[It got longer. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not really.]
[Also, this installment contains some mild spoilers for Supernatural, mainly about Castiel and pieces of seasons 7 and 8. You have been warned.]
[And, with that said...]
The Road So Far
Dawn was watching Supernatural when a creeper entered her RC. After being made aware of its presence, she frantically opened a portal, which malfunctioned and brought Sam, Dean, Cas, and Meg through into PPC HQ. Sam recognized the creeper as, well, a creeper...
"Oh no," Sam said, and three of the four canon characters backed up. Cas remained where he was, contemplating the creature. "It's going to--"
Now
DawnFire's fingers tapped frantically on her laptop's keys. She had just finished reading the replies to her first post, and had managed to come up with a desperate idea. Now she only had to put it into practice...
PPC HQ: RC 18
"Cats," Castiel said thoughtfully, and the plotholes opened.
"Good," DawnFire mumbled. "I'm so sorry for taking advantage of that canonical fact that you can have a conversation without seeming to leave, but it had to be done." She paused, considering this. "Oh, great. I'm the villain. Or at least a misguided protagonist. Wonderful."
Sam, Dean, Meg, and Dawn shifted backwards, startled by the sudden change in the RC's inhabitants. Castiel, of course, barely blinked, staring at the creeper.
"RUMBLEROAR!" snarled a huge lion with an old man riding on its back. Beside Rumbleroar, several animated lions stared at their suddenly changed surroundings, and quickly checked to make sure their cubs were unharmed. A twelve-year-old Hermione Granger screamed, and tried desperately to cover her currently cat-like face once she realized there were people around. Castiel stood still, smiling slightly, as more and more cats of all shapes, sizes, and breeds slipped through the plotholes. Nanny Ogg's Greebo hissed, spotted the mini-Balrogs, and hissed louder. Morwen's cats stared meaningfully at the creeper, which was frantically swiveling its head back and forth, trying to keep all the cats in view. Bagheera padded through another plothole, and was rather startled to find the jungle gone. The cat Castiel had once interrogated made its appearance, glaring at the angel. The Doctor, currently in another part of PPC HQ dealing with a Weeping Angel, would have been interested to know that several cat-nuns and the cat he had talked to in Craig's flat had just made their appearance in RC 18, a number of corridors and several dimensions away.
Speaking of RC 18, it was getting quite crowded. In fact, the only open space was swiftly becoming a direct path to the open door.
The creeper shivered. Its blocky head swiveled from side to side, from cat to cat. The smaller cats scared it; the cat-nuns and Hermione terrified it. The larger cats were enough to send it running for the hills of New Caledonia. And that was before Benvenuto and Vittoria scrambled through another plothole and hissed at it.
Faced with the boss cats of the Casas Montana and Petrocchi, who had chased the White Devil from Caprona, as well as all the other cats of assorted breeds and sizes, the creeper stopped hissing, turned, and ran. Most of the cats ran after it, yowling, hissing, spitting, snarling, and roaring. Rumbleroar's cry rose above the others, accompanied by Dumbledore yelling, "After it! After it! We're gonna get that green thing and drown it in the Hogwarts swimming pool!"
"Alright," Dawn said, once the chaos had cleared enough for her to be heard. "What was that thing?"
"Uh, a creeper," Sam replied. "It's...from Minecraft--"
"Dude, you are such a nerd," Dean said, and sat down in Dawn's chair. "Where are we, anyway?"
"No idea, but I'd like to leave," Meg said. Sam and Dean exchanged looks. Then Sam thought of something, and frowned.
"Cas, how'd you know creepers are afraid of cats?" He paused, considering his last sentence, and shook his head. "Our lives are so weird. What's next, Daleks?"
"Several of our best agents are Daleks," Dawn said absentmindedly. "Uh, Cas? Castiel? Are you, um, planning on moving any time soon?"
"W-what's going on?" Hermione quavered. "I--what is this place? How did I get here?"
"Did you just say some of your best agents are Daleks?" Sam asked. "Wait, what type of agents are we talking about? There's no way this is a police force--"
"Cas?" Dean got up and walked over to the angel. "Hey, man, you alright?"
Castiel turned, and grinned broadly. "Well, maybe. I think so. Did you see all those cats? I mean, not all of them were cats, but they could have been. I was thinking, actually, what makes a cat? I mean, was the creeper afraid of the tail, or the whiskers? Or was it the fur? I mean, I don't find fur very scary, but then again, I'm an angel. Do you find fur scary, Dean?" He stared at the human, head tilted to one side, blue eyes intent and that same, awful, un-Cas-like smile on his face.
"Oh, no," Meg said. "Here we go again."
Dean stared. "You have got to be kidding me."
"Of course," said the angel, "if it's the fur they're afraid of, then a dog should scare them just as much as a cat. But I was specifically told cats. I wonder why some cats are bigger than others..."
Sam groaned. "Great. Just great. Cas, this isn't just a--a practical joke, or something, is it?"
