fandoms 36-40 (final batch ftw)
36.
Title: Drop of a Hat
Fandom: Final Fantasy series
Rating: T
Word Count: 474
Summary: Black Mage is used to all the leakage between worlds by now. He's not used to meeting tiny, overdressed, naive, semi-alive versions of himself, though.
"So... um... what've you got under your hat?"
The Black Mage blinked at him, once, slowly. Even though his face was almost completely shrouded in a total blackness except for those two piercing white lights that counted as eyes, Vivi sort of understood that the expression on his face was one of astounded disbelief.
"Surely you must know that's a rude question to ask," the Black Mage replied in a rather flat voice, "Unless you really do know nothing about Black Mages except how to dress in a flamboyant version of our robes."
"I'm not pretending to be anything," replied Vivi, his own expression bemused and a little worried. Not only was the angry gentleman giving off much more powerful magical readings than himself, with an almost exclusive focus on destructive spells, he as also taller. Vivi didn't even like offending people in normal circumstances, "This is what we wear as well. That's why I came up to you. Because I was curious and you're the only person who reminds me of home and you don't look like a doll and..."
"Oh, a cross-dimensional traveller," the Black Mage sighed, "So many of them these days."
"I know, we get them all the time too. The Universe sure is a big, confusing place, huh? But it's more exciting this way."
"Uh-huh, especially when people forget to close the doors behind them, or accidentally open doors they shouldn't. Demons. Everywhere. Sometimes worse. And guess which College of magic has to sort it out in worlds like mine, without summoners?"
"You don't have any summoners? None at all? That's sad. I know a summoner. She's nice. The same age as me, too."
"I don't care," replied the Black Mage, "And I'm not telling you what's underneath my hat. It's a College secret. Why don't you lift your hat up and find out for yourself, if you think we're the same?"
"I can't," Vivi drooped, "I'm programmed not to, under any circumstances. i even have extra hats to immediately put on if my hat falls off."
"Programmed to? Like a machine?"
"Mostly I have free will, but not when it comes to taking my hat off. It's something that not even the most powerful wizards can break."
"Well, no self-respecting wizard would try such a thing," said Black Mage, "We honestly don't know, either. When we make our dark pact during the graduation ceremony, we black out, and when we wake up, we're wearing hats and we can't take them off or see our face underneath. It would be scary, except we already see scarier things during the finals."
"Scary," agreed Vivi.
"Now, tell me why Black Mages are machines in your world."
"It's a long story," said Vivi.
"I thought it might be," he sighed, "Sounds like your world's another messed-up one. The fourth I've seen today."
37.
Title: Actually Faulty Stars
Fandom: Mario franchise
Rating: T
Word Count: 270
Summary: When wishing upon a star works for literally everyone else except you, sometimes you have to take drastic measures. Mention of a certain kiss in Super Mario RPG :p
Wish upon a star and your dreams will come true. Everyone knows that. They even have a bureau for it, kind of like a mail sorting office for the celestial-borne random whims of the populace . No, it's practically a production line - stars go in, wishes come out. I dont think the wishes are actually made of stars. I hope. The stars have faces. I've even met a baby one. The most irritating little shit I've ever had the misfortune to have a Princess snatched from under my nose for the fourteenth time this week by.
People ask me why I do it, why I liberate stars so often, in the same tone of voice as if they were asking me why I was snatching babies from their cradles and eating them. It's because you can't play by the rules if the house cheats whenever it comes to you. If your dreams come true, no matter who you are, if you wish upon a star, unless your name is Bowser (geez, even Wario gets his petty, twisted little wishes fulfiled), then you have to steal stars of your own. And if you dont get kisses and cakes from a Princess you've courted as long as your rival, even when you're a neighbouring King and promising political alliance and he's a plumber who's always going away and leaving her, then you have to steal Princesses of your own.
And if said plumber is really getting on your wick, and you really, absolutely have to humiliate him as much as possible, you steal kisses from him. But that was only once, I swear.
