Fic: Shrimp Can Pierce Through the Veil Between Worlds and Save the Day
Title: Shrimp Can Pierce Through the Veil Between Worlds and Save the Day
Author: thenewbuzwuzz
Fandom: Angel the Series
Word count: ~500
Rating: T
Characters: Illyria, shrimp, Gunn
Summary: Illyria revisits the world of shrimp.
Notes: Idea snagged from the inspiring list of "Terrible Fan Fic Ideas" by Willow from Buffy (where it is phrased as "Illyria visits the world of shrimp.") The opening lines of dialogue are from "Not Fade Away", written by Whedon.
Please suspend disbelief on the hook by the door; these are special alien shrimp, and they can all do things that only some of our shrimp do.
This has not been beta-read, so if someone runs into any grammar weirdness or canon inconsistency or anything, I'd love to know.
Another note: I plan to clean this up a bit before crossposting to AO3. Authorial intent is that Gunn survives. :D
Cleaned up version now available on AO3.
***
"Okay. You take the 30,000 on the left..." Gunn quipped. He wouldn't have to hold on to the bravado for long. He could manage a few minutes more until the demon hordes inevitably crushed them all.
"You're fading," said Illyria. "You'll last 10 minutes at best."
It was true, but she didn't have to say it.
Then she turned on her heel and disappeared.
***
Illyria had lost her own army long ago, but it wasn't the only army she knew of.
She reached out, trying to remember the dimension she needed. The throng, the restlessness. There it was.
She stepped a second time into the world of shrimp.
Their voices were harsher and more boisterous than the pleasant voices of plants. They were not the refined conversationalists that squid could be. But they were many. And they were survivors.
They said, "Hungry!"
Illyria commanded, "Follow me! And I will lead you into glorious battle!"
But, like the lower creatures she had met in the world of men, the shrimp were not easy to convince just with authority and glory. To achieve her goal quickly, she had to promise them something else as well, loathsome as it was to stoop to bargaining.
She cast a look around. There was nothing but shrimp as far as the eye could see (and the eye of a god-king can see far indeed). The shrimp ate nothing but other shrimp. If there was any water underneath, it was so scarce that it seemed the shrimp swam in nothing but the mass of shrimp.
"Follow me, and I will lead you to a world of easy swimming and plentiful food!"
The shrimp world rippled and rumbled, and, finally, said with one voice, "Lead us!"
***
Just as a dragon flew out of the rip in the sky above Los Angeles, a second rip opened next to it. A giant shrimp tumbled out and rammed its beak into the dragon's belly. Behind its tail, countless other shrimp scuttled out onto the damp dark streets, and Illyria was among them, riding a 6-foot long Mantis shrimp the color of blood.
She'd returned after all! If Gunn had to die, he was glad to die fighting side by side with what was left of the team... or would they die at all?
On Illyria's command, the shrimp surged forward as one, rumbling in rhythm like war drums. They cracked skulls and dismembered demons with their powerful spiked claws. The booms of pistol shrimp rang out like gunshots, stunning the enemy.
The tide of the battle turned, washed away by the tide of shrimp, until the remaining demons fled back into their portal and closed it, wheezing and staggering. "It's surprising how many demons are allergic to shellfish," Angel said conversationally.
And then the battle was over, for now, and the team had to figure out how to continue the work that never ends.
Illyria took all the shrimp to an ocean world, spacious and newly formed, where she ruled over them ever after and taught them to build hydraulic engines and compose epic verse praising her name.
The End
***
Thank you for taking the trip! :D What are your thoughts?
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/157145.html.
Author: thenewbuzwuzz
Fandom: Angel the Series
Word count: ~500
Rating: T
Characters: Illyria, shrimp, Gunn
Summary: Illyria revisits the world of shrimp.
Notes: Idea snagged from the inspiring list of "Terrible Fan Fic Ideas" by Willow from Buffy (where it is phrased as "Illyria visits the world of shrimp.") The opening lines of dialogue are from "Not Fade Away", written by Whedon.
Please suspend disbelief on the hook by the door; these are special alien shrimp, and they can all do things that only some of our shrimp do.
This has not been beta-read, so if someone runs into any grammar weirdness or canon inconsistency or anything, I'd love to know.
Another note: I plan to clean this up a bit before crossposting to AO3. Authorial intent is that Gunn survives. :D
Cleaned up version now available on AO3.
***
"Okay. You take the 30,000 on the left..." Gunn quipped. He wouldn't have to hold on to the bravado for long. He could manage a few minutes more until the demon hordes inevitably crushed them all.
"You're fading," said Illyria. "You'll last 10 minutes at best."
It was true, but she didn't have to say it.
Then she turned on her heel and disappeared.
***
Illyria had lost her own army long ago, but it wasn't the only army she knew of.
She reached out, trying to remember the dimension she needed. The throng, the restlessness. There it was.
She stepped a second time into the world of shrimp.
Their voices were harsher and more boisterous than the pleasant voices of plants. They were not the refined conversationalists that squid could be. But they were many. And they were survivors.
They said, "Hungry!"
Illyria commanded, "Follow me! And I will lead you into glorious battle!"
But, like the lower creatures she had met in the world of men, the shrimp were not easy to convince just with authority and glory. To achieve her goal quickly, she had to promise them something else as well, loathsome as it was to stoop to bargaining.
She cast a look around. There was nothing but shrimp as far as the eye could see (and the eye of a god-king can see far indeed). The shrimp ate nothing but other shrimp. If there was any water underneath, it was so scarce that it seemed the shrimp swam in nothing but the mass of shrimp.
"Follow me, and I will lead you to a world of easy swimming and plentiful food!"
The shrimp world rippled and rumbled, and, finally, said with one voice, "Lead us!"
***
Just as a dragon flew out of the rip in the sky above Los Angeles, a second rip opened next to it. A giant shrimp tumbled out and rammed its beak into the dragon's belly. Behind its tail, countless other shrimp scuttled out onto the damp dark streets, and Illyria was among them, riding a 6-foot long Mantis shrimp the color of blood.
She'd returned after all! If Gunn had to die, he was glad to die fighting side by side with what was left of the team... or would they die at all?
On Illyria's command, the shrimp surged forward as one, rumbling in rhythm like war drums. They cracked skulls and dismembered demons with their powerful spiked claws. The booms of pistol shrimp rang out like gunshots, stunning the enemy.
The tide of the battle turned, washed away by the tide of shrimp, until the remaining demons fled back into their portal and closed it, wheezing and staggering. "It's surprising how many demons are allergic to shellfish," Angel said conversationally.
And then the battle was over, for now, and the team had to figure out how to continue the work that never ends.
Illyria took all the shrimp to an ocean world, spacious and newly formed, where she ruled over them ever after and taught them to build hydraulic engines and compose epic verse praising her name.
The End
***
Thank you for taking the trip! :D What are your thoughts?
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/157145.html.