Subject: Sax opened his eyes from against the wall.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-09-02 00:41:00 UTC
He looked at the newcomer blearily. "Day's too young and I don't smoke," he said, motioning at himself and then Day, who was looking at the splinted arm with some relief.
"He doesn't either," Day added. "Well, the body they're in right now." She focused on Mia. "D'you normally smoke? And as for what happened, maybe."
A quick breakdown of the rules:
1. First and foremost, if you're going to do anything potentially serious or even permanent to the bodies that your character is inhabiting for the duration of the event, please make sure to clear it with said character's writer. Besides seriously injuring them or even killing them, this also includes things like, say, giving them haircuts or permanently changing their species.
2. Following that first part, no godmoding/power-playing! Control your own characters and your own characters only.
3. Like the title says, this is the Chaos thread. This is pretty much all characters affected reacting (and so on). This thread is going to cover the whole duration of the event (with things being resolved by Thursday evening). Feel free to note what day it is when you start a new thread towards the top of the post! To try and make an attempt at keeping things organized, there will be a separate post for hunting for the device as well, which will go up a bit later.
Good luck and have fun!
Kat did not approve of abrupt relocations.
She did not approve of relocations without her permission in general, but abrupt was the worst; it meant disorientation, it meant confusion, it meant she was going to have to get high-pitched and flaily with Samuel and try not to trip over her own paws in her discombobulation-- wait. Paws.
Kat took a moment to try to be a little more self-aware.
Her body wasn't what she expected, but it was peculiarly familiar. Navy blue paws. The feeling of electricity, static-skipping through her fur. (Fur. Why this. Why again.)
Had she gotten ambushed by a DORKS again? But... wait. Wait, no, Kat was suddenly and abruptly sure she was male, and she didn't care to check why she felt that way, either. She sat down, hard, paws a confused tangle under her, and stared squinty-eyed down the corridor.
The last time she'd been a Luxray...
"JULY," Kat yelled, and was disoriented enough that the sound of not-her-voice echoing off the generic walls made her pin her ears flat. "Whyyyyyy."
where the alligators had been. He came upon a blue and black, vaguely cattish thing yowling out in the hall.
"Hey there, little thing," he said quietly. "What's the matter? Are you okay?"
On the inside, however, he was thinking, Holy crap, what the hell is this thing? It's like a bobcat and a child's drawing of a star got together and had a baby! He still hadn't picked up on the odd reverberations of his mental voice . . .
"Do I look okay?" Kat demanded, indignant. Her voice was not her voice; it was something male, and with overtones that she wasn't thinking about too hard but probably had something to do with suddenly being a Pokémon. It was odd-- in the DORKS-induced Luxray costume, she had felt herself still. Now, it was both familiar and alien at the same time, and she didn't like it.
"And I'm a Luxray, for your information," she added in a moment, sniffing affrontedly. Her whiskers twitched forward with each inhalation.
"Oh. You can—Oh!" He saw the potted cactus on the Luxray's collar. "You're an agent. Sorry, I didn't. Um." He sat down next to the Luxray. "So, what's the matter? I just got teleported into a room with alligators in it, so." He shrugged. "If that makes you feel better." He frowned. "If you even have alligators wherever you're from."
Kat's tail flicked back and forth. She didn't make an effort to get up, though. "I suppose it does make me feel better, in a schadenfreudenly sort of way. Someone's having a worse day." She huffed. "I'm, uh, not usually a Luxray! This is new and weird."
Doc lowered his eyebrows in puzzlement; he was too distracted by the conversation to notice their odd weight.
"Wait, what do you mean . . ." He gasped! "Are you an Animorph? Oh my gosh, I love Animorphs! I can't believe I'm meeting one! I mean, I got to see an Andalite once, but we didn't get to talk much . . ." He ended his tirade with a very subdued and dignified squee.
"...Nooooo," she said finally. She considered her posture, finally flopped all the way to a lying-down position, and rested her chin on her paws, the picture of canine misery. "I never read Animorphs. Well, except maybe once. School book fairs, y'know..."
She trailed off, eyed him up again. He was a bit weird, she decided. But she probably had no room to talk. "No, I'm a human girl," she said, very definitively.
to match his companion's new position.
"But then, how are you in a cat—Luxray body?"
I really wish he had been an Animorph.
g
Kat's lips lifted to reveal very nice teeth, if only briefly. "If I knew that, don't you think I woulda fixed the problem already? I just... wound up here." She huffed again, switching back to vaguely mournful as quickly as that, and gave him an askance look with those big yellow eyes.
"Dude, you sure you mean to be broadcasting?"
"Sorry, you sounded like a boy to me. I don't know Luxray culture."
Oh, holy crap, she has sharp teeth.
"So . . . I teleported into a different RC, and you teleported into someone else's body? That's weird. Do you think something's happening?"
I mean really sharp, like damn.
b
She eyed him carefully some more, looking more and more uncertain. "You're not normally a telepath, are you," she said eventually, confused. "I mean, I'm gonna give you that much credit, though I do appreciate your appreciation for my teeth. They are very nice teeth. I'm a meat eater." She grinned, or an approximation of it, before recalling it was a hostile gesture and not-smiling. "I mean, I'm not normally a Luxray or a dude! And I wasn't in this hallway, either!"
"Telepath? What . . . Wait how did you know what I was thinking?" He widened his eyes as he continued to stare. "You mean . . . you hear my thoughts?" he asked, placing a hand over his heart.
Which, at last, alerted him to a couple of things.
"Gah! No!" Doc immediately wiped his hand on the generic ground. "I didn't mean that!"
Something'swrongsomething'swrongsomething'swrong
He jumped to his feet and looked down at himself. "This isn't me! This isn't me!" He started feeling his face. "Who is—"
Oh, God, there is METAL in my FACEmetalinmyfacemetalinmyskinmetalinmyfleshmetalmetalmetalmetalmetalyou know, this does explain why I was feeling so bendy all of a sudden, thought it was just an adrenaline rush from the alligatorsmetalmetalmetalmetal . . .
a
"At least, I think that's how it works." Kat shifted, lifting her head from her paws in curiosity at her new friend's reaction-- and then ducking again just as quickly, at the onslaught of thoughts. Her ears went flat against her skull again, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Oh my sweet Arceus can you please stop panicking please please please you are broadcasting like a gorram radio tower." She was almost starting to panic herself, come to think of it.
Doc leaned stiffly against the wall, careful to keep his hands very far away from himself. He shut his eyes and tried carefully not to think any conscious thoughts, though he couldn't prevent a few stray whats and whys and hows from escaping.
"Why," he said carefully, "is this happening. Why are we in the wrong bodies?"
But at the least Kat could straighten again, and this time she got all four paws under her with a minimum of struggling. It helped, she decided, having been a Luxray before. It was still super weird, but it helped. "I don't know," she said in a moment, twisting to look at the rest of her body. Luxray, yes, she'd caught that much, but she didn't see any distinguishing marks, either.
It felt like she was wearing a collar -- maybe that was why she could talk? -- but she could hardly see it. Hm. Problematical. "I'm Kat, by the way," she said in a moment, for lack of anything else. "DMS. Hi. I, uh, guess it's nice to meet you?"
"Yeah. Nice to at least have someone else stuck this way with me. I'm Doc, Floater, usually male, unpierced and not psychic in any way. Um, I would normally shake your hand, but . . ."
Nonetheless, he weakly held out his—or whoever's—hand.
((Oh, man, the work shifts I just shifted. Sorry I couldn't reply more often today.))
Kat eyed him a moment longer, then, bemused, sat down and offered him a paw instead. She was hardly equipped for handshakes in this form, but it was close enough. "Nice t'meetcha," she said, sounding as chipper as was possible given the circumstances. "So, now we've got that sorted out, who d'you think's the most likely culprit for this one? I'm thinkin' DoSAT."
((No worries.))
"Probably. Or Experiments and Research studying author wraiths, and something went weird. Do you want to try checking one of them out? Or should we go to one of the Flowers?"
Kat made a thinking noise. Her lips curled again, the expression of someone whose primary experience with Flowers is the Sunflower Official. "Nah, let's try with the techies first. More explosions, less... everything else."
He certainly didn't see how explosions would improve the situation, but the other agent seemed sure of herself; she probably had more experience than Doc.
"Works for me. Are you okay walking, though? I take it you aren't normally four-legged."
But in theory, Kat was pretty sure tracking down the culprits and growling at them would help. She shook herself, got back to her feet, and walked a few steps. "I'm fine," she said, tail twitching again. "See? I spent half a mission in a shape like this a while back, I managed. I was just really surprised, I mean, who goes through their everyday life expecting to be swapped into someone else's body, that's super weird even for here."
Like I said, it's almost like author wraiths, except wraiths don't start out in a body. And they don't make the old personality move out, I don't think."
He looked down, but then quickly back up. "I guess these bodies' regular owners are probably in our bodies, huh?
"And you said you've used a Luxray disguise before? What world are they from?"
Kat gave him a look of thinly disguised horror, which didn't communicate over-well on her current face shape. "Pokémon. A Luxray is a fully evolved electric-type that favors physical attack, rather than special. I personally don't think the mechanics did them any favors, but I do love them anyway. ...I love a lot of Pokémon. That same mission, my partner was a Mudkip, y'know? They were memetic for a while, these little blue... mud fish things. Adorable. Surprisingly tanky when you train them right. But, y'know, my partner, he's this great six foot some lankybones what's good with a sword, so seeing him as a bitty bitty Mudkip was basically the best thing about that mission." She heaved a huge and theatrical sigh-- it didn't seem like she'd paused for breath at all during the stream-of-consciousness.
"...what if they're not in our bodies?" she wondered, a moment later, distracted next by that idea.
"Ah. Well. I had heard of Pokémon, just not this one. My partner does the video games. I do the books."
At Katrina's last remark, he paused and gave her a hard stare. "Where else would they be? I don't . . . well, mine isn't in here with me, I don't think." He stopped walking. "I got so distracted, I forgot! Whatever happened, it was hitting my partner, too! . . . We aren't the only ones affected."
((Or did you have other plans?))
((I have no other plans for Kat to the best of my knowledge. :P))
Logan didn't think he'd had that much to drink last night...
Sure, it'd been a Saturday night (or as best as he could tell in HQ) and he'd been down to Rudi's as usual, and had had more than a few beers (and maybe a Long Island Iced Tea or two), but who's counting?
When he awoke on Sunday morning he felt... strange. Instead of a hangover, he felt dizzy, and very lightheaded. He opened his eyes. The Generic Surface walls of the RC looked blurry, and - unlike RC 8.3145 - unnaturally tidy.
"Where am I? he thought to himself. But his voice sounded... strange, too. And yet horribly familiar.
He stood up - or at least tried to. His legs didn't seem to be working. He pushed himself up on his petals and came upright... wait, petals?
Cautiously, not sure if he wanted to actually see for himself, he looked down. Yep, that's right. Petals.
Starting to freak out just a little bit, he looked around the room. On a desk to one side of the room - or should he say office? - was a bowler hat.
"What the kriff? said Logan. But the mental voice that emerged was unmistakably that of the Marquis de Sod.
He tried to run into the corridor. Or at least thought about running. Without legs, describing his motion as running is not very accurate - but however Flowers move, it sufficed to send Logan out into the corridors of HQ in the body of the Marquis...
Logan was beginning to get the hang of... however it was Flowers moved. In a way it wasn't unlike navigating in HQ itself - if you didn't think about it, you got places.
He had his hands - sorry, fronds metaphorically full with trying to keep his balance. The Marquis' body felt ridiculously top-heavy, and it was hard to keep his balance.
An outside onlooker would have seen the Marquis de Sod veering through the corridors of HQ, his head lolling drunkenly from side to side as Logan corrected and over-corrected to try to keep his balance.
Trying to keep vertical was enough of a distraction for Logan that he didn't notice that he was heading along a corridor leading towards the Large Auditorium.
... and a figure came out. It was slumped over with what seemed to be less exhaustion, more exasperation. Its arms were folded across its chest, and it was glaring down at the floor as if personally offended by it.
Oh, and it also appeared to be made of living flame.
The figure looked up, stopped, and held up its hands.
"I'm going to come right out and suggest you don't come any closer, sir," it called. "There's been some sort of weird body-swapping incident, and I've ended up in some girl who, uh, can turn into fire. I haven't quite figured out how to switch it off yet, so..."
~
((Salamander is pleased about being able to see again, but he's rather busy being annoyed about being fire.))
((hS))
…walked a very bedraggled-looking Gremlin and a rather perturbed Xericka. Or, to be more accurate, a perturbed meara in Xericka's body. Which was probably why Gremlin looked as worn as she did.
"I still can't believe this!" Alice-in-Xericka exclaimed. "Some agent is shunted into my body and just decided to go off on a trek across the entirety of the PPC!"
"There's a lot of things I can't believe about this," Gremlin muttered.
Alice did not seem to notice the metahuman's comments. "Has no one heard of respect any more? Does no one think of how to behave during incidents like this? The gall! The cheek!"
Gremlin choked back a snarky rejoinder. Being sarcastic might drive Alice off to go look for her body on her own, and Gremlin couldn't have that. She had to keep tabs on Xericka's body. If that meant suffering through Alice's ranting for what seemed like the fifteenth time, then so be it.
The two agents rounded a corner to find themselves in front of the Auditorium. They immediately halted at the sight of a burning figure standing in front of the Marquis de Sod.
"Is there some sort of attack going on?" Alice asked quietly. She stiffened, as if in preparation for combat.
"I really hope not," Gremlin replied. "Neither of us are exactly kitted out for fighting the Human Torch." She took a few steps forward and raised her voice. "Hey! Uh… are we interrupting something?"
((... or would you like someone to not-exactly-run into? ~hS))
((Seems the easiest way of getting him out of his office))
((Gremlin and Alice-in-Xericka could use some stuff to do.))
Séverine took a sample bite and chewed. After a few seconds, she called out, "The beef is about done, but it needs more spice." She swirled her tongue around her mouth. "Also, sugar. In fact, just bring everything nice."
A commotion sounded from around the corner of the stoves. Séverine scrunched up her face. "Yoof? What is—"
She was interrupted by a gaggle of over-sized turkeys rounding the corner and barreling into her. She cried out as she was knocked to the ground.
Once the gobbling faded away, Séverine frowned and closed her eyes. "Yoof," she growled, "how did the
turkeys get—Yah!" She put a hand to her throat, startled by the changed timber of her voice, and by the fact that she had rather suddenly moved from a prone position to a sitting one. "Mon coeur!" Now that she could see her arms, she realized they were a much lighter color than they should be.
She looked around her. Instead of being in the kitchens, she was sitting on a bed in someone's RC. "Qu'est-ce qui se—" And next to her on the bed was a bright green animal.
"Uh. Bonjour?"
((Edhelistar tag in!
((PC, I hope that leaves her body roughly where you were envisioning it before Pittman took over? If not, I'll happily change it in the final draft so it matches yours.
((And just to head off super-weirdness before it can start: as the creator of the mega-turkeys, I hereby declare that they did not switch brains with anyone. (I love turkeys, but oh, man, a turkey brain in a human body would definitely result in a dead human body. They are amazingly dumb birds.)))
James Pittman could smell something. Have I had a stroke? he thought. I was standin' around the response center, then I blacked out. Now I smell… what is that, cooked beef? Dammit, if I had a stroke, I'm gonna be really annoyed.
He opened his eyes. Everything seemed normal. He didn't feel any pain, or alarming lack thereof. The ceiling looked just like any other ceiling in this place. He just passed out, apparently.
"Laur—” James called out before immediately stopping. His voice was… well, not his own. His voice hadn't been that high since the fifth grade.
He looked down.
...
Well, that was a thing. His chest was definitely not his own.
"What in all the hells is goin' on?" James muttered as he pushed himself onto his elbows. From the looks of things, he was in the Cafeteria kitchen. On the floor. Wearing a body that belonged to someone else.
"This place…" He shook his head. "This damn place is just too weird sometimes."
"No way," Vania said after pausing her game. "I don't believe you."
"Seriously," Doc said from his top bunk. "I only just realized."
Vania sputtered. "But! It's! Right there! It's one letter away! 'Diagon Alley.'"
"Yes, but it isn't pronounced that way."
"You should have at least figured it out when Azkaban came out with Knockturn Alley."
Doc's eyes widened. "Holy crap! That's 'nocturnally!'"
Vania sighed. "Oh my Lord, Doc, how could—"
Both agents' faces turned serious as they felt it coming. Doc's mind remained in the room just long enough to wonder why it wasn't hurting him, since Vania had dropped to knees and elbows, holding her head in her hands.
((It took me a stupid long time to notice that joke. Years, you guys.))
-was neither pleased nor unphased to find himself suddenly higher up, in a well-lit room, and looking down at an unfamiliar woman who seemed to be in some sort of pain.
He was an Elf of the First Age, and accustomed to long hours with little rest. Of course, being an Elf of the First Age, he was also fully aware that it was to his advantage to rest comfortably when the opportunity arose. Today he had taken his chance with the utmost gratitude: the study of Primitive Quendian was taxing, and held little enjoyment for him as it came with the knowledge that he was learning the tongue solely to be able to communicate with one stubborn Elf, who glared at any mispronunciation of a language that had not been spoken in over an Age.
It seemed however, that this welcome rest had ended for now. Naergondir sat up carefully, noting with distaste that he seemed to be disguised. Precisely what his disguise was he could not tell, but it was definitely not elven. He would have to regain his proper hröa as soon as was possible; this was a response center, and the disguise could hardly be necessary.
A thought struck him--was the woman Gurnirel, also affected by disguise? Worry sent him clambering awkwardly down from the top bunk, and closer to the woman (though out of easy reach). "Saileldë? Sister, is all well?"
--
((I didn't get the Knockturn Alley one until just now, thank you. Also, he's speaking Quenya--that's what the italics are for.
Also? This is going to be fun :D
~DF))
just the briefest moment—Vania looked up at the sound with an expression of absolute rage on her face. In a split second, it was replaced by perplexity.
"Huh? What happened? And, why are you speaking Tolkieny? You said you were embarrassed 'cause you hadn't learned any of that stuff, and your nerd credit was tarnished.
She started getting up. "Oh! I bet something happened to our translators. Hang on." She started fiddling with something.
((Hurr, I have no idea where UTs go, and can't look it up on my phone. Will retcon later.
I am more pleased than I can describe in words to know I'm not the only one slow on the Rowling pun uptake!
And yes. I'm already way too excited!))
English. Of course. And with a slightly mangled name and one of the words that sounded nonsensical in Sindarin translation, at that. Moreover, this was not Gurnirel--and she seemed to think she knew him, which did not bode well. The translator, however, sounded like a very good idea.
"Pray set it for Sindarin," he said reluctantly. As before, his voice emerged rougher and at a slightly different pitch than it should have. The English, as ever, felt truncated and lacking in song. "I will speak that tongue."
somewhere in between wanting to laugh and wanting to cart Doc straight off to Medical. "Hoookaaay . . ." It wasn't just the language; Doc was usually more of a sloucher, and didn't like looking you in the eye when he talked to you. Now, he was all square-shouldered and held your gaze.
