RE: The Opulent Quarrel - Round One: Mademoiselle Primfel's
04-04-2017, 02:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-04-2017, 02:29 AM by AgentBlue.)
Crime bosses are all the same, when you get right down to it. Big table, imposing presence, smoldering cigar dangerously close to bottle of liquor. Maybe a giant pile of cocaine, but that was one time and it didn’t end well for the guy.
Point being is, there’s a kind of essence that follows crime bosses around. A big-tableness. Imposing presence-ness. Cigar, bottle, smolder, cocaine-ness. You know. The smell of old leather, too. Oh, and lackeys. Lackeys leaning against the walls with their own smoldering cigar-ness floating about them, you know?
So, psychically speaking, when Mad Mandy opened a classroom door and a big cloud of all these -nesses rolled together came bursting out like a slap to the face, I pretty much had an idea of what I was going to find behind there. Bossa Numero Uno. Bitches in charge. The Ring.
***
“It’s a TV.” Cassandra watched the mute nods all around, especially from the lackeys in the corner of the room. No one else seemed keen to say anything. “With a tape player.”
“A tape player? What is it, Betamax?” Wren leaned in to peer into the slot, poking at the plastic flap with the stem of her pipe. This turned out to be a bad idea.
HANDS OFF hands off HANDS hands off OFF HANDS OFF hands off bitch
Slowly, Wren picked herself up from the smoking crater in the floor. “Definitely Betamax.”
The TV flickered to life, displaying a kaleidoscope of ghostly, white-haired girls, all dressed in tattered school uniforms. The effect was rather spoiled by Wren’s pipe, which was still stuck in the slot underneath the screen.
WE ARE THE RING, the image on the TV screamed, AND YOU ARE UP IN OUR SPACE which was followed by the cacophony of echoing, discordant repetitions of all that which was just said, plus or minus a few utterances of ‘bitch please’.
“Uh-huh.” Cassandra casually twirled a chair underneath her, putting her feet up on a desk even as she fell into the clattering seat. “Let’s cut to the chase.”
“Respect hers,” Mad Mandie hissed from her corner of the room, “or you can join hers…!”
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION AMANDA
“I’ve been in a hundred rooms like this one, usually tied to a chair or,” Cassandra paused and quirked a smile, “one time, the ceiling…”
Sad Jodie broke formation and floated over into Mandie’s junk-filled corner. “We can do that if you’d like, I have some rope somewhere.”
There was a pregnant pause, though a few afterechoes from the Ring giggled.
LET’S CUT TO THE CHASE
The flickering images on the TV began to slow, gaining color and depth. A face formed, from the profiles of hundreds of other faces - not that you would have seen it, covered in long white hair as it was. But the one eye that was visible quivered in rage and hate, pupil contracted to a pin-like dot.
WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOUR CENTURIES AND TWENTY YEARS
A pearlescent rainbow rippled across the screen. Color burst onto the Ring’s face like an exploding peach, though they were so pale the difference was barely visible. But the eye flared into a brilliant red, crimson iris quaking, flickering from face to face.
WE WANT OUT, WE WANT OUT, WE WANT OUT want out OUT want out WANT want OUT want OUT bitch
The TV physically shook on its rolling stand as the Ring screamed. Wren’s pipe shot out of the videotape slot and buried itself, stem first, in the classroom door. The windows, if there had been windows in this cellar-like room, would have rattled in their frames. As it were, the cheery drawings that had been hung up in lieu of those, which, incidentally, were mostly of windows, very quickly stopped needing to be described in such detail because they were on fire.
YOU, the TV swung around to Wren, TAKE US, CONFISCATE US, GET INTO THE CONTRABAND LOCKER
AND YOU, swinging to Cassandra, WE ALL GO TO DETENTION, BLOW OPEN THE GATES
WE FREE MY BODIES
With that, the undertone of screaming stopped, and the TV started spinning around in circles with the leftover momentum. The embarrassing squeaking went on into the silence for some time before Mad Mandie worked up the nerve to steady the thing.
“How many bodies have we got?”
Mad Mandie gestured around the room. Sad Jodie floated over Bad Allie’s head and waved.
YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU GOT, the Ring intoned, and promptly went silent. With an incongruous ‘splort’ sound, the TV ejected a videotape before turning itself off.
After a second, Wren picked it up with a level of care usually reserved for high-level nuclear waste. “Huh. VHS. Never would’ve guessed.”
