Post by Starlong on May 1, 2009 0:36:27 GMT
A cloud of swirling mist surrounded three silhouetted figures as they walked through a dense fog to a pearl white staircase. They climbed it slowly, looking around as the fog cleared to reveal a universe full of stars and galaxies all around them. Sparks of all colours flew about the spiral stairway as they ascended, the steps seeming at first to continue upwards into infinity. Without ever getting tired, they climbed to the top. It could have taken minutes, it could have been millennia; there was no way to perceive time so it was impossible to tell, but they eventually approached the top of the stairs. Above them was a bright light source that emitted many colours. The source of this was not visible until the climbed the last few steps onto a large platform of purple cloud that could be stood upon like solid sponge.
“Woah, look at the size of that thing!” One of them said.
“That’s what she said!” Another quickly followed up.
“Waaahaaay!” The first replied enthusiastically, for he was Euan, and his hair was spiked.
“She says that a lot actually…” The second one lied, for he was Stewart, and his hair was floppy.
“Urgh! You guys are so immature!” The third muttered, trying to pretend she hadn’t laughed at least a little. For she… was Becky, and she had no nickname derived from the conditioning of her hair. She had however, recently had a hair cut, and it was awesome.
The three of them were all deliverers of justice, but they were currently falling short on their justice quota, because they were all dead. The light source that had shone brightly from above was in fact the largest TV screen ever to exist, and on it’s magnificent, billion pixel display, flashed the green neon words “Insert Coin”
Then, the screen went blank, and the universe sparkling around them faded. “What d’ya suppose that means, Floppy?” Euan asked.
“I think there might be Nazis about…” Stewart replied, looking all around for werewolf woman of the SS.
“Look!” Becky pointed at the screen. They all looked on in a mixture of surprise and excitement as three figures appeared on the screen and walked through the glass into the solid unreality in which our intrepid stair-climbers stood.
“It’s our alter egos!” Stewart gasped in amazement as he faced a Baron; A Baron of Bullshit. “And Christ! They smell bad!” He uttered in disgust, holding his nose.
“And that hair is just ridiculous!” Euan exclaimed as he faced the true Spiky, whose steel spiked, somewhat over-weighted hair caused him to double forwards and impale his head into the ground. “Uhhhh, little help?” A muffled voice spoke from the solid cloud floor.
Becky simply gasped in sheer horror as a bear before her burst into flames and flailed wildly about screaming “Why does my fur have to be flammable!?!”
The Baron looked at his two companions and sighed in embarrassment. He put his hand into his pocket and it emerged carrying a large clump of bullshit. He flung it away in disgust. “Guys… I think we may have taken these alter ego ideas in the wrong direction. Myah!”
“I’ll say.” a muffled reply came from Spiky’s head in the ground.
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE IT STOP!!!” Firebear screamed as smoke billowed from her incinerating form.
There was a sudden flash of light and instead of alter egos, there just stood doppelgangers of our three bewildered protagonists.
“Much better.” Spiky said, feeling his much more manageable hair style.
“I’ll say!” Firebear sighed in relief, brushing herself down.
“Okay then! To business!” the nicer smelling Baron declared, adding “Though I will miss that glorious moustache…”
Euan, Stewart, and Becky looked to each other with bewildered expressions, before turning back to their copies. “What the hell is going on?” Euan asked.
The three doubles composed themselves and Baron began to explain. “Well, to put it simply: You’re all dead!” He said bluntly.
“Yeah, you guys really sucked back there!” Spiky exclaimed
“It was embarrassing for you all I’m sure…” Fire Bear shook her head in disappointment.
The Baron nodded in agreement and continued: “Yeah, so you all died, but none of you are actually out of lives yet. You should have just respawned instantly, but we needed to talk to you first, in order to relay a vital message.”
“Wait!” Becky interrupted. “Hold on a second! I wasn’t dead! I was just knocked out!” She complained.
“Yes, but while you were out cold on the floor of the Gamezone, a pool table fell on you and crushed half your body.” Fire Bear explained.
“And I laughed.” the Baron added.
“But that didn’t kill you. It was the velociraptors that ate the rest of you that finished you off truly, but it was all really because you couldn’t keep your balance.” Spiky concluded solemnly.
“And I still laughed.” The Baron added once more.
“Oh.” Becky said, somewhat upset.
“Cheer up Becky.” Euan said, nudging her. “At least you didn’t melt!”
“Oh yeah!” The Baron smiled in reminiscence. “It’s been a pretty funny day overall. Myah!” Becky and Euan both frowned at him, and then Stuart, who chuckled slightly.
“What about you dying? Twice!” Fire Bear retorted angrily, “Once by killing yourself no less!”
The Baron promptly stopped smiling and scowled instead.
“Wait a minute! Did someone say something about velociraptors?!” Euan said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes!” Fire Bear replied, glad to be getting back on topic. “There are things happening in the world that shouldn’t be. Something has gone terribly wrong and reality is being warped. Right now your friends are fighting, but not dying, for their lives. Against a legion of velociraptors.”
“But that makes-” Euan started.
“No sense?” Spiky finished for him. “Tell me about it. These are the fictional velociraptors from the Jurassic Park book and film no less; they aren’t even supposed to exist in history, let alone present reality!”
“It’s some kind of parody of reality, and we’re telling you three this so you can find the source of it and stop it!” The baron stated. “You need to find the cause of this parody and deliver them onto justice!”
“That is what we’re good at.” Stewart nodded in agreement.
“But where do we start?” Becky asked uncertainly.
“You’ll figure it out.” Fire Bear reassured her. “Now we’ll be returning you all to the world now. Not much time has passed, but you need to move quickly.”
“Dyyyyyyyynamic EXIT!” Spiky yelled as he pulled on a large lever beside him. The floor gave way beneath the three of them and they fell sharply down.
The world began to reform around them as they dropped, and they all spotted something red beneath them as they re-entered the Gamezone.
“LOOK OUT TOM!!!”
They all cried out at the same time as they fell on top of the red hooded figure. Tom looked up in time to see three pairs of feet rush rapidly towards him. He didn’t even have time to open his mouth to curse before he was thoroughly trampled.
Part II: Velociraptors
Tom once again groaned in agony as the three human bombs climbed off him.
“Did you see that?” He heard Euan say in a surprised tone.
“See what?” Tom asked as he picked himself up.
