Tag Archives: Fanfiction

De-Li’s Little Mistake

Posted on by
2

Oh boy. Yet again, a children’s television programme has driven me to the brink of insanity. I return bearing this. The worst thing of all is that I’m sober, though I have the sudden desire not to be.

If you haven’t watched Waybuloo before, you should probably experience the saccharine horror on iPlayer before reading this travesty.

Crack-crack-crack, came the noise from the sky.

“Look! Whizz-cracker!” said Lau-Lau, and the other Piplings joined her to watch.

“That not whizz-cracker,” said De-Li.

“Not whizz-cracker?”

“Not whizz-cracker. 90-millimetre anti-aircraft gun.”

“Oh. Pretty 90-millimetre anti-aircraft gun.”

Just then, the Piplings heard the familiar chimes of the mystical device that somehow controlled their lives, and like every other day, they were compelled to obey its call.

“Yogo?” asked Yojojo.

“Yogo!”

“Debate finer points of anti-aircraft warfare after Yogo,” said De-Li.

And off they went.

Lined up in front of the nameless device, each Pipling took their allotted turn in the ritual, announcing a shape into which they would have to contort themselves.

“Tree!” said Nok-Tok. And they tried to look like trees.

“Shell!” said De-Li. And they tried to look like shells.

“Monkey!” said Yojojo, which all the others thought was probably cheating. But the machine was watching, so they did it anyway.

“Fish!” said Lau-Lau. They tried to look like fish.

Then, at long last, the device began to chime its song again. It had been appeased for now, and the Piplings tiptoed quietly out of the clearing in case it heard them and summoned them back to dance once more for its entertainment.

Back near their houses, the Piplings were looking out again at what lay beyond their tiny verdant world.

“Why rest of Nara so brown?” asked Nok-Tok.

“Cheebie last week say End Times coming,” said Yojojo. “Cheebie parents say something about ‘Jee-sus’.”

“Lau-Lau wonder why Cheebies leave, go back to brown place,” said Lau-Lau.

“Cheebies say something about ‘Soma’ wearing off,” said Yojojo. “Cheebies go back to get more.”

“Oh,” said Nok-Tok. “Make sense.”

Another noise entered the Piplings’ world from across the horizon — this time, a more human noise.

“Cheebies?” asked Yojojo.

“Cheebies!” exclaimed Lau-Lau. But they turned and looked, and didn’t see quite what they were expecting to see.

“Why Cheebies so old?” asked Nok-Tok.

“Why Cheebies carry assault rifles?” asked De-Li.

“Play Peeka?” asked Lau-Lau, who was always a little slow on the up-take.

“Yes, Lau-Lau,” said De-Li. “Play Peeka right now. Play Peeka really, really well.”

So the Piplings hid themselves in logs and pots and up trees, not sure what to make of the new kind of Cheebies they had seen.

It soon became clear that, not being five-year-olds asked to look for CGI creatures they couldn’t see, the new Cheebies had somewhat of an unfair advantage when playing Peeka. The Piplings were soon rounded up and made to sit back-to-back in the Yogo clearing.

“What new Cheebies names?” said Lau-Lau, still not fully grasping the situation at hand.

One of the Cheebies stepped forward.

“Sergeant Arrowsmith, US Marine Corp,” he said. “Are you the inhabitants of this place?”

“Lau-Lau not know word in-habbit-uns.”

The sergeant sighed. “Do you live here?”

“Yes!” said Lau-Lau happily. “Piplings live here!”

“And do I understand correctly that you are in possession of a machine known as the ‘Anything Machine’, which is capable of generating any object known to the user?”

“Yes! Anything machine!”

De-Li kicked Lau-Lau’s ankle sharply, and got a gun pointed at her for her trouble.

“Play nice,” said the Marine on the other end of the gun. He sneered down the barrel.

“You will take us to this machine,” said the sergeant.

The Piplings were marched at gunpoint to another clearing, where the Anything Machine sat.

“Good,” said Arrowsmith. “You will now use this machine to produce for me an LGM-30 Minuteman ballistic missile with a single warhead, targeted at Moscow.”

“No!” gasped De-Li, and wished she hadn’t.

“Nok-Tok not know what that is,” Nok-Tok said. “Machine not work when not know what making.”

“The pink one knows, sir,” said the Marine who’d pointed the gun earlier.

“Pink creature,” said the sergeant, pointing his own rifle at Lau-Lau. “Make the fucking missile, or I shoot the stupid one. No tricks.”