She scrolled the UT's menu to the Tolkien section and locked in Sindarin. "All right then. Something's obviously up. Let's hear it."
d
((The dialogue so far:
N: Saileldë? Osellenya, ná sillumë tanca?
V: Huh? What happened? And, why are you speaking Tolkieny? You said you were embarrassed 'cause you hadn't learned any of that stuff, and your nerd credit was tarnished. Oh! I bet something happened to our translators. Hang on.
N: Pray set it for Sindarin. I will speak that tongue.
V: Hoookaaay... E vaer. Cenin nad prestannen. Naro.
You can see immediately the difference between that lovely flowing Quenya, and my abrupt-sounding attempts at Sindarin. Vania's line translates as: "It (is) good. I see a thing (is) disturbed. Tell."
Not having a 'to be' verb is kind of hampering, but honestly, Sindarin is just... not complete enough to be properly elegant.
Which means translating Naergondir's next line maaaaay not happen. Yikes.
hS))
((And I do see what you mean about the difference between the two. I didn't even realize one dialect was less complete than the other!))
"I do not know who you are, nor where I am. I had thought perhaps you were my partner, but your speech is not hers, nor do you speak our tongue. If we are indeed yet inside the 'PPC', and if you are yourself an agent and not a foe, then I would know your name and our location. I would also," he added, "ask if I may avail myself of your disguise generator; I do not wish to retain this form, and would fain drop the disguise--which I did not intend to don--and regain my own."
--
((So. Much. Fun.))
"Okay. This is different! Um." She moved to sit on her beanbag, spilling plastic bits all over the floor. "Here's the thing. You're in my partner, Doc's body. But you're obviously not. Like. Like you switched bodies, actually. Not a disguise. Yeah. Oh!"
She suddenly jumped up and ran to Doc's body, holding out her right hand. "I'm Vania! Vania Tolluk of RC 251! Nice to meet you, also, who are you?"
((I realize it would probably be impossible to translate Vania's phonetics into Sindarin, but I figure the UT just gives a general translation? Maybe?))
What madness was this? To disguise one's form was one matter; to be placed in the hroa of a stranger was another matter entirely. How could this have happened? Why? For what reason could anyone have wished this upon him?
Gurnirel. His partner--his sworn sister--could be in danger. She was capable of defending herself, but if there was a foe in his body...no, perhaps it was this 'Doc'? Even so, she would be confused, and worried. He should return with all haste.
"I am called Naergondir," he told the woman. "I work in the elven languages unit. We should proceed to my response center--1500--with all due haste."
((I expect the UT does its best and some of it comes out as gibberish that Naergondir has by now learned the meaning of--'yeah', for instance. He knows it's an affirmative. Also, that's it for now.))
She grabbed her bat, then held the door open. "After you, sir elf!"
((By the way, that is pronounced "Nye-er-gon-deer," right?))
((He certainly was lying down, but that's no guarantee with an agent. ~DF))
...checked his new body for weapons before walking out the door.
He missed his own legs. This...human, presumably, was much taller than a halfling, but he was not as tall as Naergondir, and, not being of any elven kindred, moved with less grace and more noise.
At least he was not a halfling. Naergondir was thoroughly tired of that disguise, despite avoiding it whenever possible. He much preferred his own form--which was, it seemed, currently being inhabited by another.
Naergondir set his borrowed features in a frown, and lengthened his stride. It was time to return to his own response center.
--
((I expect they shouldn't actually arrive until after Gurnirel and Amy have at least figured out that Naergondir isn't Naergondir/she's in an elven SIELU agent's body and that's his partner being concerned. I expect we can do some back and forth in the hallway here? Keep them walking until Gurnirel and Amy have advanced enough?
Mind you, now I'm wondering if they're all going to end up with some new friends by the end of this...
~DF))
Vania hummed a bit as they started down the hallway. A few other people were out and about as well, but they seemed in a hurry and didn't glance at the two. Which was just as well, since Vania was set to speaking something Elvish at the moment anyway.
"So, RC 1500 you said? That's nice! Nice, round number. Multiple of a hundred, and all. Multiple of five hundred, even! How'd you managed to score that?"
((Doc's only weapon is his very plain metal pole. You're welcome to have grabbed it before we left, although I doubt any Middle-earth resident would think very highly of it.
And, yes, we should be able to ramble about nonsense until the other thread is ready!))
Agent Tolluk's exact phrasing was odd--hardly unusual for English translated into Sindarin--but her meaning was clear enough. "We have found it a pleasant enough place to live in: it is a simple space, but well designed. My only wish," he added, turning a corner, "would be to discover how it is that the trees are granted the light of the sun..."
--
((I think I'll say he left it; he's not likely to need it, and prefers not using weapons when he has the chance. Anyway, he's on a peaceful mission, has weapons in the RC if he needs them, and isn't exactly going to fight his own body if he can avoid it, that'd be weird. ~DF))
"Like, inside your RC? That is super-cool! I can't wait to see. I'm so glad my partner got brain-swapped now!" Vania rubbed her hands together, then paused and snickered. "Hey! Can I call you NaergonDoc? Get it? Because 'Doc' is 'gon?' And you're . . . Naer!"
...wondering yet again why he had been sent to a place where so many of the race of Men were very nearly as distractible as they were odd.
"No," he said. "My name bears a particular meaning. I would not see it so diverted. I am not 'Naer'; I am Naergondir, and though my hröa--my body--and my fëa--my spirit--are now separated, I am a Noldo of the First Age of Arda, which you call Middle-earth. It was I who chose this name, and I chose it with purpose. Do you show me the courtesy of leaving my name untouched, and I will continue not to treat you as an ignorant child."
--
((With apologies to Vania, who is rather funny, but he was never not going to respond well to a suggestion about changing his name, even temporarily, for this.
Also, sorry this took so long! I was away on a visit, though with internet access as you saw, and then flew back, was exhausted for a day or two afterwards, and had school begin to start up just now. No classes until tomorrow, though, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to try to wake up finally write this response. I'm still interested in continuing these threads and having them all meet up.
~DF))
"Ah. Right. Fine, then. Whatever."
She looked away and began scanning the RC numbers on her side of the hallway. Quietly, she muttered, "Guess it's good we don't get Tolkien missions. The elves always seemed way nicer than this in Jay and Acacia's reports."
Happening upon a potential new thread of conversation, Vania turned back to NaergonDoc (as she would continue to think of him in her head). "So, First Age. That's like, way before The Hobbit and all, right? Do you get missions for that time period, or is it mostly the usual Tenth Walkers for you guys?"
((No problem! We get time when we get time. Hope you're well rested for class!))
((I do seem to slur it a little--'nyer-gon-deer'.
And this is not a proper reply, I'm afraid--that will come later or tomorrow. ~DF))
((It's a three-syllable word, with the first syllable being... 'nigh' with an r on the end.))
((Sindarin isn't really my thing, but I know Quenya tends to put the emphasis on the penultimate syllable... no, apparently I'm wrong; it's on the penultimate only if that syllable contains a long vowel, dipthong, or specific consonant clusters. Otherwise it shifts back to the antepenultimate, which means my name is counterintuitively said 'hui-NE-sor-on'. Eesh.))
((Sindarin is - aha, this is all in Appendix E - apparently the same. The specific description is 'where that contains a long vowel, a dipthong, or a vowel followed by two or more consonants'. Which does not apply to 'Naergondir', and therefore the stress jumps to the first syllable.))
((Linguistics is hard. ^_^))
((hS))
The Sunflower Official had been reviewing reports- an task easier said than done, with agents who came to yell about their last mission, tell him about their latest partner disappearing into the multiverse or dying, or just to generally complain in the time he spent in his office just to work on usual department matters. There was a strange sensation- something he brushed off as exhuastion, or possibly too much fertilizer- and then everything went dark.
His photosensors were refusing to register anything and everything else he was sensing differently. A heartbeat. Breathing. Close by. From him?
He attempted to curl a leaf, experimentally. There wasn't one- an arm, a hand and the very strange sensation of flesh touching itself. This was not his body. What in the- he cut off, realizing the words weren't projecting like they should have been. He tried to move forward. It immediately became clear that this was not well thought out. He stumbled, off balance. The matter wasn't helped by the fact he still couldn't see. Still, he had mastered walking once, in his own body. In some humanoid body- however that had happened- it couldn't be that difficult.
The Sunflower Official tried once more, and found the side of something metal with his new knee. "Agh," he successfully vocalized.
Kayleigh's head snapped round as Salamander stumbled, banging his leg against the console. "Head snap round!" she called. "Sal? Did the console do something wrong?" She gasped. "Gasp! Has it been possessed by a chaotic neutral artificial intelligence with secret plans of its own which can only be defeated by kicking?!"
~
((I had completely forgotten how much fun Kayleigh is. ^_^))
He attempted to turn around, in surprise at hearing the voice of an agent in the room. The result was he banged the other knee- and wasn't that a great sensation- and chose, it was very much a choice, instead to lean this new body back against the console. The arms and hands he used to keep himself balanced against it, with a bit of difficulty. It was much easier to try and tilt the head in the direction of the speaker.
"Wh-at? Nno. Who are you?" Talking was tricky, but he had already successfully vocalized before.
"Look puzzled for a moment. I'm Kayleigh, of course! Look appropriately Kayleigh. I'm your partner!" She paused for a moment. "Unless you're suffering from amnesia, in which case I'm your Queen-Empress and you should get me a drink. I'll have a pina colada surprise, hold the pina colada." She lay back on her towel and continued her sunbathing practice.
He did his best to draw himself up while using the console for support. "Aagent Kayleighh, I ammm not your part-ner." The rest of her narration, while annoying, was useful and at least confirmed that he was in the body of an agent who already couldn't see. Unless she did it for no reason, which was a distinct possibility, depending on the department. Some of them- like his own- did have a larger proportion of more questionable than average agents. It came with their being assassins.
"Who is your depart-ment head, agent?"
Kayleigh sat up again, grinning. "Grin! Can I do my wolf voice?" She dropped forward onto all fours, and put a healthy dose of growl into her voice.
"Grr. You'll get nothing from me, puny human." She frowned and sat up again. "Wait, are you playing a human, or what? Oh, flounce! We can change it in post." Back on her hands and knees, she growled, "Nothing from me, puny human-or-other-delete-as-appropriate. I will never reveal the identity of my department head. The Queen Anne's Lace is safe from fiends like you."
She frowned again. "Frown. I think I messed that up. Can I try again?"
"Stop do-ing that." Not one of his, thankfully. Though he would have to be careful with how he treated this agent's body, and the one who decided this was an opportunity for impromptu theatre. The Queen Anne's Lace was actually fond of her agents.
"I am not your partner, who-ever he is. There has been some kinnd of in-shuh-dent." Whatever this was, it certainly wasn't going to be an emergency.
Kayleigh sat cross-legged on her towel, studying the person who claimed not to be her partner. "So you aren't Sal - you're someone who's in Sir's dent." She blinked. "Wait, you mean incident? Like... one of those big emergencies we used to have back in the day? Those were fun! Jump up."
She jumped to her feet, hefting her mace. "I bet it's DAVD behind this, isn't it? Let's get them, Sal's twin brother!"
~
((If you want me to tone her down, just say. I imagine she must be a nightmare to RP against.))
((Oh, no, this is fine.))
The agent's comment about DAVD had solidified her identity; the Big Thorn had complained about her and her thorough belief that DAVD was at fault for everything before.
"You are coming o-ver here." He tentatively let go of the console and patted the cool metal with a hand. "You will be typing an I-CEP message to whoever is in my office."
Kayleigh folded her arms and glowered at Salamander's - evil, she was now sure - twin. "Glower. I'm the one who narrates my actions. Now tell me what you've done with my partner before I come over there and smash your head in." She shifted her mace to the other hand, and added, "But nicely. You know."
If nothing else, dealing with her was improving his ability to speak through a mouth.
"If he is in my body, this is the simplest way to learn." There was a bit of a pause as he carefully stepped forward once, away from the console. He didn't fall. "Don't you want to find out?"
"Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-" Kayleigh took a deep breath. "-mmmmmmmmmmM! Yeah, all right." She skipped across the room and bent over the console. "To: Sal's Evil Twin. Subject: Hi, Sal, Are You There? Message..."
~
((I don't know what's worse - obstructive Kayleigh, or helpful Kayleigh.))
"I am not your partner's evil twin." He was going to have to cajole her every step of the way, wasn't he?
"Send it to the Sunflower Official's" -he was pleased he successfully said it without slaughtering his own name- "office and tell whomever is there to identify themselves."
Kayleigh fell silent, counting the seconds. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight... nine... ten... eleven... twelve... thirteen... fourteen... fifteen... sixteen... sev-
"No, a minute is too long." She turned to Salamander and widened her eyes - then used her fingers to widen them further. "Really wide eyes. You're the Sunflower Official?!"
Sarcasm, which usually worked on agents (who were usually being sarcastic themselves) wasn't going to do here with this particular agent.
"Yes, agent. Which is why you need to send that message."
Kayleigh paused, blinking rapidly. "Ow. Um, where was I? Oh, right - whoa."
She walked around Salamander, studying him. "So... what are you doing in Sal's body? Are you trying to find out what life is like on the other side of the Animalia/Plantae divide? Because I don't know how I feel about that." She cocked her head. "Cocks head. I mean, if we're going for The Prince and the Pauper, I can take you to the cafeteria or something to eat agent food. But if you're going more for the I wanna live like common people song, then I have to tell you that floral possession is not one of my turn-ons." She took a breath. "Though I could probably track down Luxury for you? Uh, Sir."
He shuddered at the thought. When she has first joined, Agent Luxury had shown no compunction against displaying her particular methods of affection to even the Flowers. Fortunately the main victim there had been the Marquis.
"This is not an experiment on my part, it was not on purpose and I have no interest in pollination with any agent whatsoever." The whole talking thing was becoming progressively easier, though it still required focus.
"What we are going to do is get down to the root of the matter and learn why this happened in the first place."
"... to find out where Sal's ended up?" Kayleigh gave the Sunflower Official a serious look. "You really need to focus better on the task in hand, Mr Salamander Official."
~
((Kayleigh has no concept of irony. Or possibly she has a better understanding of it than everybody else.))
((hS))
"Because if you haven't, then you are the one not trying to find where your partner is." Clearly he was going to have to handle this situation one part at a time as long as he dealt with her.
((Have an ICEP message sent for PoorCynic's thread to have something to tell to, perhaps?))
Kayleigh snapped her fingers. "Snaps fingers! Message! I'm right on it!"
Bending over the console, she muttered as she typed. "To: Sunflower Official. Subject: Hi, Sal, are you there? The SO's in your body! Message: Hi, Sal, are you there? The SO's in your body!" She grinned over at her Flower-possessed partner. "Aaaaand sent!"
~
((Seriously, you thought she was going to write a sensible message?))
((I was already planning to drop it over to PoorCynic, don't you worry, boss-Flower. -- stars, now I'm talking like her too...))
((hS))
"That will have to do for now." Hopefully this was an isolated incident.
A new message popped open on the console.
~ ~ ~
To: Agent Kayleigh [macespace.console25-09ish.rc145.DBS]
From: The Sunflower Official [sunflowerofficial.console.112358he132134an5589.rcA.DMS]
Subject: Re: Hi, Sal, are you there? The SO's in your body!
You seem to be confused. There is no Sal here.
Also, I am afraid I must ask for some sort of verification that the Sunflower Official is actually with you. Given the present situation, it would be easy for someone to say that without any proof. A demonstration of knowledge is typical in these situations.
No doubt this will make the Sunflower Official upset, if he is indeed present with you. My apologies in advance.
~ ~ ~
Of course, being Kayleigh, she read it out in her most dramatic voice.
"No doubt this will make - gasp! - the Sunflower Official - dun-dun-DUNNN! - upset, if - da-dum, da-DUM - he is indeed present with... YOU! My apologiesssss in advancccce..."
She frowned. "So it's not Sal in your body. Then why did you say it was?"
"I said we were going to find out. Since your partner is not in my body, it means this is a larger problem."
As for the demonstration of proof, that would be simple. "If they insist on having proof, there are five mission reports on my desk and depart-mental report prepared for the next board meeting. One of the reports was sent in unfinished with the last line being 'who are we kidding, it isn't like anyone will read this anyways'." Agents did like to stretch the boundaries of their work.
"Tell them to identify themselves as well."
Relishing in stretching out on her bed (it was too dark for her to see that it wasn't, in fact, her bed).
She could've quite happily carried on dozing until Skeet yelled at her to get up, or the console [Beep]ed, but she knew she really should feed the minis. They could be a rambunctious bunch before they'd been fed, and her partner wasn't particularly tolerant of such behaviour before he'd had the cup of tea that seemed to be an essential part of him actually waking up.
Amy slipped out of bed and crossed the room in the dark - there seemed to be stuff brushing against her, which was unusual, but it moved out of the way easily enough, it was too dark to see, and she was still asleep enough that it didn't register as being a problem.
The light switch was in a slightly different place, and it took a few moments of groping in the dark for her to find it. When the light came on, she froze in fright - this wasn't her room!
She looked round in panic, and caught sight of her reflection, but it was a tall, dark-haired man that stared back at her.
She yelped, and tried to flee back the way she had came, managing only a few steps before tripping, and landed on the bed amid a confused impression of soft furnishings and plants.
...Gurnirel had elected to lie underneath several of the trees, on a soft bed of moss. She hummed to herself as she lay, smiling faintly up at the leaves and thinking the words of a song written in praise of spring as she hummed. Around her, all was quiet.
Naergondir began to move in the other room, and her smile grew. Perhaps they would have some time before their next quest was assigned to them; time enough to share a drink, or to admire the flowers that had begun to bloom in the far corner--
Naergondir yelped, followed by the sounds of a brief scuffle and a muffled 'thump'. The elleth got to her feet quickly and stayed there, one hand on the trunk of the nearest tree.
"Brother?" she called. "Meldaner, is aught amiss?"
--
((She is, of course, speaking Quenya. The first word is 'otorno'; I can go try to translate 'is aught amiss' or a near equivalent if you like, but it might well be easier to just write around it for now. Although now I'm half-expecting hS to show up with a translation when I least expect it...
~DF))
((I would go with something like this:
"Otornonya? Meldaner, ná sillumë hastaina?"
I've stuck a possessive pronoun on 'brother', to make 'my brother'. Meldaner I've left untouched - is that 'beloved man'? If so, I kind of like it - where did you pick it up?
The main phrase I've invented a Quenya idiom (since there are no Quenya words coming anywhere near 'aught' or 'amiss'): 'is the hour marred?'. Given their preoccupation with the Marring of Arda, it seems like the sort of casual phrase that would show up. Think of it as the equivalent of 'it's all gone to pot'.
I will resist the temptation to go through and translate all of G+N's Quenya/Sindarin dialogue for you...
hS))
((And thank you! Always fun to see something like this :D Especially when you wake up to it (as I did on the day when I started writing this).
Meldaner is indeed 'beloved man', though I also have it translated somewhere as 'beloved and dear man'. I'm glad you like it. I almost definitely found it on realelvish.net. It's either taken from their name lists--they have these pages where they take root words and show you a lot of possible names, sometimes using two root words--or else is something I put together from those name lists. I suspect the former, since it's a pretty simple name--one root word plus an ending.
