The Russian Roulette With All Six Shots Mission, part 1
This mission is a bit unusual. It covers six mini-missions. The fics covered range from a single overriding annoyance to Die! Die! Die! on the badness scale, but none of them are long enough to sustain a mission on their own.
Previous appearance: Mission 8: K is for Cabal
I do not own the PPC. It was created by Jay and Acacia--the original Assassins. The text below is a review in narrative form and also contains elements of parody/satire.
This mission is a bit unusual. It covers six mini-missions. The fics covered range from a single overriding annoyance to Die! Die! Die! on the badness scale, but none of them are long enough to sustain a mission on their own.
I credit IndeMaat’s glitch fix missions for the idea that you can do mini missions to very short fics.
Also, credit for the title goes to Caddy-Shack.
The following fics belong to their respective owners who will kindly keep them.
cold by parakeetwuvs, Ointment Much by esotericlove, 1912 by helenmagnus23, Gues What? by liliofthevaley, Staring at Who? - (whom) by esotericlove, and One Life, One chance by Mrs Marcus Volturi
Thanks to betas: Pretzel, RosieAzrael, and Caddy-Shack
The Russian Roulette With All Six Bullets Mission
“Did you actually drink any of the water I gave you, last night?” Miah said loudly through the bathroom door.
“...No,” Cali said, sounding miserable.
“Come on out of there, and eat some breakfast.”
At the mention of food Cali gagged, which set off more dry heaving.
“That’s it. I’m coming in there, whether you like it or not.” Miah picked the lock, and opened the bathroom door.
Cali finally managed to stop heaving. He shut the lid of the toilet and rested his head on it.
Miah picked up his boxers and handed them to him. “Is there any particular reason you’re naked?”
“What?” He blushed bright red, grabbed the boxers, and put them on. He slid back to the floor, holding his head in his hands. Finally, he said, “It’s hot in here, and didn’t I have to door locked?”
“Yep, but I couldn’t give you this through the door,” she said holding out a glass.
“What is it?”
“Mostly water. Take small sips. It should help your stomach. When you’re finished drag your carcass in the other room, and I’ll give you something for your head.”
Cali took a cautious sip. Then made a face. “This tastes awful.”
“It works. Now drink.”
A short time later, Cali walked out and sat in one of the chairs in front of the Console. He had gotten fully dressed. Miah handed him a cup of broth and some ibuprofen pills. He took them silently and began sipping. He was still pink about the ears from blushing. Miah took the mature route and didn’t mention it--for now.
“I had no idea drinking could hurt so much,” Cali said, sipping the broth.
“You should go back to bed after you drink that. Sleep it off.”
“Okay,” Cali said meekly.
An hour later, Miah had just finished feeding the minis, Cali was finally settling into a deep sleep. Things were almost idyllic. Just as Miah climbed into her hammock for some reading--
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! *Pause* BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! *Pause* BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! *Pause* BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! *pause* BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
Miah grumbled as the Console kept pausing between beeps. Just as she got to the Console to stop the beeping, it stopped on its own. She picked up the print out and began scanning it.
She heard Cali knocking things off his tall bed, and shouting, “Why, gods, why!?” After more banging and clanging, Cali staggered out of his room, dressed in his uniform and spray painted body armor. “Why did it beep six times? Once was more than enough.” He glared at the ceiling. “You really hate me don’t you!”
“No.”
Cali looked at Miah with a confused expression. “No, what?”
“It says right here, ‘No, we don’t hate you. This backlog must be cleared.’ Looks like it’s Sanctuary again. Something about Nikola Tesla in a bathroom.” She looked up at Cali. “That’s odd.”
Cali’s blush returned. “I’d ask, but I probably don’t want to know.” He sighed and walked over the to the Console. He slowly programmed the Disguise Generator Generic Human and entered the coordinates for the portal while Miah checked her supplies.
