True Songs of Mainframe
TITLE: True Songs of Mainframe
FANDOM: ReBoot
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: A little of pretty much everyone, but most of them are Bob, Dot, or Enzo/Matrix centric.
PROMPT(S): 1. Turn on your music and put it on shuffle (random)
2. Write down a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts and stop when it's over. No cheating.
3. Do ten of these and then post what you've created.
RATING: One of them miiiight be a little PG depending on how you want to take it. Everything else is G.
WORD COUNT: 1,569
SUMMARY: Just a bunch of drabbles. See the prompt.
WARNINGS: Eh, none?
NOTES: This was really hard because I'm such a picky/slow writer, so I will admit to a bit of cheating. The only one I really like is number eight, and I may turn it into a longer fic.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned ReBoot, I would turn it back over to Gavin Blair so that he could produce more brilliance. Unfortunately, ReBoot remains in the hands of Rainmaker.
[one] Goodbye To You - Michelle Branch
He didn’t know why he had never said anything. Fear, he supposed - of rejection, or indifference. Of changing the status quo. But wasn’t this worse? This regret, this not knowing? This possibility of never getting back to her? He’d fight to get home, of course; he’d never stop. The ache deep in his chest whenever he thought of her would make sure of that. But if he never made it, if he never saw her face again….
No. He couldn’t think like that, because if he lost that hope he’d be without a lifeline out here, in such a hostile place. Her name and the memory of her face and her laugh and her touch kept him anchored, even as the unfamiliar swirled about him.
[two] Juanita - Shania Twain
“How does she do that?”
“What? Get everyone else to do all the work for her?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t ask me. I’ve been trying to figure that one out forever.”
Dot laughed to herself as she heard the boys’ conversation from inside the diner. Well, someone had to delegate around here, didn’t they? Honestly, she was fairly certain that if she didn’t get things done, no one would. Enzo was just a kid, Phong could be a little… spacey, and Bob wasn’t particularly adept at keeping a schedule. So if she had to be the pushy one, then that was just how it would have to be.
Plus, did they really think she could run half of Mainframe on her own?
[three] Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars - Weird Al Yankovic
“The hamsters! They’re everywhere!”
“Run! Run!”
Bob, Dot, and Enzo surveyed the scene with wide eyes. “What kind of game is this?” Dot asked, astonished.
“And what is a hamster?” Enzo asked.
“I guess we’d better reboot,” Bob said. Even he seemed to be thrown for a loop for once.
“Reboot!” the three cried in unison.
They looked at each other in shock and horror. All three of them had turned into large, furry creatures of some sort, towering high above the trees around them. Bob and Dot were nearly as tall as a few of the buildings.
“What are we?” Dot wondered aloud.
“Glitch, game stats,” Bob instructed. Glitch complied. “We’re in a game called… Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars. The goal is simply to stop the user from destroying the hamsters.”
“And a hamster is…?” Enzo asked again.
A small voice from below caught their attention. A tiny game sprite - tiny to them, anyway - was pointing at them, horrified. “Radioactive hamsters! Ruuuuuuun!”
Everyone in the area took off - except for one. A figure dressed all in black was aiming what looked like a missile launcher at them.
“I guess we’re the hamsters,” Bob said with a shrug. As much as a giant hamster can shrug, anyway.
“And that’s the User?” Dot said, pointing toward the black figure.
Bob consulted Glitch. “Yep.”
The User fired off a shot. The tiny missile fell a few feet short of Bob.
“Should we squish ‘em?” Enzo asked, with a grin.
“I don’t see why not,” Bob said.
[four] January Friend - Goo Goo Dolls
Mouse looked at the Surfr, sprawled across the couch in the temporary apartment she’d holed up in during her stay in Mainframe. He was sleeping, his chest rising and falling lightly.
She’d never been much of a one-man sprite, possibly because she never stayed in one place very long. And she found that a lot of guys were intimidated by her. She’d even scared Bob a little, for a while. The guardian had long since come to terms with her slightly… overbearing… personality.
But Ray didn’t seem to be particularly intimidated by her, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be adverse to some adventure.
