Rock'em, Sock'em Recruits

[morethanmyth]

Reading, Berkshire, was one of the larger towns in Britain, but this was also because of the myth population living quietly alongside the humans. There were very few that believed in fairies anymore, but some old superstitions had still endured the passing of time, and that was enough for the hobs to get by.

They were used to a quiet life there, and were usually untroubled by the outside world - or even the world of humans they lived side by side with.

At least until all this nonsense with the fearlings started. Everyone in the myth world knew that change was happening and it was a change for the worse rather than the better. When word eventually came that most of the Guardians had been captured by this evil force, by this Kuk, they knew the world was in trouble.

If the Guardians couldn't stand against them, then who could?

This was why, when the sky crack with lightning and opened him and a strange...thing fell down through it, cracking the asphalt where it landed, in the middle of their community's market, their first reaction was fear.

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

"Looks a bit like them human contraptions, it does."

"It can't be human, it fell out of the sky. And it's covered in slime."

"Don't touch it! Everyone stay back!"

The strange metal thing, whatever it was, suddenly sat up, staring at them all with an empty void of a face, before turning in one direction, running forward and smashing the facade of a building like it was nothing more than tissue paper.

"Everyone, clear out, take shelter! Blin, see if you can get find one of the tooth fairies to take a message to the Guardians! There are usually a few about."

"On it!"

The strange metal creature seemed to try to speak to them but the words were in a language alien to them and it sounded hostile.



Then it turned and went back to its rampage. Oddly, it didn't seem to be attacking any of them and all the damage to the buildings was more cosmetic than anything, but there was no telling if that would hold true for long - or if the creature would limit itself to just their settlement. If it laid into the town, with all its crowds of humans and larger buildings...

*"You're all in danger! You need to take shelter immediately!"

Comments

[justleftovers]

Melody Hollander was falling to the ground when the world disappeared. She's still falling when it comes back. She opens her eyes not to blood in her hair, but to bits of dirt in her palms and a scrape on her elbow, and not to a lonely gunshot but to people, lots of people, screaming in a high-pitched voice. She can hear rebar being ripped and concrete and cobblestones crashing against each other, glass breaking, gutters being ripped from roofs, all in micro-size.

Something smacks into her ass, and she's about to whip around and give someone a what's what about sexually harassing young disoriented women on the sidewalk when she looks over her shoulder and realizes that it's a tiny person, and any spankage was purely accidental, as they've clearly just pulled a completely unintentional Wiley Coyote into her backside.

"Sorry!" she says, because what else are you going to say to a person the size of a Scottish terrier who's just played Red Rover with your rump? "Are you o-!"

It's about that point that she connects the fact that people are screaming and running around with the fact that there's a big red slimy monster wrecking the shit out of their miniature town. If she feels like Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, this guy must feel like Godzilla. Mellie gets to her feet, grabbing a brownie out of the way of a falling piece of rubble.

And to think. Thirty seconds ago she didn't want to have crazy ninja skills.

[morethanmyth]

The slimy robot monster retreated from its latest attack to look around the area, as if scanning for new targets. Mellie seemed to catch its attention.

Its voice still sounded tinny and hostile as it spoke in its strange, garbled language.



It seemed to be questioning her.

*"Who are you? Where did you just come from?"

[grimbiker]

Sirius had been pacing back and forth, working on wearing a hole in the carpet of his bedroom floor. He was thinking about the war, about going into hiding, about James and Lily... and Remus. He had been about ready to take his motorcycle for a ride in an attempt to clear his mind. That was when he found himself in entirely new surroundings, full of tiny people running for their lives and some... thing that looked like. Well, he didn't know what it looked like but it reminded him of some Muggle movie he'd seen. A robot? Was that what it was called?

For a while all Sirius could do was stand and stare as the robot went on its rampage. He was having a mental break. That was the only explanation for it. He had to admit, he thought he'd be killed before the Black madness finally caught up with him, but (and he wasn't prepared to admit this to anyone else) he had been wrong. Odd that it would happen so suddenly but there was stress for you.