Miah paused to glare at Castor, who was already motioning the rest of the mad science crew, made up of Magee, Abbey, and now several new McGee and Abby minis that had been dropped off since the opening of the NCIS Mini Adoption Agency. She shook her head in defeat. It wasn’t like they would stop over her glaring at them. She slapped Cali on the back, and said, “Ready for this?”
He swallowed heavily, and said, “No, but let’s do it anyway.”
They stepped through the portal. Music echoed around them in a grey undefined space.
Miah staggered back. “What is this?”
Cali squinted at the Words. “This sounds familiar to me. ‘A fragile frame etched with misery’. I know that. Give me a second. ‘Relief exists I find it when I am cut.’ I’ve got it now. It’s "Cut" by Plumb. Depressing song. Assume someone is going to be cutting themselves or attempting suicide,” Cali said. Then he muttered, “I guess that’s better than some things he could be doing in there.”
“I feel like curling up in the corner and crying. Why would anyone want to reinforce depression with this kind of depressing music?” Miah whined.
“I don’t know. Sometimes it just feels right, I guess. By the way, she quoted it wrong. That first line I read up there. ‘Etched’ should be ‘aged’. This is about Tesla, right?”
Miah nodded.
“Aged fits him better if this is set while he was devamped. The possibility of growing old and dying was not a happy thought for him. If it isn’t set while he’s devamped, then we have to charge extra for him being able to hurt himself. The guy is nearly indestructible as a vamp,” Cali said nervously running the fingers of one hand through his already messy hair.
The song ended and they were suddenly blasted with an eerie, echoing voice seeming to come from all around them. It spoke with bad SPaG and many, many ellipses.
….I don't want this anymore. Make it stop… just go away. Leave me alone. I know there's no one there. I know im not talking to anyone.i know im crazy.
“Do you recognize the voice, Cali?” When he didn’t answer, Miah looked at him. He was pale, and seemed to be concentrating on not throwing up. “You going to be okay?
Cali nodded slightly. "It's Tesla. Only he would never be like that."
Helen…I need you…where are you? GO AWAY! God… youre not a person. Im crazy aren't I? I know theres no one here. Stop watching me! I don't see anyone…why do I feel so tight? And loose….i feel like im a rubber band….my bodyfeels like its being stretched and loosened. god…its so cold…
"Inarticulate and ungrammatical?" Miah asked. Cali nodded, and Miah continued, "Well, he is possibly dying here."
"No, no, no. At his most depressed in canon, he was still witty and articulate. When he had been trapped by the centipedes, the first thing he said was, 'It's about time!' followed by how long he had been trapped to the minute,” Cali said, still nervously running his hand through his hair.
"It doesn't sound like he was this messed up at that point," Miah said as a room formed around them.
"In the episode that he was revamped, he was going into shock and instead of being like this he began spouting Shakespeare quotes and talking in detail about the first time he ever saw Magnus. It didn't make sense for the situation--he was obviously out of it, but it was still grammatical and intelligible."
"Um, Cali."
"Yeah," Cali was breathing slowly in through his mouth and out through his nose. Miah could tell he had his eyes closed, by the way his eyebrows pulled together and the small creases that showed at the edge of the mirrored lenses. She had gotten very good at paying attention to these small clues to get around never seeing his eyes.
"Do you remember how I found you this morning?"
Miah once again admired the oddity his pink face presented with his blue hair and green chest plate. "...Yes."
"You might want to keep you eyes closed."
Of course, his first reaction was to open his eyes wide. He turned his head away quickly. Then he grabbed his head and winced over the sudden movement. "You could have just said he was naked," he said.
"This way was more fun.” She winced as Tesla slowly, painfully, grabbed the sink and pulled himself to his feet. He was also wondering why he was naked, which Miah took as a sign that this was the actual canon character.
She caught Cali sneaking peeks and muttering, "No, no, no," again and again.
…go…away… his eyes blurred and glazed over and stopped caring. They saw the green rug under his bare, blue feet, the pink tile beneath the rug. They stopped seeing and looking and moving.