“There was just a block of text hovering in mid air for a moment there…” Stewart said with intrigue, staring at the space where the writing had been.
“It said “Part II: Velociraptors”” Becky said to Tom as he joined them in staring into space.
“Well that sounds about right,” Tom replied, “this place is swarming with the buggers! I think they’re making a meal out of the college students in the Barony as we speak.”
“Hold on!” Euan suddenly said, turning to face Tom. “Aren’t we still trying to kill you?”
“Yeah!” Becky and Stewart agreed, and the three of them motioned towards Tom with threatening glares.
“No no no no no!” Tom quickly held his hands up and backed away from them. “We all made a truce guys! Seriously! We’re gonna beat the raptors first before we start killing me again!”
“Why do I not believe you?” Stewart said as he picked up a discarded pool cue to battle with.
“Look around dudes!” Tom exclaimed dramatically. “With this carnage going on we can’t afford to beat the pulp out of each other!”
They all looked around and saw that the Gamezone was deserted and somewhat demolished. Half the pool tables had collapsed or been flipped over. The broken bodies of drunken students and dozens of penguins littered the room, and pints and bottles of alcohol had been left unfinished on many of the tables.
“So?” Stewart said.
“Actually, he has a point.” Becky replied. “Where are the rest of the writers?”
“They managed to evacuate most of the people here with some of my course mates as the raptors attacked. They’ve all headed to the royal college to make a stand. I stayed behind to search the Union for any other survivors, but I haven’t found any.” Tom explained solemnly.
“Ok then, show us to where the rest of them went.” Euan ordered. “We have to protect the president!”
“Alright, follow me.” Tom motioned towards the main exit but then Stewart and Becky froze in shock and Euan suddenly pointed to behind him.
“Look out Tom!” Euan shouted urgently.
“Dude, that’s just not funny anymore.” Tom replied bluntly.
“No, seriously Tom, look out!” Stewart cried.
“RRRAaaargghhg! came the cry from behind him and he barely rolled away in time to avoid the velociraptor that charged through the Gamezone. Euan and Stewart dived to either side and Becky ducked behind a table. The raptor quickly turned to attack Tom again.
“Guys! It’s weakness is that it dies if you beat the crap out of it!” Tom yelled to the rest, before muttering to himself “It’s a good thing I brought my lightsabre with me this morning…” He reached into his hoody pouch and brought out a metallic cylinder. Whoom! A purple light sprung from the blade and he charged at the raptor.
They watched as Tom fought against the raptor, ducking its jaws and striking it with the searing hot lightsabre blade until it snarled in pain and died, missing both arms, one leg, and half a head.
Weshuuup! The lightsabre blade retracted and Tom placed it carefully back into his hoody pouch. “Phew…” he uttered, the fight having taken a lot of energy. “You guys ready to go?” He asked as he climbed across the bar and broke into one of the fridges, stuffing as many cans of Irn Bru as he could into his backpack. “Better get some weapons by the way… They’ll likely be more along the way.”
“Ok, there’s no time to lose! And we can figure out what’s messing up reality at the same time…” Euan declared, his fist clenched in a heroic manner.
“Wait a minute… This bar is unsupervised…” Tom pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
“We can’t stick around and raid the bar!” Becky snapped. “Our friends might be in trouble!”
“Yeah we can raid the bar Becky… Everyone ran when the raptors attacked.” Tom replied. “Better than 99p Tuesday, we bring you fresh from the Union think box… abandoned Gamezone! Just one for the road!”
“One for the road?” Stewart repeated with uncertainty
Tom nodded and cracked open a nearby bottle of beer enthusiastically. “The rest of them got a huge head start on the raptors; I doubt any of them are in any real trouble anyway…”
Emma stared down the raptor as it approached her slowly; a predator edging closer to get within pouncing distance. Its amber eyes flashed with hunger, only to meet the President’s gaze of determination. She cracked her whip and the snap echoed through the desolate hallway, a loud warning to her scaly foe. It wasn’t deterred, and edged closer still. Sweat was forming on her brow but she couldn’t wipe it away for losing focus. Her plan had worked so far: to distract the raptor long enough for everyone to reach the top floor safely. The next part of the plan involved her escaping unharmed, which was possibly going to be slightly more of a challenge. She knew that help would be on the way however. Surely a group of weapon crazy raptor killers would burst through the door in the nick of time.
Yep. All she had to do was continue to stare down the raptor until some form of help arrived.
Any minute now.
Seriously…
Anybody?
“Useless…” She muttered when it was apparent that no one was going to crash in for a flashy rescue. The raptor attacked. The crack of her whip and the beast’s cries could be heard echoing through the third floor corridor.
Back at the Gamezone, Stewart, Euan, Becky and Tom sat beneath the bar sipping on their third or fourth free drink.
“Hmm…” Tom frowned for a second.
“What *hic* is it doood?” Stewart asked, unsteadily holding a bottle of magners in one hand and an apple sourz and lemonade in the other.
“It’s probably nothin’… I just got the feeling that we missed a potential 'big damn heroes' moment just now. I wonder what’s happening in the RC?”
“We probably ought to head there soon…” Euan decided, “I mean, if Becky has much more to drink she’ll probably pass out again.”
“I fell over last time…” Becky said slowly and cautiously, trying not to sound drunk. “It had alcohol to do with any nothing! I’m getting drink another…”
Just as Becky was fumbling around in one of the fridges getting another Smirnoff ice, a velociraptor poked its head over the bar, its jaws salivating as it saw four potential happy meals.
It was about to pounce when Whoom! Chop! Crunch! Weshuuup! In one swift movement Tom’s lightsabre blade cut the raptor’s head clean off and it fell onto the floor next to where they sat. The beam of purple light retracted and Tom put the sabre away once more.
“How many is that now?” He asked while cracking open another beer.
“Six.” Euan replied after quickly counting the accumulated heads that now lay on the floor.
“Dude, its like pool this: it seems to get easier the more drunk you get!” Tom replied gleefully. He then looked at his watch and then his eyes widened. “We should probably get going though… This one quick drink for the road idea hasn’t really turned out that way.”
“The longer the better!” Stewart declared.
“That’s what she said.” Becky quickly said.
Tom buried his head in his hands crying “Not you too!” while Euan and Stewart looked at her with eyes full of shock.