Maybe there was something to this monogamy business after all, she thought, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the couch.
[five] Soshite Boku ni Dekiru Koto - Day After Tomorrow
She’d loved him from the moment he first spoke to her, which was why she had engineered an idea to get a copy of herself out of the game with him. She’d told an old binome once that her home was with Enzo, and it was true. Leaving, in a sense, everything she’d known had been disorienting, but Enzo had always been by her side, to explain things. Mainframe was a wonderful, interesting place, but without Enzo she would never have experienced it, and she loved him even more for it.
Sometimes she felt so deeply connected to him that her emotions mirrored his. In the minutes after they had lost the game, his pain had killed her, though she kept herself strong for him. But when he sobbed at night when he thought she was sleeping, she felt tears leave her own eyes, and some nights she would go sit by his bedside after he fell asleep, keeping watch.
[six] Lady Grinning Soul - David Bowie
Oh, she was so bored. Some days Lost Angles was such a boring place to be. Even Scuzzy wasn’t keeping her entertained, and so she sent him off with a shout and a wave of her hand.
There just wasn’t enough to do in her lair. All the really good toys were locked away with her brother, or in the Principal Office, and of course they’d never let her play with those. It was unfair, really.
Well, if she couldn’t play with their toys, she’d just make her own. They wouldn’t expect that, now, would they? And maybe she’d be able to lure the guardian to come play again. He really did keep things much more interesting. It hadn’t been nearly as fun when there was no one around to thwart her plans. He was… unpredictable. She liked it.
Now, what sort of toy did she want….
[seven] Melt My Heart To Stone - Adele
He could tell she was drawing back from him in favor of the other Bob. The “original.” Should it matter, really? Should it matter if the new Bob was the original and he was the copy? They’d been through so much together, he and Dot. The viral wars, the system restart, Daemon. She’d asked him to marry him, for User’s sake! But now… he didn’t know. Some cycles it seemed like she didn’t even want to be in the same room.
But he loved her, still. And it was killing him.
He held out hope that maybe, if he could find some way to split from Glitch, she might come back to him. If he looked like the original, then maybe….
But nothing seemed to be working. All his plans seemed to fall through or just not work.
He had one last hope, though.
“Glitch. Splitter.”
[eight] What I’m Trying To Say - Stars
This was it, Bob told himself as he flew toward the Diner on his zipboard. This was the day he was finally going to do… something. Ask her to dinner, maybe, or a movie file.
He strode purposefully into the Diner, seating himself across from Dot, who was immersed in work, as always. “Hey, Dot?”
“Mmm?” she said, looking up. Her violet eyes caught his brown ones, and in less than a nanosecond he lost every ounce of resolve he had.
“I, uh….” He flailed mentally for something to say. “There was a tear in Kits, earlier, but I took care of it.” Under the table he pinched himself for his stupidity. There hadn’t been any tears in the system in minutes.
She frowned slightly. “A tear in Kits? Phong never told me about any tears….”
[nine] Why Not - Hilary Duff
Ray was never one to turn down a dare. So when one of the Web Riders offered him a web slug, he accepted without a question. They pantomimed to him how to eat it - just drop it in and swallow it whole. Didn’t seem too hard.
He noticed Bob at the end of the table, whispering to the captain and looking at him a little apprehensively. He ignored it. Couldn’t be too bad, right? All the Web Riders seemed to have no trouble with it.
Nothing could have prepared him for the wriggling. It was enough to make even him pass out for a nano.
When he came to and realized that the slug had made it all the way down his throat and into his stomach, he cheered. See? Wasn’t so bad. Once you got past the wriggling, that was.
[ten] Prophecy - Remy Zero
Matrix’ only driving force for what seemed like hours, even days, was getting home. He was prepared to do whatever he had to do to get home, to get back to his sister and to take revenge on the virus that had ruined his life. There were so many things that he’d done that he would never be able to tell anyone about. He wasn’t proud of all his methods of making it back to Mainframe. But sometimes the ends justified the means. And when he found himself standing with his family and everyone he cared about as the city came to life around him, he knew that he wouldn’t change anything that he’d done. All that mattered was that he was back, and they had won.
