The first miracle, the men’s hundred metres, had been met with wild hoots of enthusiasm. When it was repeated in the five-hundred metres, the crowd became suspicious. Things had gone downhill from there, though the exuberant wino didn’t seem to have noticed. When he picked up a javelin—as likely as not to sail all the way into the stands—a security guard decided enough was enough. It was pretty obvious what was going on here.
“Clark Kent,” he said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You have been disqualified for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.”
15
Clockwork and Cats
Challenge #7: Write a story that includes a magical girl and a magnificent bastard. One is to be inverted, and one is to be played straight.
“Hey, Karen. Is it just me, or is your necklace glowing?”
“What?” Karen looked down. Her necklace—given to her by the Interdimensional Council—was glowing. It was a message from Arthur. “No,” she said, hurriedly flipping the pendant around so the flashing green stone wasn’t so visible. “No, of course not. That’s just…the…uh…Northern Lights! But now I have to go for a totally unrelated reason.”
“That sounds like the sort of thing someone would say if they were a secret agent. Or a witch. Ooh! Or both! Some kind of magical secret agent!” A peculiar expression crossed Jane’s face. “Wait…I feel like I’ve said that before…”
With practised ease, Karen retrieved the copper pocket watch from her schoolbag and wound the mechanism, holding it up in Jane’s face. “No,” she said, in a mysterious voice. “I made a really good excuse, both polite and perfectly reasonable. An excuse like… Clarinet lesson! I have a clarinet lesson. That’ll do nicely.” She snapped the watch shut and returned it to her bag. The Dark Prince of Time might have been causing all sorts of trouble in any number of worlds, but wow did his diabolical inventions come in handy sometimes. Hurrying down the stairs and out the school gates, Karen ran to met Arthur.
Arthur was, as always, asleep on the sofa. Karen’s mother never stopped complaining about the hair.
“I got your message,” she said. “What is it.”
Arthur blinked and sat up, pausing to wash his face with a well-moistened paw. “Watch.” Stepping most dextrously on the remote, he changed the TV to a 24 hour news channel.
“…the biggest single acquisition in over forty years. But, Mister Grimgoul, this purchase was a tremendous—and some would say rash—expense for your company. With stock prices already plummeting in response, can you really justify taking over what is very nearly the entire clockwork toy industry?”
Mister Grimgoul leaned forward in the studio armchair, a toothpick dangling from his bottom lip. The camera changed to focus on his face, cold grey eyes seeming to reach hypnotically out of the screen. “Can I justify it?” He leaned back again, fingers arched. “Perhaps not. But although I own GrimCorp, GrimCorp does not own me. Sometimes…” he smiled. “Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get ahead.”
“But do you think your shareholders would agree with you?”
“Eventually…” there were those eyes again. “Eventually, I think they’ll have to.”
“Do you see the problem?” Arthur asked.
“Clockwork toys. Is he planning to make some kind of army?”
“The toys themselves would be too weak: it’s the children he’s after. This is the Dark Prince’s most sinister plan yet. We must waste no time.”
Karen quickly threw on her witches’ robes and grabbed the broom from beside the back door. It was a modern plastic one and didn’t really match the outfit, but it worked as well as any other broom and her powers would prevent anyone from seeing her while she was in the air.
The GrimCorp offices loomed over the city, twice the size of the next-tallest towers. Karen landed at the very top.
“You! Girl in the funny cloak!”
She had not expected there to be security guards on the roof, but given Mister Grimgoul’s fiendish genius, she should have expected it. He seemed like the sort to have a plan for everything. As the guards rushed towards her, Karen quickly unzipped her backpack and took out her old ironwood wand.
Zap! With a puff of lavender-scented smoke, one of the guards turned into a dark and brooding elm.
Zap! The other, somewhat unexpectedly, became a cheery-looking pear tree. Apparently Grimgoul was capable of recruiting even reasonably good people to further his dastardly schemes. As a servant of the Dark Prince of Time, he himself, however, could not be anything but pure evil. Leaving the guards—who would change back at midnight—Karen hurried down the stairs.
