Five prompts, eh? I happen to have exactly five planned-but-mostly-unwritten agents! Eeeeeeeexcellent.
Only a couple done right now; more to come as I find the time to write them.
1. Late for an important event . . .
The four sat down in the warmly lit study, as the servant closed the doors behind them. As Bruce began to pour a cup of tea for his master and each visitor, Johnathan sighed and declared, “It's getting chillier and chillier every night!”
“That does tend to happen in Massachusetts in autumn, Johnathan.” Edward, never smiling, rested his head in his hand as he leaned further into his seat, ignoring the glares from Edward's wife.
“I only hope Tabitha gets here soon,” Edward's mother croaked. “It's not like her to be late, and it's much too cold for a lady to be outside by herself.”
* * *
Tabitha Queens did not feel cold; she felt, in fact, as though her sides would burst with all the heat she had worked up running. She slowed only slightly to turn as she reached another intersection between two streets, barely lit by gas lamps that flickered in the cold night. Immediately upon starting down this new street, she spun around and continued running back to the previous one, in response to the scrabbling sounds already approaching from that direction.
She should have known these streets. She had walked from her home to Ophelia's numerous times in the past two years, yet this night, she had somehow become lost. No way she turned had led to a familiar path. Now, she may as well have been in London instead of Boston, as though a whole new set of streets had been
highways in
hiding inside the buildings and under the cobbles, waiting for someone overly confident and foolish to wander in at just the right time.
Just the right time for the things with the red eyes that glowed in the night to find her.
* * *
“Rather shocking, the whole business about that painter.” Edward casually tapped the charred matter from the end of his cigar into an ashtray on the end table next to his chair.
Ophelia continued, her arthritic hands shaking. “That artwork was so morbid! I nearly fainted after seeing two paintings. How an American gentleman could have such a morbid fancy. Oh!”
“But what was in the paintings to be so alarming?” asked Josephine as Bruce refilled her teacup.
“Oh, monsters! Awful, awful monsters . . .”
“Oh, madam,” said Johnathan, “I've seen fantastical portraits of monsters before. They—”
“This was different!” The strength in Ophelia's voice made even Edward turn to look at her, his usual frown deepening slightly. She continued, “You said, 'portraits of monsters,' and that's it, precisely! It was like a portrait, so . . . so . . . the muscles, the sinews, the sweat, even . . . it looked as though Richard Pickman had drawn the beasts from life.”
* * *
Tabitha stumbled into a slightly larger intersection, slightly better lit. Her skirts were now ragged from being stepped on too many times, and Tabitha was quite ready to eschew propriety and tear the bulky thing straight off. Let the red-eyed creatures be distracted by finding it. She would do the same to her long, brown hair, too—she had been certain that any moment something would grab it from behind and pull her back into the dark.
A renewed scratching behind her made Tabitha aware she had stopped running. She moved as quickly as she could into the light in the center of the open roads. She heard a ship's bell toll nearby—could I really have run that close to the harbor?—and took in her new surroundings, searching for news means of escape. The walls and street here were terribly cracked and broken; it seemed impossible that anywhere in Boston could have been neglected by repair work long enough to reach this level of degradation. She noticed with relief the dark, muscled figure of a man hunched underneath one of the gas lamps.
“Sir!” she called, her voice pitched high from adrenaline. “Sir, help! Flee! There are wild beasts in the streets!”
The man stood up and turned around. Tabitha halted so quickly that she fell to her knees and hands. The black silhouette before her was only superficially that of a man. Muscled arms and legs ended in clawed toes and fingers. A canine head transfixed her gaze with glowing red eyes. In one hand, the figure held a shattered human tibia, dripping with rotten, grey marrow.
Marrow which also dribbled from its toothy muzzle.
Later, Tabitha wouldn't even remember getting back to her feet. She would only remember the ghoul throwing its head up, opening its mouth and howling, except not really howling, but making a high-pitched, whining giggle. Other ghouls answered as Tabitha ran pell mell towards the docks, ready to plunge into the deathly cold water to avoid the red eyes that now peered from every shadow, every corner, every rooftop.
She forced herself to keep going, even as she scraped against and bounced off of the close-set buildings in the tight alleyway that led to the waterfront. She emerged on the dock, startling two musket-bearing men with tri-cornered hats and red coats (unfortunately, she wouldn't remember that later, either; otherwise, she might have realized how odd it was) and finally reached the end of the wharf, new panic setting in too late to stop her from careening towards the sharp rocks below.
She instead tumbled down a small flight of steps, crying out as one of the stair's edges cut into her knee. She opened her eyes, and immediately looked around the new street for more of the ghoulish creatures. The creak of a door opened behind her.
