Read Temporal Pests One !

Be warned therein is much silliness!

Temporal Pests ONE Copyright Julie Vaux 2012 - 2014 and 2016

TIME OUT FOR A PAIR OF CHARACTERS OUTSIDE TIME


In Which We meet Two Rather Unusual Little People and Some of Their Many Friends and Enemies.


There are places within the Multiverse, which are both in and outside of what some call the eleven dimensions of space-time and others an infinite standing wave. In these “between” places you can move and exist beyond the normal limits of sentient perception. Some folk call them spatio-temporal nodes, other shadow knots, or shimmer points, or stranger names. If you are there, then you can be and go almost anywhere, and yet also any when, for they are the places where time-slips and trans-dimensional gates manifest in densely woven clusters, instead of as scattered anomalies.

This particular one would look to most humans, when moving towards it, like a flower of many petals with each petal being a slightly different color. The colors move through the entire spectrum of possible radiation. Imagine also that this blossom has no stem and its petals rotate around what looks like a circle made of many tangents joining, with lines formed by waves converging in and out of existence.

Some of those lines flow into the petals in a way that suggests those petals are an illusion caused by the convergence of tangents and merely areas of stillness within a pattern of waves. The lines or pistils quiver endlessly like a harp string vibrating in such a way you see one primary string and several others at the same time. Perhaps they are echoes of cosmic or quantum strings.

Look closer and you will see that the petals seem to be joined by silver wire. Come even closer and you will the silver wire is multi-stranded. Here and there structures are attached to each strand and there are objects moving around those structures. You may also see shapes that suggest doors and gates, or mirrors, round, square, sealed, and open. Through these structures a variety of beings move. Some of them are humanoid and wear coverings suggesting uniforms. Others are not remotely humanoid, occasionally biped, and probably sentient.

Two of the non humanoid beings, who were definitely not two-limbed but allegedly sentient, depending on who you asked, and what experiences they had previously with them, were being forcibly placed into an enclosure in one of these structures, being thrown within actually, to accompanying bellows of, “AND STAY IN THERE!” A force-field sealed the enclosure to the protesting yelps and argles of two peculiar beings.

The one who yelped was female and looked like a Standard Red Long haired dachshund of impeccable bloodlines and powerful elegance. She appeared to be the sort of dachshund that occupants of the darkest densest forests of central Europe, from the smallest hare up to massive wild boars, hide from, shivering, as they hear the pack sniffling after them. This variety of Terran canine, also hunts and stalks small dangerous (well to canid livers) items like chocolate Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits. They also do population control for edible pests, like rats, and their range of predation varies upwards in scale to much larger prey, like time lost dinosaurs, and those dragons of the kith and darkling kin, whose behaviour gave more honorable dragons a bad reputation, and possibly also bandersnatchi and even stranger beasts and brutes.

The other female looked like the result obtained, if someone, who really should not have been allowed near genetic engineering devices, had created a cross between a small dragonoid and a seal, with more than a dash of otter and goldfish, but no visible scales or fur. A large finned tail curved into a torso which had two front flippers and the whole body was covered with a skin that seemed to shimmer as if scaled but also had a soft satiny texture. This torso narrowed into a long slender neck topped by a head and muzzle that tapered and split into four digits at the end, giving this being a rather snaggly smile. She had “teeth” or fangs or claws at the end of each flexible "finger".

The designer or creator was apparently fixated on using pink, gold, and purple, and their creation also appeared to be wearing purple makeup outlining its mouth parts and eyes, and was currently wearing glitter covered sunglasses, that a certain Aussie dame would have adored. Or possibly someone had carefully applied make-up? Certainly several individuals had expressed a wish to find out where Goldie, a.k.a. Gilda Dragonides, bought her make-up although with the aim of having her banned from shopping from wherever that was.

Sassy the canid member of this duet, shook out her fur, and snapped and snarled.
“Honestly I so did NOT do graffiti on the Sphinx of “Sassy was here!” in gold glitter! Like practically every one else has but not moi! That poor bulge of rock has been hacked at and scribbled on by Aliens, Atlanteans, Egyptians, Greeks, and oh yes, was it Napoleon’s army who used it for target practise? BUT NOT ME! Honestly if the Sphinx really was an alien construct they should have made it a robot so it can get up and walk into the desert away from all those vandals!”

The small dragonoid by her side argled in agreement making Goullawk utterances that translated into English as, “Yes, they even blamed us for some stuff we haven’t done, as if we would do anything like that, when we were busy doing other things, like transporting Frodo and Gandalf into that producer’s office! Teehee! And then we took those Kaledian mutant cyborgs to …”

“Quiet!” hissed Sassy, “You want more reality violations added to the list! We’re just going to have to stay here and behave until Uncle Gus bails us out! He’ll understand why we couldn’t resist sooling that gene construct based on a giant mutant lizard onto the Capital of a certain evil galactic mega-corp. So a few people got probably mmm ….”

“Squashed?!” squealed Goldie gleefully, “but they were evil clone slavers!”

Sassy sighed and lay down carefully arranging herself in the infamous “I’m so elegant and innocent so how could you believe I would do that?” position of head resting on crossed forelegs and slightly raised brow ridges with relaxed ears. Goldie copied her with differing results as a Goullawk with drooping ear fins but raised eye ridges lying down looks more a pathetic abandoned bath toy.

Goullawks vary considerably in size, according to age, gender, and diet. Goldie’s size could perhaps best be described as lap dragon although other Goullawks have been mistaken for traditional Celtic monsters of sea loch and shore.

After a while Sassy, being naturally optimistic cheered up and whispered to Goldie.
“They still haven’t found out where we parked Lady Zen Shipper so we can still have more adventures once Uncle Gus gets us out of here!”

Goldie argled a question, “Why hasn’t Uncle Gus bailed us out yet?”

“Uncle Gus will come and get us!” replied Sassy, “I’m one of his favorite grand-nieces!”

Goldie hakkegled a question, “mmm he has about three hundred grand nieces?”

“But he only has one me!” replied Sassy proudly tilting her muzzle.

This display of self-esteem was interrupted by noises from outside.

Sounds of violence begun to boom, and the hiss of energy beams forcing subatomic particles to change orbits could be heard, and sonic blasters zinging against walls, along with the screams of injured or angry beings. Midst all this chaos, riot, and mayhem, a small dog came sashaying up the corridor towards them.

“Hey that’s me!” barked Sassy.

 “Blahargh???” responded Goldie, stretching her head towards the door and fanning out both ear fins in bewilderment. The small figure walked over to a console, stretched up and placed its forepaws on a button, and the force field holding them back disappeared.

Sassy started towards her doppelganger.

“Don’t get too close! There’ll be temporal flashback if you do!” cried out her mirror image.

“You are me!” cried Sassy, “How?”

“Look it’s going to take you about three days to figure out why we’re both here but its not a closed temporal loop yet, but it will be a crossover if we get this right! Hurry up and escape out of here and get help! Certain forces of evil and various villians are attempting to take over this node so they can rewrite their personal histories! Make sure you ask for help BEFORE you come back here. Tara told me so! The Buddhist one! And the help has to arrive three days from now or it can’t get here! Hurry!”

Sassy’s temporal doppelganger turned and raced away from them. Sassy and Goldie looked fretfully at each other.

 “Now would be a good time to go home?” burbled Goldie who proceeded to flipper walk away from Sassy.

Sassy sat there for a moment still stunned by seeing herself. What had her doppelganger meant? Get help? This wasn’t her problem. This was an opportunity to escape?

Goldie not hearing the swash of fur behind or next to her turned around and hakkergled,
 “Hello is this that temporal flashie thing that being who looked like you talked about?”

She waddled back and nudged Sassy with her snout, blattering her eyelids, (a movement like fluttering but faster almost a flickering) and blurbled, “Hello Galpal Goldie to Super Sassy! Time to go, Go! GO!”

Sassy shook herself. “Yes let’s go find an active portal or a quantum tunnel and reach Lady Zen Shipper!”

 They trotted down the corridor, two small figures unnoticed amidst a confusion and commocion (a lovely Spanish word overdue to be borrowed into English) of giant, medium, and small sized, killer robots, evil cyborgs of several kinds, wicked druids and fashionistas, and various hooded and caped figures, and many individuals of several genders wearing the sort of tailored clothing that says I’m rich, powerful and probably have a dubious grasp of basic ethics along with dodgy dress sense! Yes the forces of evil were partying! Some of them even wore outfits that were actually tastefully frightening!

Along the way Sassy and Goldie trotted past some of the individuals from the various Time Space Patrols and Temporal Bureaus and other such agencies, who had placed them in the holding area to await judgement. A small group of humans in a variety of uniforms and suits were kneeling behind a console firing rayguns, bazookas, energy rifles, flechette guns, and just plain bullets, at an advancing cacophonic chaos of caped figures, fiends, and their cronies, devices, lackeys and hench-folk.

Sassy cheerfully hollered as she trotted past. “Hi guys! We’re free again!”

Goldie added in Goullawk, having remembered what the other Sassy had asked them to do, “and going to get help!!!” and bobbed her head up and down in a manner that was meant to look reassuringly cute. It did if you were a younger Goullawk worried about being eaten by its elders, who seemed to be considering whether it was too stupid or dysfunctional to enjoy the continual privilege of life, but to a human it just looked weird and demented! And so not reassuring!
“Commander” asked one of the humans, “May I please shoot them too?”

“No!” stated the Commander, “they might help!”

