OT: Hell is For Heroes.

[AgentZero]

I still have a fan! Glee!

Guess that means I should get back to writing...

[TurinTurambar]

Oh trust me you have lots of fans.

[Puke]

lots and lots of them

[AgentZero]

Oh no! Page 2! Undo! UNDO!


Seriously though, 10 points for the first person who gets the Alice Name Joke in this installment.


There was a long, appropriately stunned silence, during which three of them stared numbly at the contents of the capsule, while Alice's gaze flitted from one to the next as she waited a reply.
Eventually, she sighed, and, fed up with waiting for a response, said, “It looks like me. Only bald. And naked.”
“Yes,” agreed O'Shea. “She is that.”
“Hey,” Alice said indignantly, giving O'Shea her best glower. “Stop staring at my naughty bits!”
“But they're so nice,” Saraea protested.
“Mmmmm,” Kagan chimed in.
“All right, that's enough!” Alice declared, stamping her foot on the ground. “Everyone find something else to look at, or I swear to the Nine Divine Whores of Kantarl, I will go completely bat**** crazy! Now!”
As one, Kagan, O'Shea and Saraea suddenly found something else to look at.
“That's very interesting upholstery,” murmured O'Shea.
“Indeed,” agreed Saraea. “And the exterior is so finely machined, not a single dent or scratch to be seen.”
“And the... um... err...” Kagan stammered. “Did anyone else notice that the bald one's boobs are bigger?”
“They are not!” Alice protested vehemently.
“Have a look for yourself,” Kagan told her.
Alice peered over the edge of the capsule, but was unable to resist the urge to have a proper look at her face. That moment, naturally, was the one her doppelganger chose to open her eyes. The surprise sent Alice stumbling backwards, which caused her to trip over her own feet and plop to the ground. She sat there for a few moments, with an annoyed expression on her face, until it was replaced by a look of curiosity. Her head tilted to one side and she rose to her feet to approach the capsule slowly. She got as close as she needed to be to see her duplicate's face, and stopped there.
“Yes,” she said after a few moments. “No, they're not. I don't know. Blue. Seventy-three. Of course....”
Kagan gave O'Shea a look as the one-sided exchange continued. O'Shea merely shrugged. “Telepathic exchanged?” Kagan wondered aloud.
“Don't ask me,” O'Shea told him. “I'm about as sensitive as a well-attuned rock.”
“I'm getting something,” Saraea said, frowning deeply. “Don't ask me what, but the naked one is definitely broadcasting some sort of telepathic- Ack!” She stumbled backwards, clutching her temples.
“Eavesdropping is rude,” Alice informed her darkly.
“Son of a...” Saraea muttered.
“So, what do we call this one?” O'Shea wondered.
Kagan walked over to the console Alice had been using and looked at it. “Alice Fiona Komatsu. Huh. How about that? I guess we call the new one Fiona.”
“That is acceptable,” Alice advised them.
“Well, we should probably be getting back to the ship,” said Kagan. “I don't like this place one bit, and the sooner we're gone, the happier I'll be.”
“We're not going to leave her, are we?” Alice asked, suddenly looking very worried.
“Of course not,” said Saraea, pulling off her coat and wrapping it around Fiona. Once they'd gotten the jacked closed up, Saraea and O'Shea helped her out of the capsule and set her on the floor, only to have her collapse into a heap at their feet.
“She can't walk,” Alice said mournfully.
“Not a problem,” O'Shea replied, scooping Fiona into his arms.
The five of them hurried down the causeway and out the door, and with Alice in the lead, made their way quickly through the maze of hallways. They were almost back to the hanger deck by O'Shea's reasoning when the rounded a corner and ran smack into a contingent of battle machines. Instinctively, they spun around to head the other way, only to find their escape blocked by another group of machines that had somehow materialized behind them. The rust coloured machines herded them into a small cluster and raised their weapons. O'Shea looked down at the bundle in his arms only to find Fiona glaring at the machines with unimaginable ferocity. There was the unmistakable sound of a large number of rounds being chambered, and then the battle machines simply melted into a gooey pile on the floor. While Kagan, Alice and Saraea stared at the pile of goo in surprise, O'Shea's gaze was firmly locked on Fiona, whose expression had relaxed into one of abject serenity. She waved her hand slightly, and the two puddles of goo spread up the walls and wrapped around the ceiling, forming an archway of sorts. The metal goo continued to shift and move about as it coalesced into beautifully intricate patterns all around them.
“Ahhh...” Kagan said cautiously. “That's an interesting function. Are the pretty patterns going to kill us with their prettiness of doom now?”
“I don't think the machines did that themselves,” said O'Shea. “I think it was her.” He glanced down at Fiona and gave her a gentle bounce for emphasis.
“Oh,” said Kagan, looking vaguely embarrassed. “Of course it was. Erm, Alice, sweetheart, could you tell her to please not do that to anything on my ship?”
“She can hear you just fine,” Alice said with only a small hint of condescension. “It's only the talking part that she can't do.”
“Oh,” Kagan said again. “Can we just hurry the hell up and get back to my ship where things make sense.” He paused to consider his last comment, then added, “Sort of.”
They made their way uneventfully back to the ship, passing wordlessly through several more rust coloured archways along the way. Once aboard, Kagan hurried up to the bridge and got the ship back into space with considerable haste.

