Flashfic Meme #1a and 1b
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ghostdogmeta said:
I'm totally not requesting K-9/Bill the Pony or Sam Hain/Kahn Noonian Singh fics.
. . . You never make it easy on me, do you?
There was something distinctly wrong with this place; his detectors were picking up particles that had no names, at energy levels they shouldn't have been able to maintain. The little robot had managed to avoid detection so far, but absent a working cloaking or camouflage circuit, it was unlikely that this state of affairs would continue. The irregular surface of the cobblestone streets, where they were paved at all, was also impeding his progress.
A drunk figure lurched down the narrow side street K-9 was huddled in, gnawing a carrot that had clearly been in storage too long. The robot dog edged out from behind the barrels as the man passed, trying to use his heavy and irregular footfalls to cover the sound of his own passage. The attempt was at least partly successful; the drunkard stumbled into an inn just after turning the corner, never seeing his miniature stalker.
K-9 pondered what to do next when a whuff of warm air passed over him. He backed around in a semicircle, undercarriage scraping one of the irregular paving stones, to look up into the face of a small horse. The two regarded each other for several minutes. K-9 was about to try backing the rest of the way into the alley again when the pony leaned forward, sniffed at him, and then tossed its head down the street. When the robot made no move, he whickered and repeated the gesture.
"You mean for me to go that way?" The pony's head bobbed at the robot's question, as if stilted words from a metal box were an everyday occurrence for it. Intrigued, K-9 wheeled around again and rolled in the direction the pony indicated. A light clopping of hooves behind him told him the small equine was following.
At some length, they reached a stable behind yet another inn. The pony nudged the little robot over the plank at the threshold, past the tethering post and the board hung with moldering tackle, into a dark and fairly secluded spot between the common manger and a disused stall. No doors led into it from the outside, and it was clear from the dust that the stall was not regularly used. It would, K-9 concluded, be a relatively safe space to work on recreating the dimensional portal that had brought him here.
"Thank you, sir," he offered the pony, who nodded his head and returned to the manger, chewing quietly. The little robot's equine benefactor was quietly pleased; Bill never could stand to see a little one lost.
--
The next is a little long for a flashfic; eh, I brought the first one in under 500.
Janine blushed to her roots. The tall, suave man with the strange uniform smiled at her again; in his exotic accent, he murmured "I assure you, nothing untoward will happen. All you have to do is accede to my . . . simple request."
Her heart hammered in her chest; she had just watched him bring down Winston with a single blow. By rights she should have been angry; instead, she was caught in a sickening mix of fear and something entirely too close to a schoolgirl crush. She knew what charisma was; she'd seen Peter try to use it on clients (usually successfully) and would-be girlfriends (usually unsuccessfully) - but this was different. This was an animal magnetism she'd never seen before. Not doing what he asked took all of her usual store of willpower.
She shook her head. "Nothin' doin', pal. Even if you convinced me, I couldn't do it. You can't let just one ghost out at once, not without sending another ghost in after it."
"A pity." He lunged forward before she could move, scooping her up in an expert fireman's carry, as if she were a three-year-old; he ignored her thrashing, holding her in place with one arm as he took the stairs to the basement two at a time. "I thought we might reach an agreement. Instead, I shall have to experiment with this delicate equipment myself." He brushed one wide hand across the controls. "I trust that you will tell me if I am about to cause an explosion." Without waiting for her response, he studied the main panel, nodded to himself, turned the catch, and thrust his arm into the trap-slot up to the shoulder.
"You're not supposed to be able to do that," protested Janine weakly, as the muscular intruder groped in the containment unit, a look of intense concentration on his face.
The tyrant smiled, and drew his arm back, a single spirit clutched in his grasp. He loosed it and closed the trap-slot as carefully as Ray might have, carefully eyeing the flashing lights until they went back to normal. The swirl of ectoplasm contracted, coalesced, and drew itself up into a familiar jack-o'-lantern head and dark cloak.
"Who dares disturb the rest of Samhain?" grated the ancient spirit. For an instant, Janine wondered if it might attack the intruder. If so, she stood a reasonable chance of escaping and warning the boys.
