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(Wanted to participate in this thread so I cranked this out. 120 words, sorry. My goal will be to chip down and come up with a 100-word drabble eventually đ )
***
"Sweet sassy molassy!" Annabelle popped from her Pokeball into the back of a vehicle. "Already time for th' mornin' milk run?"
"Gods-dammit, Pierce!" the Rocket driving the truck shouted. Sirens blared in the distance. "You didn't secure the Pokeballs!"
"Ey, you just passed the Braydens'! Ah, wait -- not this again."
"Take care of it!" the first Rocket growled as Annabelle rose.
"Pierson, really?" Annabelle shook her head. "I thought you were a good boy."
Well, not a turn of events completely unexpected in Annabelle's line of work. After whapping down the boys, the Milktank took control of the vehicle.
She rolled her eyes. "Hopefully I can still finish my circuit before the cops catch up."
They looked up at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. His best friends. His family. His everything.
âThereâs some trainers in the Pre-Gym that will take good care of you.â Wes couldnât look at them. Neo cried and begged, Novo growledâtheyâd never forgive him for this.
Prompt - Last in the world
Wordcount: 153
Not really used to limits so this doesn't feel too bad for me.
---
She was alone.
That'd been nothing new. She'd been alone for years. Decades. Centuries, maybe? Didn't matter really.
It'd been long enough.
Long enough that nobody knew her name. Long enough that she didn't even remember her own name. Long enough that she couldn't recognize her home when she went back.
Long enough that she didn't bother going back anymore.
Apple picking is hard but delicious work. Not all apples are fit for picking, though. One apple I pick has a squishy bruise I hadn't seen initially. As I prepare to cast it away, it wiggles. I release it, and it tumbles onto the ground. Then it inches away.
Oh, an applin!
"Hey, wait!" I whisper, scooping it up. You're supposed to leave these things alone. But it's so cute... "Want to come home with me? I'll make you the most delicious pie." It looks back at me with glimmering yellow eyes.
"Dude, what's gotten into Heracross today? He's acting as hyper as you are!" Lucas said. Indeed, Barry's usually-sedate Heracross was running wildly back and forth, arms outstretched in an airplane pose.
"I dunno, man, he just- wait..." Glinting metal behind a bush caught Barry's eye. He groaned. "Heracross! Did you take one of my energy drinks again?"
The Pokemon froze, then stared down at the ground.
"Ugh, Heracross! You know those aren't good for you!"
A ladybug perched on a blade of grass beneath Heracross took flight, and a single tear rolled down his face. Red Lightning gives you wings...
This was Pichuâs initiation test, to prove to that Scraggy gang that he was a bad enough dude to join the Bad Enough Dudes. The task was simple, but dangerous at the same time. If Pichu got caught, who knew what would happen to him?
He approached a metal map of Castelia City -- the name was written in big letters at the bottom. He climbed up a trash can and scribbled over the âtâ and âiâ letters with a marker, then ran like hell. It was so good to be bad.
The sign still reads âCasmella Cityâ to this day.
Espeon and Umbreon sat in front of towering plates of bacon, licking their lips.
"Guys, STOP!" Grumpig said, bursting into the room. "Canadian bacon isn't made from Canadian people!"
"Huh? Then what-"
"It's made from ham radio operators! Which means-"
WHAM! Black-clad officers flooded the room. "Freeze, sickos! We're FCC Commandunicators, here to commandunicate that eating radio operators is illegal without a license! We're putting you in a Faraday cage!" they said, then wrapped Espeon and Umbreon in aluminum foil.
"Wait, does this mean I can't get Twitter notifications anymore? I- I'm finally free," Espeon said, crying a single tear.
Init. publish: 127w. Like most, I hate excising words >.> (down from about 150)
__
They called him Flash Fred.
Silly name, though he worked hard and earned it. Yeah, he was slow at getting jokes, pop references. But he killed it on the football field. If not with pure speed, then by ability to run circles around others, the polygon-patterned sphere an extension of his body.