"You do realize that I will never again be able to laugh at your color combination while blushing after seeing that, don't you?"
"At least something good came out of it. I...think his eyes briefly gained sentience right there. We need to be sure we tell the doc about that."
"What do you think is wrong with him? Why did the fic start with a song about cutting, and then go with this weird coldness. I'm sure being a former vampire that he would notice if there was blood everywhere."
"You're right. He's acting more like he was poisoned by some kind of neurologic inhibiting substance."
He dragged his nonresponsive body to the tub and drew the curtain aside with great difficulty. It was hard to touch and move things he couldn't feel. Heat… he turned the water on listlessly and swayed after replacing the curtain. He didn't bother to catch himself.
"No! I am not going to stand here and watch him burn himself!" Cali said as Tesla began to attempt to pull himself into the steaming hot water.
Before Miah could stop him, Cali had pulled a large towel from the cabinet under the sink, and stepped over to Tesla. He knelt beside the feebly struggling man, pulled him to a sitting position, and wrapped the towel around him.
Tesla turned his head toward Cali, and stopped struggling toward the bathtub. "Help me."
"We will. Stay still and we can help you clear your head. Then we can get you to Medical."
Miah quickly pulled the Season One and Season Two sets out of her bag. Cali was still holding Tesla. His expression was one of fierce protectiveness and something else that Miah couldn't quite identify without seeing his eyes.
"You have to let go of him, or the author wraith could target you."
Reluctantly, Cali pulled the canon character toward the head of the bathtub and propped him up in the corner. For his part, Tesla clutched desperately at the towel and muttered to himself about seeing things and being cold.
"Don't hit him too hard," Cali said seriously.
"You seem to be awfully concerned about this guy, Cali," Miah said, grinning.
The blush returned to Cali's face. Miah grimaced at the colors and took a Bleeprin.
"In the name of Wood, Tapping, and Kindler, I command you to leave this character!" Cali shouted, and lightly tapped Tesla on the head with the Season One disc set.
"Out spirit of angst and confusion!" Miah added also only tapping Tesla with her Season Two disc set, though she did hit him harder than Cali had. Thick, urple smoke began trickling out of his nose and mouth.
"Begone spirit of misusing a scene setting song!" Miah glared at Cali, and Cali managed to hit Tesla just a bit harder this time. The smoke began to coalesce above them.
"Avaunt foul being of bad grammar, random capitalization, and missing punctuation!” Miah slapped the tub beside Tesla's head, which made a surprising amount of noise. “Oh Flaming Denethor! I can't believe I am charging for that kind of stuff!"
"Leave this world, nonsense and lack of plot! You do not belong here!" Cali shouted.
Tesla jerked and fell over on his side, unconscious. The urple smoke had formed into a more or less human shaped thing that filled most of the small room. Cali threw his DVDs at it before it had a chance to speak. Then he grabbed Tesla's underwear and said, "Dial Medical. I'll get some clothes on him."
"I don't think Medical will care if he has clothes on or not, Cali."
"No, but he would, and it doesn't hurt to give the character that respect."
Miah chose to not comment on Cali’s protectiveness, and began dialing Medical. She thought this was an oddly short fic for a mission. When the portal was open, she turned to help Cali with Tesla. Cali had managed to get Tesla's pants back on him. The canon character was regaining consciousness. He stared blankly at the ceiling, much as he had during the opening scene setting of the fic.
Cali reached for Tesla's shoulders to pull him up to sitting, but the canon stopped him by grabbing his wrist. "Don't you think you're getting a little fresh for a first date?"
Cali's voice cracked as he said, "U-uh."
"So articulate," Tesla said as he began to struggle to a sitting position.
Cali still seemed to be struck speechless, so Miah said, "We are with the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We have just exorcised an author wraith which was possessing you, and now we're going to take you to Medical to reverse the physical effects of the fic."
"At least one of you can speak coherently," Tesla said and then smirked. His eyes were not turned toward either of them.