The intruder smiled. "I do. You see, I require your assistance. A series of . . . experiments are supposed to have begun in this world, which will in ten years or so result in the emergence of my people, my army. Instead, I have been thrust back into this era from the future to find myself not yet born, my soldiers never conceived. But in this world . . . " The tyrant regarded the spirit with a combination of admiration, wariness, and wonder. "In this world, ghosts and demons walk the earth openly. With my skill in leadership, I could forge them into an unstoppable eldritch army. With my knowledge of tactics and strategies, I could conquer the world with them. But," and he shrugged his shoulders, nearly dislodging Janine, "I am but another mortal to them. You, on the other hand, are their natural leader. In a fundamental sense, you are the night in which they go bump, yes? If you and I can forge a partnership, I can give you the skills necessary to reach your goals, and you can raise the army to give me mine."
The ancient Celtic apparition's eyes flickered in thought. "And if we discover that our goals are . . . incompatible?"
"Then we will fight to the death between ourselves, all our other enemies already conquered. It is not as if I have not done this before." The tyrant seemed unconcerned.
Samhain smiled, a small, tight smile. "It is no treachery to ally with you if you know that outcome is coming, then." It stretched a long, thin hand towards the tyrant, who carelessly slung Janine from his shoulders to the floor (but gently enough that it wouldn't leave bruises, she noted in relief) and shook the proffered hand.
"Our first recruits await us . . . in there," announced Samhain, stretching one twig-like finger towards the containment unit. "There are several demons we should leave within; they would challenge my authority, not being spirits native to the world you wish to conquer."
"First," nodded the intruder. Janine's eyes widened as she caught his meaning; if the ancient one did, his face did not betray it. She tried to stand up, but her legs were numb from the tyrant's iron grip on her, and she only managed to push herself to kneeling.
"Can you pluck my little ones out as you picked me?" continued Samhain as if nothing had happened. The intruder nodded. "I can, if I know what I am looking for. But claiming your army one at a time will be . . . tedious. Can we not let them all out and then subdue the ones you do not wish to add to our ranks?"
"That would be a bad idea, bub," answered a clear tenor voice from the basement door. Janine looked up and sighed in relief as the four boys blocked that exit, proton packs already charged. Winston seemed to have recovered from the intruder's blow, although he was hanging at the back of the group.
"Ray, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" pondered Egon aloud. Ray nodded vigorously. "This is great! Either he's telling the truth, and he's from a parallel universe where what is a fictional timeline in our universe became the actual timeline in his, or he's mistaken, and he's a physical manifestation of a fictional archetype!"
"Wait, that's really who it looks like?" exclaimed Peter.
"As close to it as makes no odds." Egon was waving the PKE meter with more than his usual flourish; his other hand, at his side, was slowly and deliberately gesturing for Janine to edge away from the terrible duo in front of the containment unit. She didn't have to be told twice; she half-limped, half-crawled towards the partially-sheltered spot behind the stairway. The intruder hadn't seen Egon's gestures, but he clearly saw her move; just as clearly, he dismissed her from his presence, his attention refocused on the Ghostbusters themselves.
"Get away from the containment unit, bub. That's no plaything - if you just open it, you'll get the spirit army you want, but the whole firehouse will come crashing down on your head from the explosion as they leave," shouted Ray. "If you give up now, we'll drop the assault charges for Winston and the kidnapping charges for Janine and just charge you for trespassing. As for you, Samhain," he continued, louder than was really necessary, "just go ahead and get back in the containment unit. You're not going anywhere."
"Oh, I'm not?" chuckled the spirit. He raised his hands, and an astounding collection of junk from the corners of the basement - tools from Ray's workshop area, parts from disassembled traps, burnt-out capacitors from Egon's experiments, even a few pieces of stale and moldy pizza squirreled away by Slimer - flew towards their heads. The four men ducked and covered, protecting themselves from the worst of it. The intruder slipped a step back to the trap-slot, opened it with one hand, and reached into it.
A shimmering white light, similar to the one produced by the traps, reached into the room. "I do not have to deactivate your defenses to let them out. I can manage the trick with my bare hands, as you can see. If you would, my ally," he continued smoothly, "please keep them from disturbing me until I have let your . . . little ones out. And if you would let me know if one of the troublesome ones arrives, I will endeavor to convince it to return."