Euan extended his hand to hers and said with as much drama as he could muster (and this is Euan, so rather excessive amounts): “Welcome to the club! Waaahaaay!”
After another quick two drinks to celebrate Becky’s initiation in the ‘That’s what she said’ club, they all loaded up on alcohol and staggered from the Gamezone towards the Royal College, where adventure was afoot, danger was at hand, and a whole other bunch of nouns were being linked to body parts through the marvels of the English language.
“Ok, something went badly wrong…” Nicola said to Iain and Niall as they barricaded some doors near the elevators on the top floor of the Royal College.
“Yeah, weren’t we just making up stories about the velociraptors in order to lure Tom into a trap and kill him? Brutally?” Niall inquired.
“It would be terribly ironic if we were to be killed by velociraptors after hatching a plan like that.” Iain commented.
“Bit of a backfire.” Nicola said in disappointment. “The rest of the crew are holed up in the James Weir aren’t they?”
“Yeah, they should be safe there; they have a ninja guardian after all.” Iain replied.
“Dammit. Wish I had one of those…” Niall sighed.
Dave and Andy had been barricading the next door down and approached Tom’s course mates with puzzled expressions.
“Hold on? Why do you guys want to kill Tom?” Dave asked in confusion.
“Yeah, we had good reasons!” Andy said with crossed arms.
“It was the phaff!” Nicola replied angrily.
“Yeah… Far too much phaffing about, wasting time and getting on our nerves.” Iain agreed.
“He’s always making me late for class.” Niall grumpily added.
“So we all have our reasons.” Pete concluded as he walked over to the conversation. Jenna, Ross, and Hazel wandered up with him. “The question is, why didn’t you just kill him with us when we had him trapped in the Gamezone?”
“Are you kidding? In front of a bar full of witnesses? With actual beating to death in a deliberate and law breaking way?” Nicola snappily replied. “Why would you do that?”
“Yeah,” Iain shook his head at the small group of gathered writers, “You need to make it look like an accident otherwise you go to jail.”
“It’s kind of obvious.” Niall remarked bluntly.
“I mean, haven’t you guys killed anyone before?” Nicola asked in exasperation.
“Well… No…” Andy replied cautiously.
“You have?” Ross asked in a curious tone.
The three Engineers looked at one another, perplexed by the question. They all turned back to him with bemused expressions.
“Of course we have.”
“We’re Engineers.”
“A course like this does that to you.”
“But it pays well when you get out.”
“If you get out…”
“Tom’s not going to get out if we can help it!”
“You were just going to pummel him to death and wait to be arrested. Where’s the long term victory in that?”
The writers shifted awkwardly and gave each other nervous glances. David eventually said: “Well, when we were out to kill Tom, it was funny.”
“Yeah, this cold planning and execution is rather creepy.” Jenna stated, crossing her arms in disapproval.
“Sure it probably makes more sense, slightly, but the story would end after Tom dies anyway so we wouldn’t have to worry about the morning after…” Hazel argued.
Dave nodded in agreement and added: “Yeah, and if you guys hadn’t burst into the Gamezone while you had, we could have sliced him and diced him and we wouldn’t have to put up with this somewhat dire sequel…”
“Well it’s all gone to hell anyway! The velociraptor story was just to lure Tom up to the top floor here so we could push him down an elevator shaft, but it turns out there actually are velociraptors.” Iain complained. “It is rather ironic…”
“I mean what are the chances of that?” Nicola sighed in irritation.
“I think its Tom’s fault. Such a dick.” Niall declared in annoyance.
“Wait wait wait.” Jenna held up a hand to halt them. “How was crying ‘raptor’ going to lure Tom up here? That’s got to be important.”
“Well he has these plans for different scenarios…” Niall began to explain.
“He is rather sad like that.” Iain added.
“Like the zombie one, a plan to escape and hole up etc…”
“Oh the zombie story!” One of the writers smiled in reminiscence. (I don’t know which one, just one of them, ok!)
“I kinda liked that one.” Another admitted.
“He must have been playing far too much ‘Left 4 Dead’…” A third concluded.
Niall frowned at them and waited for them to be quiet before he continued. “Anyway, his plan for escaping and surviving velociraptors involved luring all the ones in the immediate area, particularly those in the Union, into the Royal college building. Then all of the people involved would lure then up to the top floor, climb down the elevator shafts and walk out from the ground floor.”
“Is that it?” Pete asked with an unimpressed frown.
“Oh, no. The we blow some charges at the base of the foundations and bring the building down on top of them.” Iain smiled. “At least, in the plan. But there are not charges. The amount of time and effort it would take to set that up… We have three groups projects happening at once this semester, we don’t have time for on the side stuff.”
“But the original plan involves us all up here and a high elevator shaft.” Nicola said. “We push Tom in, go get some alibis, and there ya go, a Tom free afternoon.”
“Better than that, we’ll probably get higher marks in our group project by losing a member of our group” Niall smiled. “Added bonus, of course…”
“Not bad, though I thought my penguin army could’ve done the job until they all got eaten by the velociraptors.” Dave said bitterly. A moment of silence was held for the lost black and white flightless birds, before Ross had an epiphany.
“Hold on a second.” He said to grab everyone’s attention. “If the velociraptors weren’t supposed to be real but they are, then maybe the explosive charges are real too. What was the rest of Tom’s plan after the Royal College collapses on the raptors?”
“Well, since the Union was by then supposed to be clear of them, we hold out there, build barricades and raid the kitchen until the inevitable choppers come and evac everyone.” Iain replied with a positive tone.
“And play pool.” Niall declared, the importance of his statement carrying in his voice. “Lots and lots of pool.”
“Wait a minute…” Andy said, looking all around nervously. “We’ve been standing here talking for ages and there’s been no sign of any -”
“NO!” All of the writers yelled in unison.
“Don’t even say that! Do you want it to happen? They always appear just after if you say something like that!” Jenna cried in exasperation.
CRASH!
“This is all your fault Andy!” Ross frowned. They all turned sharply to see what had just come heavily through the door.
“Rebecca!” Hazel cried.
“Hazel!” Becky shouted back.
“Euan!” Dave cried.
“Dave!” Euan replied, but not stopping there continued onto “Ross! Andy! Pete! Jenna! Hazel!”
“Stewart!”
“Dave!”
“Hazel!”
“Andy!”
