SF's "Write Your Butt Off!" Writing Competition XIV

[Jotari]

Ah. Wow. Super easy.

[eclipse]

Thanks Bal, you're the best~! I'll add the final bit to the poll (which is a link to every last story).

[eclipse]

And now that there's a winner, and I'd be posting something here anyway. . .

Five people have been summoned by the investigation branch of the Interdimensional Law Enforcement, each one under suspicion of a grave crime: Stealing the last cookie from the cookie jar.

[Magical Glace]

...That's something I would do.

Anyway, this just screams Lyrical Nanoha... I'll see what I can do.

[blah the Prussian]

Alright, there is so much I can do with this it's actually a problem.

[KentaEzren]

Well... I may consider.

[Jotari]

Was going to wait for someone else to post something in order to get some inspiration but that never really happened so I just wrote something on the fly. What I ended up with was...sort of weird. Can't really say how I feel about it myself, I don't even know what half the references refer to but you might enjoy it.

Title: Intradimensional Lunch Thief

Word Count: 1649

"Oh what the hell?" Senan cried as he looked in the fridge. "Who ate my lunch!?" He immediately accessed the time records for the room and saw that Orson was the last one at the fridge. Without delay he teleported to the other side of reality.

Orson was tanning himself on the side of a crystal mountain. "Senan? We're not due to start our mission for another 80 ounces."

"I'm not here about the mission. I'm here because you went and ate my bloody lunch."

"What? No I didn't."

"I checked the time records Orson. You were the last one in the fridge."

"That doesn't mean I ate your lunch. Why are you getting so worked up about it? If you feel that bad I'll take you out for lunch right now." Orson put his mirror away, stood up and immediately spawned a combat suit around himself, similar to the one Senan was wearing.

"I can't just have lunch anywhere. I'm dimenbetic. I can only eat food from my home reality. "Well can't we just swing by your neighbourhood and pick something up?"

"No. My dimension is under quarantine after that sentient virus incident. That cookie is literally the only thing I could have eaten for fathoms."

"Well that's a real shame. I guess you'll just have to go hungry for a little while. How about we start our mission now? That'll help the quarantine lift sooner on your personal time zone."

"I don't want to go on a mission with you!"

"Well tough. We're scheduled for one anyway." Orson clicked his fingers and they both found themselves on a space ship.

"What's the mission anyway?" Senan grumbled. "I haven't read the brief yet."

"A small group of reality pirates have hijacked a time freighter. They're planning on killing our founder by crashing it into his home planet before life was established there."

Senan sighed. He was still angry but he was also a professional. "What a mundane plan" he complained.

"The fact that it's mundane is precisely why we haven't just erased the whole ship from existence yet. There's been a pretty big increase on attacks against the enforcement. Ensign wants us to capture the one leading this mission in hopes of finding out who's behind it."

"It's probably some alternate counterpart of us. It always is."

"Yeah but finding them's the tough part. Come on, let's go."

"How many paradox credits do you have left?" Senan asked as they ran down the corridor.

"Not many" Orson grumbled. "About 1700. You?"

"2500."

"Not much more."

"Still plenty for a mission like this."

"Not if one of our alts happens to be on the ship."

A man suddenly appeared in front of them and shouted in a language they couldn't understand. He immediately open fired with an assault rifle killing Orson instantly and injuring Senan. The paradox agent dragged himself around a corner, swearing all the while. "Who the hell open fires on a spaceship?" he gasped. He needed to deal with this threat immediately. Aside from the danger to his own life, and with it the mission, the gun shots would no doubt draw in a larger crowed which would mean more erasures, perhaps even beyond the capacity of his paradox credits.

He scanned his enemy with his gauntlet and tagged his bio signature. Just as the man was about to open fire again, he suddenly wasn't there. He didn't quite vanished. Existence just changed so that he was never there in the first place. Approximately a year before the man was born, his father was kidnapped and castrated completely wiping him from reality and with him all the damage he did.

