Challenge #00589 - A214: Like a House on Fire

Shayde and Ambassador O’Ranges

or

Julie, Nanny and Ambassador O’Ranges

[AN: You didn’t say ‘xor’ :D ]

Julie was still moaning. A constant monotone that, Shayde could tell, was starting to get on everyone’s pec’s. She was huddled in Nanny’s lap. Nanny couldn’t do much for her but be a living teddy-bear and mutter “Good girl, good girl,” at random intervals.

“Puir babby…” Shayde muttered. “Puir wee pet…”

“Don’t do anything… too innovative?” Rael begged. He’d seen 'innovative’ just recently when she’d shadow-jumped a villain into a gibbering mess.

“No need,” she said. “We go’ what we need right here.”

And with that, she zoomed off to the other Dog in the gallery. Ambassador O'Ranges and his handler-assistant Aelki. Rael, caught off-guard, did not arrive to hear any of the fast and hushed discussion… but it resulted in Ambassador O'Ranges, or his alter-ego HitcherWolf, padding over to both artist and Augmented dog and asking, “D'you need hugs?”

Julie immediately became distracted by O'Ranges’ shaggy, fluffy fur.

O'Ranges sat on the floor so he could envelop both Julie and Nanny in an enormous hug. There was a perilous handful of seconds when they both almost vanished in the fuzz, but they re-emerged with smiles on their faces.

“Good dog,” said Nanny. “Good boy. You smell tasty.”

“Yeah,” O'Ranges agreed, tail wagging. “Barbecue cologne. Not for eats. For good smell.”

Aelki, who knew O'Ranges the best, murmured, “Do you have a pry bar in that coat of yours?” to Rael.

“Aw leave 'em fer a wee bit…” chided Shayde. “They need th’ warm fuzzies.”

There certainly hadn’t been a happier interaction between artist and audience in Rael’s recollection.

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Challenge #00588 - A213: Explaining a Lot

Was trying to figure a way to rephrase this, but I reckon it’s probably best to send it to you in its original form: “(s)he/ze had a troubled childhood” == “They had a troubled evolution…” (a lot of the questions were me) – recklessprudence

“…and this is Ambassador Shayde. Her species had a difficult evolution.”

The assembled welcome committee aahed and nodded.

“Must ye do tha’ every time we go somewhere?” Shayde murmured.

“You don’t look very human, so the answer is ‘yes’,” said Rael. “Not very many non-human species are insane, so…”

“Humans are no’ insane,” Shayde denied. “’S nobody else understandin’ what makes sense tae us.”

“Explain figure skating to me? How about base jumping? Or parkour… How about - why pole dancing continued to have a stigma against it for two hundred years? Why did your kind create an entire field of anti-science.”

“Awrigh’ awrigh’… Ye got a point with the Creationists. But every planets’ got it’s nutbars, aye?”

“Not as many as Earth,” sighed Rael. “Your planet has enough nutbars to stock a health store.”

Shayde laughed at that. “Aye. An’ enough fruitcakes tae feed Christmas. Fine. But do me a favour an’ point out the other nutbars. I like tae collect.”

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Challenge #00587 - A212: Confusing Hilarity

Someone being chased by a goose while others laugh too hard to help.

The humans saw her coming in to the launch pole.

“Up! Up! Up!” They called, using their fleshy hands to gesture the same thought. “Danger! Up!”

She scrambled for the little platform before she dared look down. There, in one of the grazing paddocks, one of the humans’ domesticated avians was chasing a young human keet. Kid.

It was a large bird. Semi-aquatic, judging by the feet. And extremely hostile.

It had teeth on its tongue.

Siriki ran herself through her breathing exercises as she watched the interplay, below.

The humans were laughing, and did little to intervene. From what there was of the conversation, the kid had been advised not to go near the ‘tetchy goosss’. And now the juvenile was learning 'the hard way’.

One human, safely perched atop their ungulate stable, had a musical instrument. The tune ze played bought another chorus of laughter from the observing humans.

It must have had historical significance, since it was music that came about during chase scenes in their local performances.