“Help do what make things more complicated or worse!” responded the questioner, “Them? Help? They’re Teckelsteiners! You know what their idea of help is, making such a mess of things we have to go in and rearrange people’s memories or remove anomalies or or or …”

“Incoming!” screamed someone else as fireballs were launched at them and they all ducked for cover. When they looked up again Sassy and Goldie were out of sight. A team of hench-folk were approaching with large nets and lassos and other objects such as nunchakus and knuckledusters designed to deliver stunning force viciously. Barely visible to the rear were a group of older semi-retired villains sitting on a shielded antigravity platform comfortably sipping drinks and apparently marking scores on clipboards. Just as the heroes, good guys, and other relatively righteous folk, and let’s not forget honorable lady amazons, were about to run out of weapon power, and the lackeys and henchpersons closed in on them, the commander turned to his men and made a promise while manfully posing.

“Have no fear! Help is on the way! If not those dachshunds then shirley someone else will send help soon!”

“I think that’s surely sir!” replied someone as he pivoted to kick a servant of evil in what he hoped was a delicate region, and gasped, as he contacted with hidden solid metal, “but the odds are sheerly against us! However,” he croaked and gasped, mentally cursing the inventor of metal codpieces, “could tiny lil dogs poss’ly help! AAARGH!”

“Have no fear,” bellowed the commander heroically; being a graduate of that type of Shakespearian theatre training which often ends up being used in cult sci-fi shows, “Dachshunds don’t know the meaning of the word impossible. And they’re fearless and courageous!”

“They don’t know the meaning of fear so they’ll front up to any threat?” yelled someone who sensibly had thrown their empty gun away and was swinging a sledgehammer towards a pale-skinned cyborg’s head.

“No they’re dachshunds” cried the commander. “They’re fearless about most things except bath time and they really don’t know the meaning of the word impossible. They just don’t understand it!”

He was about to explain that dachshunds, especially those from Teckelstein, had an attitude about reality and life best described as a belief that if you couldn’t do it yourself you just find some nice friendly kind human to con into doing it for you, but just then a giant robot vented a cloud of sleeping gas over them. Meanwhile Sassy and Goldie had quietly slipped through a quantum tunnel off to retrieve Lady Zen Shipper.

Small Monsters

The girls have been busy.

SMALL MONSTERS

Somewhere in the Middle East a small sonic screwdriver held by some one using a muzzle or snout as much a mouth as a “hand” with four digits was loosing parts of a missile launching device while another small being was quietly using a pencil held in an fanged opening that was more definitely a mouth to use a keyboard and erase or reset targetting software and programs. Two small monsters were doing their part for peace in a region beset by larger monsters.

A commanding voice interrupted their activities.

“DROP THAT!

Two pairs of eyes turned towards the voice. One pair was onyx gold brown surrounded by golden red fur and the other opalescent purple surrounded by delicate barely visible small scales.

“I don't know what kind of ifrit or djin either of you are but I can see you!”

“Oh a human who can see us!” remarked the purple eyed dragonoid.

The young man held out an amulet with symbols inscribed on it that predated the Sumerians.

“Sorry sweetie that doesn't work on us!” remarked the onyx eyed one.

“B u u u t...”

“Cos we're not ifrits or djinni” chimed the other.

The young human uttered words he'd been taught in a language that was younger than the symbols on the amulet and sounded like some kind of Arabic but was older than even Quranic Arabic.

Some one else appeared.

"You called me to protect me oh young and most fortunate of … urk eek argh NOT them!” spluttered a being wearing an outfit that belonged on a Bedu shepherd wearing his best festival outfit.

The young man looked at the two small monsters or whatever they were and at his family's djinn.

“Obey! Protect this infidel kaffir smiting weapon!” he snarled.

The djinn hestitated and asked …

“Must I?”

“Yes must he?” asked the furry one,” cos I thought the problem you had around here was a bit too much faith not a lack?”

“What she said!” stated the djinn who'd been peacefully resting in a cave near Petra reading through a basket of books and scrolls that contained the secret diaries of a Idumean Princess, her copy of Sappho's poetry, the real Gospel of Barnabas, and a copy of Queen Cleopatra's recipe book for perfumes, poisons, and potions for treating childhood diseases.

The djinn had been half away through a juicy passage of gossip about a certain emperor and was eager to get back to it.

“Oh this is the be careful how I say my commands thing isn't it? Oh mighty spirit bound to serve my family for a thousand years and ten thousand wishes which ever comes first remove these two beings to some place faraway where they may smite enemies of my people!”

The two small monsters and the djinn disappeared.

A short while later faraway at a tank depot the girls resumed their creative alterations.

“All those bound djinn being invoked when people see us makes getting into military bases and past security systems so much easier! So do you want to jam the tank treads or do we cut the fuel lines this time? Or how about we snafu the computer inside this tank first so we're working inside unseen in case they have any Golem?”

Far above the shadows of dark wings and worse things greater monsters watched their work of chaos unfold across the region as two small monsters did their best to reduce some of the violence.

Okay  this probably didn't happen in our universe ... probably ... but ...

One Lab Accident Revisited and revised (sections in ( )
(original post nov 2012 )
Just to remind you who some of our characters are before the big battle!

"Now what's next on our list?" asked Goldie, although she was quite capable of reading it herself.

Sassy was squinting earnestly with a very serious expression at the list.

"We've got cavalry and air support but we need a flock of dodos and to arrange a freak storm in Pasadena to cause a lab accident to an (Princess) Amy (of the Apes) FF, some called pennypennypenny! and Bernie ... is ... gosh who wrote this for me ... is that name wolowiz?"

Meanwhile in Pasadena other people had similar ideas and two Ph.D.s, a Masters in Engineering and a waitress were setting up chemicals and other devices while Mrs Wolowiz and Superpandit were watching them. Superpandit was floating four feet off the floor as his new levitation abilities had gotten stuck on HOVER.

"Okay people," the male Ph.D,"if we're right about how the laws of physics have changed an open window a kitchen bench covered with dangerous chemicals and  a few of his hairs should allow us to locate the East Texan Mantis Monster along with this picture Stuie draw for us and the scrabble board on the table.

Now how do we get the freak weather or electrical dishcharge?"

Some short time later in the stratosphere Lady Zen Shipper was cloud herding disguised as an airship with camo gray cloud patterns.

"All right are we above Pasadena yet?  Everyone got their safety googles on?" asked JonaHexed dressed in a dashing 30s style lab jacket steam punk googles and black rubber boots.

"Oh can I do the count down when you pull the lever?" squealed Goldie!

"Lets all do it start chanting folks!" cried JonaHeXed as he started moving the lever downwards.

"TEN!" There was a humming sound.

"NINE!" An whiff of ozone!

"EIGHT!"

Well yeah you're going to have to READ the SFX unless I suddenly start getting a helluva lot of Paypal tokens of appreciation so I can pay a PRO to draw this and other scenes and no one has used the paypal yet even once sheesh so ... read on.

"SEVEN" Fluvia's hair begun to frizz with static electricity and Sassy's heckles rose.

"SIX" Down in Pasadena the waitress looked out the window and exclaimed

"Oh a freak unforecast storm!"

"FIVE" "Everyone get inside the circle or stand next to the chemicals!" shouted one of the Ph.D's in Pasadena.

"FOUR"

"THREE"

"TWO"

Okay everyone reader participation time!

"ONE!"

A massive discharge of over excited molecules wove a mass of air into a pathway for power and flashed downwards thru the window.

Next time have our fearless heroines made new allies?

Still A Battle

Still A battle

(see prior post finally a battle )

Still A Battle

We last saw our characters (unless you caught up on older posts while the girls took an Xmas

break) besieged surrounded overwhelmed threatened and generally in trouble.

DEM grabbed Sassy by the collar and pulled her away from the Goullawk shaped dent in the

ground and then before the Dachshund could wriggle backwards out of the collar wrapped an arm around her and tucked her under her armpit firmly.

"Hey you're wearing armor! That hurts!" yelped Sassy.

"You'll hurt a lot more if you get squashed too by that robot!" scolded DEM.

The demiequinid character was whinnying as he fired off rounds from an antique pistol.

He stopped to reload and snorted at the others and swore in an obscure Germanic dialect.

"@##$% I told my author I wanted to retire!"

Just then in the distance there was a loud popping sound as air was displaced by a gate opening followed by the sound  of anti tank grenades  exploding and the ringing of steel capped hooves against robotic armour.

"Loving God" whinnied the Colonel, "Who invited my wife?"

Catholic Shrieking cut through the crowd bowling over several robots battle machines and

warsuits  and a variety of villains and also clearing a path to a nearby building.

By its door was Wolowiz and wife, P is for Persuasive and Super Pandit waving franticly.

Our beleaguered group of heros run for it.

P is for Persuasive stood outside guarding them as they retreated talking to the villians,

"You really need a coffee break about now!"

"These are not the droids you're looking for!"

"They went the other way!"

"Would you like to buy me shoes?"

Leon grabbed his girlfriend and pulled her inside and slammed the door before anyone could

respond to that offer.

Inside Reg and Jonahexed and others were studying the controls.

The Texan praying mantis was looking particularly petulant.

"Why one of the greatest minds in the multiverse can not break the decryptions on these controls..."

"Minds!?" snapped several other people in the room.

"I think since we just had another arrival incoming travel is possible but we can't open portals out.

Jonahexed eyes stated glowing. Literally.