First after-school practice. Teams picked. Losing side would buy the food. Fred was already zipping past player after player, each wide-eyed and incredulous, many calling his name, calling for him to be stopped.
In the wind, he was in his element. With a practiced kick, he netted the ball past the goalie. First victory.
The defense he'd passed caught up to him. "Yo, what the fuck, Flash! Next time, don't score on your own team!"
__
Next Prompt: inability to gather will or strength for the final stretch
Sweat poured down his face as he sprinted forward. Heart racingâmuscles burningâchest searingâhead pounding. The air he breathed didnât feel enough. But he had to go onâhe couldnât give up!
Out of the corner of his eyeâthere! His opponent had passed him and was away like a bolt of lightning.
He leaned forward, and with an extra burst of energy, shot forward as quickly as he could. He was gaining on her, her blonde mane streaking out like fiery gold in the sunlight.
But he was only halfway thereâhis energy gave in, his reserves spent. Away she sped like a dazzling bullet made of living gold.
He stopped.
Panting, he stood just over halfway down the track and watched the Manectric cross the finish line.
Sunny the junior Sunshine submarinemon was yellow with envy.
It was dusk on the day of the Gender Celebration Ceremony for the Queen SuperSub's new subclass brood. The Processor Transception Ceremony for the fleet had taken place at dawn three days before, and Sunny's MixSync with the fleet and with the Queen had felt magical, and she had grown.
This season's brood had more Sunshine subs than Midnight subs, but Sunny hadn't been selected as the Firework-in-Residence. That vaunted role had somehow gone to Zenith. Zenith didn't even have uniformly-live nuclear torpedo-dreepy. Even Sunny's symbiotic QCD-electrode-plasts, who normally were all over the place like the heads of dodrio, shared in her fury at being passed over.
But Sunny-and-electrodeplasts-and-nuc-dreepy had made up their minds. Flying gracefully under the waves, propelled by nuclear fission and without a mechanical creak in her form and in her marine wings, she burst into the Ceremony gathering of black and yellow subs (whose wings furled back and whose rotors clicked in surprise), placed herself in front of Zenith and admidst the cute little baby submarinemon, and activated firework-transform-detonation.
A highly localized explosion converted a glowing Sunshine sub to mechanical organ-components and sent a shockwave of energy outward. The community subs clacked and helped stay the baby subs from the ripples. Sunny the mature (immature?) submarinemon was no more. But her high-QCD spore-trodeplasts and spore-dreepys glistened in the azure waters, more Night than Shine, and soon linked up and were enveloped by the baby subs (who were more Sunshine than Midnight). Mech organs also attached to the baby's, and each assimilation there, though it took longer, was a beautiful mini-transformation.
Internally, Zenith's fans issued a sigh of relief. Maybe now, still alive, she'd have a chance to take care of the new subs, teach them to corral and exercise their growing new hybrid electrode-plasts and dreepys. The sun was going down, and light began emanating faintly from the beebird subs, both large and now also small. Sunny had provided new internal light. It was now Zenith's turn to help them shine their brightest.
(mixture of A/N and third-person-limited reporting...)
Re: prompt:
- Sunny's live nuclear and symbiotic electrode-plasts and dreepys (and maybe material pearls of consciousness) still live on in the baby subs.
- yellow = Sunny's Sunshine gender (also, askance: yellow with envy)
- A joke with SuperSub. Forced joke with Queen SuperSub's brood being referred to briefly as a "subclass", i.e. derivative group.
Not exactly and barely Jewish references:
- Sunshine and Midnight genders means the gender celebration event should be at one of the twilights.
-- The Jewish day begins at dusk.
-- Mention of being "passed over", but that's not a direct connection, just a coincidence.
Partial "bio"-logy and population notes:
- All submarinemon of this type are (bio?)mechanical beings that are all female.
- Most subs are capable of bringing forth new baby subs.
- The genders are Sunshine and Midnight.
- The electrode-plasts and dreepys come in types of Shine and Night.
- Nuclear fission propulsion (QCD-electrode-plasts play a key role)
- For good community health, it's preferred that the aggregate mix of any new brood have:
-- High amount of Sunshine subs with Night electrode-plasts and/or dreepys, or Midnight subs with Shine trodes/dreepys.