Also, just...thank you for doing this :D and please don't feel like you have to resist that temptation Actually seeing some of their dialogue as it should be (ie, untranslated)...that's just spectacular. Thank you.
~DF))
((Here's the entirety of Gurnirel's Quenya speech:
Otornonya? Meldaner, ná sillumë hastaina?
Meldaner? Ná sillumë tanca?
Otorno, ná elyë tanca? Otornonya? Meldaner, mana martëa tyen?
I've chosen to preserve the symmetry in 'is all well/are you well' by rendering them as the same question with a different subject: 'is the hour steady/are you [emphatic pronoun] steady?'. In the final sentence, 'what is happening to you', she uses the familiar 'tye' for you, rather than the more formal 'lye'.
And yes, she drops the 'nya' for brevity in the third line, only to reintroduce it for emphasis. 'Brother' versus 'my brother'.
hS, deciding whether Sindarin is boring or not.))
And jumped again when she heard the voice - it sounded like nonsense, but there was clearly someone else in the next room, and she didn't think it was her partner.
She looked around the room in panic - while the centre of a bed was good defence as far as spiders and other creepy-crawlies were concerned, it probably wouldn't do much good against a person. She wished desperately that she was in her own RC, with all of Skeet's paranoid preparations - things like armoured dressing gowns and random clusters of hidden weapons didn't seem nearly so absurd now.
She strained her hearing as hard as possible, hoping that she wouldn't hear approaching footsteps.
((So yeah, Amy is fairly timid, particularly when surprised/disorientated like this, so she could be in there a while. While I don't want to dictate your actions to you, if you want the two of them to meet up any time soon, it'll probably have to be Gurnirel that instigates it.
And yeah, just writing around the language issue, at least until they get translators working, seems best. Maybe you could use different speech marks for Quenya, something "~like this~" perhaps?
- Irish))
It was unlike the ellon not to respond--they had faced enough dangers that he would not fail to reassure her. Moreover he appeared to be alone--perhaps he was dreaming?
She hesitated, but only for a moment. Where her partner's safety was concerned, she was prepared to give in to paranoia. They both had lost too many to do otherwise.
She padded over to the door, knocking once and pausing before she pulled it open. "Meldaner? Is all well?"
--
((Right, italics is now Quenya, unless I get fed up with the code and make it something else. ~DF))
... that when she heard the knock she actually forgot to do anything.
The door opening did trigger a reaction, however - she made a noise best transcribed as 'Meep!', grabbed at the blanket to either side of her, and pulled it up to form a wall. As hiding places go, it probably wasn't the best, but it was the closest.
She pulled her legs in tight and huddled down, making herself as small as possible, which had the unfortunate side effect of unbalancing her on the soft mattress. Amy toppled over sideways as the door opened fully, getting a brief impression of a tall blonde woman before faceplanting into the soft bedding.
Gurnirel entered the room, frowning at the sight of her partner. He was curled into a ball, and had just fallen over, of all things. Was he ill? Injured? What could possibly have injured him inside this room?
She hastened to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Brother?" she asked again. "Meldaner, what has happened to you?"
But the bed didn't offer much in the way of escape. Either she'd forgotten how to understand English in her panic, or the other woman was still speaking gibberish.
"I'm sorry!" Amy glanced around frantically, but couldn't see any way out: she'd have to talk to the stranger, which was a daunting enough prospect even if she'd been in her own body. "Idontknowwhoyouam... IdontknowhoIare!"
Panic warred with confusion on her face, as she realised that she hadn't got that quite right.
It was while she was trying to work up the nerve to speak again, preferably slower this time, that she noticed the look of concern on the woman's face.
English? For what cause--
And then her mind sorted through the foreign words and gave her the meaning. Her mouth closed.
Frowning slightly, the elleth switched to carefully pronounced English. "You do not know who I am? I am your sister-friend. We were children together in Valinor. What has happened to you? Why do you fear me, even if you do believe I am a stranger?"
--
((They should probably get to names at some point...also, Gurnirel currently thinks that it's probably Naergondir in there--the alternative hasn't occurred to her yet--but that something's messed with his mind to make him speak English, not remember her, and get a personality transplant...yeah, she'll probably catch on fairly soon, especially if Amy helps her along. ~DF))
"You don't look anything like my sister!" Amy said, then remembered the brief reflection she'd seen of herself. "Oh, but I don't look like me either. I mean, I'm me... but this isn't me."
Amy relaxed slightly now that she'd been able to speak a few sentences: the first bit was always the hardest. "Um, sorry, I get nervous when I meet new people, but you seem nice." She smiled, only half-uncertainly, at the blonde elf.
"Wait, why am I your brother?"
((Yeah, names soon would be a good idea. Amy would have introduced herself now, but she's still not quite with it - although to be fair to her, she's probably coping with this better than I would :)
Also, if you want Gurnirel to have not quite caught on yet, and explain that they are brother and sister because they share the same parents, then Amy wouldn't be offended.
Also also, sorry for my delayed reply.
- Irish))
Eyes open wide, he stared at the console in front of him.
Hmm, must've dozed off. he thought, although he didn't think he'd been sat at the console before.
His conscious mind hadn't caught up to the fact that the hues of grey on the RC walls were subtly different to that of his own RC, but his unconscious mind had, and, without even knowing he was doing it, his right hand moved down to his hip, ready to feel the comforting weight of a pistol.
When he didn't find it, his conscious mind finally caught on that something was wrong, and he registered the different layout of an RC that he had no memory of going to.
His hands continued patting his body, seemingly at random, in their search for a weapon, and he was most surprised when they found a broadsword that he didn't recognise.
"What..." the sound of his voice, and the reflection of his (or should that be her) features as he studied the blade told him that something had gone seriously wrong. "... the hell is going on here?"
((Skeet would have been approaching the door when he swapped in, and might wonder of he'd hit his head on the doorframe at first.
I think the rest of it still works.
I actually had Alleb's post open in another tab, and then completely failed to refer to it.
Tired Irish is going to sleep now.))
(Now in the correct location.)
Sax was brought back to consciousness by someone shaking him, hard.
"Hey, c'mon, wake up." The voice was a guy's, panicked, and one that he didn't really recognize, though there was something about it that sounded familiar.
"Nn?" That came out higher than he thought it would have, and Sax blinked slowly, as the world came back slowly and blurrily.
The guy waving at his face had short brown hair, grey eyes, and a longish face that was contorted with what looked like a mix of pain and extreme worry. It looked very familiar, if a bit off. "You okay?"
"I-" His voice was definitely wrong. Sax blinked harder. The world came more into focus, but it was still blurry. He was staring at himself- the only difference was that it wasn't in a mirror. "What's going on?" His voice was way too high, and the last thing he could remember- "Ohmygod."
"Sax?" The guy- whoever was in his body asked.
"Yeah," he said, in the too-high voice.
"We kinda screwed up. And you were right and I shouldn't have been taunting the laws of narrative like that and this is all my fault and I think m- your arm's broken and-"
Clarity slowly filtered into Sax's head, and through the fuzz. He had a pretty bad headache, too. "Day?"
"Yup."
He closed his eyes- the ones that were definitely not his at this point. "Am I in your body?"
"Yup."
Sax groaned.
Day-in-his-body looked concerned. "C'mon, do you need help getting up? You really don't look good. We really need to get to Medical. And find that stupid body switching machine."
"Yeah, I think I do." He managed to push himself into sitting, which made his head feel even worse- dizziness kicked in. Sax tried to ignore the longer nails on now feminine hands clicking lightly against the generic surface floor as he did.
Day reached down with his- her left hand, the right arm cradled against her, and Sax used it to help pull himself up. Day wasn't exactly a short girl, but Sax, as he'd been reminded since being a little kid, was stupidly tall and still growing. Seeing everything from this low down was weird.
"Which way's Medical again?" Day asked.
"We'll find it somehow."
With that, the two set off, at a slow, and quite frankly wobbly pace.
((Feel free to encounter them making their way to Medical! It's gonna take them awhile.))
Mia careened through the halls of HQ, trying not to think of DoSAT. Unfortunately, every step she took reminded her why she needed to get to DoSAT. She tried to distract herself by taking stock of her tool belt; she had all of the essentials, plus the monkey wrench, and a radio. She thought about trying to call the rest of BM (she assumed she had swapped into one of their members; the radio and tool set both matched that hypothesis) but she decided against it. She didn't need construction workers; she needed DoSAT.
But now she was thinking about DoSAT again.
Mia rounded a corner with a growl, then skidded to a stop. Ahead of her were two agents, a boy and a girl, walking slowly. Mia's eyes narrowed; you might say her senses were tingling. These two knew something, she was certain of it.
She ran up to them, curving to their right and then doing a roundabout to face them. "What's happened?" she demanded. "And why am I in a different body?"
((Just as a forewarning, Mia's sarcastic. Oh, and, Denny's glitter levels are probably rising by the second. I hadn't thought about it before, but Mia's left over Suepahpowahs are largely mental, even though the source is physical. They've carried over, and if his body's GL rises too quickly, Denny might find his body sporting urple eyes when he switches back. Yikes! If you don't want that to happen to him, well, it doesn't have to. Mia's Suvian characteristics are wonky (because her badfic, my badfic, was awful) so nothing's really a must.
Also, this is so fun!!
-Alleb))
((Ohhh dear, that'll play havoc with Gerry since she's allergic to Suefluence. I'll have to consider it, for later.))
Day stiffened next to Sax as the man- who couldn't have been much older than Sax, barely old enough for the word to be applicable, really- approached, but quickly relaxed at his next words, despite the fact that they boggled Sax. Not that it was that hard right now. He was pretty sure that Day's body had gotten concussed when they had fallen.
"Wait, what? It happened to you, too?" Sax asked.
At the girl's question, Mia's face turned into the living model for the -- emoticon.
"Oh, no," she replied, in such a tone that a blob of Sar-Plasm splatted against the wall behind her. "I haven't been swapped. What would give you that idea? Don't people normally go around saying the exact opposite of what they mean?" Mia crossed her eyes and --'d harder.
((-Alleb))
Day visibly bristled, despite the pain she was in from her- Sax's- broken arm. "When they're being jerks, yeah."
Sax stumbled in front of Day, holding a warning hand up towards his partner. It would have been a lot more effective if they had been in their normal bodies and he didn't feel like puking.
"I don't know if you'd noticed or anything, but we aren't really in the best shape right now," Sax said, hoping he wasn't actually slurring or anything. It was as much directed at Day as whoever this was.
...she would have made some effort to at least tone down her eye roll, or, better yet, not roll her eyes at all. But Mia wasn't a nice person, and so her eye roll would have put the angstiest of teenage rebels to shame.
"It would be rather hard to avoid noticing," she said. The jerk comment didn't phase her at all. "This is all useless. I want my body back; you both want your bodies back. So tell me: What happened to us?"
Day wasn't backing off, despite Sax's attempts at defusing the situation.
Sax rolled his eyes as well- not out of particular rebellion or anything so much as the fact they were both being idiots. "C'mon, this really can't be testosterone poisoning," he pointed out.
"This isn't getting either of us back into our regular bodies," she pointed out.
"I have a broken arm. Sax has a concussion I'm pretty sure. We're going to Medical."
She crossed her arms and moved to the exact middle of the hallway. "I am not moving until you tell me exactly what happened," she said.
Day stared Mia down. "I don't even know who you are."
She assessed the situation for a moment; the last thing she wanted to do was waste time with names, introductions, and other sickening niceties, but at the same time the "direct approach" wasn't getting her what she needed.
"Agent Mia, Department of Floaters, RC 1817," she said, extending a hand to the boy. "My partner is Michael Green. If necessary, I can provide contact information for both of us."
And, technically, for Agent Desdendelle, but that was beside the point.
"And this is Day. My partner." He was getting increasingly fed up with them, and really didn't feel like he was able to stay standing up without support much longer. "Improbabilities. I think we're good without needing character references."
Day offered out her hand in return, keeping the broken arm tucked in close.
...and shook it once before letting go. "What kind of improbabilities?" she asked.
"We're supposed to be the 'Weird Filter' department, I think," Day added.
She refrained from any snarky comments; these two weren't pushovers like Greenie. Mia should have realized that sooner.
((It's probably apparent, but just to avoid confusion, that's her nickname for Michael. Poor guy.))
((-Alleb))
Sax cut to the chase. "Yes. But maybe we can, I dunno, start heading to Medical?" He sounded more pleading than he was aiming for, but that could have also gone with the fact that he was in Day's body.
...and mentally kicked herself. No wonder they had insisted on moving through the hallway! If Mia had noticed it sooner, she would have adopted a totally different strategy.
"I can splint that," she said. "And while I do you can both tell me what's going on."
Day looked at Mia with some consternation.
"Go for it," Sax said. He moved slowly to lean against one of the walls, and closed his eyes. "Just don' mind me."
Then she turned and slammed her monkey wrench into the Generic Surface wall with as much force as she could muster. It broke through the grey material after a few swings; she aimed the wrench a few inches up and broke through the wall again. She continued along, guiding her hits to leave a long, stick-like piece of intact wall. She blessed whatever property of Generic Surface that made it break easily, and snapped the ends of the piece.
"This," she said, holding it nonchalantly to the side.
((It was only when Day asked what Mia had that I realized she didn't have anything. XD A monkey wrench is useful, but not quite splint material.
-Alleb))
Day looked at the ruined wall faintly. "Or at least you," she amended. She looked at the bar of Generic Surface.
"That was pretty smart, though. Sure it'll work?"
She handed the grey stick to the wounded agent and then flicked out the pocket knife she had noticed in her pocket earlier. She began cutting off her left sleeve for the splint, then her right. The supreme irony of what she had just done suddenly occurred to her; she'd broken a part a wall with the body and tool of a BM Agent.
Mia couldn't help but smile at that.
"Where's the break?" she asked once both sleeves were removed and ready for tying.
"Where'd you learn how to do this, anyway?"
Mia straightened out the agent's arm and laid the stick of Generic Surface on it. She tied the cut sleeves above and below the break, making sure they were tight, but not tight enough to cut off circulation.
Took that chance to show up and address the other bodily-changed agents. He must have been quite a sight as he stalked...or rather, waddled, he looked like he was trying to avoid tripping over his own feet...up to them. "Yousa be knowin' what goin' here?" He asked them.
He paused, then asked a question that had been bothering him since he woke up in the amphibious alien body. "More imp-p-p-p-portantly, d'yousa be havin' a smoke?"
He looked at the newcomer blearily. "Day's too young and I don't smoke," he said, motioning at himself and then Day, who was looking at the splinted arm with some relief.
"He doesn't either," Day added. "Well, the body they're in right now." She focused on Mia. "D'you normally smoke? And as for what happened, maybe."
"I'm rather attached to my lungs," she said. She realized, with an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach, that this was the longest conversation she'd carried on in months.
"Well...#*@((!". It was odd - it was obvious he was cursing, but it didn't quite...sound right. It was almost like he was using curse words so bad that they couldn't be registered. "Dat is beein' great. Well, do yousa be mindin' if'n Mesa be taggin' 'long? Mesa Gurgan, By de way. Mesa ghoul from Fallout...normally." He rolled his large eyes and shrugged. "If'n yousa be seein' ghoul who bein' talking to terribibble great chickens, be tellin' me. Dat be Derwin, mesa partner."
He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Mesa be havin' bad day."
"I had no idea anyone could do that," he said. "I'm Sax. That's Day," he motioned at his partner. "I was about to say, you look like the weirdest Fallout ghoul I've ever seen."
...although she'd heard of it. Shooter game, wasn't it?
"You can tag along," she said. The former ghoul might be useful. Maybe. His speech patterns were already getting on her nerves, though...
"So, what happened?" she prodded the two younger agents. She began walking down the hallway; hopefully that would make them start talking to distract themselves on the way to Medical.
I can't find a wiki article on Woon.
Oh, also, I noticed that Gurgan hates ex-Sues; I don't know how he might become aware of this (or if you want him to) but Mia is a reformed Sue herself. That could be fun. :)
Unfortunately, Darkota - who is an awesome person, don't get me wrong - hasn't really released a lot of detail on the Gungan that Gurgan Goes with, at least that I can see. Sooo...Imma say he looks a bit like Tarpals from the prequels?
And yeah, if he finds out the only thing he'll really do is curse her out and say "Only reason you're here is 'cause someone F*cked up when they should have decapitated you. Just an FYI."
(Monday)
Two things were apparent: One, he wasn't where he was when he went to sleep. That much wasn't that strange, he mused as he rubbed his chin...with his metal hand...
...Huh. This was weird. He didn't go to sleep with THIS...he looked down at his chest. Or those. Hmmm...
"I need my pills!"...Okay, that wasn't his voice...at all...
Hopefully Gurgan could figure this out. If he could find Gurgan, everything would be okay. Unless Gurgan killed him.
And gathering his wits, Derwin realized it may be useful to find out just where the hell he was before he lost his sanity. Being in a robot body and needing his medicine wasn't a good combination.
He looked around to see if there was anyone in the room who could help him get his bearings. Not seeing anyone, he stuck his head out of the RC room and took note of the number. −273.15.
...Okay! He knew where he was...That was a bonus. "I want my body." He said out loud. Hmm...The real question was, should he wait there for Gurgan* or wait 'till the person whose body he was in showed up?...Probably the latter choice was the wisest.
*Who at this moment was sleeping off his post-bedtiome nap and was blissfully unaware of what had happened as of yet
That is, before being unexpectedly felled in the middle of an early morning meeting with Quen.
There he was, giving a perfectly reasonable update on why no one could herd the metaphorical (and literal) cats of HQ personnel quite as well as they should, when all of a sudden the Secretary's face went from a perfectly healthy spring green to a babbling brown smear in front of him.
"Sir? Sir! Are you all right? Hang on, let me get Dr. Fitzgerald!"
That was not what I mean when I said I wanted the fact of our department to be plastered on every... the Sod did not get to finish his sentence. He tilted, wilted, wavered, and then everything went maroon.
_
Blink.
Blink.
Blink blink blink.
What was that uncanny sensation? It felt like someone was sliding two petals back and forth near the top of his head.
He felt odd: small, and yet heavy, somehow disconnected at the roots and with a rare bubbling energy zinging through his form. It felt like the days of yore when he was just a seedling.
The maroon wave of unconsciousness started to dissipate, and the Marquis de Sod mentally took stock of any hallucinatory pesticides he could possibly have ingested over the past few days. Coming up empty, he pressed his leaves to the—
leaves to the—
Thunk.
Was that an arm coming out of his stem?
Was that a waist...neck...torso...feet...kneecaps?
(The Marquis had not much practice cataloging human anatomy.)
"AAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOWATHBB!" he shrieked, his high, squeaky scream of horror only slightly impeded by his discovery of a human tongue somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth.
All four short, very human limbs began flailing in a panic attack.
(The Marquis did have some experience with those.)
(( Allow me to provide some context. Let us assume that Henry was asleep when this all went down, and that therefore he is at home with his mother... ))
Jenni was enjoying her usual morning cup of tea and catching up on a bit of paperwork before she had to wake Henry up to get him ready for school. Sometime during the night she had been assailed with a bizarre electric sensation, as though something were trying to separate her consciousness from her body, but she had fought it and won. This was her body, dammit. She had made it herself, and she wasn't about to let anything kick her out before she was good and ready to leave. As Henry hadn't seemed disturbed at the time, she'd ascribed it to random HQ weirdness and gone back to sleep.