Senan got to his feet completely unharmed. Orson was also standing up though he was a bit more disorientated. "How much did that cost you?" he asked Senan.

Senan glanced at his gauntlet. "124. We still have plenty left."

"He must have been pretty unimportant all things considered. Damn. What an idiot. Still that's why we don't do these missions alone."

They walked down the corridor, now at a leisurely pace. "You're lucky I saved you" Senan remarked.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well after you ate my lunch I was half considering leaving you dead. The bullets would have drawn others though so I decided saving you was a fair compromise."

"I already told you I didn't eat you lunch" Orson muttered. "Check the time records more carefully when you go back. You're so quick to judge."

"Oh come on. Like you don't have it in for me."

"And what does that mean?"

"You've wanted to get back at me ever since I slept with your sister."

Orson grew silent. "I never cared that you slept with my sister" he eventually muttered. "Desdemona is gone now. It's not like that matters anymore."

Senan suddenly felt quite bad. He'd only briefly known Desdemona years ago by his time zone. It was quite easy to forget she'd been erased. "Here's the bridge" he muttered, trying to completely avoid the subject.

They opened the doors to find the bridge completely empty. They both looked at each other. "Trap" they both said right as the floor beneath them electrified.

Senan woke to find his arms tied above his head. His feet just inches away from resting comfortably on the ground. He turned to see Orson beside him in a similar state of grogginess. Both of them were naked from the waist up which meant all their equipment had been taken. He was slightly surprised they left him his pants.

The entire thing had been a ploy to capture some paradox agents and it had succeeded quite well Senan had to admit. He let out a deep sigh. "I think the blame for this lies entirely on our shoulders."

"Indeed" Orson agreed. "We should have checked for life signs more consistently. First thing they taught us at the Ballet."

"So, how high are your hopes we'll get out of this?"

Orson shrugged, which took considerable effort when suspended by your wrists. "That depends entirely on how competent they are. We acted like idiots so it's hard to judge if we're up against some real enemies or a bunch of jokers that got lucky."

"Well either way, all we can do now is wait."

"We could play a game to pass the time" Orson suggested.

"What like I spy?" Senan said dryly. "This is a completely empty room. All we have are rope and ceiling."

"I was thinking maybe Twenty Q."

"Go on then. Have you thought of someone?"

"Yes. The person who are your lunch."

"Was it you?"

"No, that's one question down."

"You know who it was though?"

"Yes. That's your second question."

"Ahh. Was it someone from the bureau?"

"Nope."

"Accounting?"

"Wrong again."

"Another paradox agent?"

"Yep."

"Hmm. How many questions is that?"

"That's five. You have fifteen left."

Senan thought for a while. "Aww damn it."

"What?"

"Is it someone from Earth?"

"Yeah. You know who it is?"

"Is it Zelda."

"Bingo. Earth Zelda. How'd you guess?"

Senan sighed. "I kind of killed her slave. I think it was a dog."

Orson began laughing. "Oh you're certainly in trouble then. Eartinites take that sort of stuff really seriously."

"I know right? It's crazy. The worst thing is how much they claim to love the animals while oppressing their rights. And then they say I'm racist for calling them slaves. Blood political correctness."

"You just have to accept these things for what they are. Different cultures and all that. Don't your people drink animal milk?"

"No. We synthesize animal milk. Besides they do that on Earth too."

"It's a pretty crazy place that Earth. They don't even have Whimvarwhams."

"Most places don't. You just think they do because Whimvarwhams are like the royal wedding on Gastravalta."

"You have Whimvarwhams in Amza though, right?"

"Yeah we do but it's not considered nearly as important. Probably because we don't have phosphorus."

"How does it work without phosphorus?"

"I think we use tungsten instead."

"Really?" Orson was genuinely surprised. "I suppose that makes a lot of sense."

There was some sounds of struggle outside followed by complete silence. Suddenly the door slid open revealing another paradox agent.

"Zelda!" Orson remarked.