“In here,” said Arthur. “There’s a sort of terminal. It’s how he’s going to control all those toy factories.
“That’s some impressive scrying,” said Karen. Arthur, not having thumbs, wasn’t normally all that good at working a crystal ball.
“I heard about it on the news,” he said, modestly.
Once more, Karen wound the copper watch. She had never before tried to use it at a distance, but as she tried, she found that the Dark Prince’s vile mechanisms had a certain affinity for modern machines. It was easy enough to send its energies through the wires to all the factories. “Break all the machines,” she said, into the microphone.
“Foolish little girl!” No sooner had she finished, Mister Grimgoul burst into the room. “You have no idea what damage you could do.”
Stumbling backwards, Karen managed to take her wand out of her pocket, but she was still caught off-guard. Her spell missed Mister Grimgoul and hit the desk chair just beside him. Using every ounce of her power that she could muster, Karen forced it to sprout vines to entangle the entrepreneur. He toppled to the ground.
“I’ve foiled your plan,” she said, taking off her necklace and placing it around his neck. “Now to free you from the influence of the Dark Prince of Time.”
She performed the incantation, but nothing happened. The green stone didn’t even blink.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “It worked on all his other minions.”
“Ask him,” said Arthur. “He can’t lie while he’s wearing the necklace.”
“Aaah!” screamed Grimgoul. “A talking cat!”
“Spill it,” said Karen, getting frustrated. “What were you going to do with all those toy factories?”
“What?” Grimgoul blinked, his sinister grey eyes seeming perhaps a little less sinister than they had on TV. “I just wanted to sell the toys at Christmas! Sell them, and give a few tens of thousands to orphans to improve GrimCorp’s image. But now there’ll be nothing for Christmas! Nothing!!!”
It was a sad journey home. “Everybody makes mistakes,” said Arthur.
“Shut up,” said Karen.
16
World of the Wars
“What are your demands?” asked the Prime Minister.
The gigantic quivering blob, its translucent membrane studded with hairs the size of lampposts, turned to face him (as far as it had a face). “I am the Great Bacteriodon!” it boomed. “I have braved the hollow depths of space to consume and devour.” An unpleasant sulphurous smell accompanied its speech. “Tremble, puny humans, at the might of Bacteriodon!”
The Prime Minister observed a small, shiny cylinder hover quietly over to the Great Bacteriodon, sneaking in through a pore the size of a tractor tyre. “If the people of Earth tremble, as you request, will you leave us in peace?” He was stalling by this point.
“Noooooo!” roared the Bacteriodon. “Bacteriodon consume, devour, cause foot odour!!! Bacteriodon has scoured half the galaxy, searching for people to consume, devour, and make smelly. Bacteriodon…” It gurgled for a moment before dissolving into an extremely unpleasant puddle of fluid. The cylinder strode out of this on three spindly legs. Captain Olympus Face of the Martian Pygmy Reserves had delivered the penicillin capsule as ordered.
“Strange,” said the Prime Minister, “that this vast invading bacterium should have been so vulnerable to Earth
’s smallest Martian.”
17
The Three Doors
The sound of the bell rang throughout the monastery, but it was not a call to prayer. The sound was rapid, high-pitched: this was an alarm.
“You there! Novice!” The Abbot ran over and grabbed the youth by the sleeve. “You have the key to the reliquary, don’t you?”
“Well…yes…” he had been due to sweep the floors that afternoon.
“Come with me. Urzt-Ogrith the Necromancer was spotted by the gate. By now, there’s no telling where he’s got to. Quickly! Open the doors!”
The Novice put the key in the lock of the first door—the door of wood—and turned it. As the weighty mechanism moved, however, he considered something. “This door was locked,” he said. “Urzt-Ogrith couldn’t possibly have gone in.”
“My child,” said the Abbot, “Urzt-Ogrith is a most sinister warlock. With his powers of illusion, he could make an open door appear locked, and much more besides.”