[Puke]

let this be a lesson to everyone that bugging AZ produces more story.

[AgentZero]

And since nobody bugged me, here's a bigger installment. Go figure that!


Kagan had almost passed through the common room before a niggling thought made him stop and turn around. He walked slowly across the room to stand beside Fiona and gave her a hard look.

“You're floating,” he noted.
“Yup,” she agreed happily.
“This is new.”
“Yup.”
“How new?”
“Pretty new.”
“I see...”
“Well it goes to figure, doesn't it?” Fiona asked, an emphatic shrug sending her into a slow backspin. “If I can manipulate things around me, it goes to figure that I can manipulate myself as well, right?”
“No need to be manipulating yourself, I'm sure there's plenty who'd be willing to do it for you,” Kagan quipped. “And remind me,” he added, picking himself up off the floor. “Not to mock the nice telekinetic lady.”

Alice strolled into the room, looked from Fiona to Kagan and then to the path of destruction in between them. “You mocked the nice telekinetic lady, didn't you?” she asked.

“Oh, come on!” Kagan protested. “She left herself wide open to that one.”
“I did, at that,” Fiona admitted. “But regardless, I stand by my telekinetic shockwave, and all that it stands for.”
“Getting us back to the whole issue of the floating,” Kagan said, settling down on the couch.

“Pretty neat, isn't it?” Alice asked, snuggling up beside him.
“You knew about this?” asked Kagan.
“Yup.”
“And you didn't tell me, why?”
“Um, well I tried, but I couldn't figure out how to work it into the conversation. 'Oh Gods! Oh Gods! Fiona can fly! Oh Gods!'? See, it just doesn't flow.”
“Point taken,” Kagan admitted, flushing slightly. “Still, you could have told me before-”
“You didn't exactly give me the opportunity, what with the grabbing, throwing and-”
“Ok!” Kagan exclaimed. “But afterwards would have been good too.”
“I was about to,” Alice told him. “But then you remembered that there was no one on the bridge and went running off, so- say, who's on the bridge now?”
Kagan exclaimed something unmentionable, leaped off the couch and raced down the corridor towards the bridge. Alice stared after him with a bemused expression before turning to Fiona, only to find her rolling about in the air in laughter.

“Does my man's forgetfulness amuse you?” Alice inquired.
“Very much so,” Fiona chortled, settling down on a couch to halt her multi-axial spinning. “But not nearly as much as how flustered he gets when you mention fornication in any form.”
“It's rather adorable,” Alice agreed. “Though rather silly, given that you can just- you know.”
“Replay the events in my mind?” Fiona asked delicately. “I do admit being able to simulate the event as either participant has given me a rather unique insight into a great many things.”
“Such as?” Alice inquired, her eyes alight with curiosity.
“You, my dear, are a little tiger.”
“A sexy tiger,” Alice corrected with a wicked grin.
“Of course,” Fiona agreed patronizingly.
“So,” said Alice, bounding happily along to the next topic. “Are we going to go harass my lover some more, or do you have a better way of killing the next few hours?”
“I am quite amused as is,” Fiona informed her as O'Shea floated into the room.
“I don't mean to alarm you ladies, but there appears to be a problem with the gravity on this ship,” he said, pivoting slowly to face them. After managing to get himself turned around, he looked from Alice to Fiona and back, and they looked back at him with serene expressions.

