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PostNov 22, 2024#21

Smithers drops the piece of wood she's whittling, then the knife.

Smithers: "Suki-poo, is that really you?!"

She runs over to Sarge and throws her arms around her in a big hug.

Survivor Leader: "Well I'll be damned. Not every day you have a happy ending."

Yelsh: "Whose ending?"

An unimportant man lies on the ground nearby unmoving. Ack walks over to Specs to introduce himself.

Ack: "Hi, call me Ack."

Specs: "Call me Specs."

Ack: "As in spec-tacles?"

Specs: "More like, spec-tacular. How about you? Is it ack as in slack?"

Ack: "Are you inferring something?"

Specs: "Nope, just ack-nowledging your name, same as you did mine."

Ack: "... So what happened to him?" Points to unimportant man.

Specs: "Parachute malfunction. Doesn't matter, he's not important."

Ack: "Wow, harsh..."

While Ack and Specs yap away, Sarge a.k.a. Suki-poo and Smithers are roaring with laughter as they exchange war stories. Yelsh and the Survivor Leader exchange a few brief words then nod in agreement and walk over to interrupt their revelry.

Yelsh: "Hey listen, sorry to interrupt your reunion, but we were both wondering, did you and your squad just parachute in?"

Sarge's face turns serious.

Sarge: "This here is a rescue you pencil neck. Extract and evac, saving your team, that you couldn't keep safe." She walks up to Yelsh and pushes on his chest with a finger.

The Survivor Leader, having survived alot to get to this point, sees all the common signs of escalation and tries to cool things down. He walks over and stands in between them.

Survivor Leader: "Ok, ok. No need for all that now." He turns to face Sarge. "We greatly appreciate the rescue Suki. It's Suki right? Ok if I call you that?"

Sarge: "No."

Smithers: "Ohh Suki, you're just like your mother."

Yelsh: "So what's the plan? Gather the rest of the survivors and evac?"

Survivor Leader: "How big is the transport? Might need multiple trips."

Suddenly a laser rings out and the Survivor Leader drops to the ground. Probably not the happy ending he was looking for. His survival may have finally come to an end unless there is some miracle, otherwise a new leader would likely need to be chosen. 

Sarge snaps her rifle to her shoulder and all eyes look towards the source of the shot - the unimportant man is standing where he once laid unmoving. In this moment, it seems he's leveled up to at least moderate importance. A miniature teapot plant is hanging from his ear like a bad dangling earring from Earth circa 1980s. Red mist tendrils from his eyes. He speaks in a dark and ominous voice.

Moderately-important man: "Don't worry, You won't need multiple trips."

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PostNov 22, 2024#22

Specs: "Oh no!"

Ack: "Indeed! That fellow whose name was too unimportant for me to know is now moderately important, and I still don't know his name!"

Specs: "Not that! I don't know his name either! That's not what I'm talking about!"

Sarge: "We're back in time."

Specs: "What?! How did you know that?!"

Sarge: "Cave. Red mist. Strange land. Missing people."

In her laconic way, Sarge is recounting what happened after they landed in the Death's Net ruins. Heading in the direction of the distress signal, they'd come across the tracks of the researchers and followed it to a cave, where red mist billowed out to cover them, before receding and leaving them in this strange time and place, far in the past, holding the people who'd gone missing in the ruins far in the future, their own time.

Moderately Important Man: "Don't ignore me! I'm moderately important right now!"

Sarge: "No, you're not. But the tiny spider-ant alien you're wearing like an earring is."

She shoots it off. The moderately important man yelps as the tiny spider-ant earring is vaporized, and then he falls back to the ground, either dead or unconscious, but also most definitely once again unimportant.

Yelsh: "Wait. You saw it as a spider-ant on his ear too?"

Specs: "Sarge has a few screws loose. It's obviously a tiny teapot plant."

The other survivors are nodding at Specs' words.

Ack: "No, Yelsh and I also see spider-ants, not these teapot plants you all are talking about. At first I theorized it was long-term exposure to this past land, but Specs here also sees it as teapot plants, so that hypothesis has been thoroughly disproven."

***

In the present, Tea is playing fetch with Hog.

Tea: "I sure hope that rescue party gets here soon. Unless maybe they stumbled into that cave and disappeared too?"

She pauses, thinking it over.

Tea: "Nah."

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