Sirius swore. He reached into the pocket of his trousers. His wand was still there and it felt real enough. Actually, all of this felt real. Was that normal for when you were going mad? Was there any explanation for this?

The robot's voice cut through his musing. It was advancing on some girl. Hallucination or not, Sirius had to act.

Pointing his wand at the roby-thingy-something, Sirius said. "Step away from her."

[justleftovers]

Mellie whips her head around as she hears a voice that doesn't sound like it should be singing 'It's a Small World After All'. An adult man's voice, and, giving herself a second to look at his face, she can't help but think it's owner is pretty cute. And then the big red astronaut thing is walking towards her, and she stumbles backwards with the rescued brownie in her arms. The poor thing looks shell-shocked and clings to her shoulder.

"I'm okay, but someone's going to get hurt with all this stuff falling down!"

Something in Mellie's mind keeps blaring the alarm bells of 'this is nuts', but she's somehow able to put that aside and let the part of her that believes in weirdness and conspiracies and madness take over. There's no time to balk.

[morethanmyth]

Oddly, even though the robot was standing there, parts of buildings still seemed to be falling down around them. It seemed less like the buildings were reacting to the damage they had already taken and more like they were growing structurally weaker all on their own.

The robot still seemed hostile when it spoke but somehow its tone was flatter, as if it was...annoyed.



The robot turned away and surveyed the ongoing damage, then started to move again.



* "That stick had better not be a magic wand. If it’s a wand I’m setting this suit to self-destruct just to spare myself the aggravation of acknowledging your existence."

** "I don't have time for this."

[grimbiker]

Now that the robot had turned aside, Sirius also turned his attention to the falling debris. He didn't know how to deal with the collapsing buildings but this he could tackle. He idly wondered if the buildings signified the collapse of his own fragile mind before deciding that even his subconscious mind couldn't be bothered with metaphors.

He raised his wand and pointed it above him at the pieces of falling debris. He didn't have the time to speak so he thought arresto momentum and the debris hovered in the air for a moment before slowly floating down. It was easy. The trouble was that was it hadn't been as strong as he'd anticipated and there was still plenty of debris falling to earth.

Time to deal with the source of the problem.

He turned to Mellie. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Speak to me, oh representation of every woman I've ever met. Wait. He wasn't going to buy into the whole metaphor thing. Right.

cw: language!

[justleftovers]

"Not a fucking clue!" And the fact that Hottie McLonghair over there just apparently slowed gravity down doesn't really help her put the picture together. In fact, it has the effect of taking an unmade metaphorical jigsaw puzzle and dumping glue all over the top.

Mellie reaches over and picks up a rock the size of an apple and moves to throw it, still cradling the brownie, when she realizes how utterly stupid that is. Throwing a rock when there's already falling debris? Dumb.

She sets the rock down and takes a step towards the red astronaut robot. "Don't you use that tone with me, young...whatever you are!"

In her defense, it's no dumber than any other options she has. At least she isn't throwing rocks.

Re: cw: language!

[morethanmyth]

The robot barely bothered to glance at her but it was clear it heard something - maybe just in her tone that made it understand it was being scolded.

Its response? Flapping its robotic hand in an 'all I hear is blah blah blah' gesture, before turning back towards one of the buildings again.



The robot suddenly leaped forward and smashed its hands into the side of a building, causing more debris to rain down - which it then caught before it fell on one of the hobs and cast safely aside.

It then reached down and picked up the trembling little being and gently placed her aside, safely out of its way. Strange behavior for a robot hellbent on mindless destruction.

*"When you have something useful to say - in Interlac - I may deign to listen to your prattling, but right I don’t have time to indulge the human propensity towards indignant, inane protraction."

