Submission

A 900-post collection

Creep

Anywhere in the story: “The element of surprise didn’t so much rest upon someone hearing you but registering the significance of your approach.”

(#00129)

“Okay,” said Rael. “They stole my coat. They somehow turned off your powers. We have, perhaps, two hours at most before they set off their doomsday bomb and all we have is the contents of a rather spacious storage closet with nothing useful in it. What, might I ask, is your big plan?”

Shayde, currently alarmingly caucasian, shorter, and red-headed, kept grinning as she piled the trolley with assorted bits and bobs. “Find a box tae hide in an’ occupy the bottom shelf. Trust me. I’m gonna use stealth.”

Stealth.

Well, in a pinch, even a hair-brained plan was better than no plan at all. Rael picked a box and squeezed himself inside. If anything was more alarming than watching Shayde mutter to herself as she assembled a scheme, it was listening to the same muttering with no other sensory input.

The door opened. The trolley rolled out, accompanied by aimless whistling that, though it failed to actually hit a tune, managed to molest quite a few in passing.

The wheels rattled and shook. The entire trolley made a cacophony as it trundled down the heavily guarded hallway.

“No admittance,” said the guard.

“Got deliv'ry order fer t’ main interface controller,” that was Shayde’s voice, but she managed to nail the local low-caste dialect as if she’d lived in the alleys all her life.

“No admittance.”

“What’s yer name, then, sonny Jim?”

Flakk. Sonny Jim. One of the many, many call-signs of impending doom a la Shayde. Rael cringed in anticipation.

“Why?”

“So I can tell me boss that one… Sergeant… Ro-ourke… failed to allow ‘is supremeness t’ get 'is crullers. An ye know 'ow 'e likes 'em fresh.”

The impassable door hissed open. The trolley rattled onwards in a similar fashion through three more.

And, like a miracle, they were in the countdown chamber.

“That was not stealth!” Rael protested as he sabotaged. “That was the opposite of stealth. It was the antithesis of stealth.”

“Na, it was past stealth an’ through to it’s true opposite. White noise.”

Of course. The element of surprise didn’t so much rest upon someone hearing you but registering the significance of your approach. And Shayde did love hiding in plain sight.

[Muse food remaining: 11. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Challenge #00128: Once Upon a Nightmare

A feverish nightmare from the slumbering mind of Duncan Matthews…while totally awake.

“How can you stand to breathe the same air as that thing?”

“Hm?” said Jean, her mind had been elsewhere.

Duncan pointed to Essel. “That tranny garbage. I heard you and that are roomies?”

“Well, at least she doesn’t steal my clothes,” said Jean. Her tired voice and monotone said nothing to Duncan. Nor did the notes she

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Challenge #00127: Conversations on the Twilight Zone

Jean, Wanda and a little bit of bonding over astral physics. Todd makes an appearance.

“Saw you in the dream-realm, last night,” said Jean. “You were… not exactly hallucinating? I thought I could help.”

“That was you? But you were–”

“Probably veiled behind a curtain of your understanding. I’m sorry about that. I backed off when I realized what was happening.”

“I don’t undertand what you’

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Challenge #00126: Why Would You Do This to Me?

The noodle incident. Name names.

[AN: The whole point of Noodle Incidents is you never find out exactly what happened. See the Trope Page. Grats, you made this author scream in anguish.]

Sherlock had separated them. Rael, at least, got a hot meal and something to occupy his hands. “So. What do you know?”

“Admittedly, not a lot,” said Rael, getting his credentials straight right off the bat. “I’m not a historian. I only study

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"I'm Impressed"

Scott’s 1tth straight victory in court and the slight but unmistakeable praise that Glee gives him upon not making an ass of himself while under the cosh. She also admits something about her personal which Scott almost, ALMOST misses in his joy of not losing…again.

(#00125)

“Not guilty.”

Scott quietly breathed out and shared a hug with his client, a kid who was still manifesting and had, in a fit of excitement, fear and hiccoughs, accidentally

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A blessing? Or a curse?