“Pete!”
“Father!” Stewart shouted, pretty much for the hell of it.
And you get the picture. The point is this went on until pretty much everyone in the room had shouted out the name of everyone else in the room. It was a lot of white noise that lasted far too long but if you were actually there at the time there might be a tiny chance of it being funny.
Maybe not. Moving on…
Then all eyes narrowed on the one wearing the red hoody.
“Look out Tom!” Tom cried instinctively, waving his arms dramatically in the air. When he saw the inevitable looks of confusion on everyone’s face, he shrugged and answered: “What? I just wanted to be the one to say it for once!”
Euan rolled his eyes and addressed everyone. “Alright! We’ve got good news, and bad news…”
“The good news is that Rebecca’s drunk.” Stewart said with an amused smile. “No, wait, that’s just the funny news.”
Becky smiled in a somewhat inebriated fashion and swayed on the spot.
“The good news…” Euan continued, “Is that we have totally stolen all this drink from the Gamezone!” he declared triumphantly, as he, Stewart, Becky and Tom unloaded a multitude of cans and bottles of various drinks onto the floor.
“The bad news is that we’re being chased by about a dozen velociraptors and the batteries in my lightsabre have run down, so we’re all pretty much about to die.” Tom added, somewhat casually. “Millers, anyone?”
They could hear the cries of many raptors as they charged up the nearby stairwell. The scraping of claws on concrete and the shrill shrieks of the beasts began to fill everyone with a sudden and unavoidable terror.
“The elevator shafts.” Jenna ordered. “Start moving people down them!”
“Oh thank God!” Hazel remarked, “I was dreading the thought of those stairs again…”
“We haven’t found any rope yet!” Nicola replied. “It’s not a possible climb, it’ll take too long to get everyone down!”
“We have to try…” Jenna decided, motion to them all to get moving. “There’s three shafts! Split up and meet on level two!”
At once everyone tried to force open the doors separating them from the dark elevator shafts beyond, but the metal plates were too tightly shut.
“Wait a minute.” Tom muttered, glancing at the dull light emitted from fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. “The power is still on in the building!” He exclaimed, hitting the call button for the lift that lit up instantly. “You guys must be thinking of the escape plan in which the power is also out! Why climb down a shaft when you can ride it?” He sighed in exasperation.
“That’s wha-”
“Don’t.” Tom cut Stewart off.
The raptors were getting closer but they could hear the lift moving up towards their floor.
“Oh man… which one will it come too…” Tom’s eyes darted between the three doors. “I never guess right…” He muttered in irritation, placing himself in the middle of the three for optimum mad dashing into them. Everyone else crowded near, hoping that the metal box would reach them before the raptors did.
Ding
They all ran to the elevator door nearest the stairs from which the raptors were approaching. The doors opened before them and to their horror, two raptors emerged with wide, hungry grins on their reptile like heads.
“Well shit.” someone said. They all backed into a corner as the two raptors closed in on them. Tom pulled out his lightsabre once more and stepped forward threateningly. Vroo-fizzel… the faint purple beam of light groaned with effort as it extended, but instead of a straight blade of kickass, it flopped down out of the hilt like a piece of limp string.
“Now that’s just depressing…” Tom remarked as he stared in disappointment at it.
“Now that’s what she said!”
“…I hate you.”
Then the velociraptors coming up the stairs arrived, and also moved forwards for the kill. Seven raptors in total all gradually crept closer towards their trapped prey, their eyes gleaming with murder. A few more steps before they pounced. One more…
Ding
There was another shrill cry from the newly arrived elevator as another raptor charged out, but –
CRACK! The whip snapped at the nearest raptor, striking it directly in the eye, causing it to howl in agony and thrash its head into the beast beside it. SNAP! went the whip again, piercing the skin of another raptor. Again and again the whip lashed, delivering a furious hail of pain that terrified the velociraptors. They fled from the room, chased to the door by none other than Emma, atop a tamed raptor.
The raptor turned and she gazed over the group of people that were now looking up at her in complete awe, atop a beast that had razor sharp teeth but knew not to mess with the real boss.
“We should be safe for a while. Raptors are easy to spook, but they’ll return, and in greater numbers…” Emma said with a victorious smile. “No ducky, no biting my friends!” she said sternly to the raptor as it was about to nip at Jenna’s shoulder. It bowed its head in submission and stared obediently at the floor.
“Damn right. I’m the one that does the biting.” Jenna glared at ducky. “You named it ducky?” She asked Emma in disbelief.
“Well…”
“How did you manage to tame it?!” Pete asked in bewilderment.
“Wasn’t easy,” Emma replied, “lost a life doing so, and strangely enough I didn’t come back straight away. My alter ego talked to me first, gave me some information. Turns out three people should have been trying to figure out why the hell everything is messing up. Except they were getting drunk instead!” She glared at Euan, Stewart, and Becky.
“But that doesn’t matter, because she gave me a big clue and I know what’s causing all this crap to happen. Where’s Tom?”
Everyone looked around quickly for the red hoody and Dave suddenly shouted “AHA! Got you!” He snatched the hoody and firmly grabbed it by the collar. “You’re not escaping again Tom!”
It took everyone in the room at least three seconds to realise that Dave was just holding an empty red hoody.
“Holy shit! Where did he go?” Euan stammered in disbelief.
Doors closing
Only some of them turned in time to see the doors close on the nearby elevator. In it stood Tom wearing a black t-shirt and a sombre expression.
“He got away again.” Ross muttered in irritation.
“Wait, why is it so important? What has Tom got to do with what’s going on? What is going on?” Niall asked.
“Tom is what’s causing all this warping in reality… The velociraptors are his fault and who knows what else will get messed up if we don’t put a stop to it.” Emma said solemnly.
“So we have to kill him?” Stewart asked.
“Yes.”
“Awesome.” several voices said at once.
“But how are we supposed to find him?” Rebecca asked. “Without his hoody how can we see him?”
“It’ll he hard, but it’s not impossible!” Jenna reassured everyone. “We ought to split up again, widen the search. He might return to the union…”
“Dammit, if we could have just snatched him there, this spiralling out of control story might have had an ending!” Andy grumbled.
