Post by billybobjoe47s on Dec 28, 2012 14:59:00 GMT -5
Why Hello everyone! I am a new member, and as soon as I saw that you could post works of fanfiction here, I jumped at the chance. This is likely to be a very long post, as the first 8 chapters are approximately 26,000 words long, and as such destroy the maximum character limit. So here's the first five chapters: The most I could fit on one post.
So, here it is!
-Billybobjoe47s
All Things in Heaven and Earth
Disclaimer: Tiny Toon Adventures, Tiny Toon Adventures characters and all affiliated things are © 1990 Warner Bros.
Looney Tunes and Looney Tunes characters are © Warner Bros.
Halo, Halo: Reach, Noble 6, Master Chief, the Covenant and all affiliated things are ©2001 Microsoft, 343 Industries.
Honor Harrington, the Honor Harrington series, and all affiliated characters are ©1992 David Weber
Eragon, The Inheritance Cycle, and all affiliated characters and things are ©2002 Christopher Paolini
All dialogue and OCs are mine.
Part I: Breaking Apart
Chapter 1: The Event
Earth Prime, E-day
5:47 PM
Brennan, aged 14, was having a cruddy day. First, waking up and falling into his nightstand, leaving a nasty welt that still smarted, and then finding out that the water heater had broken and there was no hot water for him to take a shower. He shivered at the memory of the ice-cold shower. Then, halfway on the trip to school, both bike tires had gone flat after running over a hive of very angry ants. At school, it was worse. Falling asleep in class, tardies in 3 classes, detention after school, and a pile of homework so large he staggered under the weight. Then, returning to the bike rack to drag his useless bike home, it had been stolen, leaving the flat wheel still locked to the bike rack. Then walking the several miles home, only to find out that his mother had made meatloaf for dinner…. It was almost as bad as the cartoons portrayed it.
He sighed and tried to relax over the slight headache he still had from this morning, turning on the television. News, news, news, news, and Dora the Explorer were the only thing he had on their free cable television, and there were no new shows recorded. He sighed and flipped through all the news, hoping at least for some Sports Center. However, every news channel was covering the same thing: a new-fangled bomb being tested near Area 51. According to the identical reports by all the on-scene journalists, this bomb was supposed to revolutionize war and guarantee the security of America for years to come.
Brennan mockingly thought, ‘what a load of junk to be spitting out, when they haven’t even tested the thing to see if it works as advertised.’ However, a bomb exploding, even on TV, sounded more interesting than seeing if he could try to pry his little sister off the computer without getting stab wounds. He settled in to watch the show.
The scientist in charge of the experiment counted down “5……4……3…..2…..1…… ignition.” The bomb exploded with a flash of light so bright that even through the TV Brennan had to look away and shade his eyes. But something infinitely more interesting and concerning happened. After the bomb went off, the earth started shaking on the television, which Brennan just took to mean it was more powerful than anyone had expected. However, immediately, the house started shaking! After a few minutes, the shaking had died down, but Brennan had some disturbing thoughts: “If our house shook that bad from here over 400 miles away, what did it do to the people standing there?” He looked back to the television and was surprised to find that nothing seemed to be seriously damaged and no one was hurt. The scientist was being interviewed by several news networks, and said, “While the bomb was a success, the shaking caused by this is a major concern. Hold on a minute…..” and he listened to an earpiece. “We are getting disturbing reports from the Eastern seaboard, Hawaii, and….. Other seismological sites around the world. The earthquake has affected every area on the globe, even boats at sea, and all the sites recorded a quake of the same magnitude every time. These disturbing numbers are being confirmed now….. Please wait a few minutes for confirmation.” While all the journalists started wondering about the explosion and spouting theories, Brennan mused ‘What sort of earthquake acts like that? Not any natural or artificial earthquake ever before….. what have they done?’ Eight minutes of exited jabbering, frantic Twitter feeds, and rumors spreading like wildfire later, the scientist tuned back in, pale and shaking. “I have just gotten one of the most disturbing reports I have ever heard. Astronomers studying the Moon, Sun, and Mars have reported that a tremor, matching the magnitude of the tremors here, have shaken the Solar System. They all believe that if given enough time, this tremor will be felt by every particle of matter for at least 20 light-years, based on the speed of propagation. This news has shaken me, because this tremor apparently follows no rules of physics, including the speed of light, for all these reports came simultaneously. I am afraid we may have just done something horrible to our universe.”
All the journalists and everyone watching the news instantly started flooding the airwaves with reports, speculations, theories, and rumors. Twitter and other social media were forced to shut down because of the sheer amount of panicked messages being sent, reports were coming in that the stock market had already started dropping, and panic started to infuse the world.
Brennan, shaken by these happenings, decided to take a walk to get his mind off these disturbing events. He called out to his mother, obliviously whistling in the kitchen, cleaning up dinner, (for his mother was not very connected to technology, and when message alerts started flooding her phone, had simply turned it off.) and left out the front door to the city park. He decided to get away from people in general, who had been giving him a hard time recently, by sneaking into the wilderness area behind the city park that was off-limits.
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Toonity, E-Day
5:47 PM
Buster Bunny, a blue rabbit wearing a red T-shirt, said, “Alright people, time to film the conclusion of our Big Bang special! Snap to and get moving!” He sighed. This was, to date, the 300th episode filmed since the cancellation of his show on Reality, in the hopes that they would reinstate their series. Plucky Duck, a green mallard with a serious case of the egotistic and a lisp reminiscent of Daffy Duck, slapped him on the back and said “Great job, Busther! If this final scene doesthn’t convince Warner Brosth to sthtart our sthow back up again, they’re insthane!”
He gave a weak smile and said, “Yeah Pluck, I’m sure that this explosion will be our road back to fame!” Plucky exclaimed, “Fame! Fortune again! Thankyouthankyouthankyou, Busther!” and skipped to his spot whistling. Buster said, “Alright everyone, places! Remember that after the final explosion defeating Monty, we all sing the Tiny Toon theme song!” Monty, full name Montana Max, a young, bratty human child spoiled by his rich parents, complained,
” Why do I have to be in the plane loaded with TNT when it explodes? While I won’t die, it’ll really smart tomorrow! Can’t we hire a stunt double or something to blow up instead?”
