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More of Danny's World!

Silver is superstition- but garlic holds power.

(#00222)

It was a very bad haze season, this year. Her neighbours were prone to blame her, owing to her ‘unnatural’ status as the boy who was a girl.

The haze knew, though. They knew when her body didn’t match her soul. It was proof enough for some, but others… Well, there was a reason she was headed to an Aunt’s house.

The sun was going down and there was no time to double back for her silver jewelry. Aunty Car had a spare set, but… the sun was going down and she wasn’t nearly there yet and all she had was a basket of assorted garlic products. Raw, roasted, pickled, and cream of garlic soup in a thermos that had chill-sealed itself irreversibly shut.

Men who knew her watched her running past, Ladyflame™ in one hand and the pack in the other. They all had bigger flamethrowers but few even readied them for her protection.

She should have expected this. Verification from a swarm of bloodthirsty insects was not proof enough for people.

Danny could hear the insistent buzz of the gathering swarm. Aunty Car lived a lot closer to the mines. She had flame fences and a basement safe room with supplies for months. All Danny had to do was get there before the haze descended.

If only she’d remembered her silver!

Flamethrowers roared behind her. Not enough to really protect her. Not enough to put confidence in her heart that she was going to make it.

They were right behind her!

Danny whirled, throwing the garlic basket at them and readying her Ladyflame™ as she continued moving towards Aunty Car’s. There was less fuel in a Ladyflame. She had to wait until they were almost on top of her before letting fly.

The swarm ricochetted the basket back towards her and the recalcitrant thermos spilled its load of garlic soup at her feet, and all the other garlic products around her.

The haze… rippled. Like waves on the ocean, it advanced on her and retreated, like it wanted to devour her, but couldn’t get near. Silver was meant to have this effect, but she didn’t have so much as a link on her.

It had to be the garlic.

Hypothesis. Experimentation… Danny grabbed a bulb of roasted garlic and flicked its gooey contents towards the swarm.

The bugs it hit died on contact.

This was going to revolutionize combatting the haze.

She smeared herself with the rest of the garlic, all over. Every inch she could reach. Re-oriented herself towards Aunty Car’s, and cleared a path with her flamethrower.

All she had to do was get indoors, and get safe, and survive.

She’d survived one swarm. She could do it again with another.

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Challenge #00221: Relics

Easy come, easy go-go.

The name of the vessel was the Remembrance Maru, and according to her registry, she was a pleasure vessel. All passengers and crew had evacuated after a micro-meteor shower had pierced both her defenses and the hull. Now, after a slow cruise from eternity, she’d turned up again in Amalgam’s local space.

Shayde was instantly interested, of course. She all but carried Rael down the long and winding route to Dry Dock’s

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Challenge #00220: Tempus Flakkit

Time as currency and the dreadful issue of small talk while handing your life away and being 30 seconds short whilst on your commute.

Nomadic life was fine, so long as one was healthy. However, there were still illnesses that forced a stay. Stays cost. Hot-rack hotel beds were fine for sleeping, and you could harvest any food you wanted in the working gardens, but if you didn’t know an apprentice Gyik chef, the odds of getting it cooked for

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Challenge #00219: Drained

The worst way for Rogue to gain her sense of touch. Heavy angst.

She only knew him as Leech. Since he turned up as the Acolyte’s secret weapon, turning off powers just by standing around, he fascinated her. It was his job to be in their way. And it forced them all to hone the skills that did not require their powers.

He always worked alone. No backup. Just clever trick after clever trick until she found the cleverest trick

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Challenge #00218: Goodbye, Good Boy

The last good year. Make me weep.

Every day, since she adopted Boy, had been the same. Etta got woken up by his slobbering kisses and his eternally cheerful, “Good morning, Boss.” and some vestigial orders he used to give his old master. Even after all this time, Boy obeyed his programming/training and looked after his owner.

This morning, the alarm went off before Boy’s cold nose pressed against her skin and his tongue lavished her with

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"How Super Are We All, Really?"