They came to the second door—that of steel—and the Novice unlocked it. Here too, he had pause for thought. “Surely…” he said. “Surely Urzt-Ogrith couldn’t have passed through two doors unnoticed?”
“Ah, my child,” said the Abbot. “I think you underestimate the cunning of Urzt-Ogrith. He knows a great many tricks: two doors would hardly tax him.”
They then came to the third door—that of stone—but here the Novice paused. Placing the key in the lock, he could tell that this one too was still secure. “All three doors seem to have been locked. If Urzt-Ogrith really is around here somewhere, wouldn’t it be best if we left this one shut and just stood guard outside?”
“Fool!” hissed the Abbot. “Don’t you realise that Urzt-Ogrith is a master of the dark arts? He could be inside right now, stealing our monastery’s most precious treasures!”
“Oh my!” said the Novice. “You’re right!” and he opened the door.
“Look,” cried the Abbot. “There he is!”
Inside the reliquary, a skeletal man in a rank-smelling black cloak was rummaging through a chest of bones. He whirled around, but before he could do anything the Abbot had dealt him several hard blows on the head with his staff.
“Oof!” wheezed Urzt-Ogrith. “Ough! Ouch! Oof! Alright, I’ll come quietly.”
Together, the Novice and the Abbot led the Necromancer out towards the cellars, where he could be held until the King’s men arrived to take him to prison.
“Phew,” said the Novice to the Abbot. “For a minute there, I thought Urzt-Ogrith might have disguised himself as you and tricked me into opening all those doors.”
“Darn,” said Urzt-Ogrith. “I didn’t think of that.”
18
Falling into the Cockpit
Challenge #8: Write a story that incorporates elements of Mecha and features an Accidental Hero. One is to be inverted, and one is to be played straight.
One by one the lights on the panel flickered out. The Operator rested his forehead on the control desk, knowing that any moment the order would be given to evacuate. Without the mechs, there was no way they could drive back the assault. Though poorly armed, the Rebels had struck suddenly enough that most of the pilots hadn’t even had a chance to get to the mech hangar. Preparing to shut down the equipment, the Operator glanced up at the panel again. One light was still on.
“Number Eight?” he spoke into the radio. “Number Eight, can you hear me?”
There was some fumbling on the other end. “H-hello? Who’s there?” It sounded like he was only a teenager.
“You’re not a pilot,” said the Operator. “What are you doing in there?”
“I hid in the cockpit when the fighting started. Now I can’t get the hatch open again.”
The Operator looked at the surveillance screen. He couldn’t see an undamaged mech, but there were Rebels all over the hangar. “Don’t get out,” he said. “You’d be caught straight away. This might sound crazy, but I think you should try to fight your way out of there.”
“Right stick right leg, left stick left leg?”
“What? No! Left stick walk, right stick look around. Don’t you kids play videogames these days?”
“Okay. I guess that makes sense.”
“Right. Press the big red button on the console in front of you.”
“It’s asking for some sort of pin number.”
“384702888”
“It’s working!”
As the mech sat upright and began to stand, the Operator could see how the rebels had missed it. It had been tucked away at the back of the hangar, behind a dumper truck of metal scrap. The Rebels immediately turned to look at it.
“Okay,” said the operator. “The touch screen in the centre controls the weapons. Let ‘em have it!”
“Yeaaaaah…about that.” On screen, the mech wandered aimlessly back and forth a short distance. “I didn’t really get in this thing to hide. I’m hijacking it.”
The General poked his head around the door in disbelief. “Did you just give that mech’s keycode to some random teenager?”
The Operator rested his head on the desk again and groaned. “It always works on TV.”
19
One-Winged Angel
There was a long, piercing howl as the Dark Mage’s ice spell ploughed into the Fire Demon. Reminiscent of a fearsome blizzard, the noise was accompanied by a dazzling shower of blue and white sparks that, just for a moment, almost totally obscured the monster from view. However, seeing the measly twelve hit points the spell shaved off, the Dark Mage found its sound effect and animation almost ironic.
“Try a water spell,” suggested the Barbarian.