Buster reminded him “We don’t have the budget for stunt doubles anymore, remember? And you already used all your monthly allowance to buy the Queen Mary! Now get in the plane, we’re about to start filming!”
Monty sighed and got in the plane, which was then hoisted up and started, smoking. While the cameras started filming, the plane spiraled out of control with Montana Max screaming and beating on the cockpit glass. When the plane hit the ground, a tremendous explosion rang out, and a crater was blown into the ground. However, Buster yelled, “Cut! Cut! What special effects artist threw an earthquake in there? That wasn’t in the script!”
The special effects artists behind him shrugged. “We didn’t put any earthquakes in there!”
Buster scratched his head. “Well, if you guys didn’t put it in there, than who did?” The rest of the cast shrugged as well. Buster muttered, “That’s impossible! Earthquakes just don’t happen here in Toonity naturally! Not to mention, but that blew our budget and we can’t afford to retake the scene.” Montana then wobbled out of the hole, dazed and blackened, and asked to no one in particular, “What did I miss?” He then fell unconscious. Buster sighed and walked, shoulders slumped, over to where his best friend, Babs Bunny waited. Babs cried, “Oh Buster, what are we going to do? That ruined our chances of getting back on air in Reality, and I can already feel myself fading away!” Buster noticed with concern that Babs was losing her regular pink color and turning lighter. Babs wasn’t known for resilience against fading, and with their hope of gaining attention gone, she was already starting to fade away.
Buster and the gang all walked, downcast, to their homes. Buster slumped on the hollowed log that was the entrance to his humble home, and sighed. What was he going to do? As the co-host, the others all depended on him to make things right, but Buster saw no solution. He sat there, despondent, as the sun slowly marked off the passing of time.
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Heltus, E-Day
5:47 PM
Lucifer XVII sighed. His kingdom was starting to fall apart from the increasingly volcanic eruptions, and the Earthlings had recently developed a bomb which, according to his scientists, would make it impossible to simply roll over the nations in that world, so there was no escape from this pit, just when all the expenditures of valuable money had been justified with the forming of a capable army. He frowned at another volcano and the weirdly fast earthquake that followed, but frowned when he heard a mental call from his Minister of Science. “Lord, a tremor has just shaken our entire universe, and may have ...altered the strategic picture, due to its unusual properties.” Lucifer scowled. “In what way?” “We’re not quite sure yet, my Lord.” He mentally yelled, “Well than be sure! Call me when you find anything important. If what you bother me with is trivial, than you can look forward to a long ordeal in the Volcano Corps.” The Minister gulped so loud it was audible mentally. “Of course, my Lord.”
Chapter 2: The Beginning
Earth, E-Day
6:07 PM
Brennan smiled serenely as he walked through the forest. His day was starting to look up, and he had nearly forgotten the strange occurrence that evening. He walked the game trails, exploring regions of the park he had never visited before, far away from his home. Suddenly, he noticed an oddly colored spot in the meadow ahead, next to a lone tree in the middle. This spot was bright blue, not sky colored, but more like a child would draw the sky, but the strangest thing was, it was on the ground! Brennan, intrigued, decided to come closer. He noticed that a slight sucking feeling came from the spot, which seemed to indicate some cave. He wondered, “What sort of weird rock is that, and why has no one noticed this before? I know lots of the teenagers around sneak in here….” He kneeled near the spot and leaned over to look in. Strangely, it didn’t look like a hole, and he couldn’t see a bottom. He cautiously stuck a finger into the spot, and was sucked in! He screamed, but no sound came out. Then came the strangest feeling he had ever felt: a tingling feeling that pervaded his entire body, numbing as it went! His vision flashed psychedelic colors, and he heard a random collection of notes that oddly, even though the chords would have ordinarily left him screaming in pain calmed him and felt like music. He then felt simultaneously searing heat and freezing cold, pain and joy, anger and calm, love and hate, happiness and sadness, all warring within him, ripping him apart. He screamed silently again, and then suddenly he felt wind rushing by him and he noticed he was flying upward to a pastel-colored sky with clouds that looked very odd, but before he had much time to muse, he noticed that he had stopped going upwards. He looked down, expecting to be rushing down, but oddly enough, he was floating in midair! He then rushed downwards at high speed. He screamed and blacked out, fully expecting to be dead when he hit the ground.
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Toonity, E-Day
Buster was jolted out of his thoughts when he heard someone screaming. Oddly enough, he didn’t sound like any of the cast, and unlike any other toon he had ever seen or heard. He looked up and saw a very oddly proportioned character flying into the sky. He thought, “Just don’t look down and you’ll be alright!” but sure enough, like always, the man looked down and fell, screaming, to earth. Oddly, he went limp halfway to the ground, looking suspiciously like unconsciousness. Buster thought, “No self-respecting Warner Toon would black out like that in the middle of a fall! Who is this new character?”
He rushed out to find a crater in the earth. To his surprise, what he pulled out of the hole was not an animal, like usual, but a very tall human! The man groaned and opened his, yet again oddly, bespectacled eyes. “Where am I?” He then noticed the giant, sky blue rabbit standing over him. He screamed and stumbled to his feet, yelling, “Mutant rabbit!”
Buster, offended, asked, “Now who’s a mutant? Me?” The man blanched, but not in a wild take, but a subtle lightening of the skin. “Y-you talked! The r-rabbit t-talked! AAAAHHHHHH!!!” He ran blindly away, screaming, until he was knocked out by the low-hanging (for him) basketball hoop, and fell limply to the ground.
Buster ran closer, insulted and confused, and suddenly noticed something odd: The man did not have any customary toon coloring on his body or clothing, and he didn’t have any outlines around himself. Interestingly, the man was still scratched and bruised from his encounter with the ground, and his clothing was dirty, something never found on toons except on single scenes. Buster than put the facts together, and all the color drained out of him and he was left a white outline. “He isn’t a toon, not even a Disney one! He’s.. He’s…. from reality!” Buster, panicked at something never before seen in Toonity and something he had never trained for at Acme Looniversity, ran around in circles until he ran smack-dab into a tree and was knocked out hard next to the man.