An FOH sympathizer and Scott have a civil debate on the issue of human supremacy vs. coexistence after she recognizes him during the reception preceding his third artistic experience post song. Common ground is tripped upon due to the relative naivete of both to the concept of creative expression.

(#00217)

He had bought a suit for this exhibition, and still waited for someone to call him out as a fraud. Scott still called his works ‘inspired by’ ikebana rather than

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Challenge #00216: Icky-what?

Scott, inspired by watching Sara at the harp, is day 17 in his surprising new hobby, marked by his acumen and desire for a greater range of expression and development. Jean comments.

It was not an art usually appreciated in the making, it was something appreciated after it was finished. And even after seventeen days of practice, he was still too shy to show anyone but the Adriens.

He knew Ororo saw it, because she left encouraging little post-its on his desk.

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More of Danny's World!

The song ‘Purple Haze’ has an entirely different meaning here….

(#00215)

Danny didn’t notice while her skin was growing back, nor during her recovery from the operation she insisted on to make certain her outside matched her inside.

Intensive care and many post-op wards were in the hospital shelter as a matter of standard protocol.

It was when she was getting the hormone implant, when the team came and hurried her back down into the shelter, that

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Challenge #00214: Typhoon

“…and that’s why I built an extra arm for it, just for high-fives.”

There was a reason the Mark-4 was a short-lived model. It was designed by a madman who happened to lead a character cult of engineers and builders. Only one team could pilot the beast that resulted.

“It’s unbeatable. Weapons everywhere we could fit them and a few places we couldn’t,” Jeung grinned. “The real trick will be

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Challenge #00213: Emotional... Promotion

When Scott finds out that leaders can indeed be seen crying and still be respected, he adjusts accordingly.

Kitty had recorded it because she couldn’t believe it. She showed it to Jean because she still didn’t believe it after watching it fifteen times in a row.

“Wow,” Jean said. And, after the third view, “I was joking when I said Sara’s playing could make a statue cry, but - *damn*…”

She

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Challenge #00212: Prepared.

When being the coward of the county works out well.

There’s always that one weirdo in every town. That’s me. I try not to let on, because this is redneck country, but I’m scared of just about everything. Fortunately, since redneck country is also survivalist country, nobody bats an eye at folks ordering food by the pallet. With GPS co-ordinates instead of a delivery address.

I don’t have a bank account. Not since I

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Challenge #00211: Dining with... Omnivores.

Let’s switch up an old cliche!

The subject of diet comes up, and the alien/s at the table is/are horrified and/or disgusted that humans eat plant matter.

“We’ve done our best, of course, to find compatible foods, and make you feel welcome.”

Sh'shrii had to hand it to the humans. They had only seen the Ssarqa once, over a slightly dodgy analogue communications link, but they were clever enough to cobble together near-appropriate

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"Now, That Makes...Sense."

Write a story about a young man, who on the best day of his life, finally realizes why the old man is dancing in the middle of their locker room waving their trophy around in this link. Make both he and I cry please.

[AN: Sport is not my forte…]

(#00210)

It had been his job to round up the towels on the day they won. The crowd had been too thick for him to see the old man, and too

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Challenge #00209: Reve-olutionary

When Julie dreams.

“Good morning, Miss Shayde!’

Shayde turned. The only person who could get away with ‘miss'ing her was skipping along with a peculiar little box in her hands and, as always, Nanny in tow.

"Good morning, Julie,” she said, tagging along because it was way more interesting than grocery shopping. “What’s in the wee box?”

Julie blushed and giggled. “It isn’t wee, it’s dreams.”

Dreams?

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Challenge #00208: Creative Outlet

Scott, inspired by crying while watching Sara at the harp, tries to apply himself to a creative endeavor to become, one day, even a tenth as proficiently expressive as she was. Mr. Adrien interrupts with a few pertinent questions.

There was a reason why arts were not so well funded as, say, sports. Or the sciences. They could be tested and quantified and finally summed up by a number. Which meant that people could compare scores.

Art… was subjective. As Sara

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