"I ... I ... feel explanatory prose paragraphs forming!"

"The portal controls are locked but there's always a solution ... that s a cosmic law of narrative so ... soo ... soo ..." Jonahexed paused to look at the control panel ..."

"Is that a messaging system or comm icon?"

"Oh yes its got a RECYT / REPLY ALL command option!"

But what about Goldie?" howled Sassy.

To be continued at the same erratic pace.

Editorial Note if you are a new reader better check the archives!

   

The Origin of Teckelstein

The origin of Teckelstein

This passage comes from chapter 2.


A young European Bronze Age hunter had discovered the mountain-side cave of one of the last descendants of the hominoid people now known as Neanderthals and then as the Wild Folk of the Forest. The Neanderthaloid had a pack of canids with puppies, who were strange shaggy dwarvish things, like the hominid they shared a den with, not exactly hounds with short legs, or terriers, but something ancestral to both types of canids. The elderly hominid beckoned in a friendly manner to the younger human and presented a squirming tail-wagging pup, holding it up to him in one large hand as a gift of friendship. The young human looked at the strange creature who seemed to be half giant with his large deepset eyes, massive projecting nose, round chinless face, and equally massive shoulders and arms, and yet dwarvish and stunted below the waist line with shorter legs beginning to become withered from the effects of osteo-arthritis and other ailments.
"
“ … yes … ,” whispered Sassy anxiously, remembering her history classes, “You take the pup and offer your protection to the Spirit Walker of the Old Ones and he shows you how to align your fields and settlement to the local geoforces, the ley lines, to create a Holy Earth Covering place."

 (*Teg is an ancient and honorable Indoeuropean Radical!)

Fresh material soon. I'm rereading all the posts again to make sure Sassy and Goldie's  erratic narration hasn't made the plot lines too confusing and to pick up any dangling threads that need to be more tightly woven back into the whole!

 The Island of Lost girls

"How do we find the Island of Lost Girls?" yelped Sassy consulting her list.

"Never heard of it myself," stated Fluvia, "Which is Odd. I wrote a thesis on finding lost artifacts missing worlds and secret headquarters of cosmic conspiracies. Then I rewrite it for the mass market as a best selling how to guide series! Which paid for so many delightful things!"

"Island of the Lost Girls!" barked Sassy, "does that mean anything to anyone here?"

"Mmm ... I think I took a fare there once?" stated Reg.

"But where Reg? Where?"

"Somewhere nowhere. They told me to stop the taxi on the edge of a huge mass of clouds and a landing platform suddenly appeared. My fares got out and the platform disappeared and the whole cloud mass MOVED! That was spooky. It rumbled at me and moved off."

"Reg I said Island of the Lost Girls not Disappearing Cloud!" retorted Sassy shaking her head and ears.

"Well the fare was two little girls and the landing platform had a sign saying Welcome Home Lost Girls!" snapped Reg, "and that was so odd I took a special note of the co-ordinates."

"Reg you are the very best Dawllawk in the Multiverse!" cried Sassy.

"I'm the only Dawllawk in the Multiverse," grumbled Reg,

"Here are the co-ordinates ..."

Lady Zen Shipper and her passengers soon found themselves floating somewhere above the Mid West next to a large mass of clouds.

"So how do we get inside the cloud or whatever is inside that cloud?" asked Fluvia studying it through Lady Zen Shippers currently open air lock.

Sassy and Goldie were standing by her feet.

"Oh I had a thought!" exclaimed Goldie.

"A rare and beautiful thing," muttered another of the passengers.

Goldie took a deep breath and exhaled the words.

"HELLO GIRLS WOULD YOU LIKE SOME NEW PLAYMATES!"

The clouds moved.

One section of them reached out and turned into a bridge one end barely touching the ship the other connected to a tunnel.

Sassy placed one paw on the bridge then another and then confident it was solid trotted across it followed by Goldie and then Fluvia.

The tunnel lead to an open meadow with fruit trees and swings and flowers and a shallow clear brook leading into a small pond  perfect for wading or swimming.

Girls were playing in it with unicorns and puppies and kittens and griffins.

Two girls however were practicing martial arts feinting at each other.

Sassy run over to them calling out what she hoped were their names.

"Hello are you Bethany and Sinh?"

"And I'm Lena!" announced a petite girl walking towards them.


To be continued.

What will our band of misfits refugees and leftovers do next?

Sassy Portrait

Sassy Portrait by Donna Barr Copyright Julie Vaux.

Please mention BOTH Me and Donna when you share this image!

Afternoon Tea

Afternoon Tea with Bamfs and PR

Sassy barked an important announcement.

"Okay everyone according to my notes we have a BIG fight scene coming up so we're going to break for afternoon tea or coffee or whatever you drink, non-alcoholic, please!"

And now we're ignoring the Fourth Wall! Again!

Now for a direct appeal from our characters!


Ladies and Gentle Beings our scribe has gotten somewhat distracted by her annnual frenzy of almost useless prexmas PR for card and gift design.

We keep telling her she should just focus on us but then she despairing looks at the Google stats and glares at us and then despairing looks at the lack of sales or PayPal donations and then logs off the computer and does some boring and mundane chore like pay a bill or cook or wash clothes sooo please remember to tell your friends and family to visit temporal pests or one of our scribes other sites like

 www.cafepress.com/voxyvisions or www.redbubble.com/people/scholara

oh yes we nearly forget the scribe is glaring at us by the way

our scribe works casually so she gets NO vacation pay and the local college just ended its term so no work for six weeks so please think about visiting those sites and helping her with some PR okay

Now back to Afternooon Tea.

One of the reasons people were willing to work for and with Sassy and Goldie was that Lady Zen Shipper had some amazing recipes in her replicator and some wonderful goodies in storage.

Real Italian Gelato served in Ming dynasty porcelain bowls.

Japanese tea sweets. A choice of ice or hot tea green or "black".

Freshly baked scones with REAL cream and jam.

Tiny but delicious little dumplings and pastries and small but intensely flavorsome chocolates.

And real picnic rugs scattered with cushions and parasols for thos ewho needed them.

Fluvia and girls from Pasadena were pouring tea for the others and even the B$%fs
were behaving after an initial attempt to swarm and grab all the cake at all had been stopped by Fluvia heroicly cooing "Who needs a group hug?"

She had briefly disappeared into a swarm of B$%fs until the other ladies girls and women present grabbed a few B$%fs each and helped her with the group hug.

Now sated with affection and cakes the B%^Fs were being also adorable and were walking around the picnicers offering plates and platters of food.

"How many things are left on this list?" asked Fluvia.

"We're about half way through it both time and item wise!" replied Sassy.

Next time what's happening elsewhere.

Meet the Constructor

Meet the Constructor !

and a few other familiar faces

"Wow!" exclaimed Sassy looking at the scanner, "We didn't vaporize most of Pasadena though it is a bit singed ..."

"well" cackled Jonahexed grabbing his hands together, "Now to see if our evil plan worked hehehe.

Fluvia slapped him.

"I told him not to dress up in that horror movie outfit!"

She grabbed him by an ear.

"Bath time for you in blessed water!

Fortunately I'm used to handling adults who act like twelve year olds!"

JonaHexed whimpered and inside his container Dark Caper giggled and crooned.

People who had been possessed by him were prone to lingering moments of odd behaviour.

"So dramatic entrance via teleport to see if we zapped the Gang?" asked Goldie," and can I wear my Power Goullawk vest?"

"The one you cut down from Pee Gee's old outfits?" asked Fluvia,"ah  does it still have the ... ???"

"Humph I took out the gag boobs!" snapped Goldie.

Meanwhile several thousand feet below smoke was clearing and clothes had changed.

"Howie," squealed Mrs Wolowiz,"you look awesome!"

"In a strangely Kirbysque way?" observed Leon.

The Waitress was now wearing a white and gold outfit with a large P on the very tight front and Mrs Wolowiz a miniskirt thigh high boots and a swimsuit apparently designed by Mike Grell.

Leon was just about to realise his own outfit now resembled Coluan haute couture circa the thirty first century when a classic Trek teleport sfx filled the middle of the room.

"oh nooo!" moaned Super Pandit in his delightful accent,"it is the little doggie and the very nagging mini naga queen and ... hello mature but sexy I'm Raaa ..."

Goldie slapped him into silence.

Becoming Super pandit had cured his selective mutism.

Fluvia just looked bemused.

"Sorry sweetie I have a man!"

"look Ladies just why are you here?" asked Leon," and aren't you Riv...?"

"Hush sweetie we don't want to attract any copyright lawyers with no sense of humor?!"

"My future self told me to arrange an "accident" so you'ld all get super powers and we can return to the Node and reset reality," explained Sassy.

"Reset reality? Why we have super powers now!" shouted Wolowiz.

"Well apart from the fact Super Pandit is probably going to get himself killed hitting on someone with more powers than him ... " as she said this Super Pandit was hovering in a position that allowed him a close up view of Fluvia's cleavage, " ... take a look at the news update showing on the TV.

"Yes it's official folks we have several versions of the Justice League and Avengers fighting about who the real ones are in the streets of Manhattan and we're about to cross over for an exclusive interviews with Guy Gardener who claims to be the one and only real Green Lantern.

"Our reality now includes Guy Gardener? Okay that could be a problem ... "

"And what if Galactus or Thanos are real now or did you miss the story about Latveria?" asked Sassy.

Leon shuddered.

Sassy continued reading her notes.