Chapter 3 : The Fateful Meeting
Toonity, E-day+1
7:35 AM
Babs, still tired, and losing more energy by the minute, walked slowly past Busters’ house and noticed he was sleeping in the yard, and oddly enough, there was a man limply sprawled next to him! She rushed over, and pulled a handy bucket of water out of her pocket and splashed it on the two. Buster woke up suddenly.
“Wha---- oh Babs, it’s you. I had the most horrible dream last—why am I outside?” He then noticed the man coughing next to him, and his eyes bulged out of his head. “AAAAAHHHH!” He jumped inside his burrow and hid, only his ears and the tip of his head sticking out.
Babs asked, perplexed, “Why are you screaming, and who is this guy?” She then noticed the non-tooniness of the character and put two and two together. “Wha—Huh? How’d this guy get here?? It-It isn’t possible!” Buster, still hyperventilating, whispered, “I don’t know, but he isn’t supposed to be here.” Babs rushed to hide beside Buster.
Brennan woke up coughing, when a bucket of cold water was splashed on him. “Mom! What the flip?” He tried to sit up and felt an intense pain in his head and he fell over again. “Unngh, not feeling so good….” He then opened his eyes and saw the pastel colored sky and the disturbingly yellow sun. “Where am I?” He looked around and saw the two bunnies staring at him. “What the…. MUTANT RABBITS!” He tried to bolt upright, but fell groaning to the ground when a bolt of lightning stabbed through his skull. “Oh man, just kill me now!”
Buster slowly crept out of his hiding spot and approached him. “Are you alright?” Brennan yelled, “Heck no, what does it look like? I feel like someone hit me with an anvil!” Just then, an anvil plummeted to earth, landing near him. “What the heck?! I coulda been killed! Why are there people chucking anvils around?” He slowly stood up and limped towards the bunnies. “Look, I don’t care if you’re gonna eat me, but please just do it now!”
Babs said, “Why would we ever eat you? We’re vegetarian!”
Buster added,” We would never do that! Not to mention, we would be in our rights, you flying into the air and leaving a hole in my front lawn! That’ll cost money, money I don’t have, to fix!”
Brennan asked, “Sooooo.. you’re not going to hurt me?”
Babs said, “Oh heavens no! why would we?”
Brennan, still hurting, muttered,” Well that’s all fine and good but I’m still in a strange place with giant talking bunnies wearing clothes, and the sky and well, everything is messed up!” Buster replied (having heard with his excellent hearing), “Well… on that note, I think I can explain some of that. You see, you’re in a place called Acme Acres, and we’re Buster and Babs Bunny.” “No relation.” they chorused.
Brennan dazedly said,” Hey those names sound familiar… But you can’t be real! You’re all just characters from an old cartoon!” Babs and Buster, delighted, ask,” You recognize us?”
“Well, yeah, but not many others would. I’ve watched all your old shows and even read some of your fan fiction.”
Babs then noticed that she no longer felt sick and tired. She said, “Oh, Buster, someone still recognizes us! That’s so wonderful! This makes me feel so much better!” and gave Buster a big kiss on the lips. Buster turned red and stammered, “That’s great, Babsy.” Brennan then noticed his stomach was growling and his lips were chapped. “Hey, do you have any food and water? I’m starving.” Buster said, “Sure. One bowl of carrot stew and a glass of water coming right up!” He started to walk to his burrow, but was stopped by Babs.
“Oh no! You can’t cook carrot stew at all! Let me do it,” Arguing all the way to the burrow, they jumped inside, followed by Brennan.
Savoring the actually quite good carrot stew curled up on the couch, Brennan asked,” So what exactly has been going on for 17 years? I mean, your show was canceled in 1995.” Buster said, “Well, since Acme Looniversity is a junior high school and high school combined, and since you’ve noticed that we obviously live long lives, (I mean, look at Bugs! Going strong, and he’s turning 75 next year!) we’ve just been going to school hoping our show would come back in Reality.”
Just then, an alarm clock rang, and Gogo Dodo, an interesting (read insane) fellow that seemed to be everywhere, smacked both the rabbits with a mallet, and said, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! If you’re late to school, you’re cuckoo!” then jumped back inside the alarm clock.
Brennan winced. “Are you guys alright?” Babs said, woozily, “Just give us a sec and we’ll be fine. Oh yeah, stay here. Since you’re from Reality, we really wouldn’t want all of Acme Acres to panic if you showed up. You can use Buster’s Lametendo, ok?” Buster growled, “Hey! Did you ask me before giving permission for him to use my stuff?” Babs winked. “If you don’t want to be hit by a mallet, yes, I did.” “Oh, all right, he can use my stuff. But no carrots, you hear me?” muttered Buster. “Of course! I’ll survive on that ramen you’ve got in the cabinet.” “Well, see ya in 7 hours, Brennan” they said.
Brennan soon got bored of the Lametendo living up to its name. “Oh man, the graphics are hurting my eyes! This is bad even for 1995! I wish I had an Xbox 360, and some Halo.” Just then, out of nowhere, an oddly shaped video game system boasting, ‘Xsphere 360’ hit Brennan on the head.”Ow! And just when my headache went away. Hey, what’s this?” He picked the Xsphere up. “Yes! I love cartoon physics!” He plugged it in and spent an hour blasting aliens away with Halo: Beach. After he finished the game with his legendary skills, (being ranked in the top 1000 video gamers in the world did that to you) he decided to take a nap. He soon fell asleep on the couch.
He woke up when Babs and Buster jumped in, rattling the ground with the weight of the backpacks from school. Brennan yawned, stretched, and groaned. “Oh, man, it’s hot in here, and my back hurts.” Buster and Babs looked up from their homework at the table and stopped, their jaws dropping open and hitting the floor. “Um, Brennan? It looks like we have a problem.” They stared in disbelief, for Brennan had shrunk a few inches, most of the hair on his body was now light blue, and there was a faint black outline around his body. Most disturbingly, it appeared that he was growing a tail out of the small of his back!