One day, they may enlighten her to the meaning of 'Yackety Sax’.

The human juvenile, once adequately repentant, got rescued without any harm done. And much joking from the observers.

If she needed any further proof that these were deathworlders… this event would have been it.

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Challenge #00586 - A211: Imaginary Union 1475

Monthly union meeting of trolls, ogres, and TUTBs (Things Under the Bed).

“All right, all right. Let’s keep this in order so we can all be back in our haunts before sunset.”

Grumble grumble mumble.

“If you don’t wanna be here, you can always skip on your fees,” threatened their president, Gruuh.

“Point of order,” said Oogle.

Sigh. “Yes?”

“Fees are hard to obtain. Kids are scared of less… traditional monsters. That newcomer Slendy is taking all the fear ichor.”

“We’re discussing the sliding scale at the AGM, Oogle. You still have the market cornered on the under fives.”

“What about trolls? Trolls are cute, now…”

“I’m well aware,” Gruuh rolled his eyes. “And Ogres are lovable. We only have the power humans give us. Perhaps the muses can help inspire something?”

“Are. You. Kidding. It’s all deconstruction. Making the heroes villains and vice versa. It’s mayhem out there. Mayhem!”

“I just want my fair share,” complained Oogle.

“Then maybe you can work on a solution for a change?”

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Challenge #00584 - A209: Don’t Speak

Challenge: No dialogue. Any ‘verse

What struck her at first was the alienness of the world. Even before she had to ponder how she got here or what ‘normal’ was supposed to be.

Everything had right-angles to it. The things that were not cubes of… stuff… were flat, two dimensional objects, things that looked like paper props from a tinkertoy town, or moving creatures also seemingly made of cubes.

But it was real. She was there. And she wanted to live.

First things needed for survival. Water. Food. Shelter. Sanity. In that order. The last of those was already dodgy, if her perception of the landscape was any indication.

The water by the beach seemed to be fresh. At least… it didn’t taste of salt. It didn’t even taste of water. She could build a bivouac out of branches… if the branches didn’t vanish in a shower of green particles when she tried to grab them.

The trees did not fall, but parts of their trunks became -of course!- cubes of tree trunk when she punched them into oblivion. She woodpecked a handful of trees into oblivion and found by chance that she could turn trunks into planks, and planks into sticks.

Planks arranged in a simple two-by-two square made a workbench, which gave her a three-by-three space to arrange things. Sticks and planks together made all sorts of things.

Wood was useful. Essential in this strange world.

Very strange world. Oak trees dropped apples. Grass dropped wheat seed and, after a few false tries, she had a house and a farm.

She could have spent a lifetime without encountering the Silent Things. They were tall, and green, and in form and function, they were giant dicks. They seemingly existed to sneak up on her and blow things up.

A wide moat and death-trap combo did for them. And they seemed to vanish after midday. Off to whatever dark pit they preferred when they weren’t being pains in the butt.

There were many hazards to this strange world. And many things to do.

At night, she would watch the monsters gather and perish in her trap. All but the tall and dark ones, who could teleport away from water.

She learned not to look directly at them.

To keep herself sane… or what passed for sane… she turned her hand to creating things out of the landscape. Carving a castle out of a mountain. Creating a wondrously beautiful garden. Building a railway to her varied resources.

It wasn’t so bad. Once you got used to handling the enormous dicks.

Pretty much like the life before…

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Challenge #00583 - A208: Big, Blue and Mostly Harmless

Challenge prompt: Try a MLP / Monster in Paris crossover WITHOUT Fluttershy being the one that shows everyone he’s really a very sweet giant flea.

Cornered. Trapped. Pinned. And no doubt about to be eaten by the Beast from the portal, Rarity hunkered in place and shrieked.

One of its four arms reached inevitably towards her…

…and began carefully combing her mane.

“Jolie petit poney,” cooed a voice that could easily have come from Heaven itself. “Vous êtes perdu? Je suis perdu.” And then he sang.

There was no other accompaniment but the wind in the trees and the noises of the forest, but his song seemed to summon them just when they were needed.

