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MARCH/APRIL SHORT STORY COMP - "Twothy TV"

Started by Bad City Blue, 21 March, 2016, 11:04:44 PM

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Bad City Blue

Greetings, losers, boozers and, um, cruisers...

Time for a bit of fun with this month's comp, with a nice, simple premise...

Imagine a real TV show, but with a 2000AD character inserted into it.

See? ENDLESS possibilities.

Only one thing is barred, and that's DREDD. Let's be a little more creative and for once leave Mega City's top dog in peace for  comp.

So... TV show with 2000AD character(s) inserted, but NOT Dredd.

Thinking caps on, you have until the end of April.

Seeya Earthlets

Bad City Blue
Writer of SENTINEL, the best little indie out there

The Legendary Shark

Hustle.

"Okay," said Mickey Bricks, "you all know your roles? Ash?"

"I seed the ground of the scrapyard with gold dust," said Ash.

"I'll be seducing the property developer," said Stacie.

"I'll mock-up the magazines and get them into the developer's office," said Danny.

"And I'll introduce the developer to our 'investor' in his club," said Albert.

Mickey Nodded, smiling. "Excellent. Everything's in place and I think we've covered all the bases. Now all we have to do is..."

The door to the hotel room imploded in a shower of expensive splinters.

"You creeps are all under arrest," said Judge Rico.

***

Heh - just kidding  :lol:
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Bad City Blue

Writer of SENTINEL, the best little indie out there

The Legendary Shark

#3
  Steptoe and Son


The Grease and Grime Warp


Harold opened the door, drawing Tiffany after him. "Pater, is you still up?"

"What's that pong?"

"Oh Gawd," Harold said, "I thought you was in bed."

"Clearly," said Albert. "Sneaking in at this time, you should be ashamed. What's that pong?"

"That is fine Parisian perfume, Pater, not something the scrubbers you knock around with know about. I do apologise, Tiffany, Father can be somewhat blunt - not to mention pig-ignorant."

Albert growled. "That's not perfume, it's 'ormones."

"Oh, Pater," Harold forced a laugh. "You is a card. Say hello to Tiffany then clear off, will you?"

"Lizard 'ormones! I've smelled it before, in the trenches."

"Father, please..."

"I know you. Your name's not Tiffany, it's Tyranny!"

Harold gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry, my dear, but my father is quite old and completely off his rocker. He gets these flashbacks to the war, you see, and..."

Tiffany raised a hand to the brooch at her throat. "It's all right, Harold. Mr Steptoe's Right." She twisted the brooch and a startling transformation took place. Instead of a demur young lady there now stood a female lizard. "Hello Albert, how've you been?"

Albert sneered. "Be a lot better if I didn't have to look at you again."

Harold gaped. "I... but... what..."

"She was all over the trenches," Albert snarled, "working for an outfit called Indigo Prime, or some poncey thing like that. Could've ended the war in an hour with all her gizmos, but oh no, she let thousands of us go to our deaths. 'Can't spoil the time-lines,' she said. Huh!"

Tyranny shrugged. "That's the way it is, Albie."

Harold spluttered. "'Albie'? You know him?"

"'Course she knows me. What do you want?"

Tyranny smiled. "You still got the dimensional twangulator?"

"Said I'd keep it safe, didn't I? It's in my room, disguised as the inlay on my Edwardian commode."

Tyranny nodded and mounted the stairs.

"I do not believe this," said Harold, head in his hands. "I finally meet a bird who's literally out of this world and you already know her. It's not fair."

"Stay away from her. She flits about all time and space keeping the dimensions intact, or some old cobblers."

"For that 'Indigo Prime' outfit you mentioned." Harold's enthusiasm rose. "Here, that sounds good - maybe they's recruiting. I bet there's a place for a man with my talents in an outfit like that."

"A rag-and-bone man?" Albert leered. "What you gonna' do? Hawk 'round Mars and Jupiter for old bedsteads? You're better off here with me, son. Trust me, I know."

A low rumble shook Oil Drum Lane.

"I'm going to ask her to take me with her, away from this pig-hole."

"Too late, Harold, she's gone. That's what that rumble was."

"Oh my good Gawd, I'll never get out of this rotten place."

"You'll be glad you stayed. She might be sexy but just wait 'til she shoves her tail up your Aris and see how you like that."

Harold scowled. "Oh, you dirty old man."