FANDOM: ReBoot
CHARACTERS/PAIRING: A little of pretty much everyone, but most of them are Bob, Dot, or Enzo/Matrix centric.
PROMPT(S): 1. Turn on your music and put it on shuffle (random)
2. Write down a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts and stop when it's over. No cheating.
3. Do ten of these and then post what you've created.
RATING: One of them miiiight be a little PG depending on how you want to take it. Everything else is G.
WORD COUNT: 1,569
SUMMARY: Just a bunch of drabbles. See the prompt.
WARNINGS: Eh, none?
NOTES: This was really hard because I'm such a picky/slow writer, so I will admit to a bit of cheating. The only one I really like is number eight, and I may turn it into a longer fic.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned ReBoot, I would turn it back over to Gavin Blair so that he could produce more brilliance. Unfortunately, ReBoot remains in the hands of Rainmaker.
[one] Goodbye To You - Michelle Branch
He didn’t know why he had never said anything. Fear, he supposed - of rejection, or indifference. Of changing the status quo. But wasn’t this worse? This regret, this not knowing? This possibility of never getting back to her? He’d fight to get home, of course; he’d never stop. The ache deep in his chest whenever he thought of her would make sure of that. But if he never made it, if he never saw her face again….
No. He couldn’t think like that, because if he lost that hope he’d be without a lifeline out here, in such a hostile place. Her name and the memory of her face and her laugh and her touch kept him anchored, even as the unfamiliar swirled about him.
[two] Juanita - Shania Twain
“How does she do that?”
“What? Get everyone else to do all the work for her?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t ask me. I’ve been trying to figure that one out forever.”
Dot laughed to herself as she heard the boys’ conversation from inside the diner. Well, someone had to delegate around here, didn’t they? Honestly, she was fairly certain that if she didn’t get things done, no one would. Enzo was just a kid, Phong could be a little… spacey, and Bob wasn’t particularly adept at keeping a schedule. So if she had to be the pushy one, then that was just how it would have to be.
Plus, did they really think she could run half of Mainframe on her own?
[three] Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars - Weird Al Yankovic
“The hamsters! They’re everywhere!”
“Run! Run!”
Bob, Dot, and Enzo surveyed the scene with wide eyes. “What kind of game is this?” Dot asked, astonished.
“And what is a hamster?” Enzo asked.
“I guess we’d better reboot,” Bob said. Even he seemed to be thrown for a loop for once.
“Reboot!” the three cried in unison.
They looked at each other in shock and horror. All three of them had turned into large, furry creatures of some sort, towering high above the trees around them. Bob and Dot were nearly as tall as a few of the buildings.
“What are we?” Dot wondered aloud.
“Glitch, game stats,” Bob instructed. Glitch complied. “We’re in a game called… Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars. The goal is simply to stop the user from destroying the hamsters.”
“And a hamster is…?” Enzo asked again.
A small voice from below caught their attention. A tiny game sprite - tiny to them, anyway - was pointing at them, horrified. “Radioactive hamsters! Ruuuuuuun!”
Everyone in the area took off - except for one. A figure dressed all in black was aiming what looked like a missile launcher at them.
“I guess we’re the hamsters,” Bob said with a shrug. As much as a giant hamster can shrug, anyway.
“And that’s the User?” Dot said, pointing toward the black figure.
Bob consulted Glitch. “Yep.”
The User fired off a shot. The tiny missile fell a few feet short of Bob.
“Should we squish ‘em?” Enzo asked, with a grin.
“I don’t see why not,” Bob said.
[four] January Friend - Goo Goo Dolls
Mouse looked at the Surfr, sprawled across the couch in the temporary apartment she’d holed up in during her stay in Mainframe. He was sleeping, his chest rising and falling lightly.
She’d never been much of a one-man sprite, possibly because she never stayed in one place very long. And she found that a lot of guys were intimidated by her. She’d even scared Bob a little, for a while. The guardian had long since come to terms with her slightly… overbearing… personality.
But Ray didn’t seem to be particularly intimidated by her, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be adverse to some adventure.