He wasn’t monstrous at all. Even though his clothes were an absolute wreck.

And he was an amazing stylist, putting her mane and tail up in a very intricate set of braids that screamed sophistication whilst also being ready for everything the Everfree Forest could throw at her.

“My goodness. Where did you learn to do all that?”

“Paris,” said the giant flea.

He wasn’t much for words, evidently. At least, not the spoken word. Nevertheless, he deserved better than hunkering in a mouldy old forest.

“I know a place where I can whip up a new suit for you. It’s the very least you deserve, after all you’ve been through.”

Her five friends found her in her salon, trying hats on the monster as he accompanied himself on one of Pinkie’s random guitars [Stowed away in case of a guitar emergency, of course].

“His name is Francoeur,” said Rarity. “And as you can see, he’s completely harmless.”

Francoeur warbled a greeting that was half purr and half chirp. “Jolis poneys…”

“Yes, darling. They’re my friends.”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose we can get him back home, later…” she allowed.

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Challenge #00582 - A207: Visiting an Ailing Friend

Hatchworth and Fluttershy in the world of SPG 

[AN: I almost tossed this and then I realised it was a different prompt]

Hatchworth was certainly an interesting friend. He spoke of interesting things, of humans and dragons and an assortment of interesting beings in a place called Kazooland.

Rather like Equestria, it was part of something bigger, and also made up of smaller realms. And, like Equestria, it thrived on magic.

Fluttershy watched as Hatchworth hammered a road sign into the earth on the other side of the tunnel. He’s left another like it on the Equestria side, pointing helpfully to ‘Snornia’. This one pointed helpfully to ‘Equestria’.

“Oh! There’s Up-grade’s cave.” He added an arrow to the sign post and gestured for Fluttershy to follow. “You’d like Up-grade. She loves po-nies.”

“F-f-ft-for breakfast?” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Non-sense,” chuckled Hatchworth. “Ro-bots don’t eat.”

It was a scary realm, which Hatchworth sung about in a cheerful way. And though the song contained vampires and zombies, it was oddly comforting.

The horde looked fake. It glittered and gleamed l ike it had too much to prove. And, clutching on to it and moaning softly, was a huge… thing… halfway between human-shaped and dragon-shaped. She still wore the remains of what had once been a neat black dress, though she was three times the size of Hatchworth.

Perched near her shoulders was a rough-looking human. No. Not human. He was covered in reddish-bronze scales and had a rainbow of serpents for hair. He was vigorously scratching the dragon’s back.

“That feels better, dunnit?”

The pink metal dragon-thing moaned again. “A little,” she allowed. “All my spinal linkages ache.”

“Side effect of growing a new spine,” said the humanish one. “Ey! Hatchy! We heard you were lost…” He patted the pink dragon and slid down both metal flank and fake horde. And somehow, on the way down, he became more human. Almost. There was still something… dragon-y about him. He knelt and showed Fluttershy his empty hands.

“Hi there, li’l darlin’. Did you help Hatchy get back?”

“…i understood his name was hatchworth…” Fluttershy murmured.

“Aw, she’s adorable,” cooed the transforming human. “It’s okay. I don’t bite. And you’re right. His name is Hatchworth. Hatchy for short.

A new figure appeared, all black and white and a tiny hint of blue. She, too, was larger than life. And came over as strict and severe. She tapped her foot, looked at an invisible watch, and then threw an invisible lasso at Steve and promptly and literally dragged him away.

"Aw c’mon, Bunny… all work and no play…” complained Steve.

“Mime magic,” said Hatchworth. “Mimes are among the ma-ny pseudo-hu-man spe-cies in Ka-zoo-land.”

Fluttershy used Hatchworth as a mobile shield so she could peek in on a weredragon and a mime work at an invisible lab bench to come up with concoctions for a robot who was changing into a full-time dragon.

“You have a very confusing reality,” Fluttershy finally announced once she was done understanding it all.

“It is,” said Hatchworth. “And it’s home.”