"Let go of my wrist, and I'll help you up and through the portal," Cali said.
"Very well. It does seem advantageous to cooperate for the time being."
"M-magnetic pulses.”
Miah looked at Cali as if he had sprouted wings. “What are you talking about?”
Cali took a deep breath, looked at Miah, and said, “He’s sending an SOS with his magnetic powers. It could interfere with some of the gear at Medical.” He stopped and looked back at Tesla, who looked annoyed for a moment before smiling.
Cali opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a squeak.
“Well, I suppose what you’re trying to say is ’Stop.’ So there. It’s stopped.”
"Come on, Cali, let's get him up and through. Doc Fitz is ready for him."
Tesla finally released Cali's wrist. Cali hugged him up to his chest, and stood.
Tesla made no effort to support his own weight, and Miah thought he might have passed out until she heard him say, "My, my this is getting awfully friendly." His voice was muffled slightly as his face was pressed against Cali's chest plate.
Cali yelped and almost dropped him. Miah jumped in just in time to keep the both of them upright. They made their way over to the portal, where the Medical staff was reaching through to pull Tesla onto a gurney. Miah and Cali tried to follow the canon into Medical, but the portal suddenly felt solid--preventing their passage.
The Nurse that was still looking in their direction, shrugged, and the portal shut down. Miah tried re-opening it, and missed Cali pocketing Tesla's cravat that he found on the floor of the bathroom.
After it opened she noticed he wasn't paying attention, and poked Cali in the ribs. "If you're done with the googly eyed fanboying, come look at the portal."
Cali stepped up to the portal and saw Magnus in the medical lab rummaging through shelves while Will sat on a table looking uncomfortable and embarrassed.
"What did you do to the RA?"
"Nothing! I dialed our RC!" Miah took note of the fact that Cali did not deny the fanboy accusation.
"Let me see that thing," Cali said and grabbed the RA. He shut down the portal, and re-opened it. The scene of Will and Magnus reset itself.
They looked at each other, and Miah said, "I think we're supposed to go to this fic. Maybe it'll let us go home after we've fixed it."
"Do you have more headache pills? I think the stuff you gave me this morning is wearing off," Cali said rubbing the back of his neck.
"No. I don't carry it in fics. I don't want to risk getting it mixed up with Bleeprin, and taking too much of it.
They stepped through the portal into the new fic.
Scanning her cabinets and shelves Helen Magnus, doctor extraordinaire, was at a standstill.
"Really Magnus? Do you really expect me to believe that being a doctor for who knows how long, has an ointment for venom, poisons and who knows what deadly thing doesn't have a goddamn one for BURNS?" Will shouted hysterically.
Cali rubbed his temples. “This is all wrong.”
"Well, Will. In the first place how did you get burned?" She inquired silently.
“Cali, did that woman just become psychic?” Miah asked as she tried to figure out how dialogue could be ‘inquired silently’.
“That’s Magnus. She is the main character of Sanctuary. I think I mentioned her before. She is one hundred and sixty years old, give or take a year or so, and she doesn’t physically age. She is the head of the Sanctuary Network.”
"Well Will, you seem to be awfully secretive on this burn" - smirk - "I wonder if - "
“That’s Will Zimmerman, psychologist and Magnus’ new protogè. He’s human, and not normally hysterical, whiny, or clumsy. And Magnus doesn’t smirk--that’s Tesla’s job.” Cali continued to rub his temples around the legs of his glasses.
Magnus chuckled "I was only going to say that maybe you stepped in the bath with the water too hot, but now that I think of it - it was a pretty stupid thing to think of let alone do."
“Am I the only one that is confused here? Is she saying that he burned himself in the bath this time, or some other time, or that it would just be a stupid thing to do? Because he doesn’t look like he has a problem sitting there, which you’d think he would if he had burned his bum,” Miah said as she edged around the room until she could see Will's face. "Cali, how much do you know about burns?" she asked.
"Not much," Cali answered.