"Oh Mr Wolowiz you are now the CONSTRUCTOR! Think about making something.

"Oookay!"

Wolowiz reached out a hand. Energy suddenly surged down it and a hover bike appeared.

"Hey can I have a new car?" asked the Waitress.

"Oookay!"

"Mmm that's your super power Persuasion!"

"And what do I do?" asked Mrs Wolowiz .

"mmm you're the Shrieker with super sonic shouting power according to my notes," answered Sassy.

"So ladies what can the CONSTRUCTOR imagineer for you?"

"Ah guys ... and ladies what about the other problem?" asked Leon pointing at teh whiteboard.

A drawing had appeared of a bluejay pointing at a man wearing a black cape with a familiar expression of assumed superiority next to a symbol combining a flower and a spiral and a note saying Meemaw's Moonpie is with the super villians at the Node.

"What's the Node?" asked the Waitress,"A comic book shop?"

"Earlier this day ..."

Readers if you've just visited go back to the first post and read the opening chapters!

Thank You!

And will someone please use the Paypal box ?

One Lab Accident

"Now what's next on our list?" asked Goldie, although she was quite capable of reading it herself.

Sassy was squinting earnestly with a very serious expression at the list.

"We've got cavalry and air support but we need a flock of dodos and to arrange a freak storm in pasadena to cause a lab accident to an Amy FF, some called pennypennypenny! and Bernie ... is ... gosh who wrote this for me ... is that name wolowiz?"

Meanwhile in Pasadena other people had similar ideas and two Ph.D., a Masters in Engineering and a waitress were setting up chemicals and other devices while Mrs Wolowiz and Superpandit were watching them. Superpandit was floating four feet off the floor as his new levitation abilities had gotten stuck on HOVER.

"Okay people if we're right about how the laws of physics have changed an open window a kitchen bench covered with dangerous chemicals and  a few of his hairs should allow us to locate the East Texan Mantis Monster along with this picture Stuie draw for us and the scrabble board on the table.

Now how do we get the freak weather or electrical discharge?"

Some short time later in the stratosphere Lady Zen Shipper was cloud herding disguised as an airship with camo gray cloud patterns.

"All right are we above Pasadena yet?  Everyone got their safety googles on?" asked JonaHexed dressed in a dashing 30s style lab jacket steam punk googles and black rubber boots.

"Oh can I do the count down wehn you pull the lever?" squealed Goldie!

"Lets all do it start chanting folks!" cried JonaHeXed as he started moving the lever downwards.

"TEN!" There was a humming sound.

"NINE!" An whiff of ozone!

"EIGHT!" Well yeah you're going to have to READthe SFX unless I suddenly start getting ahelluva lot of Paypal tokens of appreciation so I can pay a PRO to draw this and other scenes and no one has used the paypal yet and Christmas is coming and ...

"SEVEN" Fluvia's hair begun to frizz with static electricity and Sassy's heckles rose.

"SIX" Down in Pasadena the waitress exclaimed

"Oh a freak unforecast storm!"

"FIVE" "Everyone get inside the circle or stand next to the chemicals!" shouted one of the Ph.D's in Pasadena.

"FOUR"

"THREE"

"TWO"

Okay everyone reader participation time!

"ONE!"

A massive discharge of over excited molecules wove a mass of air into a pathway for power and flashed downwards thru the window.

Next time have our fearless heroines made new allies?

what fresh hell

What Fresh Hell for Fabrics!

The girls were interrogating Dark Caper who was confined within a large glass jar with a screwtop lid so it couldnt be opened from inside.

"Okay you insolent piece of sentient cloth TALK!" snapped Goldie!

"They promised ..." whimpered the villianous fabric its folds quivering with fear and angst or possibly just embarassment at being defeated so easily YET AGAIN, "they promised this time we win and get what we want!

Let me out! Let me go! I need a body! Lemme OUT! OUT! OUT!"

The jar rattled as Dark Caper writhed.

Fluvia held up pinking shears and waved them.

Dark Caper whimpered again.

"Who promised?" asked Goldie.

"Mister L sent messages to all the others. All the great ones. Many of us lesser ones. Instead of fighting the heroes we attack one of the nodes. A node with a cintamani! Mr. L made a big wish!"

"Mister L made a big wish for himself not everyone else!
And that Big wish somehow cut Teckelstein off from most realities and dreamings!" snarled Sassy.

"Mister L said now we control the node we can all have a wish. So long as we can keep the heroes away until the next wish and Mister L is very clever!"

(Scribal Note If you're reading the blogpost version go back and reread wimblytime!

For the lazy ...


"I A@#$^&*@( L56789 of Continuum %@ offer up my soul in return for denying access to this node and wishing jewel for three days Earth Greenwich Time twentieth century to any being or power who can stop me re-inserting my cloneson back into my reality on the understanding that a) whatever happens after the three day period my clone son remains real and gets to live to a healthy old age dying a heroic death and b) related and linked condition the first person to make a wish after that three day period can not undo this one whatever happens to me so may it be!")

"I don't see how this big wish effects Teckelstein unless ..." speculated Fluvia, " ... unless ...what does this wishing jewel do ? Anything apart granting wishes?"

"oh that's all it does so the Time Cops keep it at the node so it can't be used except to correct major reality distortions!" answered Sassy.

"oh girls there's a clue there somewhere reality distortions, crossovers between universes and Teckelstein blocked from ours."

There was a rattling sound as Dark Caper's folds shifted like black ink inside the jar as the Evil Textile tried to shift its mass to unbalance the the jar so it would fall over and maybe crack open.

Blocked ... balanced ... flowing ...." muttered Fluvia," shfiting balance ... fluid mass ... oh girls EEEEurekaaa!"

"That's a Greek verb," remarked Goldie.

"no no no darlings don't you see History can be rewritten becasue Time flows! panta ..."

"Time is a river and they're interfered with the water works!" shrieked  Dark Caper.

"Breached the dam walls and washed Teckelstein away!" yelped Sassy.

"No all the worlds and universe floating joining together in a mess of flotsam and wreckage making it possible for l's wish to be granted because the usual agents of order cant untangle the mess so there must be someone or several people associated with Teckelstein who can?!" cried Fluvia.

"SO Teckelstein's floating around like a cork out of a bottle?" asked Goldie.

"I'ld like to be floating out of this glass jar. Its Fresh hell for me!" demanded Dark Caper.

"Bother we're the agents of order aren't we?" snapped Sassy, "cos we don't hate Lex's boy so the wish doesnt effect us?

"SOOO now what!" demanded Goldie.

Indeed!

It was very difficult to impress a Goullawk queen and a dachshund who routinely flit about throughout time and space but a conversation with an avatar of a Boddhisattva riding a dragon will do it.

"Gosh I'm sorta Catholic" muttered Sassy, "I was expecting the Angel in charge of Dachshunds or Saint Francis or maybe Saints Jack and Ron?"

(Scribal note if you cant figure it from the next line consider what the nicknames were of two leading mid twentieth century academics who were also writers.)

"Jack and Ron are busy having a talk with that producer in New Zealand.
Now Ladies you two are straying off the WAY ..."

"But we're following the list!" interrupted Goldie.

"Yes girls but are you thinking about why certain people and items are on the list?" retorted Tara firmly yet gently. "For example you already have Lady Zen Shipper so why will you be using a Vortex Manipulator? Have you thought about why certain people are not on that list? what that means? Please go somewhere quiet for a while and think about it?

Tara departed leaving behind a lingering aroma of blossom and a layer of petals all over the courtyard to the initial annoyment of the groundskeeper until a few months later he noticed the compost he added the swept up blossoms to was unusually effective.

Fluvia who had been extremely quiet for her while Tara had been speaking lead them off to a teashop for scones with jam and cream and a large pot of Ti Kuan Yin tea to ingest while they reconsidered their list.

Next time its an Oval Office

Still the wrong way to London.

After a few hours of shuffling hesitant attempts at repairs and annoying  zombie like from moans in the background from those occupants who'd faded into terminal dementia there was a brief period of frantic hysteria amongst the  Lost Souls of the Space Sargasso when Goldie started her own special brand of motivation which was a good circulation boosting tail slapping. Being hit by Goldie's tail flukes was a sensation perhaps best compared to being hit by a rubber coated Japanese Samurai Iron war fan. Effective and non lethal.

Finally Lady Zen Shipper's battered surface was patched with a mixture of quantum foam broken glass and fragments of miracle machines from old comics and pulp fiction and most of the Lost Souls had embarked save a few who refused to believe they could either leave or survive the transit and who had barricaded themselves into the bar.

Lady Zen Shipper lifted off on the top of the 1950s spaceship she had crashed on at arrival and slowly spin up to full speed.

Various people either closed their yes and prayed crossed their fingers tentacles or other manipulators or whimpered as Sassy reached out one paw to push down a huge button labelled Improbability Drive.

A Hourglass with two dice in it popped up of the control panel and spun.

The ship shuddered and shook and then everything blurred.

Reality returned as with a loud splash.

On the viewing screens was a sea with islands and one particularly large island. Winged beings were circling it. They were not Avian.

Goldie glared at the screen.

"All right before your nagging future self shows up again just give me the list. The universe is clearly telling me I have to go and suck up to my frenemies distant cousins and a few past and present boyfriends. Just haul this lot back to London and I'll join you later !" snarled an exasperated Goullawk, quite willing to do the right thing but annoyed at having to be both told and reminded to do it!