Now, though, she was startled and nearly choked on her tea when an unearthly wail went up from her child. She was up out of her chair and at his bedside in a heartbeat. "Henry?! Sweetie, what's the matter?"
Sweet Powers, was this some sort of seizure? In terror, she caught at his flailing arms and pulled him to her to control the spasms. If she had to, she'd stick her own finger between his teeth to keep him from accidentally biting through his tongue.
"Try to take deep breaths, baby. It'll be okay... I've got you... it'll be okay..."
…that pounding on a soft bed with nice, warm blankets doesn’t make for a terribly effective hissy fit.
Even my mulch isn’t this soft, thought the Sod with a touch of effrontery. Where did such a diminutive human scrounge this up?
As he flexed his ste—his waist and wiggled his toes, he realized that this was even worse than the body of a short human; it was an undeveloped one! A child of no more than six. Through the screams that were quickly becoming his white noise of panic, some part of the Sod realized that it could have been worse. He could have been transformed into a...a...teenager.
Barely had he contemplated such a boundlessly terrible idea when there came the sound of pounding feet and another human—an agent, he recognized vaguely—flung herself toward him with an expression of distress on her face.
“Identify yourself at once, Agent!” he barked out over her trying frantically to calm his struggles. “I don’t know what eldritch forces you were experimenting with, but I have had it up to here—” he realized his newfound hand had gestured in the direction of his belly button and quickly brought it up toward his chin “up to hereOUCH!” –by the Canon, human windpipes were sensitive—“up to here with your tomfoolery!”
... to process what she was seeing and hearing. Gradually, as the tirade went on, she assured herself that she was in fact awake, not having some bizarre nightmare, and that Henry was actually speaking to her with such adult-like, officious words.
Henry, speaking to her like this? No way. She pulled back, returned the glare he was giving her with equal parts horror and anger, and sputtered out the first response that came to mind. "Don't you take that tone with me, mister! You bloody well identify yourself, and explain what you're doing with my kid!"
(( I wish I had more time this morning. {X D Alas, I must run to work now. ))
Her kid? Her kid?
“Obviously,” he sniffed, “I did not intend for my personality to inhabit this body. This form is far too clumsy—not to mention telepathy blind!” He narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat, now a little too hoarse from screaming. “But it is obvious what you have been up to. Flouting child labor restrictions to enlist an illicit, single-digit agent to assist you in the field!”
The agent facing him—he recalled her face from a profile, but her name continued to elude him—emitted a series of incensed and flabbergasted sounds of denial.
“So, you admit it!" crowed the Flower. "I can see my department has its work cut out for it. Regulations clearly state that only PPC personnel and minis are to inhabit agent response centers." He raised a hand, carefully curled four fingers against his palm (I'm really starting to adapt to this! How dreadful.), and gestured toward himself with his thumb. "He is not PPC Personnel, madam. Your helper, intern, minion, indentured servant, or kidnapee—whoever he is—must go. As will I, as soon as I can get these blasted legs to cooperate."
Cautiously, the Marquis de Sod stood up, slipped a little on the floor, righted himself, and began marching away.
Jenni seized not!Henry by the back of his adorable planets-and-rockets pajamas. Whoever was in there—she hadn't had a moment to stop and think about who it might be—they were pissing her off. She wasn't sure she'd ever been so insulted, which was saying a lot, and on top of that, they were messing with her son.
Fortunately, she was still a lot bigger. She spun him around, took him by the shoulders, and got down on her knees to be eye-to-eye with him.
"Let me make this perfectly clear," she said, just short of spitting the words out in fury. "I'll use small words. 'This body' belongs to my son. I am his mother. You are intruding uninvited on my six-year-old child, and so help me, I will put your arrogant little butt in time-out unless you're ready to get off your high horse and help me figure out what the frell is going on. Got it?" She gave him her best glare, which was truly formidable. Her eyes naturally had a penetrating quality, and she turned it up as far as the dial would go without slipping into the red of literalism.
Not that he would let on in any way.
"Yes ma'am."
Er, better try that again.
"I mean, I temporarily accede to your wishes in the interests of solving this problem." The Marquis attempted to yank himself away, but forgot how much he was outmatched, and ended up doing a rather awkward back-and-forth shoulder waggle that nobody from his department was ever going to hear about. "Might you unhand me, perhaps?"
Slowly, the agent relinquished her hold, every nerve still openly on alert for misbehavior.
"I am one of the Flowers," he said with as much dignity as he could put into his pint-sized form. "Never mind which one!" he snapped as her mouth was about to open in a query. Cheeks slightly heating up (and wasn't that a curious sensation), he continued, "There has obviously been a mishap. I was in my office during a meeting when I experienced a loss of consciousness and woke up here, in this unwieldy and stunted...darling... child," he quickly amended at the look on her face. "Perhaps you would accompany me out of your response center and we can attempt to resolve this difficulty?"
((Okay, so I think we're both up for an encounter with other agents...Nesh, whom do you want to join? Also, I know very well that trying to keep the Marquis' identity a secret is an exercise in futility. Even the Marquis knows it. But that won't stop him from trying!))
Gradually, the haze of terror and anger faded from her mind enough that she was able to process some of what the nameless Flower had said so far. None of it was comforting.
"I think," she said slowly, maintaining rigid control of herself, "that we should go to the Kudzu first. We need more information, and that should be the quickest way to get it. Unless . . . oh." Her eyes went wide as she abruptly made the connection with her own bizarre experience of last night. Had that been the same phenomenon? The rule of Occam's Razor suggested as much. "Unless this isn't an isolated incident," she finished. What a discouraging thought. She gave herself a little shake to throw it off. "Well, we'll learn something, one way or the other. There's just one thing first."
She met not!Henry's eyes again, this time questioning and more than a little afraid of the answer. "Henry's not in there with you, is he?"
And if not, then where was he?
(( DawnFire's gonna play one of her characters in the Kudzu for us. *g* After that plays out, I have no designs. We'll see how it goes. {= )
(( At this point I must ask you to stop writing my character's reactions, though. It's all been fair enough so far, but it is godmoding, and when there are more players involved and more stuff to respond to, I'd like all the decisions to be mine. I'll quit having Jenni manhandle Marquis!Henry with impunity, too—unless it's pretty obvious that that's what you're going for, like it was when he was about to march out of the RC. ))
Failing that, he thought loudly inside his head.
Henry. Henry, are you there?
Silence. As he expected.
The Marquis sighed internally. He didn't really think it would work, anyway.
"I'm quite certain he isn't. This lumpy human brain's basic control over involuntary actions such as breathing, heartrate, etc., are all intact" -- he forestalled a second panic attack at the thought of what could have happened if any of that changed -- "but there's no higher consciousness in there with me. Still. My own personality remains as it was in my original form, which logically means your son's own consciousness is out there somewhere, undamaged. Just as long as --" he stopped and his eyes widened as images of a six-year-old gleefully putting himself in charge of the Department of Personnel rampaged through his head. "My department! I have to save it!"
Abruptly, he stopped and took several deep breaths. This was, oddly, the one comfort he took in being human: it really calmed him down to breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, as he'd witnessed countless agents do when on the verge of a mental breakdown. "Right. The Kudzu."
((Oh, hooray! Can't wait to meet the Kudzu. Sorry about mucking about with Jenni's facial expressions; I thought it was just action and dialogue I had to watch out for. Never RP'd before, actually, so this is a learning experience!))
(Monday)
The mustachioed older ghoul looked at the pile of papers precariously perched in the corner of the little RC. "What...how the #@(! did you get all these complaints, Derwin?" He picked one up randomly from the pile and looked over at the other ghoul in the room, who was busy looking sheepish.
"W...well, I mean...It's not my fault, boss." Derwin said.
"I mean...it was so shiny and...explodable...um..."
They were cut off when they heard the noise of Chaos outside their RC. Gurgan looked stone-faced before opening the door. "...Huh. Derwin, somehow I think this is your fault," was all he said.
((If it's Monday, your agents should have already been swapped into other people. Unless you didn't mean for them to be swapped, in which case there's a slight problem, because Voyd and I have characters currently occupying their bodies.))
(My bad, I didn't see yer post 'till now. I did mean for them to be swapped.)
The start date is pretty much of when I has posted it yesterday, immediately, for simplicity.
...
(Sunday, right after the Swap:)
Derwin the Ghoul, who at this moment was sitting on the bed in an unfamiliar RC in the body of a female borg, had his thoughts turn to that of his partner, who as of this moment was just waking up from his nap...in an unfamiliar, amphibious, froggy body.
Gurgan the ghoul yawned and smacked his lips, then habitually felt for a cigarette that...he couldn't find. The @*#@!?
"Derwin, where the #*@!...Hey, theessa idn't meesa voice...Is thissa be'en some kind of gag?!" He asked, wondering why the hell he was lying down in the middle of an unfamiliar RC room.
Another thought occurred to him as he got up and tried to get his bearings: "Why meesa spekin' like theesa?"
He looked down at his webbed hands..."WHAT DE HELL HAPPENED TO MESA HANDS?!" he yelled out loud. "What...meesa talkin' lika dummy..."
Okay, OKay, calm down, Gurgan. Just need to find someone who can help. Anyone. Anyone who can help.
He walked out of the room cautiously..."Oh, Crap...Meesa gotta find Derwin!" Screw walking. He started to run...then tripped over his massive, amphibious, froggy Gungan feet. "Dammit. Firstee thing Firstee...learn how to be walkin'." This would take some practice.
"...I still think we could have used it," Marvin grumbled, as his body shifted back into is human form.
The unicorn shook his head, carefully laying his equipment back on the shelving. "You saw it's power just as well as I. An artifact of that power would be disastrous in anypony's hooves."
Marvin sling his bag next to the bed. "Hmph. Still though. Just think, killing sparkly Alicorns with killer rainbows. Can't you see it? 'I, Princess Rainbow Glimmer, am honored to take Celestia's place. I will spread love and joy and Rainbows. Like that one. Yes, many rainbows just lick, HURK!' And she crumples to the ground in irony and death!"
"'Crumples to the ground in irony and death.' My, what a way with words, Marvin. I see a future poet in you."
Marvin tossed a crumpled piece of paper at the unicorn's head. "Shut up." He ducked as it was thrown back, smirking as it sailed overhead. "Hah. Missed."
Printworthy smiled, as he pulled himself to his desk. "Anyway, the argument is irrelevant. We destroyed it, and that is that. Now, would you kindly put something on the television? Anything will do."
Marvin sighed as he hefted himself off the bed. "I ain't from Rapture you know. No, don't worry about it. Bioshock. You should play it some time. Amazing story, twist blew my mind. Anyway, let's see... We never did finish Farscape, did we? Cool with that?"
Printworthy dipped his quill into the ink, while also laying his notes out by the parchment. "That sounds wonderful. Oh, be careful with the-"
Marvin slammed his head on the lower shelf, again. This time however, his vision faded to black.
----
Printworthy lifted his head from the desk, his vision still fuzzy from his sudden loss of consciousness. Ooh, stars above. What was that? He glanced down, and his mind reeled with the rush of information.
When one changes shape, it often takes the mind some time to process what the exact nature of the new form it finds itself in. Printworthy was used to this feeling, given the nature of his work. He has been a griffon, a human, even a lizard, once. But there are some small comforts the mind can take in new bodies. Yes, it may no longer in the usual place, but there was a heart, tirelessly beating away, sending all too familiar blood across a body of skin and bones. The rocks may not press against the skin in the exact same way, but the general feeling is universal. Even the loss of gain of scenes is not all too difficult. The things being sensed were always there, the mind is just able to take in a new perspective of it. This, however, was different.
Printworthy could not see, perse, as there were no eyes for which to see with. Instead, he felt the world round him, color imprinting itself onto the mind, rather then being observed. There was liquid flowing through veins, but blood it was not, nor a heartbeat pushing it through. Printworthy looked around wildly, struggling to aquatint himself with how different the world now was. Nothing felt right. The world kept pushing itself on him, forcing him to feel everything. And the noise! He was used to the ebbs and flows of magic in the air, but this was something else. He could feel whispers all around him, the lost and confused, as nearby minds also struggled with their new forms. The psychic energy was almost overwhelming.
Printworthy took a deep breath, pulling in the air through his skin, trying to relax. No mouth. Breath through skin. And the ferns everywhere... Oh. Oh no. I'm not...
Printworthy had no mouth, and yet, he screamed.
((I'll get to Marvin's POV in a later post. This should be interesting.))
"Ow..." Marvin rubbed his head, trying to rub the pain out of his scalp and his pride. He had hit his head against that darn shelf before, but never so hard he knocked himself out. He pushed himself up, being careful to scoot back to avoid the shelf. "No, please, don't help me up or anything. I'm..." He stopped. That wasn't right. His voice seemed... Higher then usual. "...fine?" he asked, lowering the pitch. Even still, it didn't sound right. Maybe he rattled his brain more then he thought.
Marvin finished pushing himself up, and dusted himself off. He looked down. That definitely wasn't right. Unless concussions are the secret to tremendous weight loss, omething had to be wrong. "Rartiy? Rartiy. Rartiy. Did you do something to me?" There was no responce. Now he knew something was wrong.
Marvin spun around, taking in the surroundings. "Rartiy? Printworthy? What the..." He did not know what was gong on, but this was not his RC. It looked more like an office or something. There were flowers all over the place. Not big-F-Flowers, but regular flowers. There was a big, puffy leather chair in one corner, and a long couch in the other. He spotted a mirror hanging on the wall above a nearby desk. He scrambled over, stumbling with newfound lightness in his step. He looked long and hard into the mirror.
Somebody else was staring back. He was blonde, for one, with a distressingly feminine face. Or, perhaps, she... Marvin sent a hand down. He sighed. "Oh. Well then. Great." He spent more time looking in the mirror One thing was clear. This was not his body. Something put him in this one.
And when he found his suspected 'something,' he was going to give it a stern talking to.
((Was that ambiguous enough for you, Nesh? I hope so. Now, to get Marvin to meet somebody...))
The Yellow Rose had been with her sisters when she felt the consciousness transfer hit, but had been powerless to stop it. When it was over, she saw - and she actually saw, as opposed to telepathically sensed - that she was in a different room.
The brightness and the colors took a bit of getting used to, as did bipedal motion, but when she'd mastered the basics of her new body, she realised that it presented a wonderful opportunity. She hadn't seen her beloved, the Sunflower Official, ever since that business with the party and the restraining order, but with this perfect disguise she could probably get him in her fronds, well hands, before he could object.
She didn't know where she was, and so had no idea how to get the her beloved's office, but decided to start with a methodical search until she could get her bearings.
She stepped out into the corridor, then opened the very first door she saw.
(So yeah, this Flower is in Nurse Elms's body, although probably doesn't know that specifically yet)
He spun around, fumbling for a weapon of some form, just in case. As it opened, he sighed, and lay the pen back on the table. "Oh, good. Fic Psych personnel. Right, my name is Marvin Jones, and I seem to have been body swapped. You guys have something for that, right? Please tell me you have something for this."
FicPsych personnel? At least now she knew where she was, and while FicPsych may be far away from the magnificent Sunflower Official's office, things could have been a lot worse - at least she had swapped into the body of a staff member, and not a patient. She was still free to move around, if slightly unsteadily.
"I don't," she said, or at least, she tried to say. Unfortunately, enunciation takes a bit of practice when all you're used to is pure thought, so it came out as "Ah dunh."
She tried again, but while her voice was clear this time, the concentration required to get the primitive mouth-parts to do what she wanted meant that she couldn't spare any thoughts for her legs, and she toppled over.
What is wrong with nice, sensible roots? she thought, sprawled on the floor.
"Oh dear," he muttered, as he pulled the fallen woman up from the ground. "Are you alright? By Celestia, that was a bit of a tumble." He looked around briefly before pulling the desk chair out and offering it to her. "Do you need a seat, or...?"
No, that wasn't right - try again. "Th-an-k you," she said, pronouncing her words with the deliberate and exaggerated care normally only displayed by the severely tipsy.
The Rose noticed the rather interesting sensation of their bodies touching as she was helped into a chair - it was different to the experience of two Flowers touching stems, but oddly pleasant.
Once settled in the chair she could concentrate more on speaking. "I am having some... difficulty... with this body. Perhaps we could just stay here for a bit?"
It was then that she realised the other had been talking to her - without the added sense of understanding that came with mind-to-mind communication, she hadn't paid full attention to the noises. One word stuck out as being odd.
"Is, is Celestia the name of your partner?"
Trouble with this body? What could that.. Oh. Marvin began to think Rartiy may not have actually been playing a prank. Or, if she was, she had far more power then he thought. If so... Well, he would figure that out later. Right now, he had greater things to worry about. Namely...
"No. No, she is not my partner. I suppose you never saw My Little Pony? At least, Friendship is Magic? Ah that's unimportant."
"Are you feeling OK? Did you get swapped too?" He stopped himself. He must of asked he poor girl, like, twenty questions. He took a deep breath. "Sorry. Let's start simple, hm? What's your name?"
"I don't really have a name," the Rose said. As she did, she noticed that her, or rather her body's, shoulders rose in an autonomous gesture, which was mildly disconcerting - she'd thought she'd got the hang of all the movement controls.
"I'm a Flower, a Yellow Rose. My sisters and the other Flowers can tell each other apart just by the sound of our mind. It's only you mouth-talkers that seem to need labels for everyone.
"Other Flowers... that reminds me, we need to find the Sunflower. I'm sure he'll know what to do."
With that she tried to stand, but wasn't careful enough and slipped back down into the seat.
"But, maybe not right now. Oh, I'm sorry, I just said names were important to you. What's yours?"
Well, now he could officially rule out Rartiy. Even she would not be so stupid as to body-swap a Flower. At least... He hoped she wouldn't.
"Marvin... Marvin Jones, My Little Pony division, All Purpose." He realized he did not need to give a full title, but talking helped settle his buzzing mind. "So. A Flower. Yellow Rose, you say? Good. I'm sorry, I don't think I've met you or your sisters before."
He took a deep breath. Calm. Stay cool, stay calm. That's what Printworthy would be doing, anyway. Right. He extended his hand to the... Flower. Human. Person. "You said you wanted to go to the Sunflower? Sunflower Official, I assume. Let's do that. Can you walk?"
He thaked his lucky stars he walked Printworthy through the human adjustment before. He thought he could handle a former-flower. He hoped.
He had been listening carefully at the door after hearing voices and had now decided it was probably safe to exit. Worse, if this many people had been affected, it probably wasn't a spell backfire - which meant it could be an invasion.
"You too? Is there a Sue invasion? I really need some armour. Is there any around here?"
He spun around, brandishing a ball point pen at the intruder. When the newcomer revealed himself to be another agent, re relaxed, though kept the pen in hand this time. "You know, you really shouldn't sneak up on people like that. Especially when they're freaking out over a new body."
He raised his eyebrow at the questions. "I don't think it's a Sue invasion. At least, I hope not. They are usually far less subtle about this stuff. As for armor... I think this is some therapy room or something. So, unless you want to tear apart that chair for some slap-dash leather... no.
"Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Marvin Jones, All Purpose, MLP division. She was a flower. A rose, right? Anyway, what's your name?"
((Sorry for being so late. College and father coming back made things hectic.))
Without armour or a decent sword, even ball point pens were a force to be reckoned with.
"Eagrus Khan, DTE. Did you say therapy room? This must be FicPsych! No decent armour or weaponry likely to be around here. Great, that's all we need with a potential unknown enemy on the loose!"
Marvin scratched his head, trying to remember what department that was. Department of Terrible Endings? Tastefull Editing? Technical Errors? "Technical Errors, eh? Sorry, just a little rusty with the acronyms."
He was pondering, however, what an agent from Technical Errors needed a sword and armor for. Weren't they a department full of Printworthys? He put it aside. There were more important issues at the moment. "Listen, we were just about to head off to the Sunflower's office. Do you want to tag along? Strength in numbers and all that."
"If there is trouble out there, we'll be more able to handle it together. The Sunflower's office seem as good a base of operations as any, and we might find some equipment on the way - especially if we swing by my RC."
Talk of a possible Sue invasion had temporarily stunned the Rose, but she came back to herself at mention of the Sunflower Official.
However, she was surprised once again by her new body, as she was overcome by a tingling sensation in her cheeks, and a desire to correct her outburst.
"I mean, we should all try to find him. I'm... I'm sure he'll know what to do."
That seemed to help make the tingling go away. She turned to the newcomer, who didn't look quite human. "Where is your Response Center?"
((Sorry for dropping out of this conversation for the past couple of days))
He scratched the bony ridge on his head, thankful he had at least a partial substitute for a proper helmet. "However, the Sunflower Official could be anywhere, if he was affected by this swap too. His office is more likely to contain somebody just as confused as us."
"We'll stop by your place first and get ourselves equipped, just in case. Then, we make our way to the Sunflowers office. By the time we make it there, there is a good chance he would have found his way back to his office too."
It was here where a small seed was planted in Marvin's head. Perhaps the Sunflower Official also held some clues in his office as to how to bring them back to their own bodies. After all, he is the head of the entire PPC. Surely he of all people- erm, Flowers- would have access to that kind of information.
He turned towards the Yellow Rose, and noticed she still seemed a little wobbly. "Are you good with this body yet? Here," he said, extending his elbow to lean onto. "For balance."
"Ow!" The cranial ridge was good, but still not as good as his helmet. He had to get that back as soon as possible. "I hope this isn't the beginning of a punctuation storm. Let's get going - and everybody think of something else!" Eagrus picked up the apostrophe - it might make a useful projectile if nothing else - and headed out, his mind occupied by how he was going to deal with the wrath of Cyba when she discovered he had borrowed part of her armour collection.
was the fact that the Sunflower Official might be in FicPsyche too! And the only thing that stopped her running out into the halls to check was the still shaky control she had over this body.
Taking the proffered arm, she made her way out into the corridor. At least these agents seemed to know what they were doing.
The first thing the Bonsai Mallorn did was fall over backwards.
He hit the ground with a thump. The ground was a lot further away than he expected. His roots were much, much longer than they should be, and he couldn't feel the soil around them. His leaves were gone, but he could still sense some sort of incredibly complex pattern of light and shade and colour in front of him.
What has happened? he thought. Has there been a- And then he stopped dead, because his voice wasn't getting out - just echoing around inside his own mind.
His own head, he realised. He had been transformed, somehow, into a biped, with one of their weird bobble-heads and flexibly-rigid limbs (as opposed to his own ridigly-flexible boughs), and... oh dear.
"Buh." The mouth - the bizarre organ by which non-Flowers usually communicated - wasn't terribly responsive. "Bguh? Dwar. Pluh. Grag. Aargh?"
Ah. There it was.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
---
((I don't think he likes it.))
All three of them, in fact.
Apparently, he had a third eye on his chest, along with some kind of strange growth on his neck that at the same time seemed like an article of clothing, but other than that, he was human. This was no different than a disguise, really, if it weren't for said unusual... things.
But what was he doing at Rudi's? And why was Cupid panicking in front of him?
"Are you all right?" he asked, realizing as he spoke that he had a British accent. This was certainly an... interesting conundrum...
----------
(And yes, Ripper is now in Backslash's body. I have no regrets.)
The Bonsai Mallorn was vaguely aware of some kind of sensation on the sides of his 'head', a modulating pressure that transformed into something almost, but not quite, like hearing another's thoughts. It was presumably one of those voices bipeds always talked about.
And... oh dear, he understood it. The transformation must have given him that ability. What happened? he tried to ask, then remembered that his mind wasn't projecting properly.
"Whug." He swivelled his head until he found something that might be the source of the voice - a complex array of lines and planes that couldn't possibly be natural. "Whad. What. What happened to me?"
Matters would probably have gone better had he not been talking to a chair.
---
((I love that all the Flowers are having totally different, equally bad reactions.
((And yes, the BM is looking at a chair, not at RipSlash.))
The appendage attached-and-yet-not-attached to his neck, that is.
"I'm just as confused as you are," he said. "It's fortunate that I have gotten used to a human form, both in my homefic and in disguises. One moment, I was in my lair, and the next, I'm here at Rudi's, talking to you. Cupid, you sound so... different."
He had intended to touch the angel and get his attention. Unfortunately, making it wrap around said angel's arm wasn't quite according to keikaku...
----------
(And since Backslash is a Honedge gijinka, this means Ripper's now draining the life force from the Bonsai, even if it's accidental. Oopsie!)
... as something wrapped around one of his upper limbs from behind. He swiveled his head again, and just about managed to distinguish a biped's form from the storm of shapes in that direction.
"This is... Rudi's? The watering station?" The Mallorn tried to flutter his leaves, but the closest his new body could come was waggling its manipulatory appendages.
Wait. His new body. And the biped had said a name. "You recognise this form? And you have been changed too? This is some sort of mind-transfer?" He closed his 'eyes' for a moment, blocking out the overwhelming amount of colour data coming through. "I would appreciate some help in getting upright, Agent...?"
---
((The energy-draining isn't mentioned because the BM doesn't know what it's supposed to feel like. I'm assuming it will make him very wobbly, though?))
Corolla kept tinkering with the surplus D.O.R.K.S. she had managed to claim for herself, attempting to build another Magic-Optical Obfuscation Outfitter.
So far, with no success. There was no such thing as "stardardization" in DoSAT tech, meaning that the device she had in hand didn't have the same internal hardware as the other one, and the Unison Device had forgotten to take notes while she was building the first M.O.O.O.
Corolla jumped back as the machine started emitting sparks. "Not again! Why is it doing that? I'm one hundred percent sure I rewired the chameleon matrix emitter in this exact way on the other one!"
Some technicians passing nearby glanced at her and shook their heads.
"Ok, Ok, Corolla calm down," the Unison Device said to herself, "it's probably just a software bug, this D.O.R.K.S has a different firmware so maybe I just have to rewrite a couple lines of code...
Corolla opened an holographic window and started looking into the coding of the machine. As soon as she started changing some parameters, though, everything went black.
"... Ok, I think I should give up on that thing. I just managed to crash myself too." Corolla said as soon as she woke up.
Except her voice didn't sound like hers at all. In fact, it sounded rougher and... manlier?
"Wait, this isn't right."
Corolla opened her eyes and tried to get up. Not only she wasn't at her working table anymore, but her body... wasn't her body anymore.
"This definitely isn't right." Corolla repeated as she realized that her current body was currently that of a well-built male. Only then she noticed that in front of her was a young blonde woman.
"Uhm, hi? I might've messed up something."
[So, Corolla's thinking that her current situation is a malfunction of the device she was tinkering with. It isn't, but I think this is going to be fun.]
She had been feeding her gators, right before she felt a strange sensation flow through her mind. Now she wasn't in her RC at all and was staring at a strange- but very well built looking- guy.
Okay- Huh, that wasn't working. That sucked. Since the whole thing with the Mary Sues invading back in 2008 she'd gotten used to being psychic. She looked down at her arm. Thaaat wasn't hers. Back up at big and muscles.
"Okay," Cray said, trying to not think about a stranger in her body left with her babies. And trying to not get weirded out at this not being her voice at all. "What'd you do?"
His partner looked like she was in pain, but in a blink, there was no more Vania. There was only alligators.
Doc made a noise roughly approximate to "Brrzhweeyah!" as he threw himself backwards, landing on his back, staring at the reptiles. A squishy sensation in his hand made him look down at it to see a cartoonishly stereotypical T-bone steak.
"Bah!" He threw it to the alligators and continued his wide-eyed stare.
((It's hard to write him being scared of these, because I keep picturing them as Fluffy.
D'aw, Fluffy! We love you!))
Were watching their owner expectantly until the steak was thrown- they had already been fed some, but the t-bone was a treat. And then they fell upon it with snapping teeth like the cold blooded and still hungry creatures they were, completely ignoring their owner's bizarre behavior.
((There is nothing here, only alligators. So you can shove Doc elsewhere if you want!))
Doc scrambled for the closest door he could find, keeping well clear of the crocodilians. He found himself out in HQ's hallways, and slammed the door closed behind him.
He glanced up and down the corridor, not seeing anyone. He thought, What is going on?, and didn't notice the slight echo in his own mind.
((So, uh, anybody looking for a third wheel?))
"Weeeelll... I was working on a D.O.R.K.S. and I suddenly am out of DoSAT and into a body much different than my own, and in fact a lot bigger."
Corolla somehow managed to get up and support herself against a wall. With her natural flight ability removed keeping balance of a completely unknown body wasn't that easy, especially considering the malfunctioning M.O.O.O. prototype had apparently completely failed to give her any instinctive ability to use the new body.
"Ok, I think I can walk, somehow, and this is good. Name's Corolla, by the way. You might've seen around in DoSAT... well, not like this. I'm usually female, six inches tall and floating. Sorry to bother you, but can you help me gettign there?"
[Your call wheter Katie knows Corolla or not. She's been working in DoSAT for two and half years ATM, so a lot of people might know her by now.]
Cray grinned widely. "I know where it is, but I don't go in. I'm barred from entering. For whatever reason they don't allow pets." Because to Cray, her alligators counted as completely ordinary ones. Everyone else, though...
She tugged on a hank of hair, and looked at its color. "I haven't been blonde since I was in middle school," she commented.
"Oh, yeah, I'm Katie Cray. Everyone calls me Cray, though. Nice to meet you, Corolla."
"Uh... Wait, why you were checking your hair?... Don't tell me, you got affected too. That's it, the M.O.O.O protype number 2 is going to the bin as soon as I get back to my table."
She poked the flashpatch on her shoulder, and then Corolla's. "I'm in Bad Het. Been trying to get into DAVD for years though!" She sounded overly cheerful over the fact.
"Well, as I said I'm a DoSAT techie, but I've been in SpecOps for some time. Let's just say that after the Blank Sprite Incident the Flowers don't quite like having me on the field anymore."
The (formerly) Unison Device looked at the flash patch on her current body. "DMS? Not much different from what I was doing in the Special Operations Division, actually."
Corolla started walking very carefully, still keeping a hand on the wall as a safety measure. "C'mon, I have to find that thing before it does something I'll get in trouble for. Like disguising a Flower into a toddler. I still have no idea how it managed to teleport me too."
"Oh man, that would be so weird. Not sure I'd wanna stick around and see that!" She paused though. "You sure it was your thing that did it?" As soon as the thought was spoken though, she shrugged it off.
"C'mon, let's get you to DoSAT!"
"Now that you mention it, since the D.O.R.K.S. I modified isn't with me right now, we should theoretically be out of range for its disguise effect to... well, have effect."
Corolla continued thinking out loud as she picked up pace, not realizing that she was starting to drag the poor Katie. "That is unless the capacitors suddenly discharged all at once, which would indeed send out a powerful enough disguise field burst to forcefully disguise the two of us, and maybe more. However, that would also destroy the chameleon matrix emitter shortly after the first disguise field wave, meaning that we wouldn't be in disguise right now. And it also doesn't explain my sudden teleportation, unless that is a side effect of the fact that I apparently crashed while working on the machine, and that accidentally activated my Remote Activator subprogram - yes, if you were wondering I'm normally a Magitek construct - so we might not be looking for my machine after all."
Cray began, going along happily with being dragged.
"I have no idea what you just said at all, I'm just going to acknowledge the fact you said it. The thing went made everything go weird, including us, and we really don't know what we're doing, right?"
((...someone might recognise Sean's body as that man with that crazy idea about viruses.))
"Well, most of the time. I knew what I was doing when I tinkered with that thing. What I didn't know is that this was going to happen instead, be it my machine's fault or not. But, luckily, we're going to sort that out," Corolla said as she pointed at Dosat's main door, "And you're my guest, I don't think they're gonna make a fuss about you. Especially sicne they won't recognize you and, unless your pets are a deadly virus colony or something, I don't think they're with you right now?"
It was a normal day in RC 1817.
The RC’s inhabitants, Agents Michael and Mia, DF, had fallen into a morning pattern. Every day, Michael got up first after his night terrors woke him, and began brewing two cups of coffee. While they came into being, he made himself and his partner breakfast sandwiches of toast and eggs. Just as they were finished, Mia emerged from her room, already dressed in black leather and sunglasses, ready for a day of missions. The two sat at the RC’s only table, facing each other and saying nothing, like they were rivals over a chess board. They each sipped coffee, munched sandwiches, and kept their thoughts to themselves.
Until their thoughts moved.
____________________________________________________
One moment, Michael was just bringing his mug to his lips. The next, he… wasn’t.
He gasped, only there were no lungs to gasp with. He felt… mechanical… there were no true sensations, only simulations. Michael also realized that he was no longer looking RC, but a totally foreign space.
He screamed. A deep, robotic sound reverberated from him, even though he didn’t seem to have a mouth. “What is happening!” he thought desperately. And then he saw the people in the RC with him.
((Agent Michael, in Amris’s body. Awaiting Des, I believe.))
___________________________________________________
Mia felt much the same. Just as she took a bite of her sandwich, everything shifted. She found herself standing, hands full of a monkey wrench, in the middle of a hallway.
But the hands grasping the monkey wrench weren’t her own.
Mia closed her eyes; in situations like this, in which there was no clear answer at first, she let her mind take over and her emotions fall by the wayside. “I was in the RC, now I’m not. No dizziness, as from blunt trauma to the head. No breathlessness from running. I was transported; I didn’t come on my own. Conclusion: HQ-wide body swap.”
Mia opened her eyes. The best place to look for answers would be DoSAT. She took a step forward, and then realized… “I’m male. Lovely.”
*********************************************************
Agents Alleb and Jesse were just leaving their RC when disaster struck.
They had been planning to venture together into the strange, unknown world called “Rudi’s.” Alleb, a knight of medieval-style Alleble transported into HQ by herKing, and Jesse, a Civil War veteran, had been having a hard time adjusting to their new life.
They had an even harder time adjusting when they both had new bodies.
___________________________________________________
Just as Jesse set one foot outside his RC, everything shifted. He couldn’t see or hear or breathe or even think in the same way he had before. Panic set in immediately, although not as bad as it might have been in someone who hadn’t fought in places like he had, seen things like he had, or done things like he had.
Jesse tried to move an arm, but odd images told him that there weren’t arms to move, but instead… leaves? His head wasn’t his own either, nor his feet. He realized with a shock that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. "What is happening?” he thought. The panic began to rise again. “What is happening!?”
He suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was, or who he was, or what was happening to Alleb and his own body. He screamed inside his mind; a horrible, anguished scream that would have broken the hearts of any who heard it. Jesse knew that; he’d heard screams just like it on the battlefield. That thought triggered the images. The images Jesse had kept locked up tight, in the little back right corner of his mind. The images that still haunted him in nightmares.
Jesse doubled over, the things that passed for hands pressed to what passed for his head, and tried to survive his memories of the war.
______________________________________________________
Alleb had a somewhat better time of it. Just as she was closing the door of her RC, she was sitting at a table, a cup of something sweet and warm to her lips. She coughed and sprayed it out, unfortunately hitting a girl sitting across from her.
“I’m so sor--” she began, then stopped. Her voice was different. And where was she? What had happened to Jesse and her RC?
She looked around, then down at herself. She was in a different body.
And it was male.
“GREAT MOONRASCALS!!”
((Wooohooo, Body Swap RP! I'm not quite sure what to do with poor Michael; the Librarian and Agent Des weren't swapped, so I don't know if Des would mind writing for them while Michael is over there.))
((-Alleb))
After a while, Jesse's memories slacked off. He uncurled shaking fronds and straightened; although he felt weakened by the mental pain, he felt stronger for having gone through it.
"Now," he thought. His voice echoed in his head. "What to do. I don't know where I am, or what I am, or how I got here. I don't know where Alleb is, or where my body is." The very thought made him queasy; nothing in all of his experience had prepared him for this. Not only that, this entire line of thought seemed hopeless. "What do I know?" he thought. The list was pretty short.
_______________________________________________________
Michael finished his calm breathing, and felt much better. Before he could freak out again, he stood, and walked towards what he assumed was the bathroom. The RC he was in was sparse; there was only the bed, an old sink and stove, and bare concrit. The door to the bathroom was ajar, while the one that presumably led outside was shut and chain-locked.
Michael flicked on the light and looked at his face in the mirror. For a moment, he could only stare; it was Molly peering back at him. He brushed his trembling fingertips against his new cheek, eyes watering. "Oh, Molly," he said. "I miss you..." His hand clenched involuntarily into a fist.
"Schinkt!"
Pain burned in Michael's hand and in thin lines across his head. He gasped, stumbling back and flailing wildly. Even as he fell to the floor, the pain receded. His movement had left deep gouges in the door and its posts. Michael raised his hand and marveled at the adamantium claws.
"They didn't just turn me into a girl..."
I was incredibly silly and didn't get all of the details on Amris before writing this; I'll redo it and post it once I'm sure it's up to scratch. Sorry to Des and everyone else for my silly, silly mistake.
-Alleb.
P.S. Am I going too dark with Jesse?
((For Reasons, Michael is no longer swapping into Amris. Onto the RP!))
One moment, Michael Green was just bringing his mug to his lips. The next, he… wasn’t.
He was lying on a bed in a strange RC, staring at the ceiling. He sat up with a gasp; an oddly feminine gasp. He whipped his head around, and was struck in the face out of nowhere. Someone was attacking him! He fell back on the bed, fighting his opponent, but then realized that it was… hair.
His own hair.
“What’s happening!?” he said, frantically fingering this new growth of braided hair. It was the same color as his, and had the blue streak, but it was so long! Nearly to his waist! And his body… “Oh, Colors!” he said, using one of his favorite fantasy “curses.” He was female! He’d been turned into a girl!
“Okay, Michael,” he thought, putting his head in his hands. “Deep breaths. Calming breaths. Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out. Think about Molly. Molly’d know what to do…
Actually, she’d probably just fall over laughing at me.”
The thought of Michael’s twin, Molly, laughing at his strange predicament made him feel better. Not totally alright, but better. He took his own advice and took several deep breaths before looking down again.
Yup. He was a girl.