“It can’t end yet…” Emma said dramatically. “No, seriously, it can’t. For one thing we don’t know what happened to Rob, Cat and Joe. They might all be having a separate adventure that’s in some way linked to ours that will become apparent in some kind of grand finale. The fact that there’s been not so much as a sentence in this part to even let us know what’s become of them is frankly shocking storytelling!”
“So it can’t end yet, but we must find him. We will hunt him down and fix reality all at the same time. That’s right,” Emma declared to the unseen enemy, “you better look out, Tom…”
“Woah, look at the size of that thing!” One of them said.
“That’s what she said!” Another quickly followed up.
“Waaahaaay!” The first replied enthusiastically, for he was Euan, and his hair was spiked.
“She says that a lot actually…” The second one lied, for he was Stewart, and his hair was floppy.
“Urgh! You guys are so immature!” The third muttered, trying to pretend she hadn’t laughed at least a little. For she… was Becky, and she had no nickname derived from the conditioning of her hair. She had however, recently had a hair cut, and it was awesome.
The three of them were all deliverers of justice, but they were currently falling short on their justice quota, because they were all dead. The light source that had shone brightly from above was in fact the largest TV screen ever to exist, and on it’s magnificent, billion pixel display, flashed the green neon words “Insert Coin”
Then, the screen went blank, and the universe sparkling around them faded. “What d’ya suppose that means, Floppy?” Euan asked.
“I think there might be Nazis about…” Stewart replied, looking all around for werewolf woman of the SS.
“Look!” Becky pointed at the screen. They all looked on in a mixture of surprise and excitement as three figures appeared on the screen and walked through the glass into the solid unreality in which our intrepid stair-climbers stood.
“It’s our alter egos!” Stewart gasped in amazement as he faced a Baron; A Baron of Bullshit. “And Christ! They smell bad!” He uttered in disgust, holding his nose.
“And that hair is just ridiculous!” Euan exclaimed as he faced the true Spiky, whose steel spiked, somewhat over-weighted hair caused him to double forwards and impale his head into the ground. “Uhhhh, little help?” A muffled voice spoke from the solid cloud floor.
Becky simply gasped in sheer horror as a bear before her burst into flames and flailed wildly about screaming “Why does my fur have to be flammable!?!”
The Baron looked at his two companions and sighed in embarrassment. He put his hand into his pocket and it emerged carrying a large clump of bullshit. He flung it away in disgust. “Guys… I think we may have taken these alter ego ideas in the wrong direction. Myah!”
“I’ll say.” a muffled reply came from Spiky’s head in the ground.
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE IT STOP!!!” Firebear screamed as smoke billowed from her incinerating form.
There was a sudden flash of light and instead of alter egos, there just stood doppelgangers of our three bewildered protagonists.
“Much better.” Spiky said, feeling his much more manageable hair style.
“I’ll say!” Firebear sighed in relief, brushing herself down.
“Okay then! To business!” the nicer smelling Baron declared, adding “Though I will miss that glorious moustache…”
Euan, Stewart, and Becky looked to each other with bewildered expressions, before turning back to their copies. “What the hell is going on?” Euan asked.
The three doubles composed themselves and Baron began to explain. “Well, to put it simply: You’re all dead!” He said bluntly.
“Yeah, you guys really sucked back there!” Spiky exclaimed
“It was embarrassing for you all I’m sure…” Fire Bear shook her head in disappointment.
The Baron nodded in agreement and continued: “Yeah, so you all died, but none of you are actually out of lives yet. You should have just respawned instantly, but we needed to talk to you first, in order to relay a vital message.”
“Wait!” Becky interrupted. “Hold on a second! I wasn’t dead! I was just knocked out!” She complained.
“Yes, but while you were out cold on the floor of the Gamezone, a pool table fell on you and crushed half your body.” Fire Bear explained.
“And I laughed.” the Baron added.
“But that didn’t kill you. It was the velociraptors that ate the rest of you that finished you off truly, but it was all really because you couldn’t keep your balance.” Spiky concluded solemnly.
“And I still laughed.” The Baron added once more.
“Oh.” Becky said, somewhat upset.
“Cheer up Becky.” Euan said, nudging her. “At least you didn’t melt!”
“Oh yeah!” The Baron smiled in reminiscence. “It’s been a pretty funny day overall. Myah!” Becky and Euan both frowned at him, and then Stuart, who chuckled slightly.
“What about you dying? Twice!” Fire Bear retorted angrily, “Once by killing yourself no less!”
The Baron promptly stopped smiling and scowled instead.
“Wait a minute! Did someone say something about velociraptors?!” Euan said with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes!” Fire Bear replied, glad to be getting back on topic. “There are things happening in the world that shouldn’t be. Something has gone terribly wrong and reality is being warped. Right now your friends are fighting, but not dying, for their lives. Against a legion of velociraptors.”
“But that makes-” Euan started.
“No sense?” Spiky finished for him. “Tell me about it. These are the fictional velociraptors from the Jurassic Park book and film no less; they aren’t even supposed to exist in history, let alone present reality!”
“It’s some kind of parody of reality, and we’re telling you three this so you can find the source of it and stop it!” The baron stated. “You need to find the cause of this parody and deliver them onto justice!”
“That is what we’re good at.” Stewart nodded in agreement.
“But where do we start?” Becky asked uncertainly.
“You’ll figure it out.” Fire Bear reassured her. “Now we’ll be returning you all to the world now. Not much time has passed, but you need to move quickly.”
“Dyyyyyyyynamic EXIT!” Spiky yelled as he pulled on a large lever beside him. The floor gave way beneath the three of them and they fell sharply down.
The world began to reform around them as they dropped, and they all spotted something red beneath them as they re-entered the Gamezone.
“LOOK OUT TOM!!!”
They all cried out at the same time as they fell on top of the red hooded figure. Tom looked up in time to see three pairs of feet rush rapidly towards him. He didn’t even have time to open his mouth to curse before he was thoroughly trampled.
Part II: Velociraptors
Tom once again groaned in agony as the three human bombs climbed off him.
“Did you see that?” He heard Euan say in a surprised tone.
“See what?” Tom asked as he picked himself up.
“There was just a block of text hovering in mid air for a moment there…” Stewart said with intrigue, staring at the space where the writing had been.
“It said “Part II: Velociraptors”” Becky said to Tom as he joined them in staring into space.
“Well that sounds about right,” Tom replied, “this place is swarming with the buggers! I think they’re making a meal out of the college students in the Barony as we speak.”