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Citi-Def_Joe

#4
Spaced
Based on the episode Dissolution and the following quote:
Mike: Don't forget whose shoulder you cried on when the last one dumped you.
Tim: I won't.
Mike: Or when Johnny Alpha got killed by that big flying monster in 2000 A.D.
*************************************************************************************
23 Meteor Street, Tufnell Park....
Tim blinked his eyes rapidly as they adjusted to the darkness of his room, he looked at the glowing digits of his clock, 3.37 am.Something had woken him from his dream of Gillian Anderson being persued by mutant mice-spiders. And it wasn't Daisy's snoring, it was something else....

Despite his fears and sense of self-preservation something compelled him to investigate. That something was the fear that someone might be hell bent or some dastardly deed...like nicking his playstation and comic collection.
More noise, coming from the living room, someone talking in hushed tones...
Tim crept from his room in to the hall, and peered round the door of living room.
A pair of glowing white eyes starred back, the eyes of someone Tim thought was dead...
"J-Johnny?!" Tim blurted out
"Tim, sit down I know this is a sho-" The bounty hunter said in  a quiet voice
"But your dead, I saw you die! That big flying monster, it killed you!" Tim Interupted, tears forming in his eyes as the memories flooded back.
"I know Tim...I was there" Johhny said shrugging
"So how are you alive, how are you here?!"
"er, it's complicated" Said Johnny rather embarrassed "and besides we don't have time, I need to ask you for something."
"I'll pop the kettle on..." Tim said turning away to start preparing the life affirming beverage.

"I may be alive Tim but Wulf is still dead, Middenface is a drunk and the other Dogs are...well... like I said its complicated, I need a new partner Tim"
"Johnny I'd be honored" Tim exclaimed a flush of red appearing at his cheeks as he tried to play it cool
"No Tim not you....I need a big man, a weapons expert someone not afraid to steal a tank and invade Eurodisney" Johnny explained shaking his head slightly.
Mike stepped from the shadows "It's called Disneyland, Paris now actually John"
"Mike you've been here all along?!" Tim said in surprise
"All good soldier's know the power of stealth and camouflage Timmy" make said taking another step forward and revealing his camouflage pyjamas.
"You cant leave me Mike" Tim muttered
"Sorry Timmy I need to move on in life, the TA's good but its not the same as travelling through space with a mutant bounty hunter....and  besides Johnny says I can have a go on the Westinghouse  if I'm good" Mike said grinning like a child
"A Mike's go to do what a Mike's got to do I suppose" said Tim as looked at the floor
"We better go Mike, there's a little job I need to finish up" Johnny said
An excited Mike ran out of the room "see ya soon Timmy!" he shouted
Tim reached out and touched Johnny on the shoulder"Johnny....look after him" Tim said tears in his eyes.
Johnny looked at Tim and nodded his head slowly the smiled wryly  "get off me you bummer"

Minkyboy

Brilliant Shark and Joe, setting the bar high already. Great stuff.
Fiddling while Rome burns

"is being made a brain in a jar a lot more comen than I think it is." - Cyberleader2000

The Legendary Shark

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Citi-Def_Joe

Thanks this is the first "story" I have written since school  :)

Lobo Baggins

Assigned

Anderson squinted at the what-ever-it-was at the other end of the grimy alley.  It was hard to focus on, her psychic perception was insisting that it wasn't there at all and it looked distinctly unreal even to her conventional senses.  It was a thing of squirming grey lines over a sepia tinted, vaguely human-shaped void in the air.  Sometimes there was the impression of details; a hatchet faced, scowling man wearing an old-fashioned motorcycle helmet and leathers.  It was holding a monkey wrench, which was real enough to have smashed in the heads of three citizens.  It had stepped out of an old comic in a café down the street.  She pointed her Lawgiver at it, even though she wasn't sure what effect it could possibly have.

"Halt!" she commanded, not even sure if the squirming, scribbly thing could hear her.  It jolted and juddered around so that it was pointing in her direction, and then began to lurch towards her, the wrench raised threateningly in front of it.  Anderson fired the Lawgiver, putting a Standard Execution round right through its head.  Nothing happened, it didn't even seem to notice.  Right, a psychic battle after all, then...

The void thing was suddenly right in front of her, it was either moving too fast to see or had somehow teleported instantaneously.  The wrench was swinging down towards her skull.  Instinctively, she dodged backwards but somehow lost her footing and tumbled onto her backside.  She stared up as the creature raised the wrench again, gathering her psychic defences.

She sensed the others before they actually appeared.  There was a feeling of ancient power, then it was as though part of the world itself had suddenly taken on bodies and personalities.  One of them stepped into the world behind the scribbly man.  For some reason, it had taken the form of a short blond man with piercing grey eyes and an old-fashioned charcoal grey suit.  He reached forwards and casually tapped the thing on the shoulder.  The whirling maelstrom was abruptly frozen, the not-quite face bore an expression of shocked surprise.