“My only options are fire, lightning and ice,” explained the Dark Mage. “We only needed the water spell to restore life to the Oasis of the Desert Princess.”
“But that thing’s literally made of fire! It’s pretty obvious we need to use water to beat it.”
“The spell’s greyed out,” said the Dark Mage. And that was the end of that.
“Stop arguing!” cried the Light Mage. “There’s a massive Fire Demon right in front of us. He’s been here in this evil fortress for years, and his power has only grown. Also, I’m getting bored waiting for my turn.”
“Oops,” said the Barbarian. “Sorry.” He ran up to the Demon, hacked at its kneecap with his axe, then ran back. “A message popped up saying ‘Mortal weapons are useless against this foe.’ Why am I even in this battle?”
The Fire Demon’s turn rolled around. Charging forwards, it stabbed the Barbarian twice with a sword made of fire and concentrated evil, taking away eight hundred of his thousand-or-so hit points.
“Ow,” said the Barbarian.
“Don’t worry,” said the Light Mage. “I’ve got this.” She took a step forward and lifted her staff in the air. The white crystal on the top emitted a healthy green light. The Demon regained twelve of its hit points.
“What did you do that for?” groaned the Barbarian, doubled over in “Near-death”ness.
The Light Mage shrugged. “Sometimes healing magic hurts bad guys. You know. Like zombies and junk.”
The Demon, due to its extraordinarily high “Agility” stat, took another turn right away. With a flaming cloven hoof, it squished the Barbarian into the ground.
“Avenge…me…” his body faded away in a spectacular display of lazy animation.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” yelled the Paladin. “Why? Whyyy???”
“It’s fine,” said the Light Mage. “We have ninety-nine unicorn tears between us. You can use one right now and bring him back.”
“Yeah,” said the Paladin, “but then he’d be on minimum hit points and someone would have to keep healing him and frankly I don’t want to waste my turn.” The Paladin leapt at the Fire Demon, his holy blade dealing an astounding five-hundred hit points’ worth of damage.
“Ooh, look at my big brother the main character,” muttered the Light Mage. “I should have just stayed est
ranged.”
The Demon roared and flailed for a bit. “Fools,” it hissed in bold. “My anger and hatred only make me stronger!” Striking a dramatic pose, it caused the ground to tremble. After a few seconds of cutscene, it was almost unrecognisable, its body encircled by randomly rotating brass wheels and evil-looking anti-cherubim. “You know nothing of the forces you oppose!”
At that point, the battle became slightly harder. Casting searing crescents of sacred light from the tip of his sword, the Paladin destroyed the anti-cherubim which had begun to heal the Demon. Despite his efforts, however, both the Light and Dark Mage were killed. The Light Mage was later resurrected with a unicorn tear. The Dark Mage wasn’t because he was borderline useless in this particular battle. One-on-one and with the Light Mage restoring his hit points periodically, the Paladin gradually wore down the Demon until one turn, suddenly, the wheels around him shattered and he dropped to the ground in another dramatic pose.
“Yay!” The Light Mage clapped. “We won.”
“Fools!” The Demon’s voice grew steadily in volume. “Prepare to witness the powah…of my true form!!!” There was a puff of smoke.
“Wh…” the Paladin stammered. “That’s it? That’s your true form?”
“What? What did you expect.” The Demon had stopped speaking in bold.
“Well…” the Light Mage struggled to put it into words. “I guess…not just some guy with spiky blonde hair. The last form was way cooler. Now you look like you should be collecting trading cards or something.”
“Yeah,” agreed the Paladin. “And what’s with that sword? It’s huge! That’s totally impractical. I just assumed you were some sort of awesome dragon that only looked like a demon so it could fit through doorways. That would have been much cooler.”
“Fools!” The Demon may have stopped speaking in bold, but it still liked to say “fools.” “In the mortal world, this form would indeed be unimpressive. But in a Japanese role-playing game…I am a god!” And he won in just one turn.
On the other side of the screen, Jim threw down the controller in disgust. “This game makes no sense.”