“Hold on!” Euan suddenly said, turning to face Tom. “Aren’t we still trying to kill you?”
“Yeah!” Becky and Stewart agreed, and the three of them motioned towards Tom with threatening glares.
“No no no no no!” Tom quickly held his hands up and backed away from them. “We all made a truce guys! Seriously! We’re gonna beat the raptors first before we start killing me again!”
“Why do I not believe you?” Stewart said as he picked up a discarded pool cue to battle with.
“Look around dudes!” Tom exclaimed dramatically. “With this carnage going on we can’t afford to beat the pulp out of each other!”
They all looked around and saw that the Gamezone was deserted and somewhat demolished. Half the pool tables had collapsed or been flipped over. The broken bodies of drunken students and dozens of penguins littered the room, and pints and bottles of alcohol had been left unfinished on many of the tables.
“So?” Stewart said.
“Actually, he has a point.” Becky replied. “Where are the rest of the writers?”
“They managed to evacuate most of the people here with some of my course mates as the raptors attacked. They’ve all headed to the royal college to make a stand. I stayed behind to search the Union for any other survivors, but I haven’t found any.” Tom explained solemnly.
“Ok then, show us to where the rest of them went.” Euan ordered. “We have to protect the president!”
“Alright, follow me.” Tom motioned towards the main exit but then Stewart and Becky froze in shock and Euan suddenly pointed to behind him.
“Look out Tom!” Euan shouted urgently.
“Dude, that’s just not funny anymore.” Tom replied bluntly.
“No, seriously Tom, look out!” Stewart cried.
“RRRAaaargghhg! came the cry from behind him and he barely rolled away in time to avoid the velociraptor that charged through the Gamezone. Euan and Stewart dived to either side and Becky ducked behind a table. The raptor quickly turned to attack Tom again.
“Guys! It’s weakness is that it dies if you beat the crap out of it!” Tom yelled to the rest, before muttering to himself “It’s a good thing I brought my lightsabre with me this morning…” He reached into his hoody pouch and brought out a metallic cylinder. Whoom! A purple light sprung from the blade and he charged at the raptor.
They watched as Tom fought against the raptor, ducking its jaws and striking it with the searing hot lightsabre blade until it snarled in pain and died, missing both arms, one leg, and half a head.
Weshuuup! The lightsabre blade retracted and Tom placed it carefully back into his hoody pouch. “Phew…” he uttered, the fight having taken a lot of energy. “You guys ready to go?” He asked as he climbed across the bar and broke into one of the fridges, stuffing as many cans of Irn Bru as he could into his backpack. “Better get some weapons by the way… They’ll likely be more along the way.”
“Ok, there’s no time to lose! And we can figure out what’s messing up reality at the same time…” Euan declared, his fist clenched in a heroic manner.
“Wait a minute… This bar is unsupervised…” Tom pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
“We can’t stick around and raid the bar!” Becky snapped. “Our friends might be in trouble!”
“Yeah we can raid the bar Becky… Everyone ran when the raptors attacked.” Tom replied. “Better than 99p Tuesday, we bring you fresh from the Union think box… abandoned Gamezone! Just one for the road!”
“One for the road?” Stewart repeated with uncertainty
Tom nodded and cracked open a nearby bottle of beer enthusiastically. “The rest of them got a huge head start on the raptors; I doubt any of them are in any real trouble anyway…”
Emma stared down the raptor as it approached her slowly; a predator edging closer to get within pouncing distance. Its amber eyes flashed with hunger, only to meet the President’s gaze of determination. She cracked her whip and the snap echoed through the desolate hallway, a loud warning to her scaly foe. It wasn’t deterred, and edged closer still. Sweat was forming on her brow but she couldn’t wipe it away for losing focus. Her plan had worked so far: to distract the raptor long enough for everyone to reach the top floor safely. The next part of the plan involved her escaping unharmed, which was possibly going to be slightly more of a challenge. She knew that help would be on the way however. Surely a group of weapon crazy raptor killers would burst through the door in the nick of time.
Yep. All she had to do was continue to stare down the raptor until some form of help arrived.
Any minute now.
Seriously…
Anybody?
“Useless…” She muttered when it was apparent that no one was going to crash in for a flashy rescue. The raptor attacked. The crack of her whip and the beast’s cries could be heard echoing through the third floor corridor.
Back at the Gamezone, Stewart, Euan, Becky and Tom sat beneath the bar sipping on their third or fourth free drink.
“Hmm…” Tom frowned for a second.
“What *hic* is it doood?” Stewart asked, unsteadily holding a bottle of magners in one hand and an apple sourz and lemonade in the other.
“It’s probably nothin’… I just got the feeling that we missed a potential 'big damn heroes' moment just now. I wonder what’s happening in the RC?”
“We probably ought to head there soon…” Euan decided, “I mean, if Becky has much more to drink she’ll probably pass out again.”
“I fell over last time…” Becky said slowly and cautiously, trying not to sound drunk. “It had alcohol to do with any nothing! I’m getting drink another…”
Just as Becky was fumbling around in one of the fridges getting another Smirnoff ice, a velociraptor poked its head over the bar, its jaws salivating as it saw four potential happy meals.
It was about to pounce when Whoom! Chop! Crunch! Weshuuup! In one swift movement Tom’s lightsabre blade cut the raptor’s head clean off and it fell onto the floor next to where they sat. The beam of purple light retracted and Tom put the sabre away once more.
“How many is that now?” He asked while cracking open another beer.
“Six.” Euan replied after quickly counting the accumulated heads that now lay on the floor.
“Dude, its like pool this: it seems to get easier the more drunk you get!” Tom replied gleefully. He then looked at his watch and then his eyes widened. “We should probably get going though… This one quick drink for the road idea hasn’t really turned out that way.”
“The longer the better!” Stewart declared.
“That’s what she said.” Becky quickly said.
Tom buried his head in his hands crying “Not you too!” while Euan and Stewart looked at her with eyes full of shock.
Euan extended his hand to hers and said with as much drama as he could muster (and this is Euan, so rather excessive amounts): “Welcome to the club! Waaahaaay!”
After another quick two drinks to celebrate Becky’s initiation in the ‘That’s what she said’ club, they all loaded up on alcohol and staggered from the Gamezone towards the Royal College, where adventure was afoot, danger was at hand, and a whole other bunch of nouns were being linked to body parts through the marvels of the English language.