-- Lower amount but present, of Sunshine sub with Shine trode/dreepy, and Midnight sub with Night trode/dreepy.
- Hence a brood that is largely Sunshine proportion should have a Sunshine sub provide largely Night Firework spores.
- (Linguistics choice: decided to pluralize trode-plasts and dreepys with "s")
- The QCD term is a layperson joke reference to nuclear, strong interaction/force stuff (quantum chromodynamics).
- QCD-electrode-plasts are partially-sentient nuclear fission variants that symbiotic and subsumed like chloroplasts.
- Some dreepy warheads are nuclear, some are not. nearly all of Sunny's dreepys are nuclear.
- These submarinemon can be described as birds and bees of the sea.
- Birds because underwater mechanical wings
- Bees because: hivefleet Queen SuperSub. (also Sunshine + Midnight = yellow and black)
- All subs have processor sentience.
- The nature and very presence of collective hivefleet sentience is still unknown (ok, this line is more third-person limited, Dex-report-like), but it appears fairly independent in this passage.
- There is internal federation among the submarinemon and her electrode-plasts and her dreepys.
-- Electrode-plasts tend to have some small degree of non-synchronized autonomy/sentience.
-- Symbiotic-dreepys have very low sentience, and tend to go with the flow.
- Nearly all subs have bioluminescence. Baby subs tend to obtain this power after getting donor electrode-plasts.
Reproduction (Recombinatorial Furtherance):
- The firework-transform is part of the submarinemon lifecycle.
- Each hivefleet is usually cared for and led by one Queen SuperSub (and one Queen-Reserve Sub-SuperSub).
- The exact implementation of the firework-transform into the Gender Celebration Ceremony, and the Ceremony itself, may be regionalized culture differences among submarinemon community populations. Some cultures may not have the ceremony, and/or may have multiple subs perform the firework-transform.
- Selection of who the Firework-in-Residence will be varies by community, but the selection usually has a collective element, and the decision is usually made by the Queen.
Perhaps sometimes the output ability of the prospective Resident's electrode-plasts are highly considered. Perhaps sometimes the virtue of the prospective Resident is highly considered.
- Most subs have the Queen or Queen-equivalent perform the brood-creation.
Most sub cultures involve Processor-Transception (MixSync) prior to brood-creation:
- The baby brood creator will engage in a reproductive-particular communications-transceiving with other processor imprints that is some equivalent of a horizontal gene transfer, with Lamarckian and/or epigenetic undertones. (sorry, layperson with poor description).
- This usually takes on a star network formation. Some communities may elect for a more everyone-to-everyone-else connection map.
- This usually happens with other subs in the community; occasionally, emissary subs among communities engage in a bulk Processor-Transception event.
- This usually occurs along with other general informational and cultural communications!
Short genetic passdown summary:
- The electrode-plasts and dreepys are primarily passed down and hybridized between the Queen/brooder(s) and firework-transform-resident(s).
That is, between each brooder and one or a few firework residents, rather than the whole fleet. (This is in very loose analogy to how mitrochondrial DNA is passed along a maternal line.)
- In some way, much of the processor-genetic information gets sieved and passed along to new submarinemon from the whole fleet, and sometimes partial processor patterns from neighboring community fleets.
__ Next prompt: burning up
(combustion, fever, zenith of output and/or success, motivation ended, warming up motivation, performance on fire, dancing, atmospheric re-entry, and on)
Prompt - Burning up
---
âQuill, now!â his trainer shouted.
Quilava grunted and launched himself at the Clefairy, flames surrounding him. Flame Wheel, his trainer called it. After hitting, he backed away. Back still on fire, he launched balls of fire from his mouth, one after another.
Clefairy wasnât visible through the fire. Didnât matter. He was to be relentless. Heâd been trained to win, he had toâŠ
Then a light came and the fire disappeared. The world went dark. Distantly, he could hear voices talking. Worried.