We’ve all wanted to go back and unsay that one hurtful thing - or at the very least, apologise before a chance at a friendship is lost - utter those words that got us mocked that time, undo that stupid thing that cost us self-respect and possibly more.

Only thing is: Who could stop at one?

(#00124)

Kylie blinked. There were now three of her in her room. Two were older. Both dressed in identical old-fart clothes that spoke loudly

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Challenge #00123: One Fine Day in the Dimplomatic Offices

Never trust a bald barber, a skinny cook, a woodworker with missing fingers, or a lawyer in any situation.

“Ooo, na that’s plush,” said Shayde. She’d laid her accent on thicker so that she sounded less educated. Irony for the purposes of self-entertainment, because nobody nearby was going to get it.

“This is a standard diplomat’s office,” said the local Director of the Corps Diplomatique.

“An’ the aspidistra’s

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Be interested to see what you do with this one:

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?

- Mark Twain

(#00122)

There were designated busking zones on any station large enough to attract the kind of itinerant population that gathered Minutes by entertaining passersby.

Amalgam had hundreds of them.

Rael knew from long, and partially agonizing experience, that Shayde loved them like nothing else. In the hours not taken up by duty, she would take her ‘axe’ down to one at random, and

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Philip K. Dick said it best:

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

(#00121)

“This,” announced the Doctor, “is the Monestary of the Believers.”

“The believers in…?” prompted Sally.

“Everything. Everything that is. And a few things that aren’t. They devote a lifetime to it. Each devotee is not allowed to have the item they’re meant to believe in.”

Sally peeked through the slot. A

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A new take on an old classic.

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
To a man with only a hammer, a screw is a defective nail.
To a man with only a nail, everything looks like a hammer.

(#00120)

She ran through the darkened streets, harsh breathing absorbed by the endless fog of Lower Cogtown. She’d lost the whistles of the gendarmerie five streets ago, but that was no reason to stop.

It was no reason to even slow.

To a man

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Challenge #00119: Strategy and the Zen of Faking it

The surest way to hit your target is to shoot first and call whatever you hit your target.

“That’s a long way down. You must be pretty determined.”

“Thanks. I wanted to make certain this was one thing I couldn’t fuck up.”

“Finals?”

“Finals is only the start of it,” she said. “I lost my flat, my girlfriend, my car, my pet, my parents… failing finals just means

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Beside Myself.

Jamie’s powers as Multiple - good for pranks and antics and such at his age, but he is, in the end, just a little kid.  What if one of the other Xavier Institute kids somehow wound up with his self-duplication abilities for a day or so, how might they (ab)use it?  (How would this occur? I dunno, some weird mishap with Rogue or something, maybe.  I’ll leave details up to you.)

(#00118)

“Make her stop! Make

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Challenge #00117: And That's Why a Platypus.

A Mage teaching their Apprentice an ancient Bio-Hazard Disposal spell for failed experimental breeding subjects (as we all know, the traditional answer for a ridiculous and/or ridiculously dangerous creature is “A Wizard Did It”), and why Australia’s wildlife is so… unique. (At least, according to the rest (Real Life - Australia portion) of the world.


(And some of us)

“Co-ordinatum expelarmus…”

“Co-ordinatUS, expel-ee-ar-am-us,” corrected the master. “One wrong syllable, Mistress

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Challenge #00116: Impressions

Anywhere in the story:

Some people are like Slinkies - Not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push ‘em down a flight of stairs

(alternatively, substitute “see 'em fall” for “push 'em”)

Sara objected to formal fundraisers at the best of times, and tonight wasn’t one of them. Her target, multi-billionheiress Egypt Ritz[1], was the exact sort of person Sara had grown to despise on

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Challenge #00115: Letter v Spirit

A story in which this:

“It’s time to do the right thing!”
“By which you mean commit a major felony.”
“Think of it as a series of 208 rapidly successive misdemeanors!”


Occurs.

“This is not right,” said Sara.

“It is legal, sweetheart,” said Daddy. They both knew it, but he had to remind her. Her near-reality orbit frequently ignored things like that which was legal.

“That which is legal

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