Brennan asked, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Buster said “Well, you appear to be, um……. turning into a toon.” Brennan scoffed, “Yeah right! What elaborate practical joke is this? Any second you’re gonna pelt me with cream pies.”
Babs said, “For once we’re not kidding. Here, look.” She tossed a handy mirror to Brennan. He looked inside and saw his now light blue hair.
“Well, that’s just great! What am I going to tell my mom when I get back home? ‘Hi mom, I’m a cartoon now?’ She won’t take that well.” Buster suddenly remembered something. “Oh crap, Bugs, as principal of the Looniversity, he’ll be able to tell when another toon enters Acme Acres if they are school age! You’re not…. School age are you?” Brennan said, “Sorry, but I’m right in the middle of ninth grade.” Buster started pacing. “If we can’t get you a toon before tomorrow, there’s going to be an awkward moment soon when you turn toony enough to catch Bugs’ attention. I just hope it doesn’t happen in the middle of school. Bad things could happen. The last time Bugs got that feeling during school hours, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot showed up, and I still remember that day.” He and Babs both shivered.
Babs just then got an idea, and a lightbulb popped into existence above her head, just to be snatched by Buster. “Sorry, Babs. No light bulb takes today. I need that for the spare bedroom, because I’m out of light bulbs.”
Babs said, “That’s all right Buster. My great idea more than makes up for the light bulb.”
Brennan, impatient and worried, said “Spit it out already, then!” Babs said, “Why not get Calamity to make a machine! He’s one smart coyote, and if we can convince him to build it without knowing the reason, we can use it when he’s in school tomorrow!”
Buster said, “Well, it’s worth a try Babs.”
Babs then said while already starting to move, “Then there’s no time to waste!” She grabbed Buster by the ear and hopped outside. “Stay here Brennan. We’ll be back in a bit!” Brennan sighed. Another couple hours of Lametendo and Xsphere.
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Earth 2, E-day+1
4:00 PM
Dr. Halsey sighed. “Sorry to call you out of retirement, Noble 6, but we registered a solar-system wide tremor yesterday, something possibly caused by alien interference. Ever since your traumatic near-death on the Glassing of Reach, I know you don’t have much tendency for missions involving possible combat, but all the other Spartans and Special Ops teams are out-system on assignments. I need you to investigate these odd spots of tachyon disturbance on the planet. Also, watch out for Covenant spy teams. I know we’re not at war anymore, but they’ll be itching for a look at these spots also, and we know that, allies or not, they have spy teams here.” and with the grace to look slightly embarrassed, “Just like we have… recon teams in their territory.”
Noble 6, armor no longer grey and new, but pitted, blackened and scratched from years of taking on enemies to humanity, saluted. “Yes, ma’am. Consider it done.”
On an Eagle, heading to the nearest tachyon disturbance, Noble 6 checked his venerable, but still lethal, weapons. The original Assault Rifle, still in service while waiting for replacements and largely unchanged after 50 years of use, his M6 personal sidearm, the DMR, the single-shot version used during the Fall of Reach, and his combat knife, notched and pitted, the record of 25 years of survival on a nearly destroyed planet. His superiors were more than happy to let him use the obsolete weapons and the ammo sitting in warehouses, useless and wasting space. He had proved that he was still as lethal as any other Spartan using the new weaponry. The only known Spartan still living from the Human-Covenant War, that lethality and experience had come with a heavy price.
Dropped off on a ridge half a mile from the disturbance, he ran up the rarely-used dirt road, leading to a homestead demolished several years ago. He sidled around the corner of the ridge carefully, his DMR in his hand. The first thing he noticed was a Covenant spy team clustered around a strange spot. Some Grunts conducted various scientific tests, while an Elite, its back turned to the ridge, kept watch over the group. He quietly slunk over behind the Elite, but before he could pull out his knife, a stick snapped.
The Elite, startled, turned around, roaring. Noble 6 reacted quickly – punching the Elite right in the chest. He stumbled backwards, and tripped over a rock. He roared as he fell, “You shall pay for this, Demon!” However, before it could recover its balance, it fell into the spot and its roaring cut off as it disappeared from sight. Noble 6 pulled out his Assault Rifle and cocked it. Before he could fire, the panicked Grunts all leapt into the hole, taking a chance of death rather than certain death at his hands. He knelt to take some readings, but when he pulled out his analyzer, he turned around to check the area, and brushed his toe against the spot. Feeling a strong suction, he resisted, but even his monumental strength was no match for the spot, and he was gradually sucked in.
His analyzer beeped, and the voice of Dr. Halsey rang out. “Noble 6, you’re not reading on my scanners, and I don’t see your transponder. Please respond…….. Noble 6? Noble 6? Come in! Do you read me?.....” The voice steadily kept on, but faded with the setting sun.
Chapter 4: School Pains
Earth Prime, E-day+1
7:35 AM
Chaos reigned. Earth’s people had panicked from the Event, and now a rash of disappearances (including one Brennan Theler, who was not much noticed by anyone except the family) had everyone worried to come outside, and to add to that, strange persons and mythical creatures, as well as aliens, had been turning up, not just on amateur video, but on HD video tapes that clearly show a spaceship. This release to the public had everyone wondering what on earth was happening. The answer, as yet unknown to most the inhabitants, was that many of these things were actually from Earth, just not this Earth. Governments of Third World countries and dictatorships began to fall apart, and even the United States struggled under the heavy burden of mass hysteria.
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Toonity, E-day+1
7:35 AM
“Now here’s a backpack and all the textbooks you’ll need to finish the day. We took the liberty of signing you up for all the basic classes you’ll need to get along as a toon,” Babs said. Brennan grumbled,
“Jeez! I can’t get away from school, even after being thrown into cartoon world.” He picked up the backpack and grunted under the weight. “This is heavy, but I can see why you guys have trouble.” Brennan, over the night’s course, had grown shorter yet again; his hair had darkened to a dark blue, and now had all his arm and leg hair was a light blue as well. He looked almost as toony as Buster and Babs, and they knew that they needed to hurry. “By the way, just how far is school?” asked Brennan.