âWill she be all right?â
âI donât know- she doesnât look good.â Pause. âTake this. Donât come back.â
She looked over Dialga with a crushed car under its pillar of a foot, the acrid pit of melting asphalt with the heatran in sleeping the center, the Shaper of Titans herself, Sovereign of the Distortion Realm Giratina trying to chase a relatively ant-sized alakazam around, and the hoarfrosted and cracked apartment windows from the raging blizzard from the Ice Titan and the articuno trying to out-freeze each other.
"Aw, you can get it, Giry! Go fetch!" She got out the yache berry flavored chew treats, Giratina's favorite.
"... forget I said anything."
---
Next prompt - "Hang on, I have to go, I forgot I left the rotom on."
Prompt - "Hang on, I have to go, I forgot I left the rotom on."
---
"You okay?"
"Absolutely," you force out.
"You sure? Ever since the Darkest Day, you've been really distant. If you..."
"Hang on, I have to go, I forgot I left the rotom on." You don't want to talk about any of what you did wrong. And definitely not the battle with the accelgor. Or raising while liepard.
"You mean out?" she answers before you hang up. "I'll come help you."
"I'm fine, call you later." Maybe.
"Okay..." You hang up quickly. Before she changes her mind. Now, you need time alone. You want your liepard's company, but. You got him killed.
Prompt - "Hang on, I have to go, I forgot I left the rotom on."
---
Isobel hurriedly biked through the streets of Circhester, bumping into Admirari on the way.
âOh, hello--â
âEr, h-hang on, I have to go, I forgot I left the rotom on!â she shouted as she floored it back to her apartment. Isobel returned to a smokescreen of burnt beef fumes, covering up her mouth with all four hands to brave through the blaze. The Rotom-powered slow cooker was on fire, and the animate appliance smiled back at her.
âWhat? Ya told me to cook it on high, ya just didnât say how high to cook it.â
Egads. Her roast was ruined.
---
(whoops, just as I was about to submit it, someone submitted something else, so I'm going to answer both prompts here)
Prompt - One more time
---
Gizmo eyed the hyperactive little Morgrem as he finished baking the last batch of his breadwinning buns. Mog patted his flour-caked claws and sighed.
âNyeh, thatâs da last of âem,â he said.
Gizmo approached, gentle grasping one of the cakes between their metal fingers.
âPerfect texture,â they said. âGood job.â
Out of nowhere, they patted Mog on his moptop head, which he growled at, then backed away. Perhaps that was a mistake. Gizmo almost turned around when Mog approached them again, giving a rare, gentle smile free from the impishness of his nature.
"Oh. Oh dear. Hey, no, don't open your eyes yet. Don't look around. Stay asleep a little longer. Okay?"
You're not good at listening when you're half asleep. Blue shapes were hovering on your bed of clouds, your head pillowed on a fluffy embrace. You wondered if they were rain, ready to melt through the floor and drip onto the world below.
"Come on. We should hurry."
A cloud comes down to cover your eyes. It's soft under your fingers, and depresses like it's buffeted by wind. Bells tinkle.
Somehow, for having just slept, your mouth isn't dry.
"Did I go to sleep counting sheep? Is that why I'm here?"
"Not counting sheep, darling. Counting birds. Above the clouds, that's all the night sky is. Birds and balloons and ghosts, all seeking a passenger, for better or worse. That's why we picked you up."
"Oh. Are you flying me somewhere?"
"You're going to fall awake. But not just yet. Close your eyes, little one. We'll take you home."
damnit i wanted to go longer without failing drabble but oh well
"I've got bad news for you, Mr. Krabby," Chansey said. "You are literally the Zodiac symbol for Cancer."
"Fuck!" said Krabby. "Give it to me straight, doc: how much longer do I have?"
"The Zodiac signs have existed for 2,000 years or so, so by the Copernican Principle, the 95% confidence interval is that you'll continue being the symbol for Cancer for somewhere between 51 and 78,000 years."
"Double fuck!" said Krabby. "Is there a cure?"
"Yes. If humanity can abandon superstition as a means of establishing control over an uncertain world and embrace reason, then-"