A trio of goblins shot through the fan of light, cackled gleefully, and floated over to Samhain. He smiled, and directed them towards the Ghostbusters; they flew at their once and future tormentors with a malicious delight, only to be driven back by a proton burst from Winston. The telekinetically propelled junk promptly dive-bombed him, to be intercepted in turn by blasts from Ray and Egon. "We're going to need to order another toolbox," observed Egon as several screwdrivers were reduced to cinders.
"You don't understand; that's dangerous, too!" shouted Ray at the intruder. "The unit's not designed to have that door open for a long period - the grid will start cracking; it'll break down and explode just as surely as it would if you'd turned off the power!"
"Then I shall see whether my ally will hold up his end of the bargain, and protect me from his children," shrugged the intruder. Samhain nodded slowly. "I trust that I will survive either way. Can you say the same for yourselves, or the woman there?" He indicated Janine with only the slightest tilt of his jaw.
"Why, you . . ." Peter's outburst became a strangled snarl of rage. He fended off the goblins again with a second proton stream, as the containment grid made a deep popping noise and another half-dozen spirits forced their way through the opening. The lights on the containment grid began flashing, blinking red and yellow, as the klaxon began to growl. The newly-released class fives slammed into the metal staircase, shaking the four men and knocking them to their knees, before grabbing Janine and hauling her, shrieking, into midair just in front of Samhain. "Let her go," shouted Egon. "It won't do any good to use her as a shield."
"Oh, I think it will," smiled Samhain, as another clutch of minor spirits joined his troop. The containment grid groaned, like a bridge bearing too much of a load.
Peter slowly drew himself up by the bannister, his face contorted with rage. He leveled his proton gun at the man who still held the shimmering field open with a fist. "Get your filthy hands off of our containment grid. Now."
The tyrant laughed, a full, throaty laugh. "Do you still think anything here belongs to you? Your ghosts, your building, your machines - even your woman, there, when I choose to take her - all of these belong to me now. It is merely a matter of reclaiming my rightful property from you."
The flashing lights from the failing containment unit played across Peter's features. With a single cry, he deliberately fired a full stream photon beam at a human for the first time.
"KHAAAAAAAAAAN!"
ghostdogmeta said:I'm totally not requesting K-9/Bill the Pony or Sam Hain/Kahn Noonian Singh fics.
. . . You never make it easy on me, do you?
There was something distinctly wrong with this place; his detectors were picking up particles that had no names, at energy levels they shouldn't have been able to maintain. The little robot had managed to avoid detection so far, but absent a working cloaking or camouflage circuit, it was unlikely that this state of affairs would continue. The irregular surface of the cobblestone streets, where they were paved at all, was also impeding his progress.
A drunk figure lurched down the narrow side street K-9 was huddled in, gnawing a carrot that had clearly been in storage too long. The robot dog edged out from behind the barrels as the man passed, trying to use his heavy and irregular footfalls to cover the sound of his own passage. The attempt was at least partly successful; the drunkard stumbled into an inn just after turning the corner, never seeing his miniature stalker.
K-9 pondered what to do next when a whuff of warm air passed over him. He backed around in a semicircle, undercarriage scraping one of the irregular paving stones, to look up into the face of a small horse. The two regarded each other for several minutes. K-9 was about to try backing the rest of the way into the alley again when the pony leaned forward, sniffed at him, and then tossed its head down the street. When the robot made no move, he whickered and repeated the gesture.
"You mean for me to go that way?" The pony's head bobbed at the robot's question, as if stilted words from a metal box were an everyday occurrence for it. Intrigued, K-9 wheeled around again and rolled in the direction the pony indicated. A light clopping of hooves behind him told him the small equine was following.
At some length, they reached a stable behind yet another inn. The pony nudged the little robot over the plank at the threshold, past the tethering post and the board hung with moldering tackle, into a dark and fairly secluded spot between the common manger and a disused stall. No doors led into it from the outside, and it was clear from the dust that the stall was not regularly used. It would, K-9 concluded, be a relatively safe space to work on recreating the dimensional portal that had brought him here.
"Thank you, sir," he offered the pony, who nodded his head and returned to the manger, chewing quietly. The little robot's equine benefactor was quietly pleased; Bill never could stand to see a little one lost.