“Ok, something went badly wrong…” Nicola said to Iain and Niall as they barricaded some doors near the elevators on the top floor of the Royal College.
“Yeah, weren’t we just making up stories about the velociraptors in order to lure Tom into a trap and kill him? Brutally?” Niall inquired.
“It would be terribly ironic if we were to be killed by velociraptors after hatching a plan like that.” Iain commented.
“Bit of a backfire.” Nicola said in disappointment. “The rest of the crew are holed up in the James Weir aren’t they?”
“Yeah, they should be safe there; they have a ninja guardian after all.” Iain replied.
“Dammit. Wish I had one of those…” Niall sighed.
Dave and Andy had been barricading the next door down and approached Tom’s course mates with puzzled expressions.
“Hold on? Why do you guys want to kill Tom?” Dave asked in confusion.
“Yeah, we had good reasons!” Andy said with crossed arms.
“It was the phaff!” Nicola replied angrily.
“Yeah… Far too much phaffing about, wasting time and getting on our nerves.” Iain agreed.
“He’s always making me late for class.” Niall grumpily added.
“So we all have our reasons.” Pete concluded as he walked over to the conversation. Jenna, Ross, and Hazel wandered up with him. “The question is, why didn’t you just kill him with us when we had him trapped in the Gamezone?”
“Are you kidding? In front of a bar full of witnesses? With actual beating to death in a deliberate and law breaking way?” Nicola snappily replied. “Why would you do that?”
“Yeah,” Iain shook his head at the small group of gathered writers, “You need to make it look like an accident otherwise you go to jail.”
“It’s kind of obvious.” Niall remarked bluntly.
“I mean, haven’t you guys killed anyone before?” Nicola asked in exasperation.
“Well… No…” Andy replied cautiously.
“You have?” Ross asked in a curious tone.
The three Engineers looked at one another, perplexed by the question. They all turned back to him with bemused expressions.
“Of course we have.”
“We’re Engineers.”
“A course like this does that to you.”
“But it pays well when you get out.”
“If you get out…”
“Tom’s not going to get out if we can help it!”
“You were just going to pummel him to death and wait to be arrested. Where’s the long term victory in that?”
The writers shifted awkwardly and gave each other nervous glances. David eventually said: “Well, when we were out to kill Tom, it was funny.”
“Yeah, this cold planning and execution is rather creepy.” Jenna stated, crossing her arms in disapproval.
“Sure it probably makes more sense, slightly, but the story would end after Tom dies anyway so we wouldn’t have to worry about the morning after…” Hazel argued.
Dave nodded in agreement and added: “Yeah, and if you guys hadn’t burst into the Gamezone while you had, we could have sliced him and diced him and we wouldn’t have to put up with this somewhat dire sequel…”
“Well it’s all gone to hell anyway! The velociraptor story was just to lure Tom up to the top floor here so we could push him down an elevator shaft, but it turns out there actually are velociraptors.” Iain complained. “It is rather ironic…”
“I mean what are the chances of that?” Nicola sighed in irritation.
“I think its Tom’s fault. Such a dick.” Niall declared in annoyance.
“Wait wait wait.” Jenna held up a hand to halt them. “How was crying ‘raptor’ going to lure Tom up here? That’s got to be important.”
“Well he has these plans for different scenarios…” Niall began to explain.
“He is rather sad like that.” Iain added.
“Like the zombie one, a plan to escape and hole up etc…”
“Oh the zombie story!” One of the writers smiled in reminiscence. (I don’t know which one, just one of them, ok!)
“I kinda liked that one.” Another admitted.
“He must have been playing far too much ‘Left 4 Dead’…” A third concluded.
Niall frowned at them and waited for them to be quiet before he continued. “Anyway, his plan for escaping and surviving velociraptors involved luring all the ones in the immediate area, particularly those in the Union, into the Royal college building. Then all of the people involved would lure then up to the top floor, climb down the elevator shafts and walk out from the ground floor.”
“Is that it?” Pete asked with an unimpressed frown.
“Oh, no. The we blow some charges at the base of the foundations and bring the building down on top of them.” Iain smiled. “At least, in the plan. But there are not charges. The amount of time and effort it would take to set that up… We have three groups projects happening at once this semester, we don’t have time for on the side stuff.”
“But the original plan involves us all up here and a high elevator shaft.” Nicola said. “We push Tom in, go get some alibis, and there ya go, a Tom free afternoon.”
“Better than that, we’ll probably get higher marks in our group project by losing a member of our group” Niall smiled. “Added bonus, of course…”
“Not bad, though I thought my penguin army could’ve done the job until they all got eaten by the velociraptors.” Dave said bitterly. A moment of silence was held for the lost black and white flightless birds, before Ross had an epiphany.
“Hold on a second.” He said to grab everyone’s attention. “If the velociraptors weren’t supposed to be real but they are, then maybe the explosive charges are real too. What was the rest of Tom’s plan after the Royal College collapses on the raptors?”
“Well, since the Union was by then supposed to be clear of them, we hold out there, build barricades and raid the kitchen until the inevitable choppers come and evac everyone.” Iain replied with a positive tone.
“And play pool.” Niall declared, the importance of his statement carrying in his voice. “Lots and lots of pool.”
“Wait a minute…” Andy said, looking all around nervously. “We’ve been standing here talking for ages and there’s been no sign of any -”
“NO!” All of the writers yelled in unison.
“Don’t even say that! Do you want it to happen? They always appear just after if you say something like that!” Jenna cried in exasperation.
CRASH!
“This is all your fault Andy!” Ross frowned. They all turned sharply to see what had just come heavily through the door.
“Rebecca!” Hazel cried.
“Hazel!” Becky shouted back.
“Euan!” Dave cried.
“Dave!” Euan replied, but not stopping there continued onto “Ross! Andy! Pete! Jenna! Hazel!”
“Stewart!”
“Dave!”
“Hazel!”
“Andy!”
“Pete!”
“Father!” Stewart shouted, pretty much for the hell of it.
And you get the picture. The point is this went on until pretty much everyone in the room had shouted out the name of everyone else in the room. It was a lot of white noise that lasted far too long but if you were actually there at the time there might be a tiny chance of it being funny.
Maybe not. Moving on…
Then all eyes narrowed on the one wearing the red hoody.