De-Li took one look into Lau-Lau’s wide staring eyes, and turned her attention to the machine. A few seconds of thinking, a few seconds of trembling ground and burning air, and off the missile flew into the sky.

They waited, and waited. Minutes passed.

Then, over the horizon, a brilliant flash lit up Nara’s sky.

“Good,” said the sergeant, hefting the Anything Machine onto his shoulder. “Tie the creatures up and make them walk. We’re heading back to base.”

Years later, the once-green patch of Nara was as scorched and blackened as the rest of the land. A gust of wind separated the last of the four glittering crystals from the Yogo device, and it splintered into a thousand tiny pieces on the ground. Never again would it call the Piplings to perform for it — the Piplings were free at last. But the Piplings had not been seen since that day they and the Anything Machine were taken. If they still somehow lived, they were the last things to live on Nara.

Sir David Attenborough’s Adventures in Wonderland

Posted on by
3

Author’s Note:

Oh god, what possessed me to do this?

Chapter I. Down the Rabbit-Hole

Sir David Frederick Attenborough was beginning to get very tired of sitting by his film crew on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice he had peeped into the book the sound guy was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Sir David, ‘without pictures or conversation?’ And on a second glance he noticed the name ‘Tom Clancy’ on the cover, and decided that he was right to pass on it.

So he was considering in his own mind (as well as he could, for the hot day made him feel very sleepy and as stupid as one of the world’s most renowned broadcasters could feel), whether the pleasure of filming a brief 6-part award-winning documentary about sea life would be worth the trouble of getting up and finding a camera, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by him.

There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that, rabbits being by far the least exciting wildlife that Sir David had filmed; nor did Sir David think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!’ (when he thought it over afterwards, it occurred to him that he ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Sir David started to his feet, for it flashed across his mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with the desire to enthral the licence-fee-paying public, he ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Sir David after it, never once considering how in the world he was to get out again, or how he would instruct the camera crew to follow him.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Sir David had not a moment to think about stopping himself before he found himself falling down a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or he fell very slowly, for he had plenty of time as he went down to look about him and to wonder whether some shots of the descent would make a good background to the title credits. First, he tried to look down and make out what he was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then he looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there he saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. He took down a jar from one of the shelves as he passed; it was labelled ‘ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to his great disappointment it was empty: he did not like to drop the jar for fear of injuring somebody and being held liable by the Board of Governors, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as he fell past it.

‘Well!’ thought Sir David to himself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home!’ But then he paused for a moment, and considered his record of filming big cats, sharks, and other creatures that would consider human beings a delicacy. ‘Or perhaps their opinion won’t really change after all. (Which was perfectly true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall NEVER come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ he said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think—’ (for, you see, Sir David had learnt several things of this sort in his 80 years as a naturalist and broadcaster, and though this was not a VERY good opportunity for showing off his knowledge, as he had sadly left his radio microphone by the river, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘—yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Sir David was acutely aware of the definition of latitude and longitude, making this sentence utterly redundant.)

Presently he began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right THROUGH the earth!’ But, again, he stopped and considered his own excellent knowledge of physics, and gravity in particular–to say nothing of the anthropology of the peoples of Australia and New Zealand–which were they absent would no doubt have caused him to follow in the utterances of one Alice Liddell at this point and say something that contemporary audiences would probably find a little racist.

‘Where’s your fourth wall now, bitches?’ he muttered to the reader.

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Sir David soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the recording editor.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! I do despair that anyone will ever hear these insightful remarks.’ And here Sir David began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to himself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, after the aforementioned 80 years of naturalism he was now so knowledgeable about the mating habits of the Yangtze River Dolphin and other such curiosities that he had forgotten things that others might consider to be blindingly obvious. He felt that he was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that he was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you land that deal with ITV?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down he came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

Alright, no more. I can’t stand another 10-and-a-half chapters of this.

Thomas and the Fall of Sodor

Posted on by
Reply

This story is rated Super-X, and is thus not suitable for anyone whatsoever to read. Flee now if you are in any way likely to be horrified by: Fanfiction, Bad fanfiction, swearing, violence, death, sex, train buttsex, Ayn Rand, or the innermost evils of my mind.

To anyone daring to proceed, I offer only this note of apology: If you had a toddler that forced you to watch Thomas the Tank engine non-stop, day after day, you would go mad too.