--
The next is a little long for a flashfic; eh, I brought the first one in under 500.
Janine blushed to her roots. The tall, suave man with the strange uniform smiled at her again; in his exotic accent, he murmured "I assure you, nothing untoward will happen. All you have to do is accede to my . . . simple request."
Her heart hammered in her chest; she had just watched him bring down Winston with a single blow. By rights she should have been angry; instead, she was caught in a sickening mix of fear and something entirely too close to a schoolgirl crush. She knew what charisma was; she'd seen Peter try to use it on clients (usually successfully) and would-be girlfriends (usually unsuccessfully) - but this was different. This was an animal magnetism she'd never seen before. Not doing what he asked took all of her usual store of willpower.
She shook her head. "Nothin' doin', pal. Even if you convinced me, I couldn't do it. You can't let just one ghost out at once, not without sending another ghost in after it."
"A pity." He lunged forward before she could move, scooping her up in an expert fireman's carry, as if she were a three-year-old; he ignored her thrashing, holding her in place with one arm as he took the stairs to the basement two at a time. "I thought we might reach an agreement. Instead, I shall have to experiment with this delicate equipment myself." He brushed one wide hand across the controls. "I trust that you will tell me if I am about to cause an explosion." Without waiting for her response, he studied the main panel, nodded to himself, turned the catch, and thrust his arm into the trap-slot up to the shoulder.
"You're not supposed to be able to do that," protested Janine weakly, as the muscular intruder groped in the containment unit, a look of intense concentration on his face.
The tyrant smiled, and drew his arm back, a single spirit clutched in his grasp. He loosed it and closed the trap-slot as carefully as Ray might have, carefully eyeing the flashing lights until they went back to normal. The swirl of ectoplasm contracted, coalesced, and drew itself up into a familiar jack-o'-lantern head and dark cloak.
"Who dares disturb the rest of Samhain?" grated the ancient spirit. For an instant, Janine wondered if it might attack the intruder. If so, she stood a reasonable chance of escaping and warning the boys.
The intruder smiled. "I do. You see, I require your assistance. A series of . . . experiments are supposed to have begun in this world, which will in ten years or so result in the emergence of my people, my army. Instead, I have been thrust back into this era from the future to find myself not yet born, my soldiers never conceived. But in this world . . . " The tyrant regarded the spirit with a combination of admiration, wariness, and wonder. "In this world, ghosts and demons walk the earth openly. With my skill in leadership, I could forge them into an unstoppable eldritch army. With my knowledge of tactics and strategies, I could conquer the world with them. But," and he shrugged his shoulders, nearly dislodging Janine, "I am but another mortal to them. You, on the other hand, are their natural leader. In a fundamental sense, you are the night in which they go bump, yes? If you and I can forge a partnership, I can give you the skills necessary to reach your goals, and you can raise the army to give me mine."
The ancient Celtic apparition's eyes flickered in thought. "And if we discover that our goals are . . . incompatible?"
"Then we will fight to the death between ourselves, all our other enemies already conquered. It is not as if I have not done this before." The tyrant seemed unconcerned.
Samhain smiled, a small, tight smile. "It is no treachery to ally with you if you know that outcome is coming, then." It stretched a long, thin hand towards the tyrant, who carelessly slung Janine from his shoulders to the floor (but gently enough that it wouldn't leave bruises, she noted in relief) and shook the proffered hand.
"Our first recruits await us . . . in there," announced Samhain, stretching one twig-like finger towards the containment unit. "There are several demons we should leave within; they would challenge my authority, not being spirits native to the world you wish to conquer."
"First," nodded the intruder. Janine's eyes widened as she caught his meaning; if the ancient one did, his face did not betray it. She tried to stand up, but her legs were numb from the tyrant's iron grip on her, and she only managed to push herself to kneeling.
"Can you pluck my little ones out as you picked me?" continued Samhain as if nothing had happened. The intruder nodded. "I can, if I know what I am looking for. But claiming your army one at a time will be . . . tedious. Can we not let them all out and then subdue the ones you do not wish to add to our ranks?"
"That would be a bad idea, bub," answered a clear tenor voice from the basement door. Janine looked up and sighed in relief as the four boys blocked that exit, proton packs already charged. Winston seemed to have recovered from the intruder's blow, although he was hanging at the back of the group.