[justadigger]

There's another mystery to add to this situation - namely, a cloaked and hooded man with a drill-topped staff who has stepped in from just outside the area. Simon's not certain where he is, but he knows that a big flaming thing fell out of the sky, and things like that usually aren't ever good.

Stepping a bit closer, he sees that coming to investigate the situation has brought forth more questions than answers.

[googledox]

After their efforts to herd the creatures over the damaged mech were successful, Brainy used his forcefield to cram them in close to it and surround them and the mech with a yellow bubble of shimmering energy.

Then he took out a small handheld computers, pressed a few buttons and the mech started to make a very, very alarming high pitched whine that got louder and higher pitched the longer it whined.

He seemed completely nonplussed as he hit a few more buttons on the device and stayed nonplussed right up until the mecha exploded in a violent conflagration, one that looked like it should have taken them and the entire courtyard out, if not for the forcefield bubble.

When the smoke finally started to clear inside the bubble, there was no sign of the creatures - and the mecha itself hadn't even left any wreckage behind. It was entirely incinerated.

Brainy released the bubble, letting the last of the smoke drift up into the atmosphere, and scanned the area.

"ALL CLEAR. THE PARASITES HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED; THE AREA SHOULD NO LONGER SUFFER FROM MOLECULAR INSTABILITY. YOU MAY REMOVE THE IRRITATING (ALBEIT USEFUL) ENCHANTMENT NOW."

And now he was ignoring them all to scan his surroundings and frown at his little computer - or at least he was ignoring them part of the time, because he was also occasionally getting up in their faces to scan each of them as well.

[grimbiker]

Sirius had transformed back into a human after enduring that high pitched whine for only a few seconds. He rubbed at his ear as if that would stop it from hurting. There were some drawbacks to being a dog.

He held his wand to his throat. "QUIETUS. Ah, that's better." He cleared his throat, not because he needed to but simply for good measure. "Alright, Remus." Of course, Remus could take care of himself but it was a nice excuse to get close to him when they'd spent so long apart.

Then again, given this was all a hallucination, did he really need an excuse?

"Help me out?" He asked before casting the counterspell on each of the others in turn.

But for that comment about irritating magic, Brainy was going to have to wait.

[thewholeofthemoon]

At least Remus could sympathize. There were some sounds that made the full moon a lot more difficult than it usually was. Any sort of high pitched sound was definitely at the top of the list.

He glanced at Sirius, then nodded. "Of course, Sirius." He started casting the counterspell on the others as well. Starting with the green one because that sort of irritation couldn't be good for...well, any of them.

On the other hand, neither was nearly getting a scanner up the nose. "Do you mind?" he asked finally, raising an eyebrow at Brainy. "You could simply ask us to stand still."

[googledox]

"Movement or lack of movement has no impact on my readings," Brainy said, still scanning.

The fact it might have impact on their comfort levels wasn't something that he appeared to be considering.

[justadigger]

The hooded man nods his head at the wizards in thanks bringing his voice back down to a dull roar, though he is giving the front of his neck a light rub. A couple of experimental throat-clears merits a frown. "Guess I'm a little out-of-practice," he mumbles.

Brainy's lack of personal space respect, however, prompts him to step back. "D'you have to get that close, though?"

[googledox]

"No," said Brainy, but he only retreated just slightly.

[thewholeofthemoon]

Remus sighed, patting around in his robes until he found what he was looking for: a bar of Cadbury's finest. Even the wizarding world hadn't found a way to improve on it. "While he's doing his...thing." Whatever it was. "Chocolate is good for soothing the nerves, I've found. And after all that, I believe we deserve some. Just a piece, then we can parcel out what's left to the small ones. Hopefully, it'll go far enough."

[justleftovers]

Mellie stands politely still during the scanning, although she does drop her hands in front of her underwear region almost self-consciously.

"Chocolate is good for just about anything, let's be real." Still, she doesn't reach for it. Instead she waves a hand, indicating she'll wait to make sure everyone else has a chance at it, including the little ones.