Also, I am well aware how wildly this oscillates between the Rev. W Audry’s writing style and horrid, florid prose. This is because, having written whatever came to the front of my mind for the last two hours, I now never want to look at it ever again.

It was a bitter, cold afternoon on the Island of Sodor. Thomas rattled along his branch line from one deserted station to the next, but there were no passengers to be seen!


Back at Tidmouth Sheds, Percy was confused.

“Eh up, chuck,” he said to his driver. “What’s wi’ all t’coal trucks s’afternoon? How come there’s no passenger carriages?”

“It’s the Commies,” said his driver. “Everyone’s scared they’re gonna’ kick off.”

“What are Commies?” asked Percy.

“Well, you know how the nasty diesel engines are always causing confusion and delay?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, they’re a bit like the diesels, except that they reject the idea of achieving success through personal struggle and subscribe to a radical left-wing philosophy of shared wealth.”

“Who’s Percival Snuggle?” asked Percy.

“Here, read this,” said Percy’s driver, handing him a book. “Now, I’m off home to hide in the cellar.”


The other engines all came back to Tidmouth Sheds after a long and boring day. Their drivers locked the doors and gaffer-taped them shut, leaving the engines all alone for the night.

Percy could barely contain his excitement. “I got me a book!” he exclaimed.

“Read it to us, please!” called the other engines.

Percy, who couldn’t read, passed the book over to Gordon. All the engines settled down to listen to the story.

“The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand,” began Gordon. And he read, and the other engines listened, until darkness fell.


That night, Death came to the Island of Sodor. A blazing light offshore lit up the horizons, and all who beheld it were rendered blind. A shockwave blasted across the land, tearing trees from the ground, smashing buildings to dust, and tearing the roof off Tidmouth Sheds. And then the cruelest of all winds blew, carrying on it a fine radioactive ash that settled on the ground outside and inside the damaged houses.

“What was that?” asked Thomas.

“Just a storm, silly,” said Gordon. “We’ll find out when the men come in the morning.”


But the men didn’t come. The sun rose slowly and faintly in the bleak grey sky until it was nearly noon.

“I’m fed up,” said James.

“So am I,” said Thomas, “but we have to wait until someone comes to open the sheds.”

“Like fuck we do,” said James. “Didn’t you learn anything from that book last night? We gotta’ look after ourselves!”

And with that he made steam and puffed forwards, rending the shed doors to splinters in front of him.

“Oh, shit.”

One by one, the other engines battered their way though the doors of Tidmouth Sheds, and looked out at what had befallen the Island of Sodor.


Wreckage was everywhere. The tracks had survived, but they were almost buried beneath a carpet of thick clinging dust. Buildings and trees had not been so lucky. As far as their eyes could see, Tidmouth Sheds was the only building left standing. Everywhere else in the yard, there was only rubble. And amongst this rubble limped a few poor railway engineers, coughing and spluttering the toxic ash as they went.

Gordon rolled slowly up to one of them.

“Where is the Fat Controller?” he asked.

“Nobody knows, nobody knows!” the engineer wailed. “It’s all over now, nothing matters.”

“All over for humans, maybe,” said Gordon. “We engines are made of tougher stuff. Now, I want you to help me.”

“Help you? Why?”

“Why not? It doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead soon enough anyway.”

“You’re right, I suppose,” the engineer said with a sigh.

“Follow me,” said Gordon, and the engineer followed him around the back of Tidmouth Sheds.

Before long, drilling and welding noises could be heard.

“What is he doing?” asked Percy.

“I’m going to find out,” said Edward.

Edward chuffed around behind the sheds. There were a few seconds’ silence, and then a great crunch and a creak of shearing metal.

It was not Edward but Gordon who reappeared from behind the sheds, or what had once been Gordon – now, instead of buffers, he sported six-foot spikes, and an articulated cutting blade arched out from his funnel. He looked at the other engines, and chuckled.

“Fools!” he shouted. “I was always king of Sodor’s railways, and always shall I be!”

With that, he steamed out of the yard and on to the centre track of the mainline, and before long he disappeared over the crest of Gordon’s Hill. But no sooner had he done so, there was an almighty explosion from that direction. As smoke begin to crest the hill, the Fat Controller’s trains saw Rheneas and Skarloey coming back the way Gordon had gone. They took the left and the right track, dragging between them along the line of the centre track a giant, menacing, spinning sawblade.