In a Room at the Board
DawnFire stared at her screen, nonplussed. "What--hold on, why's he gone back to being mentally unstable? I thought that went away when he came back from Purgatory. Why's it happening again?"
She reached out a hand to pat her first tribble, which purred. In its fireproofed corner, the mini-Balrog looked up questioningly.
"And--and I didn't even mean to write that," DawnFire added, mostly to herself. "He was going to turn around and apologize, he was just being quiet because he was concentrating on sending the cats home, or something. How'd he even--?" She stopped. "Oh no. No, no, no..."
She checked the screen, and found that several more lines had typed themselves while she was talking. "No! You've got to be kidding me. Since when do stories write themselves to this extent?"
The tribble purred. DawnFire positioned her fingers on the keys of her laptop, and jerked them away as something stung them. Cautiously, she tried again, and was relieved when no shock followed; when she tried to lift one hand to move the tribble away from her tea, she discovered that her hands refused to move any farther off the keyboard than it took to reach the rest of the keys and the touchpad.
"Aah!" she squeaked, and tried frantically to free her fingers, with no success. As she watched, they began to type, guided by an unseen force. "No! Nonononono! Help!"
She tried to stop typing and failed. Attempting to reach her email, she found that her fingers refused to comply. The story just kept writing.
RC 18
Dawn frowned as she watched the chaos that had taken over her RC. "DawnFire?" she said. "What's going on? And why can't I turn on the lights?"
As if in answer, a portal flickered open and dropped a young woman with light brown hair into the abandoned chair. She shrieked in surprise, and then stared at her fingers.
"What--" The newcomer wiggled her fingers, and grinned. "Yes! I'm free!"
Sam and Dean eyed her warily, ready for a fight. Meg glanced at Castiel, who was eyeing the newcomer over Dean's shoulder. Hermione backed away, wishing she had her wand with her. Dawn stared, and then walked cautiously closer.
"DawnFire?" she asked. "Is that you?"
DawnFire blinked. "Wha--Dawn? Why am I--" she caught sight of the canon characters and froze, gaping.
Dawn sighed. "DawnFire, focus. What's going on? Why are you here? Actually, just what's going on?"
DawnFire managed to drag her eyes back to the shadowy figure of the Assassin, and sighed. "I don't really know. I mean, we've had a blackout, at the Board, I mean, only now it's at the PPC--there's a great interlude going on, it's really hila--" She stopped, and went pale, although no one could really tell in the dark. "That's it. I'm in PPC HQ, and Slorp is roaming the hallways."
"'Slorp'?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised. "What's 'Slorp'?" He pronounced the word as though he wasn't quite sure it was what he was supposed to be saying.
"Uhhh," said DawnFire, blinking several times in an attempt to keep her mind clear. "Um. Slorp. Right. Meatloaf monster from the Cafeteria. The Doctor's dealing with it. Not sure if it's eaten an Angel yet or not, though."
"Wait," Dean said. "We're dealing with a meatloaf monster that runs around eating angels?" He glanced at Sam, and then at Cas...who wasn't there. "Cas? Cas!"
"It's alright, it eats a Weeping Angel, not an angel-angel," DawnFire said hurriedly. Sam stared at her.
"We're dealing with Weeping Angels now, too?"
"No, the Doctor is--" DawnFire began, and was interrupted by Dawn.
"DawnFire, you're going to have to tell me everything about this interlude, and we've got to find Cas. And get all the cats back where they belong. And Hermione. And Dumbledore."
"Ok, what?" Sam said.
Meg's eyes narrowed. "So basically, we have cats from all over the place running around here, as well as a meatloaf with a taste for angels, and my unicorn's run away. And who knows what other dangers there are in this place, whatever it even is." She smirked. "What the hell. Let's save the day. Sounds like fun."
"I still don't understand why you're here," Dawn said. She was unusually intent, most signs of insanity pushed to the side.
DawnFire sighed. "I don't actually know. The plotholes aren't supposed to be stabilizing--maybe it's because Cas opened so many that worked, I think he might have stabilized the room instead of each individual plothole? As for why I'm here, it's...not a good story. I was typing, and then I couldn't stop, and then the story started writing itself, and I'd nearly managed to contact Karen when the plothole dumped me here." She tried to smile. "So, are we saving the day, then?"
To be continued!
--
[I couldn't quite decide which cat to bring in. Then, I decided to just bring in all of them. Virtual cookies to you if you know where all the cats are from. Also, Meg is extremely hard to write, at least in terms of facial expressions. I mean, I can see her move in my head, but getting that into words...pretty difficult.]
[Also, this is technically my first time writing for Supernatural, unless I've forgotten something. So, if you spot any OOCness, feel free to let me know and I'll deal with it. Thanks!]
[Oh, and, uh, I think this is becoming an interlude in its own right. Once it's finished, I'll probably clean it up and post it on livejournal.]
~DawnFire