Buster said, “Usually just a fade-wipe away.” Proceeding to fade-wipe to school, they noticed that Brennan had been left behind. Hurriedly fading back to Buster’s burrow, they noticed Brennan standing there confused. “Um… you guys just faded out, and you left me standing here. Any reason?”
Babs said, “Apparently, fade-wipes don’t work with you yet, so we get to run to school. Better hurry, because school starts at 8:00, and it’s 7:45.”
Out of breath and panting after a sprint to school, Buster said, “OK, Brennan, the first door to the right and down the stairs will take you to Calamities’ Toonizizer. Luckily, we convinced him to build one, who knows how.” He snickered. “He really should get out more, he falls for everything nowadays.” They rushed down the stairs to see what Brennan thought the creepiest invention ever built. Shaped like a large, fat spider with a chamber on the other side of the room, it portrayed an odd gloom.
He gulped. “I have to get into that?”
Babs said, “Yes, and you had better hurry. First period’s about to start!” She shoved him into the chamber, strapped him in, slammed the door shut, and started pressing buttons on the machine.
“Uh Babsy? Shouldn’t we at least read the instructions?” queried Buster.
“Nah we don’t have time for that!”
Suddenly, the machine let out a loud beeping noise and the chamber glowed with an unearthly light. Dimly the sound of Brennan screaming could be heard over the beep.
When the machine shut off and the door opened, the obligatory cloud of obscuring smoke rose up, Brennan, unconscious in the chamber, was revealed.
Brennan now had dark blue hair all over his body, except for a light silver stripe over his head and down his back to a long, bushy tail. Buster shook his head. “Oh Babs, I told you not to press buttons! He’s gonna have a hard time today.”
Babs covered her mouth. “Oops!”
Brennan groggily shook his head and looked up. “Oh man, I feel like I got hit by a lead bar in the face.” He tried to walk. “Ooh! And my back! And why do I feel unbalanced?”
Buster said, “Well, Babs here pressed some buttons she probably shouldn’t have, but at least you’re a toon.” Brennan, dreading the answer, asked apprehensively, “What am I? Come on, spit it out, I can take it.”
Buster said, “You’re the most interestingly colored skunk I’ve ever seen.” Brennan stopped dead. “I’m a skunk. Oh great. I’ve watched the show, and I know what happens to anything that even vaguely resembles a skunk, and now I’m a real one with no chance of escape. I just hope that I don’t start to stink.”
Babs said, “We don’t have time to mope or discuss things! We’ve got classes to catch!” Handing Brennan his schedule and a map, she said “Here’s the stuff you need, bye, have fun, see you at lunch!” She then dragged Buster away.
Crestfallen, Brennan said into the darkness, “But I don’t even know which way this map goes!”
Bugs Bunny looked up from his desk. “Eh, a new toon just entered acme acres. Maybe it’s that new student that Babs registered yesterday.” He looked down, preparing for the first class of the day.
Holding the map, trying to find his way to Wild Takes 101, Brennan felt hopelessly lost. The school was so big! Finally finding Wild Takes 101, taught by Bugs Bunny, Brennan felt apprehensive as he saw that he was several minutes late. He quietly knocked on the door and waited.
Bugs opened the door and said, “Well hello there! Am I coirrect in assumin’ that you are the person that Babs signed up yesterday?”
Brennan quietly replied, “Yes.” “Come on in. Seein’ as it’s your first day here at the Loo, I believe I can excuse you for bein’ late.” He walked into the classroom, with Brennan trailing behind. “Listen up class,” Bugs said as he rapped a ruler on the chalkboard. “We got us a new student here, and his name is….. Brennan Theler? Hmm. You’re not from around here, are you?”
Brennan quietly replied, “No sir. I’m from Utah.”
Bugs sat down at the desk, “Take a seat in the back, and just watch today, because you’re new.”
Brennan complied and quietly sat in the back of the classroom, desperately taking notes while most of the other toons seemed to be bored, if not downright asleep! This continued for 3 more classes, which Brennan didn’t have with any of the toons he knew or recognized.
Brennan was relieved when the bell rang signaling lunch. He walked to lunch, hoping that something edible was being served. Alas, it was Mystery Meatloaf for lunch on Fridays, and sure enough he had the misfortune to be stuck without a lunch on Friday. He sidled up to the nearly nonexistent line, and asked for a lunch. A large, beefy personage (Brennan wasn’t quite sure which gender) scooped a large blob of vaguely brownish mush onto his tray. Brennan grabbed as much fruits and vegetables as he could fit onto his tray, and looked around for Babs and Buster. He found them, sitting alone today at a rarely used table (he could tell by the layer of dust on the table), and sat down near them.
Buster grimaced. “So you got stuck with Meatloaf today, eh? Sorry, forgot it was meatloaf day because we always just bring carrots.”
Brennan shrugged. “It can’t be that bad, right?”
Babs frowned. “Yes it can, Brennan. When Monty ate it one day, he was sick for a week!”
Brennan gulped. He finished off all the fruits and vegetables, but he was still famished. He gingerly poked the meatloaf with his spork. It jiggled like a bowl of Jell-o. He took a small bite, and quickly gulped it down.
Babs stared in shock. “How are you not having seizures already?!”
Brennan said while chewing another bite, “It’s not actually that bad. Certainly it’s better than taco soup day at my school.” Suddenly, Buster noticed the unmistakable purple tail come into view, along with its owner. He tackled Brennan and hid him underneath the table. Brennan, choking on his half-chewed bite of Mystery Meatloaf, asked, “What the heck man? Why are--“
He was shushed by Buster. “Hide and be quiet if you want to live through lunch.” Brennan cautiously peeked between the benches, and was shocked to see….her.