“Tabitha?” Johnathan smiled warmly as Tabitha Queens turned to face her companion. “Are you quite all right? You nearly missed tea!”
2. Responding to criticism . . .
The Floating Hyacinth regarded the agent sitting on the other side of her desk. Not visually, of course. Even if she had eyes, her view would be obscured by the water droplets condensed on the side of the tank that housed her body. Nonetheless, much could be observed about a human by examining its thoughts.
In this case, the waves of cold that reached the Flower's mind indicated the agent was probably leaning back against the back of the chair, arms crossed defiantly over his chest. Beneath that obvious, conscious emotion of resentment was the sensation the Hyacinth had learned to identify this particular individual by: the grey, dull feeling of flatness in his mind, the disinterest with which he met most tasks that didn't appeal to him. This was how the Hyacinth could imagine his messy and unkept hair, the expressionless stare in his face. Along with that flat apathy, however, was a spike of energy in the center, the resentment at being called away from what did interest him. That spike flared up briefly, making the Hyacinth aware of the impending outburst before he began to speak audibly.
“Did you call me away from my RC to actually talk to me, or were just planning on letting me sit here staring at your aquarium until my next mission?” demanded agent Paul.
I may just do that, if only to see if it improves your performance on it.
Paul scoffed—the Flower felt it as the spike of resentment flaring up, pointing directly at her mind this time. “My performance does NOT need any improvement.”
On the contrary, agent Paul, Legal has sent me several displeased memos detailing inconsistencies in some of your recent charge lists.
“Enlighten me.”
Simply put, you are charging Sues and Trolls with charges that are not charges.
“Bullcrap. I see a mistake, I point it out. There's nothing wrong with that.”
Well, let's just take a look at some of these . . . mistakes, shall we? A laminated sheet of paper that had been floating in the water on the Hyacinth's left side floated closer to her. It seems that three missions ago, you charged a Misty replacement with 'having a Dewgong use Icy Wind.'
“The fic was set in the first generation. Icy Wind didn't exist back then.”
The date has the fic being written after the Icy Wind move was released.
Confusion—like bubbles drifting out of Paul's mind—drifted into the Hyacinth's perception. “It doesn't matter!”
You also charged that same replacement with 'still only having a Wartortle.'
“All her other Pokémon evolved in the mid-level thirties. The Wartortle was the only one that didn't follow suit, even though it evolves at level thirty-six.”
I'm given to understand that trainers can have their Pokémon wait to evolve.
“What idiot would do that?” Paul made a spitting noise with his lips. “Certainly not a gym leader.”
On a similar note, this last mission, you charged a Sue—Kamanita Tohjo—with 'having a Monferno use Flame Wheel at level fourteen.'
“It happened right after it evolved from Chimchar,” Paul explained. “Chimchar evolves at fourteen, and Monferno doesn't learn Flame Wheel until nineteen.”
I think that was just a bit of artistic license.
“Well, it's not acceptable.”
The Floating Hyacinth said nothing to this.
After a few moments of silence, Paul went on. “Pokémon is all about numbers. If authors can't get the details right, I'm going to charge them for it.”
The Pokémon anime frequently plays fast and loose with all of that and more.
“Well, the anime is stupid. That's why I don't accept it as canon.”
Your job, agent—our job—is to enforce that canon. Not to enforce piddling details from strategy guides.
The Hyacinth could feel Paul's irritation swelling—that one spike of resentment was swiftly being joined by others. “That's what the canon is! That's how it works!” He stood up and slammed his hands palms down onto the desk. “Why isn't Vania here? She was on these missions; she should be getting chewed out too!”
I am well aware of who writes the charge lists when you and your partner are in the Pokémon continuum, agent. In fact, Vania has requested more missions into musicals and other stage productions lately. I think I'll honor that request for a while, see if some time away from Pokémon improves your judgment when collecting charges.
Paul sneered. “At least make it other video games. I have no interest in wasting my time on any dorky crap like that.”
You WILL do your job as instructed, agent. The Floating Hyacinth's mental presence suddenly flooded around Paul's mind, making her intentions very clear indeed. Or you can transfer to All-Purpose and let Legal bother the Foxglove Official about your shenanigans. Better yet, go home, and save the whole PPC the trouble.
The frustrated spikes representing Paul's thoughts abated for just a bit, replaced with uncertainty. “You wouldn't send me back. You're too understaffed.”
Let me assure you, an agent of your caliber can and will be replaced. With ease.
The spikes returned, ballooning into a full spiny ball of fury. Paul grabbed at the desk, barely restraining himself from trying to flip it. He spun around, and finding the chair blocking his way, lashed out with his leg and kicked it over and across the floor. Then he marched out of the room and through the Hyacinth's door.