“Oookaay, time for some more calm breathing…”
*********************************************************
Molly Green lay on her bed in her RC, staring at the ceiling. “I’m going to find Michael today,” she said to the empty room. Her brother had disappeared the day before she had been flung into a world of madness; it had been three in-universe years since she’d seen him, although she hadn’t aged a day.
She held up her hand and made a fist. “Schinkt!” Adamantium claws extended, slicing the air. It hurt, of course, but the wounds healed right up when she retracted the blades. She let her arm fall limply to the bed, still staring upwards. Three years of living in a Marvel fic, gaining a different power every day as the story demanded, until finally being rescued by two agents. Three years of thinking she would never see her brother or the rest of her family again. Three years.
Just as she tensed to push herself out of bed, everything changed.
((No further writing from Molly, I'm afraid, but Michael's going to have a time of it.
-Alleb))
Cyba hummed happily as she polished her various suits of armour arrayed on stands in the RC. It was not often that she got the time between missions so she was making the most of it.
Eagrus, meanwhile, was continuing to practice his newly-discovered art of spellcasting, poring over his copy of a spellbook acquired during the Blackout. Between missions and practice, he had not yet got around to shaving off his wilver hair, which was still hidden beneath his helmet.
"Spellcasting:" began Eagrus.
Cyba instinctively ducked.
"P-O-R-T-A-L!" he finished.
Nothing happened. He remained determined to master it - in case their RA ever failed - but had yet to succeed.
"Blast it all!" Eagrus muttered.
Next moment, everything went black.
***
The first thing Eagrus noticed was that he was not wearing his armour. The second thing he noticed, courtesy of a nearby mirror, was that his hair was no longer wilver - rather, he had no hair at all. The third thing he noticed was he was standing in FicPsych, next to a desk with a sandle mounted on it. Looking down at himself revealed he was wearing a long, red coat - but he nevertheless felt very exposed without his armour. The bony ridge on his head was slightly more comforting, although it did nothing for the feeling of cold.
First things first: he needed some armour, and then he needed to figure out just how his spell had gone so wrong before he reversed it.
***
Cyba blinked. Then Cyba realised she had blinked - with both eyes. She lifted a hand to her face and discovered a distinct lack of her laser eye - as well as dark and very much organic skin. Also, for the first time in ages, she did not crave peas.
She paused. This had happened before; her minis had once swapped her body with theirs and made a massive mess of HQ with it. This time, however, she was in a different RC.
She looked down at herself and winced. There were no mechanical parts, so it was likely this was a spell backfire and not Mess and Joke's doing, but... she was a man.
Yeugh.
On the plus side, she was wearing a very nice duster coat and stetson, and the few red items in the RC were, while distracting, not hypnotically so.
She had to find Eagrus: now.
Captain Dandy did his best to cultivate the idea that he could not be surprised. It wasn't true, of course, but the facade was useful when dealing with others. Everyone in the PPC needed to believe that the Department of External Security was an ever-vigilant force, a bastion of strength and reliability.
So it was a very good thing no one could see him know, because he was most definitely surprised. In multiple ways, too.
This was not his office, but the bedroom of an unfamiliar response center. This was not his body, either; his psychic perception was gone, replaced by what he understood to be humanoid senses. Well, mostly. This particular body seemed to be augmented with technological enhancements. His… what was the word… vision, was complimented by a stream of analytic data telling him about his surroundings.
WHUMP
This body was also not very stable. It had nothing to do with the fact that Captain Dandy was unfamiliar with humanoid legs. That would be a preposterous suggestion.
He pulled himself back to his feet and staggered towards the door. It slid open just in time for the displaced Flower to catch himself on the frame.
There was an unfamiliar dark-skinned humanoid standing in the other room. He was wearing a DMS flash patch, which was a vague comfort to Captain Dandy.
Who are you? he thought.
It took a few silent moments for Captain Dandy to remember that this body probably used the shaping of air into sounds to communicate rather than psychic projection. He quickly dismissed the vaguely embarrassed feeling that stole over him. There was no time for that.
"Huh…" His… gah, another unfamiliar thing... his tongue struggled with the words. "Who… who are you? Where am I?"
Cyba jumped. "Er... well this is going to sound rather weird, but... Wait. You're disoriented too? I'm Cyba, Cyba Zero of DTE - or I was. As for where we are, hmm." She opened the RC door and stuck her head out for a moment. "According to this, we're in RC 64, DMS Video Games Division. Huh, and apparently this body can open doors without them falling off!"
She turned back, inspecting the newcomer more thoroughly. "So, who are you? Are you all right? And nice cybernetics. Not Borg exoplating but I suppose there could still be underlying components. Is there an alcove in the room back there?" She caught herself. "Actually, never mind. We need to find Eagrus. Him and his 'magic practice'; I bet this is his doing!"
Captain Dandy was doing his best not to completely freak out. Appearances and everything. It was very much a balancing act — a bit like like trying to stand in this new body, actually. So far, he had been able to tamp down the worst of it. But what this other person seemed to be suggesting — that whatever this was had happened to multiple personnel across the entire PPC — combined with their prattling on about whatever seemed to be at the top of their mind was wearing on him.
"EHNUAAAH!"
Damp fertilizer. He meant to shout "Enough!" but his control over words in this body hadn't quite expanded to those with multiple syllables.
Captain Dandy pushed himself off of the doorframe and took a step forward, which quickly turned into a stumble forward. He managed to right himself for a second, but quickly found that he was now teetering backwards. The displaced Flower thrust out his arms to stop himself from falling back through the door. There was crunching noise as the fingers on his artificial left hand dug into the Generic Wall like roots in the soil.
This was not helping his attempts to keep calm.
"What," he managed. "What hap. Haaap. End."
"You're not used to a humanoid body, are you?" Cyba asked. She proffered an arm. "Here, lean on me until you get your balance. Treat it like a mission disguise and you should be fine. Something's swapped our bodies around and somehow I'm thinking my agent partner isn't powerful enough for a spell backfire to affect this sort of radius. So we need to find out what did."
The "mission disguise" analogue wasn't a perfect analogue for this situation, but it worked. Dandy was briefly embarrassed he had not thought of it before. He chalked it up to the feelings of dread, confusion, and panic currently coursing through his body. Not that he would ever admit that, of course.
He reached out with his non-augmented hand and took Cyba's arm. There was another, quieter crunching noise as he pulled his cybernetic fingers out of the wall. Hopefully the true owners of this response center would not mind once this was all over.
IF this ever is all over, a little pessimistic voice in the back of his mind said. He ignored it.
"Weee…" Dandy closed his eyes and shook his head. Speaking was getting easier, but he still had to focus on the words. "We need to speak to the Board of... Dee-part-ment Heads. Could be… sec-your-ity issue."
"Hoo boy, I hope not! But, the Board of Department Heads? Sure, we could portal to one of their office doors - but I don't hold out much hope. Do you seriously think they'd listen to a pair of agents? I mean, this couldn't have affected the Flowers too, could it?" She paused and glanced at the agent beside her. "Could it?"
He had been considering how to respond to this question ever since Cyba had given her name. The truth would definitely be alarming; after all, showing that the Flowers had been affected would definitely raise concerns about security. That said, concealing it might only make things worse in the future. Hiding information during a mission was never a sustainable action.
Oh, damp fertilizer.
"It could," he finally said. "And it did. I am Captain Dandy, and we must speak to the Board imm-eee-dee-attely."
On the plus side, his ability to speak was getting better. He'd get the hang of this "moving flesh to make sounds" thing yet!
"This is bad. In that case, portalling to one of Upstairs' offices probably won't help; the Department Heads could be scattered across HQ! Do you have some kind of override so we could send a message HQ-wide and find them?"
"Overrides need a Flower's psychic imprint. That's part of the reason why we need to go Upstairs. There is a chance our forms are still there. Even if that is not the case, it may be that the other Flowers — wherever they are — have the same idea. We might meet them anyway."
Dandy let go of Cyba's arm and stood on his own wobbly legs. "In any event," he continued. "I need to find my Weeds. Security must not falter while we are in this… sitch-you-ashun."
((I hopefully didn't break any canon with that bit at the beginning. If I did… eh, maybe Dandy's still not thinking straight.))
Cyba had a quick hunt for the RA. "Portal to the Security office? With any luck, my agent partner might think of heading there himself, paranoid as he is."
"After that, we must find the other Flowers. Hopefully they have not suffered too many problems."
Gremlin looked down at the jar of hair gel in her hand, then back up to the bathroom mirror showing the fringe of hair laying across her otherwise shorn scalp. She made an uncertain noise.
Back at the gel. Back at the hair. This went on for a bit longer than she would have liked.
She clicked her tongue in frustration. "Hey Xerry!" she called out though the closed bathroom door. "Should I do my hair up or down?"
"What makes you think I have an opinion on your hair?" Xericka replied.
"'Cause you're the one that's going to be looking at it most of the time!"
Suddenly, Gremling felt something like static — both the electric and video kinds — passing through her brain. She dropped the jar and clutched her hands to the side of her head as every nerve in her body, for a brief moment, fired off. Then, as quickly as it came upon her, the feeling passed.
She stood there for a moment in stunned silence. Gremlin eventually found her voice. "Xericka?" she asked in a faltering voice. "Something… I don't know, weird just happened. Did you notice anything out there?"
There was silence from outside.
The metahuman walked over to the bathroom door and slid it open. "Xericka?"
* * * * *
Xericka blinked. Or at least, she tried to. For some reason, she couldn't.
What happened? She was speaking with Gremlin while writing her mission report, then this strange feeling had come over her. Had she passed out?
She tried blinking again. It was only this time did she realize that she did not have any eyes. Not physical ones, anyway. And yet, she could see every detail of the unfamiliar, spartan room she was now sitting in.
So she was not in her own body. That was obvious enough. Her body had eyes. Not only that, this new form has a version of sight that did not fit the traditional definition of visual sense. Something must have gone wrong somewhere in Headquarters and dislodged her mind from her body. She was now in this other form. It made sense, as much as that word could be applied for something in the PPC.
The Nobody looked… well, "looked" down. There were papers carefully organized on the desk she was sitting at. A brief skimming showed that they were almost all about the Department of Mary Sues. She was in an Assassin's body, then.
She reached out for one, but stopped dead when she got a glimpse of her hand. Or leaf, in this case.
Ah, she thought out loud. This is most definitely a major problem.
Xericka had spent a few informative minutes attempting to assert control over her new body. The physical aspects had taken relatively little time. It was the Flower's psychic sense that was proving to be the largest hurdle. She could feel the panic and confusion of the PPC assailing her mind, and it was only getting worse as more agents came to realize what had just happened.
Something needed to be done. Panic was not conducive towards finding a solution. Plus, her head (or blossom, she supposed) was starting to spin. That was not conducive towards her doing anything.
Perhaps she could send out a PPC-wide message. Yes, she was not the Sunflower Official, but he was not present. None of the other Flowers had sent out messages that she had seen. She would have to do for the moment. Now, where was the Sunflower Official's console?
Almost as soon as Xericka considered the question, part of the desk unfolded to reveal an advanced-looking terminal. It appeared to be offline.
Ah, of course, she thought out loud. That was a still a very unusual sensation by itself. Not distractingly so, but nevertheless strange. It responds to psychic commands. Very sensible. Now how do I…
She reached out towards the machine with her mind. It turned on almost immediately.
Very good. Now then, a message.
An incoming message appeared on the SO's console, sending out a mental pulse to catch Xericka's attention.
To: The Sunflower Official [sunflowerofficial.console.112358he132134an5589.rcA.DMS]
From: Agent Kayleigh [macespace.console25-09ish.rc145.DBS]
Subject: Hi, Sal, are you there? The SO's in your body!
Hi, Sal, are you there? The SO's in your body!
~
((I was going to give Kayleigh a normal long console number, but then that 'ish' came out of my random keyboard scrabbling, and I had to let it stand. I mean, how could I not?))
((hS))
That is just what she needed: an interruption. Writing a message to the entirety of Headquarters with one's mind while trying to simultaneously block out the waves of panic and anger pulsing from those nearby was, unsurprisingly, rather difficult and time consuming. She had already gone through a few failed attempts.
Show me the message, Xericka thought. There was admittedly a chance this was private correspondence for the Sunflower Official, but given the circumstances it seemed far more likely this was about the body-switching incident.
…
And indeed, she was correct. Sort of. Who was Sal?
((I'm going to write the actual message in the thread with Kayleigh and the SO. Reactions will be kept here, unless people get sick of that.))
This Yellow Rose considered herself very fortunate: when she'd swapped in to this body, she'd found herself very close to the office of the Sunflower Official.
The potted cactus flashpatch probably explained that - while the Rose would struggle to describe the other flashpatches, and even struggle to name some of the other Departments, she knew all she could about the one Department that mattered most to her.
She crept down the last short distance of corridor, leaning on the wall to keep her balance in this awkward body, and opened the door to the office just a crack. He was inside! More than that, he was concentrating so hard at his desk that she didn't think he'd spotted her yet.
Hoping that her new body would obey her commands, she readied herself for the leap. She believed the term for what she was about to attempt was a 'glomp'.
She had finally been able to finish it without accidentally adding her own subconscious thoughts. She had held off on sending it for the moment, however. If this agent who had messaged her really was with the Sunflower Official, he would likely have some sort of contribution to make regarding its content. Sending the message now would be— was that the door?
Xericka looked up just in time to take a teenaged DMS agent directly to the stem. A direct glomping was far more than her precarious sense of balance could take, and she was knocked to the floor.
What is the meaning of this? the Nobody-turned-Flower thought as she began swiping at the agent with her fronds. Remove yourself from this body immediately.
Finally she had him all to herself, and she hugged him tightly. But he didn't seem nearly as pleased to see her as she was to see him.
When he spoke, doubt began to enter her mind. The voice sounded different - of course it did, she was hearing it through some primitive means; something to do with flaps of skin, or were those being ignored entirely? Even so, the voice sounded wrong.
The effort of jumping clear over the desk had done something to her body - instead of speaking normally, it seemed to want to gulp in huge quantities of air. "Are you... are you... really the Sunflower?"
"So," asked Sean as the two agents set off down the corridor, "what's this news you've been dying to tell me?"
Hild had wanted to tell her partner as soon as the message had flashed up on their console, but had waited so she could use it as a distraction as they walked to the cafeteria for lunch. "Do you remember that Jeeves mission we had?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I heard the Mini Adoption Agency has a Mini-Jeeves, so I sent them a message asking if we could take it."
"You did what?" Sean stopped, and instinctively flexed his arm as if about to punch the wall.
"Don't worry," said Hild, turning back to him. "It's on a week's trial, so we can send him back if we don't like him. And a Mini butler could be more useful around the RC than a pet."
"Valet," automatically corrected Sean. "But, yeah, I see your point. We can stop by there on the way back from lunch."
"Thanks." Hild knew Sean wasn't the hugging type, so she just gave him a quick pat on the shoulder, and they continued on their way.
"So, talking of Jeeves, how are you doing with the books?" he asked.
"Not bad. I'm partway into The Code of the Woosters now. Just got to the bit where Gussie describes how he's been making lists of people's bad points in his notebook." She grinned. "Maybe we should recruit him to help write the charges."
"Are you sure? Remember Madeline Bassett. Gussie would probably fall in love with every fairy princess Sue that came along."
"Good point."
Before she could say any more, everything changed.
Sean's dizziness didn't stop. If anything, it kept getting worse. Everything kept swimming before his eyes, making it hard to focus. And he seemed to be seeing double - or maybe even more than double. Was that even possible? How much had he drunk? And why had he been drinking in the first place?
There was a console in front of him. That much he could tell, anyway. Was he back in his RC? No, the console looked different, an unfamiliar model. He leaned forward for a better look, and everything swam faster as though different eyes were moving at different rates.
Then he noticed the snakes' heads. They were just on the edge of his vision, but definitely there, surrounding him. He tried to turn his head to get a better look. Everything stopped swimming, and started sinking and drowning. Blackness over came him.
The hydra's form fell out of the cubicle and lay unconscious in the aisle.
--------
((OOC: So both my agents will have to get used to non-humanoid bodies. So far, Hild seems to be coping slightly better. Maybe Harris or Denny will find Sean lying there.))
...drew the attention of many Green team agents. There were several shouts of surprise as Kyaris' body collapsed into the alley between cubicles, followed by more shouts as an entire DoI team's worth of agents suddenly found themselves being not themselves.
A few minutes later, a portal opened in Cubicle 5294 and let through a tall, scrawny man and a short Chinese woman. The conversation they were having was interrupted by the chaos outside their cubicle.
"What," said Penny Chang, "is going on here? What's with all of this yelling?"
"I don't know, ma'am," said Gaspard De Grasse, climbing on top of the equipment chest to peer at the rest of Green team in their cubicles. "Everyone just seems to be freaking out all of a sudden..." He immediately pulled a gas mask from the Pouch of Holding at his belt and slipped it on. "Chemical attack?" he said, his voice muffled by the rubber and plastic. "Some nerve agent maybe? Should we evacuate?"
"No, hold on," said Penny, raising a hand. "He might be able to explain what's going on." A Zorua ran up to the two agents and dove on the nearest stack of papers, furiously scribbling a message onto the paper.
"event cause unknown, was outside of hq when this happened, returned approx 5 minutes before you, came here and found this," wrote Tacitus frantically. "appears to be mass hysteria, all agents encountered suffering from this. directives?"
"Go out there and investigate," ordered Penny. "Determine the extent of this situation. Find the cause. Report to me when you find it. From there we'll review our findings and decide on the next step."
"yes, Madam," wrote Tacitus before dashing off towards the DoI Hub.
"I think you can take off the gas mask," said Penny to her colleague. "This doesn't seem to be a chemical agent: if that were the case, Tacitus wouldn't be... er. Like them." She waved a hand towards the rest of the room.
"Point taken," replied Gaspard, pulling off his mask. "What do you think DIA will do? If this is bigger than just the Action Room..."
"My guess is that the Yertis' New Cal division will have to intervene," said Penny. "Remember, whatever happened here is limited to inside Headquarters. They should be in a position to fix whatever happened here."
"Right, right. Er, shall we start investigating, ma'am?" said Gaspard. "Some people might need help out there."
"Let's go. Stick to me."
Penny led Gaspard out into the cubicle maze. Almost immediately after leaving the cubicle, they found Kyaris' body blocking an alley. The two Spies kneeled next to the hydra. "Er... Kyaris?" said Gaspard, tapping the ground next to the closest head with his palm. "Are you all right?"
and saw the two agents leaning over him. He also saw those snakes lying on the floor beside him, but at least they weren't moving.
The black-haired man was asking if Sean was all right.
Still too dazed to speak, Sean shook his head. His view didn't change, but one of the snake heads moved. He tried again, and a different snake shook its head. Confused, Sean tried opening his other eye, but the double image returned, as though the second eye wasn't next to the first one. And he still felt as though his eyes were closed. He opened his eyes - all his eyes - and was flooded with multiple images. He quickly closed them again, and concentrated on opening two eyes on the same head.
It worked.
He tried to say, "What's happened to me?" but the unfamiliar mouths and vocal chords were hard to control, and he just hissed.