38.
Title: Mice on the Moon
Fandom: Phantasy Star/Chu Chu Rocket
Rating: T
Word Count: 440
Summary: The escape shuttle takes the mice to Dezolis' moon. Wren and Demi are confused by the sudden appearance of large numbers of intelligent mice in their solar system.
When Wren first told me there were mice on the moon, I assumed his logic circuits were faulty again. He insisted I go and take a look, though, so I relented, just so that he would be satisfied and let me repair his faults.
Normally there is very little cause for us to go to Dezolis' moon. It's even colder than Dezolis, has virtually no gravity, no breathable atmosphere and we don't even find monster nests there. Once we found an automated mining colony from the Motherbrain era that had gone rogue, trashed an entire usable vein of water and tried to kill s when we approached it. Once that was dealt with and we salvaged what valuable materials we could, put up a smaller facility that would manage fine with only remote observation, we never needed to go back to that boring, frozen lump of blue-grey rock.
Now there was another large mechanical structure on the map, something that turned out to be a spacecraft, its design simple and bulky and outdated, like something from the Lashiec era. All around the space shuttle milled a swarm of mice. At least, they looked mostly like mice. They were the size of Rappies and almost the same shape, except with round ears and ropey tails. They chattered in what registered on the scanner as a fully evolved language but nothing translateable. A lot of it was too high pitched to register and I felt it interfering with my sensors.
"I've been monitoring them for a while now. As far as I can make out, they can detect the Musk Cats on Dezolis, and are very nervous aound them. Cats are very dangerous on their home planet. In fact, I think they had to flee their planet because of cats."
"So, what do you suggest? There's nowhere we can really guarantee the cats won't be. They're powerful technique users."
"But also intelligent, and evolved enough to be willing to adapt to the idea that some mice are sentients and not for hunting."
"Getting two natural enemies to come to an agreement with each other will be very complicated."
"I've seen lots of pictures of cats and dogs playing together on the Palman electronic network."
"They're faked. Or the cats and dogs were raised together as kittens and puppies."
"So, you're saying there's a chance that the children of the two races will play with each other?"
"It has historical precedent."
"I'll ask the Old Man, and ready our audience room."
"Why him?"
"He looks least like a cat."
Insane as the situation was, and possibly my colleague too, I couldn't fault that logic.
39.
Title: Flame in my Heart
Fandom: Dark Souls
Rating: T
Word Count: 360
Summary: I'm giving you a part of myself. Please take care of it... Laurentius X male main character
A pyromancer's flame is a part of his soul.
Even after so long, I could still feel that flame pulsate and writhe in my hand, warm and vital as a beating heart. Staring into its flickering, dancing amber mirror, I could still see his face, half-hidden under the hood of his robes. He had been meditating as usual, enjoying the peace and quiet, even though it was the quiet of a doomed world. He hadn't really wanted to talk to strangers but I was the exception, as I had saved his life and he owed me. After a while, I think, or at least hope, he appreciated me keeping him company. I started to see a little more of his face. He was so young, his eyes stoic but somehow sad, as if he had ended a large part of his life too soon.
I've had to use this flame of his a lot since he first shared it with me. It's a lot stronger now, fed with countless tainted souls to be purified in its unbearable brilliance. I've learned new ways to use it, forbidden, dark spells that are probably doing terrible things to my own soul each time I use it but that doesn't matter when the alternative is so much worse, when you know you won't get out of this one intact anyway.
You see, I know fire well enough these days to hear the song of the First Flame singing to me, and I know it is singing a song only to me, a beckoning, and that every move I make is leading me closer to it. One day I'll walk too close and then I'll burn up.
That still won't be the flame to leave the deepest mark on my soul, to brand me with its name and claim me first. Even as I am consumed, I'll only think of him.