"You're two are fucking idiots." She glared at Senan. "I can't believe I had to save you" she said, her words laced with venom.

Senan sighed. "Yeah we got captured and I killed your slave."

"My pet" Zelda cried with fury.

"Sure , your pet. Whatever. Point is your here to recue us, I appreciated it, just get me down already. My arms are killing me."

Zelda zapped the rope causing Senan to suddenly fall. She then went about taking Orson down more comfortably. "I had that dog for twelve years" she muttered.

"Yeah well you ate my lunch and my universe is under quarantine so we're even."

"We're not even! I spent 7000 thousand paradox credits rescuing the two or you. You're both paying that back each."

"Come on Zelda" Orson complained. "I didn't kill your dog. I should only pay half that."

"Find. You can pay me 3500 credits, he can pay me 10,500."

Bastard Senan mouthed at Orson as the other man smiled happily.

"Do you have our gear?" Orson asked her.

She clicked her fingers causing their equipment to drop out of hammer space.

"Did you find out who was behind this?" Senan asked.

"No. That was your job. My job was just to rescue you two idiots. Which I've done now. Good riddance." With that she vanished. Where to? Neither men could hazard a guess.

Senan began reattaching his gear. "So, maximum revenge?"

"I'd love to" Orson said. "My arms are killing me too but we really should pay her back. Things could have went a lot worse."

"Fine. Conservative it is then. Let's go."

Edited May 6, 2016 by Jotari

[Magical Glace]

I'm still trying to figure out a way to make this sound not stupid.

...sigh.

[Moblin Major General]

Jotari wins by default. Let's go home, everyone,

[Jotari]

Jotari wins by default. Let's go home, everyone,

Eh. I'd rather there be at least one other submission so there can be some sort of vote. Prompt isn't a month old yet so if anyone is actually working on something then I'm fine with it running a bit longer.

[jankmaster98]

I have like, a small idea so gimme a couple of days

[eclipse]

. . .sorry, RL just threw a giant monkey wrench in my face.

I know it's finals time (or close to it), so do you guys want this thing open until June?

[Jotari]

I'm pretty busy at the moment, moving continent and all, but since it looks like I've won by defualt then it doesn't really matter much to me if it closes now. I can give a prompt and leave you all to it.

[eclipse]

Alright, that's fine!

[Jotari]

Life can be pretty cheap when writing even though it's thought of as very precious in reality. So write me a story in which nobody dies. You can still have all sorts of horrible and dangerous things happen to them if you so choose so long as nobody in the story dies.

[HylianTiki]

So if i'm gettingnthis right. The prompt right now is to write a story where no one dies?

[Magical Glace]

So if i'm gettingnthis right. The prompt right now is to write a story where no one dies?

No, it's to write a story about five people being summoned by interdimensional management police for stealing the last cookie from the cookie jar.

[Moblin Major General]

No, it's to write a story about five people being summoned by interdimensional management police for stealing the last cookie from the cookie jar.

Read the bottom of the last page. Eclipse closed it. Jotari won by default. Back on Topic, I'll write something for this one, and I think I know what.

[Jotari]

So if i'm gettingnthis right. The prompt right now is to write a story where no one dies?

Yep. Pretty open prompt otherwise.

[Jotari]

So is anyone writing for this or has it fallen off everybody's list of priorities?

[Magical Glace]

I just have no ideas lately...

[blah the Prussian]

I was writing, but then finals came up.

[かベリー]

Finals have finished, but I'm a terrible writer so.

[Jotari]

Finals have finished, but I'm a terrible writer so.

Stop telling yourself that.

[Moblin Major General]

Finals have finished, but I'm a terrible writer so.

I managed to get a perfect circle in terms of votes my first (and as of yet, only) submission in this contest, but I didn't feel bad or angry for not winning anything, it's just that everyone who voted thought the others were better. I knew it probably wasn't my best writing, but as the first draft of a novel I plan on actually writing and editing, I'm certainly not done with writing it. In fact, I may post it in Creative sometime.