"Should we, ah. Should we do names? I mean, I'm all for 'hey you', but I'm worried if I call this one 'hey you, green guy' it'll be some kind of racist."

[letskicksomeice]

"So you must be the new guys," came the voice of a teenage boy.

If they all looked up, they'd see its source crouched carefully on the roof of one of the tiny nearby buildings: a skinny teenage boy, who looked younger than his voice sounded, with white hair and blue eyes. A shepherd's crook was in his hands.

"Anyone care to explain the massive property damage?"

[googledox]

"Whatever anomaly transported me here from the dimension I was in also transported the otherdimensional parasites from fluidic space that I was currently fighting. They attempted to destabilize all nearby matter. If we hadn't stopped them, this world would've been reduced to a fine, molecular soup in a matter of hours."

The green young man scanned the teenager crouching above them.

"Semi-corporeal, hmm."

Then he scanned himself. Finally, he looked up from his little device.

"What are you and how and why have we been transformed into beings like you? I'm no longer an organic Coluan, nor am I even a purely biological being. This must be rectified immediately."

[justadigger]

"New guys?" The older man's voice was hesitantly curious. "Guess that makes sense, 'cause I'm definitely not where I was," he adds, mostly to himself. He huffs out a sigh, resting his staff on his shoulder and waiting about somewhat patiently, as the fellow with the big vocabulary was taking the initiative with questioning the newcomer.

[thewholeofthemoon]

His wand hadn't strayed far from his hand and Remus had it back up and ready in just a moment, turning to aim toward the unexpected voice.

Sue him. He was a bit jumpy after everything.

Of course, teenage boys appearing out of nowhere were hardly likely to be entirely safe, but Remus watched him for a moment before lowering his wand. "Slight bit of miscommunication and conclusions jumped to." He waved to the green guy's vehicle. "I'm afraid some of us mistook the...muggle mechanical contraption for the source of soundwaves that were destroying everything around." He reached up, scratching the back of his head. "We did get it sorted, though."

Because, apparently, somebody had to speak actual ENGLISH.

Then he blinked at the green guy again. "Wait. Do you mean that we've become ghosts?" Which were...the only semi-corporeal beings Remus knew about, really.

[grimbiker]

Sirius walked back over to Remus, reached over, and ran his hand over the back of the man's neck before snaking it up to ruffle his hair.

"If we're ghosts could I do this? Honestly Moony, have some sense." Sirius then looked at Jack to address him. "These two just can't beat to tell you the truth. You see, there wouldn't have been so much chaos if your sheep hadn't got loose and run rampant through this tiny, tiny city. We had to corral them and after several hours of that we were rather hungry so I'm afraid we had to eat them all. Sorry about your flock. On the bright side that means you can stop bleaching your hair to blend in with them."

[letskicksomeice]

Jack looked somewhat discomfited and looked around.

"You're not - you're not like...confessing to cannibalism, are you?"

[grimbiker]

Sometimes-- a lot of times-- Sirius had this habit of exaggerating every movement. He had a great deal of experience with it, as prone to dramatics as he was, and just at this moment he used said experience to roll his eyes in the most obvious manner possible to the point that even his head moved.

"I said sheep you idiot. You know, lambs? Those white wooly things you watch after with that staff of yours." Sirius gestured in front of him as if he was grasping a shepherd's crook. "Have you lost your brains because you were so busy getting intimate with your--"

[thewholeofthemoon]

Oh, Remus could see where this was going. "Accio newspaper," he muttered, glad he hadn't put his wand away. Sure, this was one of those spells he could do without a wand, but it was always easier with one.

Which was why, by the time Sirius got around to starting to insinuate intimate relations between the shepherd and his flock, Remus was ready with a rolled up paper to bap him on the nose. "Bad Padfoot. No biscuit for you." He sighed, shaking his head. "I can't take you anywhere, honestly. As for that? Yes, you could have if we were both ghosts, you great woolly-brained nitwit."