Fifi la Fume was a purple skunk that immigrated to America as a child. She was smart, athletic, and actually quite attractive, but there were two major problems with Fifi: Any cartoon with a tail and a white stripe down their back was instantly mistaken for “le skunk-‘unk” and jumped on when within sight range, held by a grip of steel that was the downside to her athleticism. Then, whenever she had strong emotions, she started emitting a nauseous cloud that could (literally) peel the paint off the walls and make people black out in seconds. These combined for an interesting fact that she often chased unfortunate toons for several days, and these toons were out of school for weeks after their ordeal, being held in the hospital quarantine room for treatment of stinkiness and fume edemas in the lungs.
Buster sighed, relieved. “She didn’t see you. You’re lucky she isn’t feeling upbeat and optimistic today.” Brennan was familiar with her gushy French style onscreen, but nothing had ever been able to make her depressed for more than a few minutes. That she was depressed hinted at something calamitous. “What happened?”
Babs whispered, “ Hamton was forced to break up with her. His parents are even more neat-freaks than him, and with her odor and shed hair, his parents threatened to disown him if he didn’t break off the relationship, and Hamton loves his parents more than anything and complied with their wishes.”
Just then someone screamed, “Look out! The meatloaf’s going to blow!” Someone had slipped a stick of dynamite into the meatloaf, and meatloaf was known for its volatility and explosiveness at Acme Loo, often used in traps and science classes related to high explosives. The giant pot swelled, and everyone dove for cover. The lunchperson (still couldn’t tell the gender) reverted to their natural form: a lump of cast iron, ensuring their safety. Then the meatloaf exploded, flinging meatloaf everywhere and sending the tables (and the people hiding under them) flying into the walls.
Groaning toons were scattered around the edges of the cafeteria. Due to the amazing recovery abilities of toons, most were up within a minute, sporting nothing more severe than a few scratches and bruises. However, Brennan lay groaning underneath a cafeteria table. Buster and Babs rushed over and dragged him out from underneath the table. Buster looked at Brennan with concern in his eyes. “Looks like we need to get you to the infirmary.” He tried to pick Brennan up, but he screamed and blacked out.
Brennan woke up in the infirmary with a casted arm and a boot cast. He had an excruciating pain in his side, and he moaned. The nurse, an old, kindly lady, walked in and her eyes widened when she saw that Brennan was already awake. “Oh dear, I must not have used enough Valium the first time around.” Brennan felt a prick in his good arm, and passed out again.
He woke up again, as the nurse bustled in. “Well, you look good enough to go to class now, so just be careful where you walk, because you’re going to need this crutch for getting around.” She handed him a crutch and a class excusal slip. “You need to hurry if you want to get to the last class of the day!”
He crutched out of the infirmary and down the hallway to the last class of the day: Cartoon Physics 701. He slowly made it down the hallway, but just as the door to the classroom was in sight, Brennan heard a scream. “Ooh la la!” He stumbled when a heavy weight landed on his back, making him wince. The heavy weight in question exclaimed, “Le skunk ‘unk! You are, how you say, mine!” Fifi (for so it was) squeezed him, and he grimaced in pain as he felt the bones in his arm grind together. He sniffed, and an expression of revulsion crossed his face. “What IS that?” Then the full stench hit him in the face like a fist, and he dropped to the ground, briefly unconscious. That ended when both his and Fifi’s weight landed squarely on his broken arm.
He screamed and his back spasmed, and as he convulsed, he managed to throw Fifi off (A truly Herculean feat with only one hand). He curled around his arm, tears coursing down his face. He whispered brokenly, “Please just go away.”
Fifi rushed towards him, but even as he cringed, Babs held her back. She tactfully said, “Feef, he’s not feeling too good right now. Give it a couple hours.” Held back, Fifi relented and was led to class. Brennan was helped up by Buster, and he slowly limped to the classroom.
When the lecture started, Brennan was dully disappointed that the lecture was on the basics of real physics that day, which he had already learned. Tired and sore, Brennan fell asleep at his desk, but unfortunately that day, the teacher. Professor Wile E. Coyote, broke the norm of uninterested teachers.
He tapped Brennan, smirking, and as he groggily looked up, Wile asked in a British accent, oddly enough, “What is the force of gravity from the Earth when twenty million kilometres away compared to the force of the Sun if it is one hundred and thirty kilometres away? If you answer the question wrong, a 1,000 page essay on gravity is due….” He glanced at the clock. “One hour from now.” Brennan, completely flabbergasted and brain blank, looked around for help. He suddenly blanched as he noticed the spot, similar to the one he had fallen into, on the ceiling. Wile noticed his pale face and followed his gaze. “What that? That’s been here since first period, and nothing has happened. Hopefully it’ll get cleaned up today. Now stop stalling!”
Chapter 5: Coming Together
Toonity, E-day+1
Brennan thought furiously but could come up with no answer. Wile said, “Time’s up!” and dumped a stack of one thousand papers on his desk. “Better start writing!” Brennan groaned, and started scribbling furiously.
Half an hour later, Brennan was sitting back, shaking his sore hand. He thought, ‘It’s a lot harder to write when I appear to be missing my pinky.’ Brennan sighed, but before he could get back to work, he glanced up, and realized that the spot now had a large, orange spot growing steadily closer. He stood up, craning his neck to get a closer look, and all the other toons noticed his expression and also glanced up.
The orange spot suddenly landed in the middle of the classroom, crushing several desks as toons dived away. Through a cloud of dust, Wile, irritated said, “I say! Do you mind, we’re in the middle of a lesson, chap!” Just then the dust cloud cleared, and everyone abruptly froze, and Brennan stared in shock.
The spot was resolved into a large, orange humanoid with a strange double mandible mouth, and as it stood up it towered over every person in the classroom, (Even Wile, who at 4’ 11” was the tallest toon in the school) as it was about seven feet tall. It shook its head, glanced around, glanced up, then did a double take at his surroundings. “What in Altholezen?” it growled. “What manner of insanity—“He was cut off as a horde of toon-sized, triangle shaped objects landed on top of it, and were revealed to be a mass of smaller, oddly shaped creatures. One squeaked, “The Demon! It may be coming here!”, and then all the other creatures, minus the first, started running in circles, screaming.