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Challenge #00581 - A206: At the Other End of a Tunnel Through Snornia

(( You did say to stop the promptspam when you hit like 70, I think the plan was to try and keep things at a steady level of around 20 instead of spamming all at once and then waiting for things to drop off ))

Prompt: Hatchworth and Fluttershy in Equestria

[AN: The amount of prompts is an ongoing problem. Too many and my readers get bored waiting for any of theirs to turn up. Too few and I start fretting about having enough prompts. ANY clue for a nice stable number would be nice.]

Hatchworth had initially been in Kazooland to visit Upgrade in Snornia. Only to find that the pink dragon-robot-princess was hibernating in order to accelerate her transformation.

He’d left her some more plastic costume jewellery [pink, of course] and went exploring.

And promptly got lost.

*

Fluttershy turned back to reassure Spike, having marvelled at seeing Peewee the baby Phoenix take wing and rejoin his family.

Her comforting words died in her throat when she realised that there was a third… individual… in the clearing.

It stood tall, on two legs like Discord. And it seemed to be made almost entirely out of bronze. It steamed. And ticked.

And smiled.

“Oh…” it murmured. “That was beau-ti-ful.”

Spike said, “What the heck are *you*?”

It raised a red-and-black gloved hand to tip its entire head to them. “My name’s Hatch-worth. I am  one of Colo-nel Wal-ter’s Steam Po-wered Au-ton-o-mous Au-tom-a-tons.” He leaned down to murmur, “I’m in the band, now.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Fluttershy.

He grinned at her. “Hel-lo, ma’am,” another tip of his head. “May I ex-plore here? This land looks like so much fun.”

*

It was later. Mayhem had evidently ensued in the form of sandwiches over every level surface. And spiders.

There was a sobbing bronze automaton in the middle of it.

“There, there,” cooed Fluttershy. “It’s all right…”

“…i only wanted to help…” bawled Hatchworth.

Twilight Sparkle vented a noise somewhere between a sigh and a howl to the heavens that life was unfair. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. “It’s just that lots of ponies don’t like spiders like you do. And maybe every pony would be happier - including the spiders - if all the spiders went… somewhere… else?”

Only Discord thought this was hilarious. They were all still working on his sense of humour.

A steam-filled sigh. “Nobody liked spiders like I do,” he pouted. Then pulled a mandolin and started playing a catchy little tune.

It was like watching Pinkie Pie round up all the Parasprites. The spiders just… danced their way back into the machine’s hatch.

And when he was done singing the Tickly Spider Dance… he put away the mandolin and firmly closed his hatch. “My sand-wich-es are still de-lic-ious.”

“…celestia help me…” Twilight groaned.

“Of course they are!” Pinkie Pie bounced into the scene. “I’ve got everything I need to hold the biggest, bestest sandwich party for the whole town!”

“Yaaaaay!” Hatchworth cheered.

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Challenge #00580 - A205: Hug-a-bunch

Thomas’s very first run in with The Spine’s sleepy stranglehold

Somewhere in San Diego, there is a mansion with no doors. Well. Technically, it has two, but they’re in nonstandard locations. Theoretically, there is absolutely nothing to stop friend or foe from just wandering in and doing what they pleased.

That is, until you know what Walter Manor contains.

Thomas, a sleek silver robot made in the 1990’s, had no idea what he was getting into when he wandered inside the gothic edifice to surprise the silver robot made in the 1890’s. Better known to all as The Spine.

Almost immediately, he found a conga party containing, amongst other outlandish impossibilities, a monster, a small metal giraffe, and some… thing… with black-and-white markings and impossible eyelashes.

Rabbit was in the lead.

“Hey hey it’s c-c-c-c-captain sparkle pants!”

“Er,” said the French robot. “Où est la Spine?”

“He just had a tune-up,” Rabbit sang, dancing to the rhythm. “He’s nap-pin’ in the li-b'ry.”

“Merci,” Thomas moved away from the impromptu party, but not before someone - or something - added a sombrero to his polished head.

It was telling that he was getting used to these levels of nonsense.

The library, like everything else in Walter Manor, was immense. A time and space-bending labyrinth of shelves, reading nooks and… yes!

