I want to be the hero.
Because someone has to teach the Normals how to be good.
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Challenge #00319: In Memorium
Found on a gravestone, “Name, date-date, (Killed 99 bears) We pray he has found rest”
We pray he found rest. We’re not sure, but we hope so, because nobody ever found a body, and 99 may not have been enough.
(replace bears with appropriate sentient or nonsentient species at your discretion, especially in the case of early-contact humans :P)
If any being needed any further proof of human insanity - besides ten minutes’ contact with any number of the species - all they had to do was visit Memorial Moon at Velliguas Three.
There is a temple, there. Carved out of a mountain. With Bas-reliefs depicting heroic deeds. And a statue of a human in a space suit and in a heroic pose.
And a plaque.
ANDREW JONES, it reads, 234598-234632. Destroyed 99 planet-eaters. We pray he has found his rest.
Then the visitor reads about the exploits in the Bas-reliefs. Sees the recorded videos depicting skin-of-teeth, seat-of-pants, luck-of-idiots combat style that ended ninety-nine of the swarming creatures that ate planets.
The hundredth planet-eater… destroyed the vessel Jones was piloting. The Velligulae never found any remains to bury, though they did have to gang up to vanquish the last of the beasts where one human had previously sufficed.
Put in association with the humans’ reputation for being unkillable, and one could see exactly why the Velligulae pray Andrew Jones found his rest.
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