A flame is a mirror in all directions, its exchange of souls two-way. Even when I am gone, part of me will live on inside his own flame. Everything I do is so that his will burn a little longer.
40.
Title: Spread My Wings And Fly
Fandom: Space Harrier/Dark Savior
Rating: T (strong language)
Word Count: 385
Summary: Harrier has a vision of Parallel Six.
Falling asleep on a boat (the skies were way too stormy for me to approach by air), I dreamt I was a bird.
It's an odd habit of mine that I dream about other things called Harrier. For instance, when I'm asleep inside my mech's cockpit because I took a break and nobody bothered to wake me up again for a while, I dream I'm piloting a jetplane. The skies are as trippy as fuck, but then they are in the waking world when I'm patrolling the Fantasy Zone, which has sort of turned into my territory. Sometimes I forget and turn back again, especially when I hit a tree, which always annoys the heck out of me, and then I usually wake up but not always. I'm guessing this was one of those dreams. Tripping balls. Turning into a Harrier Hawk.
Patrolling the lanes of the back end of nowhere and racking up a high score because I've nobody to compete with except the flappy bioship thing that's stalking me.
This time it felt different, though. It's difficult to describe. Maybe that kind of bird isn't a Harrier Hawk. I don't actually get to see many birds. Are they big and lime green with long necks and tails and the most sophisticated technology I've ever heard of hanging around their necks in a little bracelet and tied to their tail?
Also, the background looked... beyond the usual level of trippy, is all I can describe it as. Truly transcendent. As if time itself had dropped what it was doing and every living thing in the Universe had left their ordained destiny to run to this meeting place in the centre of reality and join in the exuberant praise of the background music. Before all strife and discord and even time and place and matter were melted and rolled up into one perfect event horizon that rose on the wings of light and pure information into the perfect clear.
Yeah, I know it makes me sound crazy when I talk like that. I still can't get it out of my head. I keep wanting to look for it. Keep trying to find its name again. It wasn't one of the usual places I go. It was called...
Parallel Six. Yeah, that's what it was called.
Title: Drop of a Hat
Fandom: Final Fantasy series
Rating: T
Word Count: 474
Summary: Black Mage is used to all the leakage between worlds by now. He's not used to meeting tiny, overdressed, naive, semi-alive versions of himself, though.
"So... um... what've you got under your hat?"
The Black Mage blinked at him, once, slowly. Even though his face was almost completely shrouded in a total blackness except for those two piercing white lights that counted as eyes, Vivi sort of understood that the expression on his face was one of astounded disbelief.
"Surely you must know that's a rude question to ask," the Black Mage replied in a rather flat voice, "Unless you really do know nothing about Black Mages except how to dress in a flamboyant version of our robes."
"I'm not pretending to be anything," replied Vivi, his own expression bemused and a little worried. Not only was the angry gentleman giving off much more powerful magical readings than himself, with an almost exclusive focus on destructive spells, he as also taller. Vivi didn't even like offending people in normal circumstances, "This is what we wear as well. That's why I came up to you. Because I was curious and you're the only person who reminds me of home and you don't look like a doll and..."
"Oh, a cross-dimensional traveller," the Black Mage sighed, "So many of them these days."
"I know, we get them all the time too. The Universe sure is a big, confusing place, huh? But it's more exciting this way."
"Uh-huh, especially when people forget to close the doors behind them, or accidentally open doors they shouldn't. Demons. Everywhere. Sometimes worse. And guess which College of magic has to sort it out in worlds like mine, without summoners?"
"You don't have any summoners? None at all? That's sad. I know a summoner. She's nice. The same age as me, too."
"I don't care," replied the Black Mage, "And I'm not telling you what's underneath my hat. It's a College secret. Why don't you lift your hat up and find out for yourself, if you think we're the same?"
"I can't," Vivi drooped, "I'm programmed not to, under any circumstances. i even have extra hats to immediately put on if my hat falls off."
"Programmed to? Like a machine?"