"This actually doesn't look too good. It goes down under his shirt, but the guy has burned one whole side of his throat to the point of blistering. Just the location makes it a cause for concern, and you'd think that instead of making stupid comments about bath water that a good doctor would have had him take his shirt off to see the extent of the damage."
"I know. They are horribly out of character, especially Magnus," Cali said miserably from across the room.
They tried to ignore Magnus talking about making a burn ointment for the tongue and generally ignoring her patient, who eventually lay down on the bed looking miserable. Ten minutes later, as specified by the scene divider--the one that wasn't that bad as scene dividers go, but still left Cali looking green about the gills, so to speak--Magnus looked to be about finished with her concoction.
Will Zimmerman was now practically squirming on the bed. The heat was too much, it wasn't like any normal burn he felt. He knew he had these before and on the same spot but there's just something really different about it that he couldn't put his finger one.
"'Couldn't put his finger one'? Like that makes a lot of sense," Cali muttered.
"Second degree burns can be extremely painful. Even more than third degree burns, because those often involve nerve damage, preventing the sensation of pain. Magnus is really being shown as an incompetent doctor here."
"It's pretty painful," Cali agreed from his position huddled in the floor in the corner.
Blinking Magnus asked "On your chest?"
"Uh-huh."
"And you found this embarrassing why? Did it pour out of the cup when you drank?"
"I have to agree with Magnus here. Why was he acting so embarrassed over the location of this burn? Even if he did practically bathe himself in apparently boiling hot coffee?"
Cali just groaned. Miah quickly went to him. "You going to be okay?" she asked quietly.
Cali's answer was a scramble for the nearest trashcan. The canons were by this time entirely engrossed with flirting, and didn't seem to notice. Miah quickly checked the words and found that the flirting was going to continue for a while as Magnus applied her 'miracle burn cream' over Will's chest with her bare hands. She looked back at Cali who was miserably clutching the trashcan. Might as well end this now. Odd how short and relatively simple this fic was. She thought she could just neuralyze the canons and send Will to Medical for the burns and the apparent insanity.
"Well, I drank down the water, and rubbed the sweat off, next thing I knew I had the cup of coffee in my hand, got the *still heating coffee maker from the outlet* and threw it all over my body.
She shook her head and hoped neuralyzing him would be enough to fix that insanity part. She put on her sunglasses, took out her neuralyzer, and stepped back around the bed. "Excuse me!" she said loudly. Both of them turned to her, looking both surprised and a tiny bit guilty.
FLASH!
Both canons stared at Miah, dazed.
"All right. Magnus. You are a competent doctor. You would assess an injury well before telling teasing anecdotes. You would wear gloves and not attempt to seduce someone who was in pain. You should go check on security in uh, somewhere." Magnus nodded absently and left the room, despite Miah’s vagueness.
"Now then, Mr. Zimmerman. You would not throw a still heating pot of coffee on yourself. You are not suicidal or stupid. Now then, if you will step right this way, we can get those burns looked at properly." She opened a portal to Medical and guided the still dazed canon character through.
Then she pulled Cali to his feet and tried to get him through the portal. Again, the portal solidified and they couldn't get through. "Oh for the love of little green apples!" Miah said exasperated. She waved at the Nurse that had taken Will by the arm to lead him to the treatment area. When the Nurse looked back at her, Miah said, "What is going on? Why can't we get through?"
"I don't know. What did your mission report say?"
"Something about clearing a backlog of fics," Miah said with a sinking feeling of where this was leading.
"You'll likely have to clear them then. Are the two of you okay?" she asked, eying the miserable looking Cali.
"He has a hangover. Keeps puking over scene shifts--not that he handles them much better normally."
"Hang around. I can get something to help that out."
The Nurse turned and led Will out of sight of the portal. After a few moments, Miah saw her coming back holding a vial of something. Then the portal closed.
"What?" Miah shouted--which caused Cali to wince and grab his head.
Miah redialed Medical.