“Look out Tom!” Tom cried instinctively, waving his arms dramatically in the air. When he saw the inevitable looks of confusion on everyone’s face, he shrugged and answered: “What? I just wanted to be the one to say it for once!”
Euan rolled his eyes and addressed everyone. “Alright! We’ve got good news, and bad news…”
“The good news is that Rebecca’s drunk.” Stewart said with an amused smile. “No, wait, that’s just the funny news.”
Becky smiled in a somewhat inebriated fashion and swayed on the spot.
“The good news…” Euan continued, “Is that we have totally stolen all this drink from the Gamezone!” he declared triumphantly, as he, Stewart, Becky and Tom unloaded a multitude of cans and bottles of various drinks onto the floor.
“The bad news is that we’re being chased by about a dozen velociraptors and the batteries in my lightsabre have run down, so we’re all pretty much about to die.” Tom added, somewhat casually. “Millers, anyone?”
They could hear the cries of many raptors as they charged up the nearby stairwell. The scraping of claws on concrete and the shrill shrieks of the beasts began to fill everyone with a sudden and unavoidable terror.
“The elevator shafts.” Jenna ordered. “Start moving people down them!”
“Oh thank God!” Hazel remarked, “I was dreading the thought of those stairs again…”
“We haven’t found any rope yet!” Nicola replied. “It’s not a possible climb, it’ll take too long to get everyone down!”
“We have to try…” Jenna decided, motion to them all to get moving. “There’s three shafts! Split up and meet on level two!”
At once everyone tried to force open the doors separating them from the dark elevator shafts beyond, but the metal plates were too tightly shut.
“Wait a minute.” Tom muttered, glancing at the dull light emitted from fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. “The power is still on in the building!” He exclaimed, hitting the call button for the lift that lit up instantly. “You guys must be thinking of the escape plan in which the power is also out! Why climb down a shaft when you can ride it?” He sighed in exasperation.
“That’s wha-”
“Don’t.” Tom cut Stewart off.
The raptors were getting closer but they could hear the lift moving up towards their floor.
“Oh man… which one will it come too…” Tom’s eyes darted between the three doors. “I never guess right…” He muttered in irritation, placing himself in the middle of the three for optimum mad dashing into them. Everyone else crowded near, hoping that the metal box would reach them before the raptors did.
Ding
They all ran to the elevator door nearest the stairs from which the raptors were approaching. The doors opened before them and to their horror, two raptors emerged with wide, hungry grins on their reptile like heads.
“Well shit.” someone said. They all backed into a corner as the two raptors closed in on them. Tom pulled out his lightsabre once more and stepped forward threateningly. Vroo-fizzel… the faint purple beam of light groaned with effort as it extended, but instead of a straight blade of kickass, it flopped down out of the hilt like a piece of limp string.
“Now that’s just depressing…” Tom remarked as he stared in disappointment at it.
“Now that’s what she said!”
“…I hate you.”
Then the velociraptors coming up the stairs arrived, and also moved forwards for the kill. Seven raptors in total all gradually crept closer towards their trapped prey, their eyes gleaming with murder. A few more steps before they pounced. One more…
Ding
There was another shrill cry from the newly arrived elevator as another raptor charged out, but –
CRACK! The whip snapped at the nearest raptor, striking it directly in the eye, causing it to howl in agony and thrash its head into the beast beside it. SNAP! went the whip again, piercing the skin of another raptor. Again and again the whip lashed, delivering a furious hail of pain that terrified the velociraptors. They fled from the room, chased to the door by none other than Emma, atop a tamed raptor.
The raptor turned and she gazed over the group of people that were now looking up at her in complete awe, atop a beast that had razor sharp teeth but knew not to mess with the real boss.
“We should be safe for a while. Raptors are easy to spook, but they’ll return, and in greater numbers…” Emma said with a victorious smile. “No ducky, no biting my friends!” she said sternly to the raptor as it was about to nip at Jenna’s shoulder. It bowed its head in submission and stared obediently at the floor.
“Damn right. I’m the one that does the biting.” Jenna glared at ducky. “You named it ducky?” She asked Emma in disbelief.
“Well…”
“How did you manage to tame it?!” Pete asked in bewilderment.
“Wasn’t easy,” Emma replied, “lost a life doing so, and strangely enough I didn’t come back straight away. My alter ego talked to me first, gave me some information. Turns out three people should have been trying to figure out why the hell everything is messing up. Except they were getting drunk instead!” She glared at Euan, Stewart, and Becky.
“But that doesn’t matter, because she gave me a big clue and I know what’s causing all this crap to happen. Where’s Tom?”
Everyone looked around quickly for the red hoody and Dave suddenly shouted “AHA! Got you!” He snatched the hoody and firmly grabbed it by the collar. “You’re not escaping again Tom!”
It took everyone in the room at least three seconds to realise that Dave was just holding an empty red hoody.
“Holy shit! Where did he go?” Euan stammered in disbelief.
Doors closing
Only some of them turned in time to see the doors close on the nearby elevator. In it stood Tom wearing a black t-shirt and a sombre expression.
“He got away again.” Ross muttered in irritation.
“Wait, why is it so important? What has Tom got to do with what’s going on? What is going on?” Niall asked.
“Tom is what’s causing all this warping in reality… The velociraptors are his fault and who knows what else will get messed up if we don’t put a stop to it.” Emma said solemnly.
“So we have to kill him?” Stewart asked.
“Yes.”
“Awesome.” several voices said at once.
“But how are we supposed to find him?” Rebecca asked. “Without his hoody how can we see him?”
“It’ll he hard, but it’s not impossible!” Jenna reassured everyone. “We ought to split up again, widen the search. He might return to the union…”
“Dammit, if we could have just snatched him there, this spiralling out of control story might have had an ending!” Andy grumbled.
“It can’t end yet…” Emma said dramatically. “No, seriously, it can’t. For one thing we don’t know what happened to Rob, Cat and Joe. They might all be having a separate adventure that’s in some way linked to ours that will become apparent in some kind of grand finale. The fact that there’s been not so much as a sentence in this part to even let us know what’s become of them is frankly shocking storytelling!”
“So it can’t end yet, but we must find him. We will hunt him down and fix reality all at the same time. That’s right,” Emma declared to the unseen enemy, “you better look out, Tom…”