Maybe there was something to this monogamy business after all, she thought, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the couch.
[five] Soshite Boku ni Dekiru Koto - Day After Tomorrow
She’d loved him from the moment he first spoke to her, which was why she had engineered an idea to get a copy of herself out of the game with him. She’d told an old binome once that her home was with Enzo, and it was true. Leaving, in a sense, everything she’d known had been disorienting, but Enzo had always been by her side, to explain things. Mainframe was a wonderful, interesting place, but without Enzo she would never have experienced it, and she loved him even more for it.
Sometimes she felt so deeply connected to him that her emotions mirrored his. In the minutes after they had lost the game, his pain had killed her, though she kept herself strong for him. But when he sobbed at night when he thought she was sleeping, she felt tears leave her own eyes, and some nights she would go sit by his bedside after he fell asleep, keeping watch.
[six] Lady Grinning Soul - David Bowie
Oh, she was so bored. Some days Lost Angles was such a boring place to be. Even Scuzzy wasn’t keeping her entertained, and so she sent him off with a shout and a wave of her hand.
There just wasn’t enough to do in her lair. All the really good toys were locked away with her brother, or in the Principal Office, and of course they’d never let her play with those. It was unfair, really.
Well, if she couldn’t play with their toys, she’d just make her own. They wouldn’t expect that, now, would they? And maybe she’d be able to lure the guardian to come play again. He really did keep things much more interesting. It hadn’t been nearly as fun when there was no one around to thwart her plans. He was… unpredictable. She liked it.
Now, what sort of toy did she want….
[seven] Melt My Heart To Stone - Adele
He could tell she was drawing back from him in favor of the other Bob. The “original.” Should it matter, really? Should it matter if the new Bob was the original and he was the copy? They’d been through so much together, he and Dot. The viral wars, the system restart, Daemon. She’d asked him to marry him, for User’s sake! But now… he didn’t know. Some cycles it seemed like she didn’t even want to be in the same room.
But he loved her, still. And it was killing him.
He held out hope that maybe, if he could find some way to split from Glitch, she might come back to him. If he looked like the original, then maybe….
But nothing seemed to be working. All his plans seemed to fall through or just not work.
He had one last hope, though.
“Glitch. Splitter.”
[eight] What I’m Trying To Say - Stars
This was it, Bob told himself as he flew toward the Diner on his zipboard. This was the day he was finally going to do… something. Ask her to dinner, maybe, or a movie file.
He strode purposefully into the Diner, seating himself across from Dot, who was immersed in work, as always. “Hey, Dot?”
“Mmm?” she said, looking up. Her violet eyes caught his brown ones, and in less than a nanosecond he lost every ounce of resolve he had.
“I, uh….” He flailed mentally for something to say. “There was a tear in Kits, earlier, but I took care of it.” Under the table he pinched himself for his stupidity. There hadn’t been any tears in the system in minutes.
She frowned slightly. “A tear in Kits? Phong never told me about any tears….”
[nine] Why Not - Hilary Duff
Ray was never one to turn down a dare. So when one of the Web Riders offered him a web slug, he accepted without a question. They pantomimed to him how to eat it - just drop it in and swallow it whole. Didn’t seem too hard.
He noticed Bob at the end of the table, whispering to the captain and looking at him a little apprehensively. He ignored it. Couldn’t be too bad, right? All the Web Riders seemed to have no trouble with it.
Nothing could have prepared him for the wriggling. It was enough to make even him pass out for a nano.
When he came to and realized that the slug had made it all the way down his throat and into his stomach, he cheered. See? Wasn’t so bad. Once you got past the wriggling, that was.
[ten] Prophecy - Remy Zero
Matrix’ only driving force for what seemed like hours, even days, was getting home. He was prepared to do whatever he had to do to get home, to get back to his sister and to take revenge on the virus that had ruined his life. There were so many things that he’d done that he would never be able to tell anyone about. He wasn’t proud of all his methods of making it back to Mainframe. But sometimes the ends justified the means. And when he found himself standing with his family and everyone he cared about as the city came to life around him, he knew that he wouldn’t change anything that he’d done. All that mattered was that he was back, and they had won.