The sight on the other side of the portal was of a ship sailing through a moonlit night in an icy sea. The name Titanic was prominently visible. Miah groaned. Of course, someone that old would have had to have been on the Titanic. The temptation was just too great to resist.
A large ship saild the calm north Atlantic sea a lovly cool night,it size was marvled by ships near and far and it's name RMS Titanic was well given it's lights shawn out across the vast ocean it appeard to be the only ship in the vast ocean.
Miah gasped as the light coming from the ship suddenly coalesced into the shape of a brightly glowing man who was moving quickly over the water.
The view suddenly changed to the deck of the ship. The view was centered over a woman that Miah recognized as Magnus, with her hair long, curly, and blonde, and wearing period appropriate attire. There were many other people milling about, so Miah pulled Cali through the portal into the fic. She turned and saw that Lights Shawn was still moving back and forth across the water.
“What should we do with him, Cali?” Miah asked, pointing at the shining man.
“Send him to our RC?” Cali asked, shrugging.
“Yeah, that’ll be good, I guess.” Miah started to set the RA, but stopped just before pushing the button to open the portal. An image of Castor motioning the NCIS minis off to work mad science while the humans were out, popped into her head. It was closely followed by images of what mad scientists could do to a personification of a ship’s lighting system. “On second thought, that might not be a good idea.”
Cali paused, the ideas that flitted through Miah’s mind apparently having leapt over to his, after a bit he nodded and said, “Castor.”
“Exactly.”
As they stood thinking about it, a tall man was walking up behind Magnus.
“How about DoSAT?” Cali said as the man pulled a sword from his cane.
“Hmm, DoSAT works for me.” Miah changed the settings and opened the portal.
It appeared directly in front of the man, who startled, but he was too near to stop himself from going through. Miah shut the portal down before he had a chance to turn around.
“At least he made it through. Maybe that means we’ll...” Miah’s voice trailed off as the fic continued.
The moment she said his name she felt a cold blade against her throat she didnt move to everyone on board it looked as though they were sharing a loving moment on the great ship.
“Darn right she didn’t move to everyone with a blade at her throat! That sword is around three feet long, and no one notices it?” Cali seemed to have forgotten for the moment that he felt like death warmed over.
“So who’s the tall guy with the penchant for swords?”
“That is John Druitt, also known as Jack the Ripper. He was the father of Magnus’ child who is currently frozen--either literally in some device or in time within Magnus--canon’s kind of vague on that. They aren’t together in this time period, though they both still love each other. It takes another hundred years for him to screw up enough to make her give up on loving him.” Cali paused as the characters spoke.
''Why leave our home this way?Helen''
''You broke my heart John''
''That was not my intension ,Helen a darkness fills me i feel it even know it wants me to extinguish your life''
“Uh, yeah, that would be why they aren’t together anymore. Something to do with him turning into a cold-blooded murderer, and her trying to shoot him to stop him,” Cali said.
Way?Helen peeked at the agents from behind the canon characters. Cali motioned for the mini-stenopelhabbilis to come to him, and it did.
“Hey, what caused those?” Miah asked pointing at the wires that had suddenly sprouted from Druitt’s arms and legs. He was moving jerkily now, like a marionette puppet. The agents looked up and saw a huge wooden paddle with wires extending down to the canon character.
“Well that’s disturbing,” Cali said, though whether he was referring to Helen’s demand that Druitt go ahead and kill her, the puppet strings, or both Miah wasn’t sure.
In a flash they were in the first class gym,John let go of Helen he put the blade back in the cane,Helen moved away from him
The two agents were dragged along with the fic to the gym. Cali stumbled and fell to the floor, having been reminded that his stomach and head seemed to have developed enough sentience to hate him today. A mini named Gym,John stepped over to the agents. It seemed more stand-offish than Way?Helen, as it wouldn't get within two feet of the agents, even when Miah waved bacon at him. She tossed the meat to him and he used his claws to shred it into tiny bits before settling down to eat it.
Miah stared at the now happy mini. "We're not keeping him," she said.