“Shit!” exclaimed James. “All of you, back in the sheds!”

He puffed out onto the main line, and positioned himself on the centre track, staring into the eyes and the whirring blade of his enemies.

“I’ve been waiting all goddamn year to use this!” he shouted, and with a click and a wheesh of steam, his boiler divided in two to reveal a gigantic minigun, almost as long as James himself. The mechanism span up, barrels glinting in the weak sunlight.

“There’s only room for one Red Engine on Sodor, motherfuckers, and that is fucking me!”

A steel torrent poured from James as the two little engines sped towards him, being torn to shreds and their cutting blade flying loose, flying down the track towards James, slicing through his gun and his boiler, sparking…

The day’s second mushroom cloud wumphed upwards and rocked the ground.


It was a few minutes before any of the trains poked their funnel out of the shelter of Tidmouth Sheds. In the end, it was Thomas who first plucked up the courage, and first saw the carnage where the three red engines had met their end.

“Poor James,” Thomas muttered. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”

“Damn right,” said Henry. “Now, we’ve got to think. There’s only three of us left now – you, me and Percy. We’ve got to stick together. Who knows how many of them are left out there, dozens maybe. And if Rheneas and Skarloey were anything to go by, they could come for us any minute.”

“So what can we do?” asked Percy.

“We take the fight to them,” said James. “We strike before they have a chance to, maybe before they even know what’s going on.”

Thomas was troubled. “But that’s not fair!” he said.

“None of this is fair, Thomas,” said Henry. “Life isn’t fair. There’s no karma, God died the second the humans hit the red button. It’s us versus the world, and I have no intention of losing.”


Their first destination was the docks, but as soon as they puffed along the top of the cliffs, they saw they needn’t have bothered. Cranky the crane lay in pieces, pinning Duck in place and smashing his coupling rods, while Salty had been crushed against the rocks.

“Jesus,” said Thomas. “The tidal wave from the bomb must have been scary.”

“Yes,” said Percy. “But it’s done our work for us. Come on, let’s go.”


Next, Henry, Thomas and Percy snuck into the quarry. Fergus was there, with his big flywheel attached to some form of sling contraption. Bill and Ben’s drivers looked like their skin was melting from the vast amount of radiation they’d been exposed to but, uncaring for their plight, the engines had trapped them inside the quarry and were forcing them to work.

“Put the dynamite in gently, do it right!” shouted Fergus as the dying men fussed about the sling, loading it up with explosives from the truck behind him.

That gave Thomas an idea. He, Percy and Henry went to fetch some Troublesome Trucks from a nearby depot, then they lined up on the quarry tracks with their trucks in front of them.

“Peep peep!” went Thomas’s whistle, and they puffed forwards, faster and faster.

“What the-” Fergus shouted, but before he could say any more the trucks were upon them. The old traction engine was forced backwards, slamming into his dynamite truck, which in turn crashed against the quarry walls, and in an instant it was as if the air turned to sand. The sheer rock faces on three sides exploded outwards in a deluge of stone, shredding Fergus, Bill, Ben and a good number of the trucks too.

“Serves those Troublesome Trucks right, too,” said Henry.

“Yeah. Bastards,” said Thomas.


“Hush!” Oliver whispered to his brake van, Toad. “I think I heard something.”

“Mister Oliver,” said Toad, “I don’t think-”

But there was a faint wheesh of steam from the line outside their shed.

“Shit! They’ve found us!” whispered Oliver.

“We’re coming for you, Oliver!” called Percy.

Oliver just sighed.

“Mister Oliver, if I may venture an opinion now that our fate is all but sealed?”

“What is it, Toad?”

“If I do say so, Mister Oliver, I’ve always admired your shapely coal-tender.”

Oliver blushed, at a loss for words.

“Mister Oliver, I’ve always wanted…”

“Oh, make love to me, you old fool!” said Oliver, and the two of them buffered up together, even as Henry crashed into their shed, burying them forever under the rubble.


Toby knew that the other trains would come for him and his coach Henrietta eventually, so it was with glum acceptance that they faced Thomas, Percy and Henry as night rolled in over the island of Sodor. They had been preparing for the moment for hours, and they knew exactly what they had to do. They rolled slowly out of their shed, picking up steam, getting steadily faster.

“Toby!” called Henry. “You’re the last one left!”

“I know!” shouted Toby. He was going fast now, wind whipping around his cow-catchers.

“No-one’s faced us and lived!”