Too easy, the grey man broadcast telepathically, so powerfully it made Anderson's mind reverberate even though he wasn't even addressing her.

She can hear us, Steel, replied a female voice at thankfully much less intensity.  Anderson could see her at the other end of the alley; she had long blonde hair and an amused expression, wearing an elegant blue evening gown.  She was holding an ancient, yellowing comic and her eyes were flaring arcs of electric blue energy.  She carefully turned a page in the comic.

The void thing was abruptly ripped out of the world without a sound.  The blue woman smiled as the grey man walked towards her.  She handed him the comic.

"That won't hold them," he said.

"Oh, I thought we could trap them in a music video," the woman replied, taking his hand.  Then they took a step and walked out of the universe.
The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.

Lobo Baggins

Artwork for mine would be by Arthur Ransom, natch.

(I've just found out that the lead Rotoscope Man from the A-Ha video is played by Philip Jackson, who among other things, played Abbott Hugo in "Robin of Sherwood", which also had a comic adaptation in Look-In drawn by Arthur Ransom.  I'm going to pretend I knew that all along.)
The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.

IAMTHESYSTEM

Dad's Army famous 'Don't tell him, Pike!' scene was the inspiration. Not many laughs in the twoothy version.

                                                   DON'T TELL HIM, ROGUE!


'Who do you think you are kidding Mr Norty,' whistled Captain Mainwaring as he checked his watch. Warmington on Sea had been Nu Earth's retirement settlement but now only the Church hall remained intact. Through its shattered door frame Mainwaring observed the Nort prisoners, flanked by their Home Guard escort march up the shell pocked steps to stand before him inside the hall.   

Mainwaring stared at the Norts as the Guard, with bayonets fixed stationed themselves behind their C.O. The prisoners, Nort Krieg marines stood impassive as their Leader, a brutal looking Officer held Mainwaring's eye and the Captain felt his cheeks flush red. Still he was in command here so he'd better show it.

'You, Norts are now prisoners of Souther Command.' Mainwaring stated. 'As Pris-

'I am making a list' interrupted the Nort Officer as he pulled a small black E-Pad from his coat. 'You, are going on zee list.'   

The chest, arm then head of the Krieg Marine Officer exploded in gore before Mainwaring could reply. As bullet strikes peppered the Nort Officer and his men Mainwaring and his Home Guard fell back from the carnage their backs almost against the rear wall.

Silence descended. Mainwaring could feel his ratcheted breathe through his helmet. The dull sound of a weapon being reloaded drew his gaze to a Souther soldier who stood in a veterans stance outside the Church's doorway. Armed with rifle, backpack and Helmet he had no breather, his skin was blue but it was the white eyes blazing with hate that held Mainwaring. They were crazed eyes, eyes of a warrior who had seen too much horror, who had gone over sanity's edge.   

Pressed tightly round their Captain only the front ranks of the Guard could aim their rifles at the intruder. 'Don't panic!' Corporal Jones shouted to no effect. Mainwaring blinked rapidly as he addressed the Soldier but his voice tremored as he spoke.

'Souther Home Guard.' Mainwaring flustered. 'Who are you, Souther?

'Don't tell him, Rogue!' The voice seemed to come from nowhere but the lights on the Vets damaged  helmet briefly shone on and off. 'Rogue?' Mainwaring's mind fought for answers found one. 'The legendary G I? He must have been blown up.' thought the Captain as he observed the blast damage on almost every part of the Veterans unique equipment and on the Vet himself who bled heavily from a dozen wounds.

Then the blue soldier snarled out the last words Mainwaring and his men ever heard before raking the Home Guard Captain and his men with lead jacketed death. Mainwaring died knowing he and his comrades were victims of a deadly case of mistaken identity committed by a 'Rogue Trooper' from their own side, whose shattered, battle fatigued mind now saw everyone else as the enemy and reacted accordingly.

'Who do you think you're kidding, Mr Norty?' repeated Rogue firing again. 
   
"You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension."

http://artriad.deviantart.com/
― Nikola Tesla

Heath C Ackley

PENNY DREADFUL: DEVICES AND DAMNATIONS

Victor returned downstairs to the watchmaker's shop. Miss Ives sat at the table with the machine. The look of wonder on her face was quite endearing. The automaton was remarkable; serving tea with it's left hand while writing on a sheaf of paper with the other. It was a creation of genius and of art. The polished brass and copper had been etched with designs of an arcane and mysterious nature. Innards like that of an elaborate clock worked and ticked away within the facsimile body. Miss Ives took the sheet of paper from beneath the poised fountain pen. Victor read it with a growing sense of disbelief.