Cali nodded. "That was slightly disturbing."
''I have no intensions of harming you,Helen but if you give me reason i will not hesitate''
As soon as Druitt said, “I have no intensions,” the wires and paddle disappeared, and shortly after that another mini, You,Helen appeared.
Miah was about to comment on the lack of tension in the fic, when she was swept off her feet by a blast of letters and words. She spun nearly all the way around the room before managing to latch onto a climbing rope. She crawled to the nearest wall and wedged herself behind a rack of...bowling pins? Why did they keep a rack of large wooden bowling pins in the gym? She shook her head. Now was not the time to get distracted.
What could only be described as a Word Tornado was spinning around the room. A mini, You,Helen, flew out of it, and a moment later another one, Way?Helen, was flung in another direction. The canon characters were involved in what might have been a sex scene, but Miah wasn’t sure, because their movements were as confused and disordered as the Word Tornado. Another mini, this time one Miah didn't recognize, flew out and landed near Miah. She reached out and dragged the mini-Steno to the relative safety of her hiding spot.
She heard Cali before she spotted him. He was trapped in the spinning Words whirling around the room. She looked closer and saw more minis swirling around with Cali. She tried to read the words to figure out what was happening and whether it might stop itself after a while.
Helen moved back against the wall never taking her eye's of him John slowly moved towards her she saw the love in his eye's but also the darkness in his soul it was dangerouis to be with him but her heart her soul her body ached for him still he was know so close to her she could feel his breath...
It just went on and on with no punctuation, so that was what this fic needed. Miah pulled her Haversham’s Handy Haversack off her back and concentrated on what she needed. She opened the sack and reached in.
The tornado abruptly froze into place, as Druitt said, ''For all eternity''. Unfortunately for Cali, Gym,John, and two more new minis, this abrupt stop resulted in a quick drop to the floor. All the falling creatures distracted Miah into wasting her moment of peace.
The Tornado started spinning again as suddenly as it had stopped. The minis managed to wobble their way to cover, Not in anything resembling a straight line, but they made it. Cali on the other hand, was caught back up in the vortex.
As he spun by Miah, she heard him howl "DOOO SOOMETHIIING!!"
Miah finally managed to grab the squirmy bag of punctuation marks she had been trying to capture. She crawled out from behind the stand of bowling pins and threw the punctuation at the Word Tornado. The bag opened and punctuation marks spun around. The tornado steadily lost strength as the punctuation marks found places they belonged. She watched as a period worked it's way between two words, and pinned a sentence to the growing Wall of Text.
The next thing she knew something large and heavy hit her. She vaguely realized it was Cali before they went tumbling across the floor, finally coming to rest against the rack of bowling pin looking things, which thudded down over them.
The canon characters felt a thud and a rubble the floor began to shake as quickly as it happend it was over John tolk Helen's hand in his they left the gym
"At least the iceberg hit covered our racket, right, Cali?" Miah said as she shoved him off of her.
He groaned, got to his hands and knees, and promptly began puking again. When he started to wobble dizzily, Miah leaned against him, pinning him between the now empty rack and her leg. When he finally managed to stop the dry heaving, Miah pulled him to his feet. His eyes were still jerking about wildly. He staggered sideways, almost taking her with him.
"Come on Agent! Get your act together!" Miah said in her best Gruff Sergeant impression. She wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled his arm across her shoulders and held it tightly.
Cali swayed and jerked for a minute before finally getting some semblance of his normal balance back. “I give that three point five.”
“What? That’s it? Come on, man, I’ve practiced that like forever!” Miah motioned for the minis to follow her, and started toward the door the canons had left through a few minutes later. Their progress was slow as Cali’s balance was worse while moving.
“Yeah, and who has to listen to your practicing? Huh? Yeah, that devishly handsome blue-haired guy that is your partner. That’s who. So three point five is tops, chica.”
Miah shook her head and continued toward the door.
“So I recognize Way?Helen, Gym,John, and you,Helen, but who are the rest of these?” Cali asked.