...but Penny stayed close to the hydra and looked at "her" in the eyes. Well, the ones that were open. "Kyaris, focus on me. One head at the time, eh?" she said. "Just nod or shake your head. Gaspard and I weren't here when everyone started panicking. Do you know what happened?"
and slowly shook one head. And, this time it was the right one, the one with its eyes open.
Feeling more confident, he had another try at speaking. "Not Kyarisss... Ssssean."
"Well, er, unless we've been talking to the head named 'Kyaris' all this time, heh..." Penny smiled. "No? Okay, sorry: bad joke. So, Sean: can you remember anything at all before you got here? And, if you don't mind me asking, Sean who?"
...DMSsss. I wass jusst walking down the corridor with my partner, when all of a ssudden I wass here, like thiss. Where iss here anyway?"
Feeling confident with the way he was controlling that head, Sean turned it to look at the rest of his new body. It was a strange, scaly horse-like thing. Well, maybe that would make getting up easier. After all, babies crawl before they can walk, he thought, so a four-legged body can't be that hard to control.
He paused, remembering the Ironic Overpower was probably listening to every word that passed through his head. Heads. Whatever. Best not try standing up on his own after all. He hated being too dependent on other people, but maybe he should ask... He realised he didn't even know who this young woman was.
"What'ss your name?"
"You're lying down in the middle of Stupidity lane right now," said the Spy, gesturing around her. "It's, uh... well. When our team goes on Action duty, we're assigned to a cubicle and wait there to go on intel runs. Kyaris must've been waiting at her Console when you took over her body." Penny scratched her chin pensively. "So... a massive body-swap event, eh? Interesting. Well, this'll have to get resolved as quickly as possible, hm? I suppose we should organize a centralized thing where people can find their bodies and keep track of everything. It's gonna be easier to coordinate something that way, don't you think?"
Earlier, he had been heading for a job request before... whatever happened. And then Denny was suddenly in somewhere in the middle of the Department of Intelligence's maze of cubicles. The only reason he knew where he was- since normally personnel and agents who weren't in Intelligence themselves didn't set foot in the area- was because he'd done jobs to fix things up there before. Usually with Colt.
Whatever was going on, he definitely wasn't himself- it wasn't his body, that was for sure- which could've meant anything with HQ being what it was. "This is really a lame job, sometimes," he muttered, as he made his way trying to find anyone who wasn't panicking quite as badly as some of the surrounding agents.
Eventually he came upon the hydra and two nearby agents. The two standing didn't look quite as panicked or ill-at-ease. "This is exciting," he said, dryly. "I'm Denny Robbs, BM. Any idea what's going on? Besides, y'know, the fact a bunch of us are suddenly not ourselves. Or who this is, for that matter?" He gestured at the body he was currently in.
...to look at the newcomer.
"Oh! Harr-- er, I mean..." Gaspard straightened himself out. "Sir! I'm afraid to said we don't know what's going on. Penny and I," he gestured at himself and at the Chinese woman who was still talking to Sean, "well, we just came back a minute or two ago. We seem to have missed the... thing that made everyone change. And, er, you are currently in the body of Harris Frost, sir. If you've heard of the Great DoI Flood, he's the one behind it."
At least I'm not the only one affected. That's some relief anyway.
He wondered if they could try to phone his mobile to get in touch with the person now in his body - possibly this Kyaris. The he remembered that whoever it was wouldn't know the PIN to unlock the phone. He sighed. That was an idea down the drain.
OK, he thought, I can't lie here all day.
He gave an experimental twitch of his legs. They all seemed to be working.
"Can you help me up?" he asked.
--------
((OOC: Yes, I know Corolla can probably bypass a phone's PIN, but Sean doesn't even know she exists.))
Denny massaged his forehead. "Great. Just great." It took skill to be that stupidly destructive. "You know we had to call in help for that one, you guys were that flooded?" He shook his head, and looked at the hydra, who was still on the floor, before it asked for help.
"Sure," he said, immediately. "What do you want me to do?"
...uh, hooves, whatever they are."
Penny moved to the hydra's side. "Gaspard, Robbs, come over here. We're all gonna roll Sean over and hope that he can get his legs under control before he ploughs through a couple more cubicles." She got into position. "Everyone ready? Good. Now, heave!"
Depending on how bad the damage was, it would probably end up being something BM would have to take care of later, but right now it didn't matter.
He went over, shoving hair out of his face, and fell into position, and heaved alongside Penny and Gaspard when the spy gave the word.
After some pushing and rolling, they managed to get Sean into a position where he could stand up. He still felt a little wobbly, but instinct took over and a couple of his heads grabbed the edge of the cubicle for support.
"Mmmay, zzuh whu..."
Wrong mouth. Try again with one that isn't full of cubicle.
"OK, sso what next? Shouldn't we contact Medical and see if they can get us back to normal?"
"Though I imagine that the department would be flooded by cases like yours-- not to mention all of the Nurses suddenly body-swapped out of Medical. We can give it a shot." She retrieved her RA from her pockets and keyed in the coordinates to Medical. "Here we go. After you, Bellman."
Beside Penny, Gaspard paled. "Oh my god! Mom and dad! They must've been swapped too!" He held his hands to his head. "Great. I'm gonna have to try and find mom first, then dad. I'll go on ahead, Penny. I'll give you a ring if I find anything," he said, stepping though the portal and pointing at his earpiece.
"Right then," she said, watching Gaspard leave. Penny turned to Sean. "Well, go on then. Off we pop."
"If this is spread through all of HQ there's no telling what's going on. Or being destroyed," he said, automatically resigning himself to the aftermath.
...to help steady himself before taking his first steps through the portal. When he breathed out, sparks and smoke came from his mouth. Luckily they didn't hit anyone. He glanced down at the heads gripping the cubicle wall. What if he ended up up burning the place down?
The recent memory of being trapped in a burning cardboard mansion filled his heads. He was about to take another deep breath to clear them, when he realised that that could be a big mistake.
Instead, he forced his attention back to the current conversation.
"Don't worry Denny. Just because agents are in different bodies, it doesn't mean they'll run around destroying things." Sean knew how flimsy that sounded, especially after his sparky smoky breath.
"Anyway, let's see what's happening." Walking unsteadily, he followed Gaspard into the portal.
Agents stumbled around, trying to find out who was who and searching for the nearest shiny object to catch a glimpse of their own reflection.
"Well," said Penny as she followed Sean through the portal. "This is a mess. You got your Nurses not being Nurses, agents not being themselves, and everyone checking in for the same problem." She looked around. "I wonder where the line starts... oh. Oh dear." The Chinese woman's expression darkened. "If this is an HQ-wide event, I fear the Nursery might've also been affected. Excuse me for a moment."
She stepped away from Sean and typed a phone number on her smartphone. Penny adjusted the fit of her earpiece as it rang. "Hello, Tacitus? I need you to drop whatever you're doing right now. Go to the Nursery and scout out the place. If they've been affected, organize something to get the children back. Clear?"
On the other end of the line, Tacitus whistled, signalling his acknowledgement. Penny nodded and walked back to Sean. Even if his behaviour was reprehensible most of the time, the Zorua was a quick thinker and a skilled logistician. She could trust him to get the job done.
Penny looked around. Right. There was work to do here. Medical needed to be up and running again-- she'd require a computer, a console or anything with ICEP. The Nurses needed to be recalled to Medical-- if they weren't already on their way. But first... Sean. Don't let a colleague down. "Right," she said to the Assassin. "Let's try to find someone who knows what's going on."
He was still trying to keep the eyes open on only one of his heads at time. (Any more than that, and he quickly found himself getting giddy again.) Stretching that head's neck up as high as it would go, he managed to see over the top of just about most of the crowd.
There was a handmade sign on the wall by the nurses' desk: a piece of cardboard with writing on it in black marker pen.
Genuine Emergencies Only.
We cannot put you back in your own bodies just yet.
Sorry.
Sean felt that the Medical staff wouldn't count being trapped in a possibly fire-breathing body he could barely control as a genuine emergency. He also felt that they were wrong.
Maybe he should've just tried to Disguise himself as a human instead of coming here. After all, if this Kyaris was a DoI spy, she would need a disguise to pass unnoticed in fics that didn't feature multi-headed snake/horse hybrids. Or was "Horse Gets Pregnant by Many Different Snakes Simultaneously" actually a common genre of Furry badifc? Sean was, once again, glad he'd turned down the opportunity to work in BadHet.
Sean lowered his raised head and turned it to face Penny. He told her about the sign then added, "Do you know what species I am... I mean, Kyaris is?"
((Actual Kyaris will be heading back to the department as soon as she can. Not quite yet, though. ~hS))
The brief moment of dizziness passed before Hild even knew it began.
She looked up and found that she was in an unfamiliar RC. And she seemed to be bent over on all fours, not wearing any trousers or underpants by the feel of things. What happened? she thought. Wait, has some ben-adar been playing tricks with a neuralyzer?
Out of the corner of her eye (her peripheral vision had improved, although she hadn't noticed this) she could see a boy. Was he the one who brought her here? And what did he want with her? Please don't let it be what I think it was. Well, she'd give him a piece of her mind!
She stood up, or at least tried to. She reared up, but then fell back down, all four legs splaying outwards, the quill dropping from her hoof, and knocking a bottle of ink over her blue fur.
Uh...
Things were even worse than she'd thought. What had that boy done to her?
--------
((OOC: Ben-adar is the Elvish phrase for fatherless, and in Hild's origin fic the Dunlendings use it as a swear word roughly equivalent to our "b*st*rd".))
((I hope the bit about the peripheral vision is right. Real-world horses have a much wider field of vision than humans, so I'm assuming Ponies do too.))
Something had to be wrong. The unicorn would have yelled so had she spilled his ink, or touched his feathers. Especially when they fused to him. Why was he so attached, but wanted to be separate? And they call her confusing.
She popped on pony's nose, confused. She glared deep in the pony's eyes. There was somebody there. Not Printworthy, no, somebody else was the unicorn now. Oh, how fun. Good for Printworthy to get out, see other people. She waved to the new unicorn.
((Des seems unavailable right now. I'll let Rartiy play with you a bit, until Desdendelle decides to play.))
Hild smiled at the small dragon.
"Are you one of those baby fire-lizards I've heard so much about?"
Oh, the new pony was going to be fun. However, she had to correct pony knowledge. Silly ponies, they think so much, but as usual, know so little. She zipped over to the shelf of disks. Snapping her talons, one of he disk-boxes flew up to her. Removing the disk, she spun it on her talon, and let the words flow out of her mouth.
"I'm Discord. Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony? Heloooo!"
She left the disk spinning, but turned to the new pony, and grinned.
on hearing the little dragon thing's words.
"Chaos and Disharmony? So are you you the one who did this to me?"
Distracted by her anger, she managed to stand up on all fours without even realising it.
New pony was going to be fun! She hardly had to play to get anger. Yet, still, she was confused. She had not done anything to new pony. She gave the disk another spin, and let the words flow through again.
"What, Me? Oh, wait, did you... Oh HAHAHAHA! How funny!"
Hild tried to take a threatening step towards the self-proclaimed spirit of Chaos, but stumbled and ended up lying on the floor again. Not quite the air of calm menace she was after.
((Nothing in canon tells us anything either way. I'll allow it. It explains why Marvin is never allowed to get away with anything.))
Chakkik had been human for far too long.
There were only two things he could take comfort in; the gentle hum of Mana at the back of his mind, and the cold flask in his hand.
He took a drink, and let the liquor burn through his mouth... and stop there, for his internal acids obliterated almost everything.
"At the very least... I am still myself." He had just filled his mouth with the fiery absinthe when everything suddenly went black.
————
"...where... am I?" Chakkik sat up slowly. Odd, he didn't remember putting this color... he preferred yellow. He tried to run his hands through his hair...
Chakkik suddenly felt alarm at the sensation of skin. He was bald. He looked at his hands; they were wrapped in bandages, and far too pallid to be his skin.
He was in someone else's body, with no Mana, no sign of Stephanie, and worst of all, no alcohol.
"WHO DID THIS!?"
Aaron had been comfortably dozing in his Response Center, enjoying a chance to catch up on his sleep. The jolt of changing forms might not have managed to wake him, but Chakkik's shouting certainly was.
He recognized the smell of death and ozone that clung to his new body instantly.
Aaron liked to think that he wasn't racist against ghouls. After all, they were people just like humans, weren't they? Sure, they were horrifically decayed and would eventually go feral, becoming mindless brutes who were better than Super Mutants only in that they were easier to kill, but it wasn't exactly their fault. That said, the idea of actually becoming one was not an idea he relished. At least, thought his slowly-growing sardonic side, it was better than the alternative.
He couldn't allow his mind to spin purposelessly, though. He had to focus, try to figure out what had happened. The answer to that question, though, was obvious. There was only one thing that could turn a perfectly healthy human, well within the baseline range for mutations, into a shambling monstrosity... err, a being perfectly capable of productive contributions to society, but still rather unfortunately necrotized.
"The Sues," he said hoarsely, to nobody in particular. "They must have bombed HQ. I - I've got to try and find Natasha, maybe she made it out."
((Fun fact about ghouls, for those of you who aren't familiar with Fallout - humans have a chance of becoming one if they somehow survive massive radiation, such as, say, a nuclear bomb going off. So that's what Aaron's assumed has happened to him.
And Aaron is, in fact, mildly prejudiced against ghouls.))
"You, name and department, right now."
The response was almost automatic. He frowned at the other man - another ghoul, confirming his initial guess at the cause. "Who are you? You're not my partner." Aaron had seen female ghouls before, and they usually maintained some fleshy tissue in the relevant areas. Besides, this one was far too pale to be Natasha.
"I have been quite rudely removed from my own body, and I would like very much to murder whoever is responsible. I assume that you are not in your body either?"
"Removed from your... no, you don't understand. This is your body, my body. There must have been some kind of nuclear explosion, and the radiation caused us to mutate. We've been turned into ghouls." Aaron's tone was more confused than anything else. Sure, most of the people he'd met seemed woefully uninformed as to how radiation worked, but how out of it did you have to be not to know what ghouls were?
"I am six feet, four inches tall, and of a powerful build. This body is too small, too lean, to be mine. In addition, I was still recovering from an ordeal in my last mission, and I simply feel too well to be me."
The idea that people came in different sizes, something that he knew objectively had always been true, had only recently come to have any practical implications for his life. Examining the foggy spaces between story and gameplay was not exactly a task he felt well-equipped for at the moment.
"I don't really know you, so I can't comment on that, but we were massively mutated. And you might have been healed by the background radiation. You don't know how long we've been out for. Let me check..."
Aaron went for his Pip-Boy; an almost subconscious action, as he accessed the thing that had, in at least one version of his past, been an extension of his body for the past nine years. It had certainly done more for him than certain other body parts he could think of. Finding it missing came as a double shock - both the idea of it being gone, and the idea that things were much stranger than he had previously thought.
"Surely... there is evidence... of who exactly... we are possessing... oh, I am a fool, the console is there."
Chakkik started tapping away at the console's keys. "We are in Response Center five-to-the-seventh, which is currently occupied by agents Gurgan and Derwin... both of whom are ghouls, whatever that is."
"I guess they don't have the levels of nuclear power necessary to create them in all continuities. They're a form of mutated humans that look kind of like zombies - not that I'd ever use that word for them! It's just, um, a pop-culture comparison. Please don't call them zombies.
"Anyways, if we really did get body-swapped... at least it's not permanent, right? So I'm not stuck as a ghoul? That's a relief, I suppose. Either way, I'm going to go look for Natasha. She might be with whoever I swapped with."
"Our most advanced technology is powered by Mana. Which, in my current form, I cannot sense. I am going to murder whoever is responsible for this. I. Need. A sword."
Aaron was not used to calming down homicidal maniacs; in fact, he had rather more experience being the homicidal maniac. "Let's calm down and try to think about this logically?" he said. "Killing people probably isn't going to fix anything." He crossed his fingers that the agents whose bodies they were in weren't the type to carry a ripper or shishkebab.
"I don't know anything about mana, but I know my partner uses it for doing magic. She mentioned something about restoring it, maybe she could help with that?"
Chakkik stormed over, grabbed Aaron by the wrist, and dragged him out of the RC. "Mana is an ever-present force in my home continuum. I am in truth a Mana Monster, but I have been forced by circumstance to remain in a human shape for far too long. I am going to find my body, and then try to locate who did this to me and paint the corridors with their innards."
They were both ghouls of similar size, and he thought it likely he could break away, but he was loath to leave his new acquaintance alone.
"That seems like a really bad idea. What if they're the only one who knows how to put everyone back?" he insisted as Chakkik led them through the hallways.
((Unless you have something else planned, I'm probably going to have Natasha run into the two of them before too much longer.))
"I am aware of my insanity. I also am not particularly concerned. Results are results."
On the one hand, he didn't like the idea of killing someone just because of what could easily have been an honest mistake. On the other, he wasn't exactly unsympathetic to Chakkik's perspective.
He was saved having to deal with this moral quandry by the sight of a familiar figure. The tall, dark-skinned woman in the trench coat had to be Natasha, the partner he'd been hoping to encounter. "Natasha! Is - is that you?"
"Who the hell are you?" Natasha replied guardedly, one hand going slipping inside her coat, where Aaron knew her gun was holstered.
"It's me, Aaron. There's been some kind of body swap, and I got turned into a ghoul."
"Really?" She frowned. "Prove it." She paused briefly, and her voice took on a sing-song intonation as she continued, “Mine's a tale that can't be told, my freedom I hold dear. How years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air.”
Aaron sighed. “Do we have to do this?”
“Mine's a tale that can't be told,” she repeated, voice steely, “my freedom I hold -”
“Okay, okay.” He sighed again. “T’was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair. But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her. Now can we actually deal with this issue?”
“Good boy.” Natasha gave Aaron a brief smile, and turned her attention to Chakkik - without removing her hand from inside her coat. "And who's your new friend?"
((Sorry for talking to myself so much! The exchange Aaron and Natasha use as a code phrase is taken from "Rambling On" by Led Zeppelin, and always makes me think of the PPC.))
"My name is Chakkik, of the Department of Mary Sues. My Response Center is 512, and..."
A look of dawning comprehension spread on Chakkik's face. "Oh... Hammers of Gnome, I have to find my partner. Whoever is in my body is likely to be scared of my partner, and scared people react violently. My partner is a gentle girl, and I would rather her not be hurt."
"Natasha Markova, DMS as well. I suppose we're neighbors, if that even means anything in this place." Natasha held out her hand to shake, removing it from the holster of her gun.
"So if we're going to find your partner, we're going to need to talk about something else. If either of you have a better grasp of the situation, I'd appreciate whatever explanation you can offer."
... ignoring the outstretched hand.
"Doooon Giovaaaaaaanniiii, a cenar teeee-ECK. Ergh, this body is clearly not trained in opera. Are either of you familiar with Mozart's 'Don Giovsnni'?"
"Nah, I'm more of a Van Halen kinda girl, and Aaron here sticks with stuff from the Fifties."
"It's nostalgic," Aaron replied rather defensively. "It reminds me of..." He broke off suddenly, and coughed heavily for a moment.
Natasha's expression became concerned. "You feeling okay, kid? It looks like you got turned into a zombie or something."
"Don't call them that! They're ghouls. Zombie is offensive."