"Ray, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" pondered Egon aloud. Ray nodded vigorously. "This is great! Either he's telling the truth, and he's from a parallel universe where what is a fictional timeline in our universe became the actual timeline in his, or he's mistaken, and he's a physical manifestation of a fictional archetype!"
"Wait, that's really who it looks like?" exclaimed Peter.
"As close to it as makes no odds." Egon was waving the PKE meter with more than his usual flourish; his other hand, at his side, was slowly and deliberately gesturing for Janine to edge away from the terrible duo in front of the containment unit. She didn't have to be told twice; she half-limped, half-crawled towards the partially-sheltered spot behind the stairway. The intruder hadn't seen Egon's gestures, but he clearly saw her move; just as clearly, he dismissed her from his presence, his attention refocused on the Ghostbusters themselves.
"Get away from the containment unit, bub. That's no plaything - if you just open it, you'll get the spirit army you want, but the whole firehouse will come crashing down on your head from the explosion as they leave," shouted Ray. "If you give up now, we'll drop the assault charges for Winston and the kidnapping charges for Janine and just charge you for trespassing. As for you, Samhain," he continued, louder than was really necessary, "just go ahead and get back in the containment unit. You're not going anywhere."
"Oh, I'm not?" chuckled the spirit. He raised his hands, and an astounding collection of junk from the corners of the basement - tools from Ray's workshop area, parts from disassembled traps, burnt-out capacitors from Egon's experiments, even a few pieces of stale and moldy pizza squirreled away by Slimer - flew towards their heads. The four men ducked and covered, protecting themselves from the worst of it. The intruder slipped a step back to the trap-slot, opened it with one hand, and reached into it.
A shimmering white light, similar to the one produced by the traps, reached into the room. "I do not have to deactivate your defenses to let them out. I can manage the trick with my bare hands, as you can see. If you would, my ally," he continued smoothly, "please keep them from disturbing me until I have let your . . . little ones out. And if you would let me know if one of the troublesome ones arrives, I will endeavor to convince it to return."
A trio of goblins shot through the fan of light, cackled gleefully, and floated over to Samhain. He smiled, and directed them towards the Ghostbusters; they flew at their once and future tormentors with a malicious delight, only to be driven back by a proton burst from Winston. The telekinetically propelled junk promptly dive-bombed him, to be intercepted in turn by blasts from Ray and Egon. "We're going to need to order another toolbox," observed Egon as several screwdrivers were reduced to cinders.
"You don't understand; that's dangerous, too!" shouted Ray at the intruder. "The unit's not designed to have that door open for a long period - the grid will start cracking; it'll break down and explode just as surely as it would if you'd turned off the power!"
"Then I shall see whether my ally will hold up his end of the bargain, and protect me from his children," shrugged the intruder. Samhain nodded slowly. "I trust that I will survive either way. Can you say the same for yourselves, or the woman there?" He indicated Janine with only the slightest tilt of his jaw.
"Why, you . . ." Peter's outburst became a strangled snarl of rage. He fended off the goblins again with a second proton stream, as the containment grid made a deep popping noise and another half-dozen spirits forced their way through the opening. The lights on the containment grid began flashing, blinking red and yellow, as the klaxon began to growl. The newly-released class fives slammed into the metal staircase, shaking the four men and knocking them to their knees, before grabbing Janine and hauling her, shrieking, into midair just in front of Samhain. "Let her go," shouted Egon. "It won't do any good to use her as a shield."
"Oh, I think it will," smiled Samhain, as another clutch of minor spirits joined his troop. The containment grid groaned, like a bridge bearing too much of a load.
Peter slowly drew himself up by the bannister, his face contorted with rage. He leveled his proton gun at the man who still held the shimmering field open with a fist. "Get your filthy hands off of our containment grid. Now."
The tyrant laughed, a full, throaty laugh. "Do you still think anything here belongs to you? Your ghosts, your building, your machines - even your woman, there, when I choose to take her - all of these belong to me now. It is merely a matter of reclaiming my rightful property from you."
The flashing lights from the failing containment unit played across Peter's features. With a single cry, he deliberately fired a full stream photon beam at a human for the first time.
"KHAAAAAAAAAAN!"