Miah examined the Wall of Text as they walked by it. “Uh, Helens, Johns, cane,Helen, and it,John.”
They heard people screaming and running in the walkway outside the gym. They paused before the open door. It was sheer bedlam. Time was running in super speed outside this room, because while they were standing on level ground, the view outside was already significantly tilted. Luckily for them, they saw Magnus run past the door. Miah tightened her grip on Cali, who didn’t protest, even though he was mostly steady by this point, and stepped out of the room.
The sudden lurch of the world re-orienting which way was up between one step and the next sent the agents to their knees. Cali caught hold of the door frame and kept them from tumbling backwards.
They only had a few seconds to get themselves oriented before they had to chase after Magnus or lose themselves in the chaos. They dodged panicked passengers and crew, and generally kept themselves upright and the minis in sight until finally, Magnus stopped at the scene of a literal bloody murder.
“John Dont!”
An eighth mini, this one with particularly large teeth, bounded over to the agents. It didn’t stop bounding when it reached them either. It barrelled right into them, knocking them to the floor, where they were mobbed by slobbery, wriggly, tail-wagging monsters.
John Dont sat back looking very proud of himself, and Miah, shoving over-excited minis away from her, was about to reprimand him, when a cloud of punctuation passed over her head. It attacked the Words and started building more Walls of Text from the swirling mess that the Words currently were.
Miah looked at John Dont and then the mass of punctuation. The mini practically vibrated with pride. “Thank you,” she said, and bowed her head slightly. The mini had an expression something like a dog smile and frisked about her feet. She found more bacon in her pocket and tossed it to him. Then, as Magnus and Druitt made out some more, she asked, “So what do we have charge wise, Cali?”
“Well, not much really. The lack of punctuation was a big problem, but you’ve taken care of that. I guess mostly, it is just the fact that Druitt is here at all. The guy literally couldn’t live for more than two weeks without her. In the alternate time line he teleported into Chicago with an atomic bomb less than two weeks after the Magnus that belonged to that timeline died. And--”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. He did what? Why? And are the writers fans of Shadowrun?”
“The alternate timeline was basically a zombie apocalypse. Chicago was overrun. He teleported a bomb into a zombie area, and instead of teleporting back out, he let it blow him up. Shadowrun?”
“RPG. In the setting, they blew up Chicago for remarkably similar reasons, actually. So anyway, he couldn’t live without her, and...”
“Huh, okay. So yeah, see here,” he said pointing to an area of the words that were suddenly readable thanks to the newly added punctuation. “He left her on the sinking ship. He can teleport to any place he has ever seen. He can’t live without her, and he left her. On. A. Sinking. Ship.”
“Gotcha.” She slipped her glasses on and flashed the neuralyzer at the canons. “So I am guessing by the fact that you are justifying this that canon doesn’t specify that Druitt wasn’t on board the Titanic.”
“Magnus was on board, ended up in the water, and was saved by Molly Brown, per canon, but she doesn’t mention Druitt being there. Given what we know about the character--he wasn’t there. It would be too OOC for him to leave her to the icy water.”
“Okay then.” She turned to the canons, “You there! Tall, bald, and bloody! You aren’t supposed to be here. Off with you! You were never here and never saw Helen Magnus today. Go on! Teleport off to where you should be.” He disappeared in a swirl of orange-ish light.
“Seriously, Miah? You know that was Jack the Ripper you were just talking to like that, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Ummm. You know what? Never mind.”
Miah shook her head, and turned back to Magnus, “You never saw John Druitt tonight. You should scurry off to whatever you would normally do in this kind of situation. Probably try to save people or something.” Magnus wandered off, the neuralyzer daze rapidly wearing off.
“Do you think we can go home now? It is going to suck having to drag all these minis around with us, and my head still feels like it’s about to split in two like this ship is about to,” Cali said.
Miah dialed their RC again, crossed her fingers, and pushed the button.
Next Appearance: Part 2