As he followed his Gungan partner through the doorway, Bosh and Guk turned to look at the décor; various pieces of nautical equipment and replicas of marine life lined the walls, and rows of tables spread out across an expanse of wooden floorboards.
Guk scratched his head. "This looks like a boat. Why are we on a boat?"
Woon turned around, beaming at his ogre companion. "Mesa made reservation for lunch today. My treat." He turned to converse briefly to a nearby hostess, then motioned for his partner to follow as she led the pair to an empty table. "Yousa gunna be loven dis place!" Woon exclaimed.
Bosh returned Woon's smile. "We appreciate it, Woon. It's very kind." He picked up a menu, frowning as the name of he restaurant on the front was too faded to read. "I don't think I've heard of an establishment such as this within HQ before. Tell me, Woon, how did you find this place?" he inquired.
"Well, my walken down da hall and looken for da pool one day, and..."
As Woon continued his story, Guk scanned the menu. "This place only has fish. I don't like fish." he interrupted. When Bosh rolled his eyes and motioned for Woon to continue, Guk spoke up a bit louder. "I said I don't like fish! It makes me gassy."
Bosh shot a glare at his counterpart. "Guk, that's a lie and the both of us know it."
"HE doesn't know it!" Guk protested.
"Guk, sometimes I wish I didn't have to deal with your-"
WHUMP
The world went black.
***
Bosh shook his head, squinting as his vision returned. Wait a moment. he thought. This isn't the restaurant. And why do I feel like I'm wearing armor...?
He glanced down and nearly jumped as he saw a human form wearing a red suit of armor. Turning his head, he observed the walls of an unfamiliar Response Center to his right, and to his left...
"Guk?! GUK!"
This was not his voice... and this was not his body.
Where am I? Who am I? Where is Guk?!
***
Guk rather enjoyed his new form.
Sure, he couldn't talk nearly as well as before, but this did not matter to him as he galloped through the walls of HQ, neighing wildly in pure joy. Agents jumped out of the way, shouting in horror as he continued his wild dash.
This was fun. He could go where he wanted, do what he wanted... and best of all?
No Bosh to tell him he couldn't.
***
Woon blinked. Did mesa sit on da portal thingy again? he wondered. Dis isn't da fishy place. Indeed, Woon had no idea where he was... and as he ran his too-short tongue over his teeth and felt a distinct lack of long ears, he had no idea WHAT he was, either. A disguise? Oh, my not feelen bombad...
He passed out in the middle of a Generic Hallway.
"CUPID!" she screeched, flapping her red-feathered wings in a wild panic. "BACKSLASH! SOMEONE, HELP!!"
It had been sheer bad luck that had led her to become trapped in the feathery body of her most hated foe. Apparently, the Deinonychus had been alone in RC #227, and Sarah in her's, when she'd blacked out and found herself back in her old RC... and in his body. She wasn't happy, needless to say.
And unfortunately, she wasn't much faster than a normal person, either. Her short legs and stocky feet were better for leaping and pouncing than a straight run.
Suddenly, she saw someone lying on the floor in the corridor ahead. Could it be someone from DoSAT? Maybe they could help!
Rushing over to him, she skidded to a halt and began nipping at his hair, trying to wake him up.
(Ripper!Sarah will be talking to Woon.)
{{Original title: "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"}}
{{This thread has been retitled by your friendly neighbourhood Lord Protector to avoid confusion.}}
Chakkik looked down at himself; no, HERself. He had just filled his mouth with soothing absinthe when he had, rather suddenly, found himself someone else, someplace else, and doing something else. Namely, holding a controller in her hands (such an overly-simplistic interface, keyboards were much more precise) and playing what appeared to be the classic Legend of Zelda.
Worse, Chakkik could no longer feel a connection to Mana. The magical life-force that sustained the Mantis Ant was gone. This added panic to Chakkik's anger.
And last of all, there was a distinct lack of absinthe.
JF's face held a look of uncharacteristic savagery as its new occupant snarled.
"WHO. IS. RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS."
~Meanwhile~
"So... I'm you now? And you're me?"
"Looks like it."
Valon and Kala had been fortunate enough to switch bodies with each other. As they had been watching a movie together, this was only mildly disorienting.
Valon-in-Kala's body suddenly smiled. "You know, as long as we're like this...
((Notes on Chakkik, once July gets to playing.))
((First, he'll be in his human shape. He's become accustomed to it, so at the very least JF's species doesn't change.))
((Second, Chakkik kind of feels Mana as a dull hum so long as he's in HQ. If he were in his home continuum, he could communicate directly with Gnome, but as he is, all he can do is cast a few spells: Gem Missile, Stone Saber and Speed Up.))
((Third: One of Chakkik's abilities that he keeps in his human shape is his ability to breathe acid. He also drools acid when, say, one of his Lust-Objects shows up, but he's immune to it.))
((Fourth, and finally: Chakkik is a handsome bastard. He's powerfully built, athletic, and has a beautiful face. He's been quite a distraction to other agents he's worked with in the past.))
((As for my other agents... Stephanie is unaffected and asleep, and as shown, Valon and Kala just switched with each other.))
((I'll RP Stephanie if JF feels the need to wake her up, but Chakkik is the focus here.))
{{It's easier that way. Voyd, if you're taking the Valon-Kala scene any further, or if you just want to make sure it's unambiguously canon, you can go ahead and repost it elsewhere in the thread.}}
{{~hS, mucking about, 'power!!!!' etc}}
{{Original title: OOC: Ok, clearly there is some confusion going on...}}
{{This thread has been retitled by your friendly neighbourhood Lord Protector to avoid confusion.}}
This isn't a straightforward swap for the ones on spreadsheet. While JF is indeed in Chakkik's body, he is in Derwin's instead. You should be looking at the second column.
Also, I do not appreciate the godmodding of my character.
{{Original title: OOC: ((Um... oops. Sorry...))}}
{{This thread has been retitled by your friendly neighbourhood Lord Protector to avoid confusion.}}
((Still, the scene with Valon and Kala and the notes on Chak and Stephanie stand.))
One minute, he was falling asleep in front of his computer in the DoI's Sorting Room. The next, he was in some strange RC. Mind you, this was very lifelike for a dream. The way he was able to smell that ypur in the corner, the way he felt his long hair tied back into a ponytail, and...
He looked down.
"Oh, hell no."
He took a few tentative steps in his new body. It felt all wrong, like he was wearing clothing that didn't fit him. He was a woman, and this was no dream. He stiffly walked over to the RC's washroom, pushed open the door, and waddled over to the mirror to get a good look at his new body.
"Oh, heeeeeell no."
He gingerly walked back to the Console, not wanting to look down at himself-- or was it herself now? Harris shuddered. No matter. He felt wrong in this body and he had to fix this as fast as possible. All right: plan time. First, get back to the Sorting Room. Secondly, find out what happened to his body. Thirdly, if it was still there, make sure nothing more happened to his body. Fourthly, find the author of this mix-up and fix this mess. The body-swapped Spy typed in a command into the Console's portal generator and hastily stepped through the portal to the DoI Hub, still walking stiffly.
Oh, there was going to be hell to pay for those responsible for this mess.
(Seeing as I have multiple agents, can I also do body-swaps between the ones I write? Like Sarah swapping with Ripper, for example?)
"Cupid, I think you really have to stop..."
It was a teenaged Homs who spoke this, trying to console the angel he was sitting next to at Rudi's.
"Why should I? Thank Palutena those fics were short, I couldn't take it anymore!"
"I'm not happy about this either, especially not when your partner tried to use me as a sword."
"Wait, she WHAT?!"
"No, really. She grabbed my legs and swung me around like she was crazy. I don't want you trying to do that to anyone around here, all right?"
"You have a problem with that?!" Cupid cried, standing up. He looked at his Bleeport bottle and realized that it was empty.
"I know two fics involving a literal God-Mode Harry Potter replacement were a bit much, but you need to exercise self-control."
"Self control? SELF CONTROL?!" He threw the now empty bottle away with a loud crashing noise. "I'm COMPLETELY CALM-"
"Okay, that's enough," Backslash said fiercely, standing up. "We're going back to your RC. You need rest, and I do mean a lot of it."
"Yeah, I guess you're right... It's not like this day can get any worse..."
All three of the Homs/Honedge's purple eyes widened in horror at this. He backed away instinctively, just as the poor angel threw up onto the floor and passed out.
Little did he know that he wouldn't be the only one to pass out...
----------
"Ugh... What... Happened?..." Cupid slowly opened his eyes, rubbing his head. Where was he, and what in Skyworld had happened last night? Sitting up, he brushed a lock of red hair out of his face, deciding to take a shower.
Wait, red hair? Wasn't his hair brown?
Springing to his feet, he rushed over to the mirror. A redheaded girl stared back at him, and "her" blue eyes widened as he realized that he was now a girl, just like in one of his previous missions. He turned away, pressing both hands to his forehead as the realization hit him.
"Yeah... I think I've had enough Bleeport for today..."
----------
(Waiting now for anyone else who's in RC #2814.)
(Oh yeah, and for reference, this takes place on Sunday. Sorry if I didn't state this earlier!)
Lizzie looked curiously at the person that the person that seemed to be her master, "Char charmander char?" The eyes of the Lizard Pokémon glistened with concern over her master.
Cupid looked down at the Charmander, then knelt down to speak to her. "Listen, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. I'm guessing you're my... pet? Or the pet of the girl I'm possessing? Uh... Well... Listen, I may be a little wonky for a while, so I hope you understand that. Just sit tight. I'll take care of you. Or try to."
He stood up and turned away, trying to hide his discomfort. This was exactly like when he was possessing Pit, except he wasn't doing it to make him cry. Hopefully someone would get him out with a smoke bomb or two... right?
The one there wasn't her master, and whoever was there, was going to pay for the theft of her master...
...and raised "her" hands in a gesture of surrender. "Uh... Heheh, nice Charmander... Like I said, your master maybe a little wonky... Just... calm down, all right? I'm on your side!"
And a violet-haired Asian girl in civilian clothing, taller than the body Cupid was inhabiting now, stepped out of it.
She glanced at the scene and raised her eyebrow. "I knew that you having that critter would end in a disater." She sighed and tyurned to see Cupid. "What you did wrong now?"
"Oh, thank Lady Palutena!" he cried. "I was wondering if someone would help! Listen..." He then whirled the other girl around and held both of her shoulders. "Are you with the girl whose body I'm trapped in? I need you to grab a smoke bomb and throw it at me! Quick! Before that Charmander toasts me!"
Yuuna locked her glare on "Solvig's" eyes. "Me on the other hand..." She kneels Cupid between his(her?) legs to bring her (him?) to her(his?) knees. Then aims her handgun to the back of the head. "Who are you and what have you done with Solvig!?"
There was nothing he could do but obey this girl. But he had to explain himself. Somehow.
"I don't know what happened!" he cried, his hands still raised, his crotch pounding in sudden pain. "I just passed out at Rudi's after a mission and now I'm in the body of... Of..."
He realized where this was going. "This body I'm in is... beautiful."
He felt the gun on the back of his head, and broke out into a cold sweat. Wrong answer, he thought.
"You may not know me as myself, but... I think my partner told me about you. You're Yuuna, right? I'm Cupid. Cupid Carmine."
"Well, well, isn't the terror of DoSAT himself..." She took his (current) chin and lifted his head to see him to the eyes. "But that doesn't tell me what you did with my partner, does it?" she said with a mockingly sweet voice tone. Ther was a dangerous glint in Yuuna's eyes.
Lizzie, being the samrt girl she was, scurried to her sleeping basket and hid in it.
Cupid slowly stood up and backed away, hands still raised. "I really don't know how I ended up in Solvig's body. Honest! Listen, the sooner you get me me back in my own body and your partner into her's, the sooner I'll be out of here!"
He gulped and added, "You don't want to hurt her, don't you?"
Yuuna said holstering her gun, and taking out a small metallic box out of her bag. "And I need to know, if that's actually my partner's body..." She then took out a small green glowing crystal out the box and threw it at Cupid's feet.
((You know what this means. ;) ))
"AAAAAGH! GET IT AWAY FROM MEEEEeee...!"
Cupid sank to his knees, his strength giving way. He tried reaching for the green crystal but he couldn't move his arm! What was the meaning of this? What did this crystal do?
No, wait. It couldn't be.
Was he a... a Kryptonian? Sarah had told him about training one... Could this be her? And then he remembered.
"The girl... I'm possessing..." he gasped weakly, now curled up on the floor. "I know her...! We've met... before..." He looked very close to passing out now, but she had to know...
...then squatted and grabbed the glass marble-sized crystal with her index and thumb. "I've heard that Kryptonian limits were psychosomatic in nature, but this ridiculous..." She sighed. "You're kind of a pansy if you pass out by the radiation of this one inch piece."
She left the Kryptonite back on the floor, went to the console and sat on one of the chairs there, with her legs crossed. "And besides, the tests aren't over... deactivate."
((Sensorial overload ahoy! Yuuna is kind of a sadistic b****, isn't she?))
"AAAAAAAAAH! WHATEVER YOU JUST DID, TURN IT OOOOOOFFFFFF!!!"
He writhed on the floor, agony coursing through his new body. Clearly, asking Solvig's partner to help had been a terrible mistake, and he was now paying the price for his short-sightedness. Did Sarah have to experience anything like this when she worked with her?
His vision began blurring around the edges, and his screams turned into something almost like a haggard death-rattle...
(Yeah, he isn't used to this, either... Cupid, you're in waaaaay too deep now XD SOMEONE, STOP HER!!)
...for a few minutes, then she said, "Activate." She stood up, walked to the angel-turned-Kryptonian-girl, took the Kryptonite piece and put it back in its lead-lined box. "The fact that the rock affected you like it did, and you weren't able to focus your superhuman senses, rules out Suvian possession, and proves that you aren't my partner, Solvig would have been able to focus herself in that time. But still that doesn't tell where is she." She forces Cupid back on feet and walk. "Come now, we are going to see the Lichen."
But one question began forming in the back of his mind...
"...If I'm not possessing Solvig... then why am I in her body?! I don't sense her soul! Remember when Pit possessed Magnus during the whole Ring of Chaos diaster?! They were two souls in one body! Solvig's soul isn't here!"
And then a horrible thought struck him. "...Oh, skata... What if Solvig and I... have switched souls?!"
----------
(No, I'm not switching Cupid with Solvig directly, as Solvig is now in Riaa'lzhor's body. But he doesn't know that! XD)
"Listen, uh... Cupid, right? That sounds ridiculous," she said, "if you keep talking lke this, next thing you're going say is that that insufferable... Technician, from T&A became a dandelion."
As they were heading towards the Lichen's office, however, someone came up to them. It was an Asian young man with wild black hair, glasses, and a bulletproof vest over a dark gray, long-sleeved tee.
"Excuse me," he said, "but have you seen anyone who resembles the trainer from Wii Fit around here? White skin, gray hair in a ponytail, blue tank top and dark gray comfy pants."
----------
(A cookie for who normally owns this body, and another for who's inhabiting it now!)
"He looks like my boyfriend..." She shook those thoughts out of her mind, and replied, "No, I haven't seen anyone like that... and what's a "Wee-feet", anyway?"
((Yuuna displaying her amazing knowledge of videogames.))
"I know about the Wii Fit Trainer!" he said suddenly. "But... We haven't seen her anywhere. Why are you asking us?"
"There is a clone of the trainer who works as an assassin in the DMS-VG division," said the man. "I am her, in the body of someone else, and I've been looking for her body. She could be anywhere by now, seeing as there's been a massive body swap throughout HQ."
----------
(Ohhhhh, snap...)
"I leave HQ for a few hours, and the place goes crazier than usual..."
"Still, we haven't seen any Wii Fit Trainers around here at all," he added. "Besides, this is the DIC. I know she could be anywhere, but you're kinda in the wrong place. Sorry."
The boy shrugged. "I suppose I could always look elsewhere. Thank you for your help anyway."
He turned and walked away, leaving Cupid and Yuuna by themselves once again.
"Now do you believe me?" asked the angel-turned-Kryptonian, looking at Yuuna with a pleading expression.
Alex Dives was busy fiddling with a Star Trek communicator, his carefully undescribed fire-lizard perched on his shoulder. He sighed and set down his laser spanner, rubbing away the headache that had been building from the exposure to the urple light.
And then, everything went black. Alex tried to scream, but he didn't have a mouth; he tried to move his hands, but his arms didn't feel right. And there were images in his mind, images telling him that he was in some room.
What's going on? he thought, and flinched when he heard his voice echoed in his mind.
...did he just feel petals ruffle?
((So... Alex got put into the Floating Hyacinth. That happened.))
((Zeb will pop in later in response to someone else..))
...letting a little grey fox-like Pokémon scuttle into the room. Tacitus looked around at the Floating Hyacinth's office. The room was almost entirely occupied by the huge tank of water in which the Head of the Department of Floaters bobbed around. A table and two chairs were arranged right up at the edge of the tank, ostensibly allowing the Hyacinth to receive visitors.
The Zorua hopped onto the desk and whistled loudly to attract the Hyacinth's attention. Tacitus took out his writing notebook and hastily sketched a message for the Flower: "Apologies for the intrusion, but are you aware that a massive body-swap event has occurred in HQ?" The mute agent picked up the notebook in his teeth and held it towards the Hyacinth, hoping that the Flower would somehow read his message despite lacking anything that resembled eyes.
Alex could just somehow sense what was going on around him, though it was a hard job to focus his panicked thoughts enough to understand what he was 'seeing'.
I'm not actually the--Am I the Floating Hyacinth? AM I IN A TANK? His petals ruffled in agitation. Sorry, sorry, just oh gods I never thought something like this would happen! Who are you? Can you help?/i>
Interesting. Even the Flowers weren't safe from the swap. He wrote another message.
"You can call me Tacitus. From where I stand, I can't do anything to help you directly but you're in the Hyacinth's body, if you haven't noticed. Can't you send a message to the rest of the HQ? Is there a computer terminal nearby you can use? You might want to try to get the attention of the actual Hyacinth and bring it back here. Oh, and one more thing: who am I talking to?"
I'm Alex Dives, I'm an intern with DoSAT. Alex waved another leaf; the more he moved pieces around, the more control he (slowly) started to gain over the body. I'm... not sure about the computer thing. I don't even know how to get out of this tank, or even if I should.
"...that the Hyacinth is a rather good dancer," wrote Tacitus. "The security camera footage was rather entertaining if I do say so myself. Either way, you are mobile. Somehow. Now, seeing as I can't help you and you don't seem to know what's going on, I shall take my leave now. Goodbye, Intern Dives. A shame about your sister."
Wait, please! Don't leave me! Alex began flailing his petals and leaves, then finally discovered he had some tendrily appendages that he could use to haul himself out of the tank, flopping ungracefully onto the floor with a wet slapping noise. Ow. Okay, I'm out. And I'm coming with you! This was not at all how he'd imagined he'd be spending his day.
...obviously irritated. He jerked his head toward the door and looked at Alex. He sat down and stared at the DoSAT intern, waiting for him to regain his footing.
"Try to keep up. I won't wait for you after this," he scribbled on his notepad.
Alex managed to drag himself over to Tacitus. Why couldn't I have gotten one of the non-aquatic Flowers? he grumbled.