"Mostly I have free will, but not when it comes to taking my hat off. It's something that not even the most powerful wizards can break."
"Well, no self-respecting wizard would try such a thing," said Black Mage, "We honestly don't know, either. When we make our dark pact during the graduation ceremony, we black out, and when we wake up, we're wearing hats and we can't take them off or see our face underneath. It would be scary, except we already see scarier things during the finals."
"Scary," agreed Vivi.
"Now, tell me why Black Mages are machines in your world."
"It's a long story," said Vivi.
"I thought it might be," he sighed, "Sounds like your world's another messed-up one. The fourth I've seen today."
37.
Title: Actually Faulty Stars
Fandom: Mario franchise
Rating: T
Word Count: 270
Summary: When wishing upon a star works for literally everyone else except you, sometimes you have to take drastic measures. Mention of a certain kiss in Super Mario RPG :p
Wish upon a star and your dreams will come true. Everyone knows that. They even have a bureau for it, kind of like a mail sorting office for the celestial-borne random whims of the populace . No, it's practically a production line - stars go in, wishes come out. I dont think the wishes are actually made of stars. I hope. The stars have faces. I've even met a baby one. The most irritating little shit I've ever had the misfortune to have a Princess snatched from under my nose for the fourteenth time this week by.
People ask me why I do it, why I liberate stars so often, in the same tone of voice as if they were asking me why I was snatching babies from their cradles and eating them. It's because you can't play by the rules if the house cheats whenever it comes to you. If your dreams come true, no matter who you are, if you wish upon a star, unless your name is Bowser (geez, even Wario gets his petty, twisted little wishes fulfiled), then you have to steal stars of your own. And if you dont get kisses and cakes from a Princess you've courted as long as your rival, even when you're a neighbouring King and promising political alliance and he's a plumber who's always going away and leaving her, then you have to steal Princesses of your own.
And if said plumber is really getting on your wick, and you really, absolutely have to humiliate him as much as possible, you steal kisses from him. But that was only once, I swear.
38.
Title: Mice on the Moon
Fandom: Phantasy Star/Chu Chu Rocket
Rating: T
Word Count: 440
Summary: The escape shuttle takes the mice to Dezolis' moon. Wren and Demi are confused by the sudden appearance of large numbers of intelligent mice in their solar system.
When Wren first told me there were mice on the moon, I assumed his logic circuits were faulty again. He insisted I go and take a look, though, so I relented, just so that he would be satisfied and let me repair his faults.
Normally there is very little cause for us to go to Dezolis' moon. It's even colder than Dezolis, has virtually no gravity, no breathable atmosphere and we don't even find monster nests there. Once we found an automated mining colony from the Motherbrain era that had gone rogue, trashed an entire usable vein of water and tried to kill s when we approached it. Once that was dealt with and we salvaged what valuable materials we could, put up a smaller facility that would manage fine with only remote observation, we never needed to go back to that boring, frozen lump of blue-grey rock.
Now there was another large mechanical structure on the map, something that turned out to be a spacecraft, its design simple and bulky and outdated, like something from the Lashiec era. All around the space shuttle milled a swarm of mice. At least, they looked mostly like mice. They were the size of Rappies and almost the same shape, except with round ears and ropey tails. They chattered in what registered on the scanner as a fully evolved language but nothing translateable. A lot of it was too high pitched to register and I felt it interfering with my sensors.
"I've been monitoring them for a while now. As far as I can make out, they can detect the Musk Cats on Dezolis, and are very nervous aound them. Cats are very dangerous on their home planet. In fact, I think they had to flee their planet because of cats."
"So, what do you suggest? There's nowhere we can really guarantee the cats won't be. They're powerful technique users."
"But also intelligent, and evolved enough to be willing to adapt to the idea that some mice are sentients and not for hunting."
"Getting two natural enemies to come to an agreement with each other will be very complicated."