“Oh,” he said after a moments consternation. “It must just be me. Awful peculiar this. Well,” he said with a sigh as he approached the corridor leading to the bridge. “I'll keep you appraised of any new developments.”
A few moments later, they heard him call out, “Hey chief, I'm floating!”
“Not you too!” came Kagan's pained reply.
“What do you mean, 'too'?” was the rather worried response.
There was a thud, loud cursing, followed by muffled cursing, followed by a comparative silence into which Fiona tittered merrily.
Alice looked at her for a long time before asking, “You are the evil twin, aren't you?”

“Coming up on transit point,” Kagan announced some hours later. The five of them were strewn about the bridge, having assembled at Kagan's earlier announcement that they were close to making transit. “Four... Three... Two... Hold on to your lunches... Transit!” There was a jarring thump, more jarring that usual, and several of those assembled made noises indicating that they were indeed putting considerable effort into keeping their lunches on the inside.

“The second part of the co-ordinates is just a heading,” Kagan advised them. “I've put us on that heading and set best speed, so now all there is to do is sit back and enjoy the show.

Kagan switched on the external cameras, and they beheld the reason for their unpleasantly rough transit. They had jumped right into the middle of a dense nebula, and the space around them was thick with swirling gas. They watched the main viewer in silence for a long time, lost in their individual thoughts as they gazed upon the hypnotic display in front of them.

Kagan, while curious about what would be found at their ultimate destination, felt confident that given the capabilities of his ship and crew, they shouldn't have any trouble dealing with whatever they found. On the other hand, he was concerned about Fiona and what seemed to be her growing powers. She was already a contender for the most powerful being he had ever encountered, and the gods only knew how much more powerful she would get. He knew that rescuing her from that derelict space station had been the right thing to do, yet part of his mind refused to let go of the idea that it might have been a mistake.

Saraea's mind strayed to the strange man who had brought the news that Kagan and Alice were alive. Recent events hadn't given her much time to ponder the matter, yet the more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. He was oddly familiar to her, but his face slipped and slithered about in her mind, refusing to be pinned down to a recognizable name. He had known a lot, much more than tried to let on, she could tell that much. He'd known about her destruction of The Council, mere minutes after it had taken place when she knew well that she hadn't left any survivors. And of course he had managed to not only find out that Kagan and Alice were alive, but where they were as well, two fact that had managed to elude her. And he'd known other things, things about her that no one else could possibly know. Things she hadn't even known herself until he'd voiced them. And despite the great distances she had traveled since that meeting, and the sheer enormity of the galaxy as a whole, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd be seeing him again one day.

O'Shea's thoughts concerned Saraea, Fiona and Alice, and are not suitable to be mentioned here or anywhere else.

Out of all of them, only Fiona was fixated on what they would discover as they continued along the course that had been set from them. She wondered how it came to be that she had half the co-ordinates imprinted in her mind, and how Alice came to have the other half. Part of her couldn't help thinking that maybe the two numbers weren't related, that there were a great number of copies of her out there somewhere, each with their own individual number, and only by combining them in some mysterious pattern would they come up with the proper sets of co-ordinates. But mostly, her mind was filled with a kind of childish excitement about the adventure they had embarked upon.

Alice knew exactly what they'd find, and where they'd find it, and the thought of it both thrilled and terrified her.

[Lord_Shleepy]

I guess it is time to bother AgentZero again... :-)

[AgentZero]

The five of them were seated quite comfortably on the bridge, when suddenly and for no good reason, a big truck came crashing in and reduced O'Shea, Saraea and Fiona to greasy spots on the deck. Kagan was mashed shortly thereafter by the truck truck that followed, while Alice met a similar fate moments later at the hands (or is that tires?) of a truck truck truck.

[dogscoff]

...and then in the morning, AZ read through his hangover what he had written the night before and said
"oh nadgers, I'm gonna have to resurrect them all with nanotech again."

[rdouglass]

Is that really how you end the story AZ? I feel used like a 1-night-stand.