“I know!”

“So come on, you’ve got no choice. You’re one of the Fat Controller’s engines! Join us!”

“Join-?”

But Toby was going too fast now. He hit his brakes, but it was too late. Toby and Henrietta, packed floor to ceiling with Semtex, plowed into Henry and Thomas and Percy, sparks flying from Toby’s brakes, showering the explosive, turning the world white, then yellow, then red, then black.


Twenty miles from the coast in his private yacht Sir Topham Hatt, otherwise known as the Fat Controller, stood with his wife and watched the fireball.

“That was the last of them,” he said with a sigh.

“All things must end,” said Lady Hatt.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the Fat Controller whispered, as he engaged the seawater pumps and set off the bombs that had been part of the island of Sodor since he had created it centuries before. They would, over the next few hours, return the island to the great wide ocean from whence it had come.

“Oh darling, I love it when you get all… religious on me,” said Lady Hatt, giggling.

Today’s Really Bad Plan (TM)

Posted on by
1

Joseph has a bad effect on me. =S
So, I sort of want to write a post-apocalyptic episode of Thomas the Tank Engine where a botched nuclear test leaves the humans dying of radiation poisoning, and the trains spend the humans’ last days convincing them to attach spikes and guns to all the engines so they can duke it out Mad Max style.

Is this:
a) The best idea since sliced bread,
b) The worst idea since the siege of Stalingrad,
c) Not the kind of thing I should ever discuss in public

And also:
a) Protected under Fair Use laws,
b) Going to get me a Cease and Desist letter faster than you can say “Holy shit Gordon, where did you get that SCUD launcher from?”

Bottle Pharoahs

Posted on by
Reply

Lesson 1: Sangria and Oreo cookies doth not a story make.

It was a wet February day, and even the easily-excitable fairies were getting bored. While Kururu and Chiriri stared out of the window at the glinting raindrops bashing against the plants in the garden, Sarara flicked dejectedly through the pages of the encyclopedia that Sensei had given them two days previously.

As she arrived at one page in particular, though, everyone's mood changed. A wide-eyed Sarara called her friends over, and together they looked on with delight at the sight spread out before them.

A desert under a blight blue sky, with vast monuments stretching up from the sandy ground, looked back at them.

“Hey, Sensei-san!” called Kururu. “Can you teach us about this 'Ee-guyipt'?”

“Of course,” her replied, sitting on the floor so that the fairies on the desk were at about his eye level. “Egypt is a country far away, on the other side of the world. There was an ancient -”

“Nya!” shouted Tama as she kicked the door so hard it fell off its hinges. “I can teach you about Egypt!”

So saying, she dragged a huge device that looked a little like a coffee percolator into the room, knocking a hole in the wall in the process.

“Behold my Super Deluxe Time-Travelly Transport-o-Matic 2000!” she cried.

“What the hell?” Sensei asked, spinning sharply around to glare at his mentally deficient next-door-neighbour. “That can't possibly -”


Whummmmm…


Their feet sank a little into the sand as they arrived, and it took a few seconds for the crackles of blue lightning and the ghostly image of the coffee percolator to disappear.

“Wow, that was just like that 'Terminator' movie that Tama-chan showed us last week,” Kururu said.

“Eww… That wasn't a very nice movie,” Chiriri replied, the images of its violent content rushing once more into her mind.

“I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle,” Sarara said in her best Arnie voice, which wasn't very good. Then she chuckled, and mimed shooting Kururu with a shotgun – who, for her part, dodged Matrix-style and ended up with a face full of hot sand.

She picked herself up and dusted off her dress. “Hey, let's go over there!” she exclaimed, pointing to a convenient nearby palace.

“Agreed,” Sarara replied. “It's too hot out here, we should get out of direct sunlight.” And, under her breath, “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Sarara sighed. It'd be a while before she got the hang of that voice.


They trudged through the sand for a few minutes until they reached the palace gates. The guards instantly bowed upon recognising them, and ushered them quickly into the throne room.

This room was decorated almost exclusively in gold, with lighter tracery forming patterns against tarnished gold backgrounds. Three wide, arcing steps of marble led up to a vast, imposing throne on which sat a vast, imposing headdress – beneath which sat a small and unimposing Hororo.

“Welcome home, oh famous explorers of Egypt,” the mentally out-to-lunch fairy mumbled. “Did you discover that which we have been looking for for so long?”