The toons, still frozen with shock and fear, slowly backed away from the intruders, and the largest of the lot looked at them. “What manner of insanity are you creatures? You seem to be two-dimensional……” He trailed off. “Gods, I must have hit my head on a rock!” His theory was quickly disproved, as yet another creature dropped from the spot, landing just behind the creature. As it stood up, as yet unnoticed by the largest, it was larger than even the tallest of the others, at nearly 8 feet tall. Just as the first creature began to turn around, it jumped on top of the thing, pressing it to the ground, and methodically proceeded to twist its head. The first stopped struggling after a crack was heard, and lay there, unmoving.
The casual display of death and violence unfroze all the toons. They all rushed out the door, slammed it behind them, and proceeded to empty the local Hammerspace grid, throwing anything and everything at the door to barricade it shut. Brennan watched in disbelief as he watched various objects fly by, most of which should be impossible for the others to hold, let alone throw around.
Then Professor Wile yelled, “Everyone! Utilize von Rabenstrange’s Third law of Cartoon physics!” Brennan scratched his head in confusion as all the toons then made a wisecrack, then jumped as a storm of anvils suddenly fell through the tiled ceiling and landed just behind the pile of objects.
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Meanwhile, Calamity Coyote pumped his fist in Toon Chases 703. After countless years of trying and failing to catch his partner in comedy, Little Beeper, he finally caught him as Little Beeper had inexplicably not pulled out a large object to crush him, as usual. He tried to pull out a Hammerspace sign to show his elation (Having chosen to remain silent around others), but found that almost nothing remained in Hammerspace, including signs or anything else that could possibly be used to write on. He scratched his head, and looked a question at Little Beeper. He shrugged, (Being a linguistics and eye-reading expert), then kicked Calamity in the face and sped off farther into the course. Calamity picked himself up and was soon chasing after him.
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Noble Six looked up after his elimination of the Elite and saw a squad of Grunts running in circles screaming in their Pidgin English, “Leader dead! Leader dead!” He calmly pulled out his assault rifle and gunned them all down. Only then did he look around to find his position. He noticed he was in some sort of classroom, and the Sun was high overhead. He realized, “I’m in some sort of classroom. Good thing that no one is here. Maybe it’s lunch.” Just then he heard a loud series of thumps at the door, and the sound of voices, followed by another, louder series of thumps. He shook his head, angry at himself. “Well, that’s just great, there were a bunch of people just outside, and if they didn’t see the death of the Elite, they certainly heard the gunshots.”
He took a look at the surroundings, looking for a way out, and while he noted several escape options, he also noticed the strangeness of his surroundings. He thought to himself, “Is everything here 2D? And why are all the colors so pastel bright?” He looked down at himself. ”And I’m still three-dimensional, while this room is two-dimensional….. can’t really wrap my mind around that conundrum.” He decided that escape and safety was more important than location and physics at the moment, so he decided to try the most obvious exit, as well as the one that would provide the easiest escape: the door. Twisting the knob and pushing, he noticed that he couldn’t open the door. He employed all his strength, but even his genetically-enhanced muscles and the actuators in his suit could not budge whatever was behind the door. He ripped it off his hinges, only to be confronted with a large, bewilderingly random collection of heavy objects. He thought, “Who was walking by here? The marching band, football team, all the mechanics students, the deliverymen, and the janitor? What are the odds against them all walking by just as I appear?” Not being trained in complex mathematical equations, he shrugged and looked for an alternate avenue of egress.
He walked to the window, only to find that this classroom appeared to be in a large campus building, and it was four stories above an odd garden that appeared to consist of metal spikes placed haphazardly into the ground. Knowing that even with the latest technology, falling forty feet did not exactly ensure that he could walk (or run) away uninjured, and adding to that a collection of sharpened metal stakes, the chances of walking away unhurt dropped to an alarmingly low chance. He looked up in frustration, and was confronted by ceiling tiles simply held in place by thin metal girders. He jumped up, and at the first hit, a ceiling tile broke into several small fragments, and fell to the floor.
Several hits later, and hearing what sounded like police outside the door, he jumped up into the crawlspace, pausing to push several bundles of wires away. Hearing a creak, he surmised that the flimsy aluminum girders installed to hold the ceiling tiles in place would not hold the considerable weight of a half-geared Spartan for long. He quickly picked a direction and crawled several yards, passing a series of support bars that he believed to go into the wall at the edge of the classroom. As he went a few yards past the bars, the girders creaked and suddenly collapsed, dumping him in the hallway in front of….. a bunch of large animals wearing clothing? He stopped and stared, wondering exactly what had happened to him.
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Brennan let out a sigh of relief as the door was barricaded and the school police, a handful of former mall cops with tasers and sidearms, arrived and began setting up a cordon between the door and the rest of the school. He thought back to his first glimpse of the two creatures, an unshakeable sense of familiarity in his mind. He started as the descriptions came through the fog of fear, and he started to unobtrusively slide away down the corridor, putting as much distance between himself and the cordon as possible.
However, this was cut short when the ceiling just in front of the cordon creaked alarmingly, then broke, dumping the grey creature just to the side of the mall cops. It looked up, but then froze, its sky blue visor facing the toons’ way.
The school cops, scared out of their wits, fumbled out their guns, and one stuttered, “P-please c-come with us. You-You’re under arrest.”
When the grey figure saw the pistols aimed in its direction, it reacted quickly, pulling out a sidearm from a holster on its right thigh; a sidearm much larger and lethal-looking than the school cops’ guns that also had a small stain on the barrel. Strangely, this stain was blue. The mall cops gulped and dropped their now-pitiful pistols, and said, “S-sorry, mister.” The figure swung around and looked at the group again.
Fifi suddenly took a running leap straight at the creature, Babs crying out, “Feef!”