Thank you for your kindly visit. Circumstance has unfortunately denied me the chance to meet you in the flesh, as it were. Your companion Doctor Frankenstein will not find me on the premises, not in body at least. You are, I am sure, aware of the old Latin phrase Deux Ex Machina?

Miss Ives gestured to a heap of dark ash beneath one of the many display cabinets. The ramifications bewildered Victor. He stared at the cherubic face-plate. The spirit of the creator resided within the shell of his creation. Miss Ives returned the sheaf to the table.

'Are you the Italian?'

My name is Gideon. The machine paused for a moment. And I ask a favour of you Miss Ives.

'How can I be of help Gideon?'

We know that there are trespassers roaming this world, beings that wish to reduce it to ash and ruin. It was one of those infernal entities that robbed me of my mortal form. I constructed this machine to fight against these hell-driven beasts and now it has become my armour in a war against damnation. My research into the forbidden has gained me all of the sigils I need to fight their magic except one. I turn to you Miss Ives, and humbly ask that you make my creation complete.

Miss Ives removed a pin from her hat and pricked the palm of one hand. When a sufficient pool of blood appeared, she daubed a symbol upon the cold metal brow. At once, the painted Scorpiones began to sizzle and smoke. As the conflagration died, the pen moved across the white paper.

Thank you. I bid thee both a good night.

The pen dropped from the copper hand. The musicality of the machine's inner mechanism came to an end. Miss Ives and Victor took their leave. There was much to do and the dark forces set against them were still near. A figure stepped out from a doorway across the street. The face beneath the stove hat was too angular to be of this realm.

Gideon rose, throwing the table asunder. Symbols of protection blazed. Lethal blades snapped out from the tubular forearms. The forthcoming battle would not be one of petty revenge but of total annihilation.
"Give a man a mask and he will give you the truth."

Eamonn Clarke

Down for the count

The studio lights glared down on the simple set, four desks, a letter board, and the clock that gave the show its name. The red light lit up on the Tri-D camera as the floor manager silently counted down from five and then pointed at the host.

"Welcome back to the world's longest running quiz show, I'm Nat Bunderson. Just before the break the delightful Delilah had picked nine tricky letters for our contestants, let's see what they made of them. First of all our defending champion, Reg Trunion. How many, Reg?"

"Only five I'm afraid, POLKAS, like the dance."

"Very musical, Reg. And our challenger, Jam Bepy?"

"Nine, APOKALIPS, as in the war."

"That's rather an unusual spelling, we better go over to dictionary corner. What do you make of that, OED-1?

"[Unusual but accepted spelling variant. 20th century usage. Judgement = allowed]"

"Another nine pointer, Jam, continuing the strange spelling from your first round winner of Nekroplis?"

"Just dumb luck, Nat"

"Let's see if that luck lasts. Onto round three and back to our lovely lady of letters. What have you get for our wordsmiths, Delilah."

"Here they come from the random letter generator.

DINOMIGHT

Another strange selection, Nat."

"Strange and almost explosive, Delilah. OK, contestants, your thirty seconds start now!"

The single hand on the clock began to move as the familiar music faded in. Reg Trunion was scribbling furiously but Jam Bepy seemed to be struggling with his pencil. Their deliberations were suddenly interrupted as the floor manager ran on to the set waving her arms and shouting loudly.

"Bomb! There's a bomb in the clock! Clear the set now. Oh Grud, someone stop the countdown!"

The explosion ripped through the studio, destroying the three desks nearest the clock, and the dictionary computer. As the smoke cleared the production crew looked on appalled at the devastation. Both presenters, the floor manager and one of the contestants were dead. Only Bepy had survived, shielded from the blast as he scrambled under the steel desk to retrieve his dropped pencil.

A production assistant with a clipboard and a headset strode through the carnage issuing instructions to summon paramedics and judges. She took the dazed Bepy by his elbow and led him away from the mayhem.

"This way, sir, we'll make you comfy in the green room. I expect the judges will want a statement later, then I'll need you to sign a release form and talk about you coming back for next week's show."

"Next week? I sort of planned on this being a one off performance. Will there be another show?"

"Of course there will. C4 won't want to break the streak. If Chaos day can't stop us then neither will this. The show must go on and you'll be back as defending champion."

"Champion? I do like the sound of that. Can I think about it?"

"Of course. For now I'll just put you down as a definite maybe."


Lobo Baggins

Quote from: Lobo Baggins on 24 March, 2016, 09:06:18 AM
Artwork for mine would be by Arthur Ransom, natch.

Or even Arthur Ranson :P (don't know how I managed to spell it wrong twice)

Really enjoying the entries so far, by the way!
The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.

Bad City Blue

Writer of SENTINEL, the best little indie out there