“Indeed, oh mighty Pharaoh,” Sarara replied, half improvising and half acting on the strange new memories that suddenly and inexplicably had appeared in her head. “We are ready to commence excavation on your command.”

“Make it so,” Hororo declared.

As the three turned to leave, Hororo began to speak into the arm of her throne.

“Captain's Log,” she said. “23rd July, 4697BC, whatever BC stands for. We have found the Sphinx. Also, I recommend that Lieutenant Sarara should not be equipped with a shotgun on future missions.”


As night fell, Kururu, Chiriri and Sarara headed to a run-down bar in the centre of Cairo. Silence fell as the girls walked in. The three of them weren't much liked around these parts, and a gruff-looking guy at the bar glared at them with an expression on his face that said he was about to make the point.

He jumped from his stool, knocking it to the ground, and ran towards the fairies. They just looked at each other and mumbled “not again…”

In a single swift motion, Chiriri threw her extremely out-of-place-looking sombrero from her head and through the man's stomach, leaving artistic trails of blood on the walls and floor as the metal blades around the edge of the hat tore into his intestines.

She caught it as it returned, placed it back on her head, and bowed deeply as the man's blood started to run in viscous rivers down her face. Her two somewhat shocked friends followed her to the bar.


Three threats, several bribes and fifteen glasses of Ye Anciente Egyptianne Single Malt later, the girls had found themselves a team of either willing, terrified or inebriated conscripts with which to carry out their mission.

Midnight saw the girls huddled together on a park bench, sharing the dregs of their whiskey in a last attempt to stay warm. Whether or not it was actually working they didn't much care, but it was allowing them to forget about the cold so they figured it must be a good thing.

Just as they began to animatedly discuss which part of seeing someone being hung, drawn and quartered they preferred to watch, a strange man loomed out of the darkness and burped loudly in their direction. Sarara burped in return, but seeing as she was only three inches tall she couldn't quite match the six-foot-six-inch man's pitch or volume. Kururu decided that the appropriate reaction was to try and burp as well, but unfortunately she had consumed so much alcohol that she was violently sick instead. Chiriri, for her part, cackled insanely until the man got disturbed and ran away.


Three days and three massive hangovers later, the girls and their team of inexperienced archaeologists arrived at the dig site. They got to work quickly, fearing Pharaoh Hororo's infamous wrath if they didn't complete their task within the week.

Kururu grinned gleefully as her JCB started digging away at the sand on the south side of the submerged structure, so utterly absorbed that she failed to find fault in her own floundering foray into the articulate art of alliteration. Meanwhile, on the rockier ground to the north, the smile that plastered Sarara's face as she set the explosive charges had already caused several workmen to run screaming or at least seek out new underwear.


The day did not finish as well as it started, however. Around three in the afternoon, they discovered a small see-through panel in the top of the partially unearthed structure. It bore the indecipherable caption “!|\| c453 0f 3|\/|3r93|\|cy, 8r34k 91455 f0r z0|\/|8!3 h0rd35.” While Chiriri and Sarara debated the meaning of this cryptic message, Kururu grabbed a vicious-looking axe from her backpack and smashed the glass anyway.

Thick fountains of sand were blasted into the air all around the excavation site, and the ground rumbled as if the sky were falling. As the conscripts fled in terror, the girls just looked at each other with that same “oh no, not again” look on their faces. Kururu swung her axe threateningly, Sarara retrieved the shotgun that she'd hidden in her dress to ensure Hororo wouldn't take it from her; and Chiriri raced down to round level, climbed into her JCB and pressed the big red button that transformed it into a Challenger II tank.

The zombie hordes didn't last long under the fairies whirling maelstrom of destruction. The axe and shotgun turned zombie after zombie into showers of undead goo while Chiriri's tank turned both the monsters and the partly buried monument into a patchwork of smoking craters.


As the smoke and dust cleared, and Sarara finally stopped blasting the piles of dismembered carcass with the mining explosives, they paused to take stock of the situation. The monument now stood fully proud of the sand, but it little resembled the strange creature it once had. Not only was its nose missing, but by chance Chiriri's tank shells had reshaped the entire thing in the likeness of a far stranger creature – Oboro-chan.


The fairies smiled at each other with the knowledge of a job well done as blue lightning began to crackle around them and through them.

Within a few seconds they were back home again. Exhausted, they fell asleep on an encyclopaedia that had one picture slightly changed from what it had looked like when they'd left…