One slumbering The Spine draped quasi-artistically across a chaise lounge.

Sparkling and looking good as new.

Thomas nudged him. “Mon antique…” he cooed. “Surpristé…”

The Spine mumbled something unintelligible, but did not rise from his stupor.

Evidently, the Walter technicians had rearranged his workings and, metaphorically speaking, taken a lot out of him. Thomas moved some lanky kegs out of his way and sat beside him.

Then he made the mistake of draping The sleeping Spine’s arm across his shoulders.

“Mnnnnff…” The Spine complained and dragged Thomas wholesale into a tight and slightly uncomfortable embrace.

An also unbreakable embrace.

An inescapable embrace.

“Dieu…” Thomas muttered. The sombrero fell to the floor. He supposed it was only a matter of time before someone checked in on them.

Any minute, now. Someone would come in and press a few buttons.

Any minute…. now.

*

Hours had passed. The only thing that had happened so far was  The Spine shifting himself about to get more comfortable. But not to make Thomas more comfortable.

Thomas drummed his fingers against The Spine’s encompassing and immobile arm. “Anybody?” he tried once more. “M'aidez?”

“Sweet! Free sombrero!”

It was the little yarn doppelgänger of Steve Negrete, part-time Dragon.

“Aide, peu Steve, je suis pris au piège!”

“Sorry, dude. No parlay Frenchie.” The yarn doll got himself under the sombrero and scurried away with it.

Thomas sighed and went back to drumming his fingers.

Worst. Date. Ever.

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Challenge #00579 - A204: Imp-ossible Lover

Sorry, it’s just too cute

http://ofools.tumblr.com/post/88653271705/a-mass-photoset-for-all-your-giant-demon-bf-and

Sometimes, G'xyf'l did not know what was wrong with him. Maybe he’d been on Earth too long. Maybe seeing what humans could do in comparison to demonic lack of imagination had jaded him to the usual temptations.

Either way, he found himself looking off a bridge at the rocky canyon below and not thinking of anything very much, at all.

Then She walked into his life and said, “Long way down.”

“Yeah.” Not that it would do anything but temporarily inconvenience him. She didn’t know that. He had his glamour on and looked like a slightly huge businessman with salt-and-pepper hair and matching beard.

“Take a header into that lot, it’s certain death,” she said conversationally. Also propping herself up on the railing. She had a rubenesque figure that was sadly out of fashion according to the modern standards.

G'xyf'l could just kick some other demons for encouraging the invention of fashion and body standards.

“Yup,” he agreed.

“I wonder if it’s true,” she said.

“What?”

“That jumpers figure out the solution to all their problems on the way down.” A sigh that spoke of a life of sorrow. “Well. Let’s find out.” And she leaped over the railing.

From a standing start.

There was no time. He broke the rules in more than a hundred ways and summoned a Miracle. It was a camouflaged net under the bridge to catch jumpers like herself.

“GOD DAMNIT!”

Oh. Great. She was alive.

“Are you okay?” He clambered over the railing to join her in the netting. “You just went right over and–”

“You’re red. You’ve got a TAIL.”

“Yeah, there’s a little bit of Huldre on my mothers side and–” his brain finally caught up. “CRAP! I let my glamour fade. Look, it’s okay. Demons are just angels that said ‘screw the rules’ right? Does it really matter who does the miracle? And…. well… free will and temptation and… I didn’t want you to die.”

She had apparently calmed down. “You must be shitty at your job.”

“No kidding. I’m about to be demoted to Imp.”

“A seven-foot-tall imp?”

“Yeah. If this little stunt doesn’t get me exiled.”

“Demons get kicked out of Hell?”

“Where do you think Rush Limbaugh came from?”

She laughed. A real, genuine belly-laugh that bought light to the world. Oh yeah. He was in trouble. And in love. Which was worse for a demon, in the eyes of the upper-class. “Thanks,” she said, crawling closer across the netting. “That’s the first real laugh I’ve had in five years.”

And she kissed him.

To Hell with Hell, he thought. I like it right here.

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