Goldie was also annoyed because she faced a long climb.The local reality parameters allowed for magical levitation or wind manipulation and natural flight but not antigravity devices. Unfortunately there were several hundred maybe thousand steps up to the top of Dragonmont unless she could persuade some one to fly her up. Or pay them. Fortunately she had some dragon size jewellery in her wardrobe.

(Goldie's wardrobe is rather like the kit of a certain former soldier now working in a certain city watch. Warehouse size. Full of objects perhaps not acquired by fully legal or ethical methods. Her definition of borrowing was even looser than that of certain Miniature English Hominids.)

Lady Zen Shipper took off minus a few Lost Souls who liked the idea of living on a tropical island as Goldie started swimming towards Dragonmont.

Next Time Goldie on Dragonmont.

Most dragons are bling obsessed carnivores with healthy appetites for metal objects and animal protein and limited social skills.

Can Goldie persuade them to help?

Are Group activities run by Goullawks possible?

AWK!


 

Meanwhile back in A real world.

There are several worlds universes continuums and dimensions that are (self) regarded as being the prime original source of the all the others.

For sanity and plotting sake I'll presume mine is real.

Anyway in A real world possibly this one a gracious cyborg was offering tea and biscuits to Doctor A who had dropped in on his way home from the office to his own residence further along the road.

"...and I've kept the tea leaves for you to feed the triffids. Are you still having trouble training the delivery people?"

"Well I did get the girls pruned just to be on the safe side but no they all know to leave things by the front door now" replied Dr. A

"So when will Reg be getting back? Do you mind if I watch the evening news here? I'vn't had a chance to finish unpacking the new plasma big screen."

"Oh I'm so looking forward to that!" responded HerInside.

Meanwhile at another REAL world Sassy and Goldie were inside the Cintamani Chapel reading the visitor's book. NO Goldie didnt get stomped by a giant robot it was a near miss though!

"Why are we doing this again if we already know we cant make a wish for three days?" asked Goldie.

"cos if there's not a proper time loop time may branch and guess who will probably have to make the timestreams converge again? "

"oooh that would be you and Jonahexed. You know how I am with physics and there's the whole lack of an opposable thumb thing," answered Goldie.

"ah here's the page with a copy of the wish ... oh Mr. L@$%^# what have you done! But why would that make Teckelstein fade out?" Oh I think we need to phone this and show the page to greater and more twisty minds than ours.

Meanwhile back on Another REAL World Dr. A was turning an interesting shade of pale under his usual public servant pallor as he and HerInside watched the Evening News.

"Another update on the global fan prank trend. Yes all across the world people presumably fans are dressing up as characters and attacking rioting or demonstrating in right or inside of authors home and publishing companies. Live from Ter.. "

Two elderly ladies dressed in dark clothing and holding broomsticks were standing in front of a cowering gibbering author  yelling at a mob consisting of dwarves, trolls, vampires and others, including a group of people who seemed to be wearing Roman armor but carrying police batons, and some very academic looking wizards.

"Clearoff you lot and go home. Leave the poor man alone!"

"And over in the USA there's a herd of angry white horses in the front yard of a certain noted fantasy author In Pasadena  geeks are running riot shouting Bazinga!  and  in New York the head office of a certain media ... well there's explosions screaming and a mob in costumes down in the street demanding friends and relatives be re-inserted into ..."

Dr.A changed the channel yet again.

"Live from Cardiff People are claiming to have seen pterodactyls and ghosts and just in we have footage on what has to be a fan prank a woman in Victorian clothing chasing the producers of Dah ....is she really shrieking  stop damaging my fresh paintwork...!?"

"Reports from Tokyo. Large balloons resembling Gozdilla and other movie monsters are drifting across the bay and are approaching the shoreline. Well we hope they're balloons?!

Meanwhile reports from the South Pacific of undersea volcanoes forming small isles with unusual speed and other odd activities around the Lord Howe rise and certain deep sea ridges ..."

"A publicity stunt or filming for a new War of the Worlds or H. G. Wells movie seems to have misfired literally with reports of explosions, a forest fire, and a replica of his Time Machine falling from the sky and blocking a major roadway ..."

"Scotland yard is under siege or would be if the several versions of Sherlock Holmes hadn't gotten into a fight in the car park. Meanwhile across  people claiming to be fictional detectives pathologists and consultants have showed up for work and taken over offices."

The TV showed a group that seemed to consist of Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercules Poiret, and a small child called Bertie who really should have been in Edinburgh.

Stay tuned for more mayhem and mischief with the Temporal Pests!

Really Very Big Robots

Really Very BIG robots !

The Node didnt really have a horizon. You were either there or not there. Its edge if you could call that faded out into something like mist and clouds so you perceived it as a platform floating ina very pale "sky". A very large platform with a slight curve with objects and buildings scattered across it.

Coming aorund the edge of one of those buildings was a line of advancing robots, mechanical men, and giants of cold steel and other alloys, of varying models and sizes, from realms of anime, manga, and intergalactic space opera, and the wild beyonds of time and space and mortal dreaming.

Goldie and Jonahexed franticly begun pulling weapons and other things out of the saddle bags of the bike and Reg went back to his taxi's dashboard and pulled a few levers and the taxi levitated up just a few feet to give clearance for gunports to open and extend down and out.

The robots lumbered trundled stomped and rolled closer.

Goldie finally found her skateboard. The saddlebags were actually dimensional folds larger inside than outside so Jonahexed was now surrounded by a clutter of guns he was frantically checking the ammunition and power levels of.

The nearest robot raised a leg slowly and Jonahexed fired at its joints. Projectiles opened mid flight into strands of sticky entangling threads jamming its knee and ankle.

Sassy had an idea

"Er why don't we just drive or run under or around them?"

"whaa ... " cried Jonahexed as he was hit by a gas grenade and passed out falling to the ground in an elegant and melodramatic spiral.

Reg managed to toppled a few of the robots with ultra sharp flechettes shredding their limbs and screamed out
"Run Sassy Run!"

Goldie shrieked her crest raised.

"Yes Run Diversionary Tactic ....ack eraaah was it  36?!"

(Scribal note look up the ancient Chinese strategies of war gentle readers!"


Goldie screamed again.

"ROCKET POWER"

Two words that some one really should have added to the robotic hordes' memories.

Two minijets lowered from her skateboard and ignited and the board whizzed off looping round and between and round again in a shifting random pattern.

Several of the robots fell over, losing their balance, trying to bend over and catch her. A  couple of robot tanks crashed into each other. More entangled themselves together reachng down to try and snatch up the Goullawk and Dachshund.

Reg muttered to himself unheard praise.

"That dragon does do lovely chaos."

Sassy was demonstrating why there are dachshund races.

A fit dachshund while not greyhound fast can achieve quite remarkable speeds due to the combination of a torpedo shaped torso and muzzle reducing wind resistance and two very powerful front legs with shock absorber front paws for kicking off the ground.  Plus avoiding giant robot feet trying to stomp you is an excellent adrenalin trigger!

However for the robots trying to swat or catch Sassy and Goldie was rather like swatting at flies and the swooping flight of Reg's taxi was like being divebombed by an Australian magpie in nesting season a sReg skilfully veered off in a different direction at the last possible moment before contact or impact.

The robots begun to turn and lumber after the goullawk and the dachshund and Reg took the opportunity to move upwards beyond their reach switch to sleath mode hovering silently praying the Gravity manipulators would overheat for his for lights of amber orange and blood red were flickering warnings on his dashboard.

Sassy had reached the doorway of the Cintamani Chapel when she heard a very close and loud stomp and a nyargle.

To be continued. Hopefully soon. sorry I'm late again folks!
Sick relative to tend to and other problems and obligations.

Meanwhile in Teckelstein

Meanwhile in usually beautiful scenic Teckelstein the residents were not happy.

There was a howling blizzard on what should have been a lovely summer day.

There was none of the usual tourist trade from other realms and worst of all A.F. Teckelstein First Minister for just about Everything not had his morning saucer of hot chocolate milk.

A. F. was a magnificent example of European standard hunting Teckel with black and tan coloring and an tail best described as an elegant calligraphic whip wearing a monocle with a jewelled rim.

He was yelling at a speakerphone on his desk.

"What do you mean half the High Council disappeared and most of the rest can't make it through the storm.
Get some one with weather powers to make a tunnel or something.
Where's Leo or Mark?
Trapped in Chez Alfred?
Mark's wand isnt working and neither is Leo's gun?
The sky shield is cracking?
Yes I noticed that thank you!
Don't make me come down there and fix things myself!
And where are Sassy and Goldie?
Well them outside of the realm is always a mixed blessing.
We have more important problems!? Oh really!?
The first Dragon is what ... !!!
Oh Lieber Gott!"

A.F. walked away from the phone over to the windows.

A large statue of what appeared to be a warrior from the early Middle Ages wearing chain mail was acquiring icicles down in the courtyard.

Unfortunately the scales were dragon skin and the First Dragon had clearly had his shapeshifting abilities blocked half way during a change from his favorite human form to his full dragonish splendour.

"Okay now things are getting serious indeed" muttered A. F.

"Someone find my snowshoes" he barked in an imperative baritone.

Over in Chez Alfred unhappy customers were huddled around a fireplace fending off frost bite with mugs of hot chocolate or coffee or odder drinks. At a table nearby a man wearing a hood and a mask was glaring through snow googles at the innards of a gun and another was staring despairingly at a wand while a third was watching the mouth of a flame thrower that was thoroughly unfunctional.