"I've seen lots of pictures of cats and dogs playing together on the Palman electronic network."
"They're faked. Or the cats and dogs were raised together as kittens and puppies."
"So, you're saying there's a chance that the children of the two races will play with each other?"
"It has historical precedent."
"I'll ask the Old Man, and ready our audience room."
"Why him?"
"He looks least like a cat."
Insane as the situation was, and possibly my colleague too, I couldn't fault that logic.
39.
Title: Flame in my Heart
Fandom: Dark Souls
Rating: T
Word Count: 360
Summary: I'm giving you a part of myself. Please take care of it... Laurentius X male main character
A pyromancer's flame is a part of his soul.
Even after so long, I could still feel that flame pulsate and writhe in my hand, warm and vital as a beating heart. Staring into its flickering, dancing amber mirror, I could still see his face, half-hidden under the hood of his robes. He had been meditating as usual, enjoying the peace and quiet, even though it was the quiet of a doomed world. He hadn't really wanted to talk to strangers but I was the exception, as I had saved his life and he owed me. After a while, I think, or at least hope, he appreciated me keeping him company. I started to see a little more of his face. He was so young, his eyes stoic but somehow sad, as if he had ended a large part of his life too soon.
I've had to use this flame of his a lot since he first shared it with me. It's a lot stronger now, fed with countless tainted souls to be purified in its unbearable brilliance. I've learned new ways to use it, forbidden, dark spells that are probably doing terrible things to my own soul each time I use it but that doesn't matter when the alternative is so much worse, when you know you won't get out of this one intact anyway.
You see, I know fire well enough these days to hear the song of the First Flame singing to me, and I know it is singing a song only to me, a beckoning, and that every move I make is leading me closer to it. One day I'll walk too close and then I'll burn up.
That still won't be the flame to leave the deepest mark on my soul, to brand me with its name and claim me first. Even as I am consumed, I'll only think of him.
A flame is a mirror in all directions, its exchange of souls two-way. Even when I am gone, part of me will live on inside his own flame. Everything I do is so that his will burn a little longer.
40.
Title: Spread My Wings And Fly
Fandom: Space Harrier/Dark Savior
Rating: T (strong language)
Word Count: 385
Summary: Harrier has a vision of Parallel Six.
Falling asleep on a boat (the skies were way too stormy for me to approach by air), I dreamt I was a bird.
It's an odd habit of mine that I dream about other things called Harrier. For instance, when I'm asleep inside my mech's cockpit because I took a break and nobody bothered to wake me up again for a while, I dream I'm piloting a jetplane. The skies are as trippy as fuck, but then they are in the waking world when I'm patrolling the Fantasy Zone, which has sort of turned into my territory. Sometimes I forget and turn back again, especially when I hit a tree, which always annoys the heck out of me, and then I usually wake up but not always. I'm guessing this was one of those dreams. Tripping balls. Turning into a Harrier Hawk.
Patrolling the lanes of the back end of nowhere and racking up a high score because I've nobody to compete with except the flappy bioship thing that's stalking me.
This time it felt different, though. It's difficult to describe. Maybe that kind of bird isn't a Harrier Hawk. I don't actually get to see many birds. Are they big and lime green with long necks and tails and the most sophisticated technology I've ever heard of hanging around their necks in a little bracelet and tied to their tail?
Also, the background looked... beyond the usual level of trippy, is all I can describe it as. Truly transcendent. As if time itself had dropped what it was doing and every living thing in the Universe had left their ordained destiny to run to this meeting place in the centre of reality and join in the exuberant praise of the background music. Before all strife and discord and even time and place and matter were melted and rolled up into one perfect event horizon that rose on the wings of light and pure information into the perfect clear.
Yeah, I know it makes me sound crazy when I talk like that. I still can't get it out of my head. I keep wanting to look for it. Keep trying to find its name again. It wasn't one of the usual places I go. It was called...
Parallel Six. Yeah, that's what it was called.