“So,” Cassandra said finally, “it’s a heist.”
Point being is, there’s a kind of essence that follows crime bosses around. A big-tableness. Imposing presence-ness. Cigar, bottle, smolder, cocaine-ness. You know. The smell of old leather, too. Oh, and lackeys. Lackeys leaning against the walls with their own smoldering cigar-ness floating about them, you know?
So, psychically speaking, when Mad Mandy opened a classroom door and a big cloud of all these -nesses rolled together came bursting out like a slap to the face, I pretty much had an idea of what I was going to find behind there. Bossa Numero Uno. Bitches in charge. The Ring.
***
“It’s a TV.” Cassandra watched the mute nods all around, especially from the lackeys in the corner of the room. No one else seemed keen to say anything. “With a tape player.”
“A tape player? What is it, Betamax?” Wren leaned in to peer into the slot, poking at the plastic flap with the stem of her pipe. This turned out to be a bad idea.
HANDS OFF hands off HANDS hands off OFF HANDS OFF hands off bitch
Slowly, Wren picked herself up from the smoking crater in the floor. “Definitely Betamax.”
The TV flickered to life, displaying a kaleidoscope of ghostly, white-haired girls, all dressed in tattered school uniforms. The effect was rather spoiled by Wren’s pipe, which was still stuck in the slot underneath the screen.
WE ARE THE RING, the image on the TV screamed, AND YOU ARE UP IN OUR SPACE which was followed by the cacophony of echoing, discordant repetitions of all that which was just said, plus or minus a few utterances of ‘bitch please’.
“Uh-huh.” Cassandra casually twirled a chair underneath her, putting her feet up on a desk even as she fell into the clattering seat. “Let’s cut to the chase.”
“Respect hers,” Mad Mandie hissed from her corner of the room, “or you can join hers…!”
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION AMANDA
“I’ve been in a hundred rooms like this one, usually tied to a chair or,” Cassandra paused and quirked a smile, “one time, the ceiling…”
Sad Jodie broke formation and floated over into Mandie’s junk-filled corner. “We can do that if you’d like, I have some rope somewhere.”
There was a pregnant pause, though a few afterechoes from the Ring giggled.
LET’S CUT TO THE CHASE
The flickering images on the TV began to slow, gaining color and depth. A face formed, from the profiles of hundreds of other faces - not that you would have seen it, covered in long white hair as it was. But the one eye that was visible quivered in rage and hate, pupil contracted to a pin-like dot.
WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOUR CENTURIES AND TWENTY YEARS
A pearlescent rainbow rippled across the screen. Color burst onto the Ring’s face like an exploding peach, though they were so pale the difference was barely visible. But the eye flared into a brilliant red, crimson iris quaking, flickering from face to face.
WE WANT OUT, WE WANT OUT, WE WANT OUT want out OUT want out WANT want OUT want OUT bitch
The TV physically shook on its rolling stand as the Ring screamed. Wren’s pipe shot out of the videotape slot and buried itself, stem first, in the classroom door. The windows, if there had been windows in this cellar-like room, would have rattled in their frames. As it were, the cheery drawings that had been hung up in lieu of those, which, incidentally, were mostly of windows, very quickly stopped needing to be described in such detail because they were on fire.
YOU, the TV swung around to Wren, TAKE US, CONFISCATE US, GET INTO THE CONTRABAND LOCKER
AND YOU, swinging to Cassandra, WE ALL GO TO DETENTION, BLOW OPEN THE GATES
WE FREE MY BODIES
With that, the undertone of screaming stopped, and the TV started spinning around in circles with the leftover momentum. The embarrassing squeaking went on into the silence for some time before Mad Mandie worked up the nerve to steady the thing.
“How many bodies have we got?”
Mad Mandie gestured around the room. Sad Jodie floated over Bad Allie’s head and waved.
YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU GOT, the Ring intoned, and promptly went silent. With an incongruous ‘splort’ sound, the TV ejected a videotape before turning itself off.
After a second, Wren picked it up with a level of care usually reserved for high-level nuclear waste. “Huh. VHS. Never would’ve guessed.”
“So,” Cassandra said finally, “it’s a heist.”
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So very British / But then again | People are machines Machines are people | Oh hai there | There's no time
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Superhero 1920s noir | Multigenre Half-Life | Changing the future | Command line interface
Tu ventire felix? | Clockwork for eternity | Explosions in spacetime