"How the @#@$#%@@@4 can the laws of physics and magic be NOT working at the same @#@@#%$$ time?"

asked the man trying to fix his gun.

"Hey that was not a hypothetical science boys!" he snarled at the group near the fireplace.

"Dramatic cliches still work!" cried a phantom like stranger as he successfully forced the front door open.

"Whaaa that's not right you're not written to slam doors open!"

"Which means" declaimed the phantom like stranger in disconcertingly cheerful tones that were even more out of character for him, " some badass capitalist running dog imperialist overlord be doin' some heavy duty messin' with reality."

Everyone in the Chez Alfred stared at him ...

Several persons jaws almost dislocated as the phantom like stranger proceeded to do a rap routine.

This was disrupted by an anguished scream from the kitchen from the owner chef.

"Nooo the oven's stopped and I had souffle rising!"

Someone screamed "Its the end of the world!"

Others ran out into the storm preferring the risk of hypothermia to an irate chef.

A few more compassionate souls ventured into the kitchen to comfort the chef a distinguished and former British Intelligence agent.

(No not the double zero and a seven one. The one who works as a substitute parent for a family of neurotic bat theme obsessed acrobatic crime fighters)

"Yeah but what's happening outside our world?" asked a more or less mad scientist thoughtfully who was a refugee from Black Dragon spell it like the Tea Island.


Next time "Yes it's a trap Goldie!"

A Visit to LaLaLand

A Visit to the LALA Nexus

JonaHexed was being obstinately rational.

“Look it is not logical! You cannot erase an entire pocket dimension! It might dwindle if you severed all the anchor points to cosmic resonance nodes but …”

“but someone did!” interrupted Sassy, “ … well must have … there was some really strange stuff happening as we left the node nexus thingie  … the one where the Forever Patrollers are! Giant robots and big things blundering around and those annoying Patrollers were fighting and we can’t get home!”

JonaHexed continued being obstinately explanatory,

 “… but all these are only metaphors used to describe multidimensional reality, severance is just a metaphor for a resonance change that leads to Teckelstein becoming beyond our perception or moving elsewhere or changing to a different entropic state or … we just have to find a different “string” by accessing another nexus. Which other nexus can we try? Which nexus has lots of links to other loci?” asked JonaHexed almost glaring at them.

“The one under New York Grand Central Station?” asked Goldie eagerly?

She loved the shopping opportunities in nearly every version of New York.

“We are sooo not using a nexus controlled by cats!” snapped Sassy.

“But then we could go visit that lovely version of New York,” babbled Goldie, “where those nice gargoyles live and the guardians in the pretty Art Deco building and there are urban bikie elves and shops and more shops and ”

“Goldie that’s it!” exclaimed JonaHexed, “ but not New York!
We’ll go to the LA Nexus! That’s linked to several ficitionalities, and timelines, and its multi-species controlled, and we can use the tangent of the XY co-ordinates to the geometric factor of the parallel hyberbolic …” Sassy and Goldie were spared a quantum geometry lesson by an alarm going off!

“Warning Unidentified hostile firing! Warning! Warning!” screamed Lady Zen Shipper as a missile slammed into her force fields with an impact felt throughout her whole being. JonaHeXed punched in commands for sensor display. The screen for the external sensors showed the image of a fleet of craft beginning to surround them. Those craft were bristling with weapons and launching smaller fighters. A line of text was scrolling across the screen informing them that an incoming transmission was being censored due to it being extremely vulgar and promising assaults of a personal nature. An image flashed onto the screen of a ship’s command center. Several darkly caped and sinister figures were fighting for central position in front of the camera and all were yelling, “We’re coming to get you @@#$%^^& B&&&&!”

“Wow that’s nearly every villain we’ve thwarted in the last few years on board!” observed Sassy, “including a couple of your would be girl friends JonaHexed and look there’s some of your cousins, Goldie, and oh … DARK CAPER!”

What appeared to be the empty hood of a cape the color of midnight shadows was facing the screen having pushed its way in front of the others.
A voice was booming out of it!

“I’m coming to punish you dog! I’m going to personally possess you and then I will use you to destroy every dachshund in the entire multi-verse and I will finally turn your gal pal into sashimi and then I’ll … “ someone lunged at the hood screaming, “NO it's my turn first” and another person shrieked “The Goullawk will be my trophy, stuffed and mounted and …”

“Now would be a good time to program co-ordinates for the Prime LALA Nexus,” observed JonaHexed, his fingers already dancing across the keyboard.

“Lady Zen Shipper punch us through to LA now!”

“Emergency transit authorised?” demurely asked the ship.

“Yes!!!” screamed all three of them in unison as more and more energy weapons struck at the ship’s force fields. Then they were elsewhere.

The LALA nexus should be hidden in a cavern system under the city. From those caverns tunnels lead up into its demon haunted sewers, streets, fitness centers, shops, film studios, and producers’ offices. Other tunnels lead to the main train station, the desert, and up to a certain park with misplaced Australian trees looking like they were mourning the absence of kookaburras, magpies, and cockatoos.

This is an absence for which the people of California should be eternally grateful.

Kookaburras gleefully steal from picnic tables and then sit on a nearby branch and let you watch them further tenderise your lunch.

Magpies go psycho in breeding season and become kamikaze dive-bombers.

As for cockatoos they have an interesting and literally consuming relationship with outdoors timber furniture pergolas trellis and verandas. I do mean consuming as sulphur crested cockatoos seem to believe that since we keep destroying all their hollow nesting trees the favor should be returned to our domiciles.

There was no nexus at their arrival point. Instead of columns of marble and granite and grand halls, occupied by people, who were even odder than usual by the standards of the mostly, and in some cases, only allegedly, though seemingly human, occupants of the city above, the view screens showed desert. Weeds, dust, weeds, sand, straggly plants, and more dust, weeds, and desert. There weren’t even any scenic rocks oh so familiar from various sci-fi series. There was lots of desert. There was a smoky haze in the distance that was probably the LA basin. Probably. Hopefully. There was definitely an excellent view of desert and dust and the sort of plant that only looks attractive when briefly flowering.

“That’s not good,” muttered JonaHexed, inspecting the view.

“You think?!” snapped Sassy glaring at him, “Where’s the nexus station?”

“I could have a dust bath!” gurgled Goldie with misplaced positivity!

JonaHexed spent a few minutes doing things with the comm systems and computers and then groaned and slowly lowered his head onto his arms moaning softly. Sassy gave him a moment or two to be inarticulate and then firmly head butted his rib cage. Goldie joined in playfully tail slapping him on his thigh.

“JonaHexed oh JonaH tell us what’s wrong. Please? Now?” commanded Sassy.
JonaHexed lifted his head. His face was an interesting shade of pale.

“The entire nexus station system is down. And everything else. Stone circles, gates, wormholes, transit crystals, everything, well almost everything. Anything I can get a signal from is giving off warning signs or fluctuating dangerously. The only good news that I have is that we are at least in the correct continuum but something caused us to land way out in the desert. We’re almost in Death Valley!”

“Oooh that’s not good! I’ll need sun block as well as my sunnies! And a hat. Definitely a nice hat!” gurgled Goldie who flumped off to explore her wardrobe. JonaHexed stared her with haunted eyes and muttered something about strange coping mechanisms, hedonistic narcissism, and cosmic crises.

Sassy with more practicality asked, “JonaHexed can we move Lady Zen closer? Or shall I unpack the dachmobile?”

A short while later an oddly dressed trio, even by California’s erratic dress standards, was speeding across the desert. Of the three JonaHexed looked almost normal as he was wearing biker leathers and a helmet and was driving the motorbike. However perched on the seat behind him was the weirder spectacle of a dachshund wearing dust goggles, a padded vest, and a bright gold safety helmet. In the sidecar was the definitely weird spectacle of a Goullawk Queen attired in a green pith hat with gold rims along with matching goggles and a flowing golden orange chiffon scarf. Fortunately for the sake of the sanity of any passing drivers or other entities Jonahexed turned on the holographic camouflage field once they hit the main highway. Things could have worse. At least Goldie hadn’t decided to risk sun burn and ride separately into town using her own modified motorbike or her rocket powered skate board while wearing her own peculiar version of bike leathers, a sight that had been known to make grown men weep hysterically and convince many adults to go into rehab for drug abuse. Even in the Greater LA metropolitan there are few sights quite so strange or dreadful as a small dragonoid wearing a vest with the words “Start the Violence” embroidered on the back and carrying nunchakus tucked under both flippers. One biker gang had learnt how dreadful this was to their eternal regret as they eternally owed Goldie a debt of honor due to her beating them in a race and then beating them further.

Sometime later after a delay caused by a traffic jam on the freeway when the holographic projector overheated and shut down, and several people had stopped their cars to take photo  or just have attacks of hysteria, the girls and their handy human finally reached a certain park, and a concealed entrance. To their delight it opened but not to reveal a certain mercantile alien with large ears. The tunnels descending to the halls were also empty apart from one individual, a time traveler, who stopped them to ask if they had seen someone called Mendoza, and if they knew what had happened to the local office of his company, and also a few bewildered giant ants, apparently displaced during the temporal flux.

Once they reached the main halls things were different but not better. The lighting system was literally flickering, fixtures and all, not just the bulbs, in and out of realities, and was alternating with a reality in which the lighting was provided by giant torches of oil drenched wood. Shadows and shapes drifted through the hall, that should be at least been ghosts. There were echoes and murmurs and sudden screams as voices in a hundred different languages, human and otherwise, cried out questions, and incomplete statements. The shackles rose on Sissy’s back and Goldie made gulping noises that were the Goullawk equivalent of whimpers.

Jon Hexed fortunately was written to be brave but sensible. After a brief moment of dramatic pausing he begun hypothesising while standing in a heroic stance.

“Girls focusing our egos and will power and purpose can stabilise our resonance patterns unlike these poor souls. They must have been in transit when the flux occurred. Now they’re trapped between realities. Maybe we can help some of them focus if we can access the localizer crystal chamber!”

Jon Hexed proceeded to lead them through the shadows and sounds and sobbing. Someone else had the same idea and a ghost of higher resolution than some of the others was hovering near the doors. He appeared to be a young human from one of the SF universes with pale skin and dark hair and a forlorn expression.

“Wes is that you!” cried JonaHexed. He reached out a friendly encouraging hand to the ghost.
“Keep focusing and if we can get inside the chamber we can help you.”

“It willnt make much difference,” stated the young man mournfully, “I was a ghost most of the time already but I would like to get back to Brief Appearances so I willn’t fade away completely.”
Sassy glared at him and snapped.
“That’s so wrong! Despair feeds entropy! You are needed and wanted for your physics abilities. You can help us find out what happened and fix things!”

“What happened? I was in the waiting room trying to hitch a ride to a convention where some of my few fans were present. I was planning on doing the siphon the psychic energy where belief crosses the critical threshold thing to survive thing. Everything starts flickering and shifting and the alarms go off and this voice booms out of nowhere. DARK CAPER WILL TRIUMPH AGAIN! And everything went dark and then this continual flickering and shifting and I cant materialize for more than a few seconds at a time to get this @@$##$# door open and most of the staff have disappeared except for an … well I can hear some of them cursing and screaming or muttering but they’re invisible. Can you see any of them? We’re all lost and… “

“NO DESPAIR” yelled Sassy! “Okay listen up anyone who can perceive us. JonaHexed is going to try and open the door. Don’t hinder him. We are here to help!”
Something that was either a chorus of sighing ghosts or a sudden breeze moved around them.

JonaHexed sat down on the floor and took his tool kit out from inside his jacket.

“Sonic screw driver, wand of mammoth ivory, Swiss army knife, unicorn hair string, and yes I still have some of the ground phoenix feather powder and a vial of genuine fairy dust. Okay ladies and ghosts our first step will be to rematerialize the access panel for the locks. Watch the magic multitalented fingers flex and … hey presto we have an access panel visible! Emergency override code … what would that be …anyone care to take a guess?” JonaHexed did like to talk while he worked.

Sassy made a suggestion.

“Try Computer open the door now or you will never be fully functional again because I will permit musical dancing singing cutesy white mice to take up residence in your innards?”

The door slide up the second Sassy finished that sentence. An odor of burnt and charred crystal came out of the chamber along with a cloud of smoke and a large maintenance troll frantically coughing.
“who was the #@%#%#^^ who @@#%% overloaded the system!” shrieked the troll angrily, waving a spanner, a tuning fork, and a screwdriver. He ignored them and stomped off to a nearby storeroom muttering something about dilithium and drive crystals. There was yet another irate scream from the troll as he opened the storeroom doors.
“WHO THE @#$#$^%$^$ MELTED MY SPARES!”

Liquid with an odd sheen was oozing out of the open doors.

“No spares means no repairs," whispered JonaHeXed.
“JonaHexed this is LA. We look for a New Age Crystal store and go shopping!” squealed Goldie gleefully.
Someone possibly JonaHexed was heard to mutter sarcastically.“Should Rodeo Drive be warned?”

Sometime later near an ATM on a famous Hollywood street JonaHexed was queuing to top up their cash. Sassy was pretending to be dumb and domesticated and had consented to have a lead attached to her collar. Goldie was supposed to be in locked in their hotel room swimming in the spa tub. JonaHexed was worrying about this.

“We told her to stay put and we left a platter of sashimi and put bubble bath in the spa and … and … yet  I just know something will go wrong!”

“You mean apart from this being the third ATM we’ve tried to insert psychic paper into cos we cant find one that accepts Bank of Teckelstein cards?” replied Sassy whispering just in case anyone heard her talking over the traffic noise. Try the Bank of the Timelocked Lordly Ones All Access Card! That usually works!”

JonaHexed did and succeeded in coaxing more cash out of the machine. You needed a lot of money to bribe hotel staff not to complain about dachshunds and goullawks occupying their rooms with strange activities. Which was just what Goldie was currently doing. She was reclining on the bed wrapped in a bathrobe sucking up sashimi off a platter and reading the paper. There was an announcement that caught her eye and brought her upright and sliding out of the bathrobe towards the closet!

Meanwhile JonaHexed was having a strange encounter. He turned away from the ATM and for a moment thought he was facing a mirror. His near twin was looking at him and then looked down at the dog and back at him. The man turned pale and backed way muttering.

“But they don’t exist. That was only a joke. I’m Joey! There’s no JonaHexed!

JonaHexed smiled at him with his eager enthusiastic and keen look and the man suddenly raced off dropping his wallet.

“Who was that? He looked a lot like you?”

JonaHexed flicked through the wallet.

“Some guy called Joseph Nee…eeek! My Prime!”

“Hmph You have better hair,” said Sassy startling a passerby.

Meanwhile Teckelstein was fighting to be real!


Gentle readers are you enjoying the various "Cultural references"
Do I need to add footnotes confirming your suspicions?
Any feedback for me?

The Scribe

Temporal Pests - Brief Appearances

A Visit to Brief Appearances where we meet the Hexiled One.

There is a place of rest between worlds where discarded minor characters from various dream woven mythos can rest while waiting to be reshaped by some dreamer into new characters. It is a realm of shadows and mists and odd areas of unexpected solidity where mountains are islands and seas are drifting clouds. One of those areas was occupied with, perhaps even stabilised by, a building with a large walled garden surrounding it on three sides. The front of this structure seemed rather like a palace of several stories plus or minus floors and wings as required, and had a strange and unconstant variety and number of windows. It had a very grand entry way of ramps and steps in granite and marble, sweeping up to a columned portico, and yet more steps leading towards pleasantly inviting shadows. Over the doorway in very elegant dark bronze letters on a white gold metal plate were these words

BRIEF APPEARANCES

A RESIDENCE FOR MINOR CHARACTERS IN WAITING

Although there was no true morning in this realm, where sunlight shone by consensus, there was a cycle of lighting varying from room to room. At that moment, one of its rooms was receiving spring morning light softened by mist. It was a very masculine reading room with an aroma of liquor and leather. The floor where not polished marble was covered by animal hides from common and unco beasts, such as tigers and unicorns, great white apes and mere baboons, and weapons with stains and dents that suggested they had been used on far stranger things then those, adorned the walls.

There were also many comfortable yet manly chairs and in one of the deepest and coziest of these chairs reclined a young male. He had the sort of generic Middle European coloring that manifests as light brown hair, somewhat indefinite in color, and eyes that varied from green gray to dark brown. He was reading what seemed to be a newspaper, which despite its appearance of being printed on paper, was actually a holographic  display for downloaded reports from popular e-zines on the antics of various producers and actors. The young man’s name, which usually started with a Jay and an O at least, was, for the moment and quite a while, JonaHexed, since he was currently appearing in a series of parodies and satires. He was quite relaxed until he heard a powerful deep yet female voice ring out across the width of the reading room.

“YOO HOO! JonaHexed where are you? We need your help!” yodeled Sassy.

This was accompanied by affectionate greeting gargles from Goldie.

“Gaghgagrrrhak? Argellalahak! Argle?! YOOOooo!”

which translates roughly as

“Oh where are you JonaHexed Dear! AH is that dear boy? Guess who! Us!!!”

Several residents looked up from their reading material and glared at the spectacle of a talking dachshund and a Goullawk, who had chosen to ride on a skateboard painted gold and purple, instead of flumping across marble flooring in the hallways, entering their sanctuary. JonaHexed however pulled his legs and his head down and made a futile, desperate, and foolish attempt to hide behind his paper. However from somewhere near the ceiling a rainbow serpentine streak with wings descended and hovered over his head giving away his location.

“Thank You Dragonfly!” barked Sassy who then trotted over to JonaHexed’s chair and pulled on one trouser leg, then smiled up warmly at JonaHexed who slowly lowered his legs to the floor and his paper to a table, sighed, and asked, “What do you want NOW?” Goldie with surprising agility rolled her skateboard around and over the floor rugs and parked it alongside JonaHexed’s chair. Both of them leaped onto the broad padded arms of the chair while the Dragonfly descended onto his shoulders and did an excellent imitation of a piece of Art Deco glass statuary depicting a rainbow colored wyvern. Sassy delicately but firmly placed one paw on JonaHexed’s shoulder, stared at him soulfully and stated, “Well we seem to have a problem getting home. Teckelstein keeps fading in and out and trying to become unreal!”

“Teckelstein is unreal!” snarled another occupant of the room who had previous experiences with its citizenship, of the negative variety. A few others nodded their heads in surly agreement but some persons with a well developed sense of irony simply smiled knowingly. Sassy ignored that comment and went on describing the situation to JonaHexed who nodded now and then. He knew from watching other folk try that about the only ways to shut up Sassy, or most dachshunds, sentient or not, intent on making what they regarded as meaningful noise, for extended periods involve muzzling, duct tape, or sheer bribery, and never lasted long anyway. Goldie warbled a steady background warble of agreement as an accompaniment to everything Sassy said. Several residents left the room to complain about the noise, and those few who did understand Goullawk about the inane banal remarks.

Goullawk communication can best described as noises made by an organic rubber flute, involving a series of arglings, titterings, and buglings, with an occasional shriek, whistle, or honk and odder noises, at various pitches and frequencies ranging from the infra to the ultrasonic. Possibly only H.P. Lovecraft could have transcribed it even partly. It is one of the multi-verse’s stranger languages and being polytonal appears to have hurgle as a major vocabulary component. It is not a soothing language to listen to unless you are cetacean, or if not, really truly like wind instruments and ambient music!

JonaHexed’s probability deflecting power cut in and the residence management was mysteriously distracted by a fight in the cellar, caused by vampire residents from a recently cancelled TV Series, who had only just moved in, clashing with minors from an a erotic horror novel series. There were also several ongoing arguments loudly echoing up the stairways from the lower levels.

One group were arguing over redecorating the crypts and how weapon collections and trophies should be displayed on the walls. Sword play was involved and much name calling about combat techniques from the sidelines by European traditionalists who did not approve of hybrid Eurasian fighting styles. Another group was abusing the imperative and the subjunctive while exchanging demands about which fabric colors would match both blood stains and candle light. There was an intense discussion involved persons of several sexual orientations being extremely feline about other people’s taste in humans, blonde or brunette.

While this diversion was taking place, JonaHexed, Sassy, Goldie, and Junior left the reading room and quietly proceeded towards the main entrance hall. A nearby secondary atrium was full of Roman historical mystery characters orating about whose author knew the most Latin. The edge of that crowd mingled with another consisting of a group of people busily congratulating a character who had miraculously survived a whole season of being the love interest of a certain USAF major in a SF series without being killed, tortured, or exiled and lost in distant space, and was about to graduate to recurring character status.

 Wandering through this crowd and winding around their legs and other limbs was a small confused being with short satin smooth red fur, a manly calligraphic whip of a tail, powerful forelegs tapering to diamond shaped paws, and dark hound eyes. This elegant example of dachshund masculinity spotted Sassy and run over to her stopping a few paces away from her, hesitating as if confused yet intrigued by the sight of another dog.

“Hello I am Marcus Rubius Teggellus” he stated by way of introduction, “ and et  and que that’s all I know about myself. You seem to be a similar kind of being to myself. The first thing I remember is a white space and a voice saying my name and then I was here? Dear and elegant lady whether you are of my kindred or not could you explain to me where I am?”

“This is Brief Appearances!” replied Sassy, “and it sounds like our scribe or someone who loves dachshunds just thought of a minor character. Do you recall what fictionality you’re from?” asked Sassy.

“Lovely Domina,” responded Marcus, “I … ego sum … I seem to know … Linguam Latinam cognosco! and fortunately English too! This is the atrium of some kind of palatium or grand mansio of a powerful magister?” he asked, clearly confused.

“Oh dear we can’t take you to Teckelstein!” sighed Sassy, “You’ll have to have your birth orientation here! Where’s that Roman Terrier? Mistress Night are you here?”

A small terrier of very indistinct but vigorous breeding trotted over to them followed by a group of Roman children.

“Mistress Night could you introduce young Marcus here to the orientation committee? He’s new. I have to go save Teckelstein!”

Sassy glanced back at Marcus who called out to her as she and the others left.

“Can’t I come with you? What’s Teckelstein? Wait dear lady!”

A welcoming committee of fictional pets moved towards Marcus and Sassy took a deep breath and focused on the task at hand hoping she could meet Marcus again soon!

Temporal Pests - transit to trouble

TRANSIT TO TROUBLE

Things get worse for our mischievous duo.

Sassy was still trying to figure out what her doppelganger had meant as she and Goldie moved through a quantum tunnel back into the summery meadow on another world in which they had parked Lady Zen Shipper. The Lady’s external imaging currently had her looking like a statute of a pagan goddess sleeping on a large plinth.

The Dachshund and Dragonoid Duo trotted and flumped over to the outer door, pushed a carved symbol together, and entered their travel device. Goldie squealed with glee and leaped into a pool of water suspended midair from a cup shaped force field mounted from what was usually the roof as Sassy climbed onto the control cushion and pulled down the panel covering the interface board by using a handle designed to fit a canid mouth. She placed her front paws onto it and waited for the cognitive interface to lower onto her head and activate.

A richly modulated female voice responded,

 “Testing Pilot authorization. DNA print acknowledged.
C. von Teckel please indicate the program of your choice.”

“Single pilot control. Start navigation plan for return to Teckelstein.” barked Sassy.

If you had been outside and watching you would have seen the plinth and goddess disappear to be replaced by a large shimmering ovoid that begun to revolve and vibrate faster and faster until it seemed to lift off the ground and blink out at near light speed.

Inside the ship you would have heard a voice saying.

“Transit begins. Scanning for Primary Teckelstein Quantum Resonance Patterns. Secondary resonance detected. Scanning for Primary patterns. Scanning for Temporal Lock Beacon. Navigation Locking Error. Unable to Initiate Temporal Shift. Secondary patterns are fluctuating. Warning massive temporal shift! Warning use safety devices! Warning Timestorm detected. Warning massive temporal flux.”

Goldie shut down her antigravity swimming pool and dove down into a pile of cushions that re-arrranged themselves into padded straps.

Sassy voice-activated her own safety straps and asked their ship,

 “Lady Zen please try to scan for point of origin of Temporal disturbance. Try to scan for Teckelstein at a different timespace co-ordinate, Earth in the Middle Ages, or the future when part of Teckelstein was a space colony. We can always move back or forward once we have a spatial lock.”

“Scanning. Secondary resonances only. No co-ordinates matching recorded primary pattern. Secondary resonances fluctuating. Visual display Activating.”

Part of the wall of the control room became a large high definition flat screen showing one of many possible future Teckelsteins. All that could seen was a valley full of dying trees and ruined buildings, a wasteland, with a war machine lumbering through the ruins. The scan shifted to a possible past. A dragon with scales of a dark coppery and paws and muzzle reddened with blood was feasting on dead humans. Half melted medieval weaponry was scattered around the bodies. A smaller dragon was visible who seemed to have been ravaged by something’s claws and flame. It was struggling in vain to take flight with wings that looked like the same cruel something had maliciously tried to chew them off. In the distance a stone castle burnt with green flames.

Sassy whimpered as more and more scenes showing ever worsening scenarios presented themselves until there was only one left. A young European Bronze Age hunter had discovered the mountain-side cave of one of the last descendants of the hominoid people now known as Neanderthals and then as the Wild Folk of the Forest. The Neanderthaloid had a pack of canids with puppies, who were strange shaggy dwarvish things, like the hominid they shared a den with, not exactly hounds with short legs, or terriers, but something ancestral to both types of canids. The elderly hominid beckoned in a friendly manner to the younger human and presented a squirming tail-wagging pup, holding it up to him in one large hand as a gift of friendship. The young human looked at the strange creature who seemed to be half giant with his large deepset eyes, massive projecting nose, round chinless face, and equally massive shoulders and arms, and yet dwarvish and stunted below the waist line with shorter legs beginning to become withered from the effects of osteo-arthritis and other ailments.
"
“ … yes … ,” whispered Sassy anxiously, remembering her history classes, “You take the pup and offer your protection to the Spirit Walker of the Old Ones and he shows you how to align your fields and settlement to the local geoforces, the ley lines to create a Holy Earth Covering place."

 (*Teg is an ancient and honorable Indoeuropean Radical!)

Sassy yelped in horror as the human’s face darkened in a moment of fear and rage. She shuddered, watching as the Old One turned his back to him, bending over to offer him a cup of fresh spring water, and yelped in dismay as the human threw the pup at the cave wall, and attacked the Old One stabbing him in the back then spinning him around to slice his neck open.

Goldie squawked seeing the screen and Sassy’s reaction.

“That wasn’t suppose to happen was it?
Sassy you said he took the pup and made friends and that was the start of Teckelstein? Not that! Not …”

Lady Zen Shipper made an announcement.

“Secondary resonances stabilizing. We have a weak signal from the Primary Source. Timestream fluctuations are lessening. The Primary Source is … fading again. Temporal flux increasing. Probability of external temporal manipulation 89.4% and rising. Probability of deliberate attempt to alter Teckelstein’s Timeline 95.7% rising! Probability of Teckelstein stabilizing … still fluctuating!”

“There’s hope,” muttered Sassy.

Elsewhere there was laughter as a bunch of definitely evil and intentionally malicious beings capered around a large crystal and gleefully watched the image of a valley walled by snow capped mountains waver and flicker as the edges of its reality literally unravelled.

“See what did I tell you!” boasted one of them, “Teckelstein’s the ideal test object to see if we can use the node to alter histories across the multi-verse. It’s a small pocket universe currently anchored between several timelines and universes with regular links to them. No more annoying sentient dachshunds! Next we’ll remove their less sentient ancestors from the Prime Time Line and then we change the odds so we’re the Powers That Be and change things for our pleasure without having to worry about flash back syndrome. So whose lives do we ruin next?”

 A chorus of malicious suggestions commenced.

to be continued soon ... howsa bout some comments  readers?