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Noble Six looked away from the odd sight of giant animals when a small group of very short, overweight humans bumbled up, and said, “You-you’re under arrest.” Turning to them, he was suddenly confronted with drawn sidearms. His combat instincts kicked in, and he whipped out his M6, cocking it on its way up. The mall cops gulped, and dropped their weapons. Satisfied that he was in no danger from them, he holstered his pistol and again turned towards the strange animals. Noticing their odd coloring, he wondered, “What kind of person dresses up giant animals, and then dyes them outlandish colors?”
His musing was interrupted when a purple-dyed skunk came flying out of the crowd, towards his helmet. Dimly hearing a pink bunny make some sort of noise, he tried to whip his hands up, but even in SPARTAN Time, he could not bring his hands up fast enough to block the animal. It landed squarely on his visor, uncomfortably close in his HUD, blocking his vision and also clouding his motion sensor.
He reached up to pick it off and set it down, but it pounded on his visor, opened its mouth, and incredibly, began to speak, saying “Vous monstair! Vous cannot point ze weapons at our police!” He blinked, taken aback at this animal, seemingly speaking in an accent reminiscent of Cote d’Azure, and plucked the animal away from his visor. Remembering the psychological “training” (read torture) he was forced to endure so long ago, he looked around for hidden cameras and speakers. Finding none, he turned his nonplussed gaze back to the animals. Activating his external speakers, he asked, “Alright Mendez, what ****hole did you crawl out of, and why the animals?”
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All the toons stared in horror as Fifi landed on the figure’s blue visor. It reached up, presumably to knock her off, but she started berating the figure. “Vous monstair! Vous cannot point ze weapons at our police!” This definitely knocked the figure off-balance, as its head came back and it froze for a moment. Then it came back to life, grabbing Fifi by the scruff of her neck and pulling her of its head, looking around, and finally, a crackle was heard, emanating from speakers on the side of its helmet.
A deep, rich voice emanated from within. “Alright Mendez, what ****hole did you crawl out of, and why the animals?”
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Earth 3, E-day+2
Admiral of the Red Dame Honor Harrington, Duchess of Manticore and Steadholder of Grayson, sighed as she sipped her hot cocoa. Another long day of work, and this was not work on the front lines, but testing weapons prototypes! Sure, these plasma missiles, both capable of the devastation of energy torpedoes on an unprotected target, and the impeller missiles’ ability to penetrate sidewalls, could make the current wars, both the known one against the Solarian League and the shadow war against the Mesan Alignment, much easier. But the Star Empire of Manticore’s best admiral should be on the battlefield, not doing grunt work in a system only valuable precisely because it held nothing of interest. Nimitz, her telempathic treecat companion, sensed her steadily spiraling downward thoughts, bleeked softly, and dug a claw into her arm.
She was jerked out of her reverie, and prepared to go back to the flag bridge for another long shift of weapons testing, along with her companion ship. As she walked the quarter-kilometre to the flag bridge lift, she finished her cup of hot cocoa and tossed into a waste recycler.
HMS Retribution, a pod super-dreadnought of the Invictus class, was one of the largest structures ever built by mankind. At 3 kilometres long, a half-kilometre tall, and a quarter kilometre wide, this starship held enough power to make planets uninhabitable, even without the plasma missiles currently being tested. No single ship could hope to best it, and nothing any other navy not in the Grand Alliance had could scratch it without overwhelming numbers, and even then, they would pay a heavy price for her death.
She walked onto the flag bridge, officers snapping to attention, and said, “Be seated.” They all went back to their duty stations, and Honor took the seat at the center of the bridge. She asked her navigation officer, “How are the shake-downs going?”
He answered, “All shipboard systems are nominal, and the plasma missiles, while still having problems integrating with standard missiles, are performing well within their damage estimates on both unpowered drones and impeller drones.”
He was interrupted from continuing his report when the sensors officer shouted, “Ma’am! Tachyon disturbance detected, directly in front of us!”
Honor started. Tachyons had only been created in small amounts in artificial conditions, and none had been found naturally. “Scan it!”
“Already completed Ma’am,” the sensor officer reported. “Size estimate at 2-3 metres in diameter, as it is a round object that appears to be emitting them.” Too late, Honor remembered something. “Helm! Full reverse thrust, emergency military power!” But the impeller wedges and inertial compensators could only decelerate so fast without pulping the vulnerable humans inside, and their best was not good enough.
When HMS Retribution hit the disturbance, in an eye-twisting moment to the cameras of her sister ship, while the ship got no smaller nor the disturbance any larger, the Retribution fit inside, and she, as well as the 4,000 men and women who crewed her, ceased to exist in this universe.
So, here it is!
-Billybobjoe47s
All Things in Heaven and Earth
Disclaimer: Tiny Toon Adventures, Tiny Toon Adventures characters and all affiliated things are © 1990 Warner Bros.
Looney Tunes and Looney Tunes characters are © Warner Bros.
Halo, Halo: Reach, Noble 6, Master Chief, the Covenant and all affiliated things are ©2001 Microsoft, 343 Industries.
Honor Harrington, the Honor Harrington series, and all affiliated characters are ©1992 David Weber
Eragon, The Inheritance Cycle, and all affiliated characters and things are ©2002 Christopher Paolini
All dialogue and OCs are mine.
Part I: Breaking Apart
Chapter 1: The Event
Earth Prime, E-day
5:47 PM
Brennan, aged 14, was having a cruddy day. First, waking up and falling into his nightstand, leaving a nasty welt that still smarted, and then finding out that the water heater had broken and there was no hot water for him to take a shower. He shivered at the memory of the ice-cold shower. Then, halfway on the trip to school, both bike tires had gone flat after running over a hive of very angry ants. At school, it was worse. Falling asleep in class, tardies in 3 classes, detention after school, and a pile of homework so large he staggered under the weight. Then, returning to the bike rack to drag his useless bike home, it had been stolen, leaving the flat wheel still locked to the bike rack. Then walking the several miles home, only to find out that his mother had made meatloaf for dinner…. It was almost as bad as the cartoons portrayed it.
He sighed and tried to relax over the slight headache he still had from this morning, turning on the television. News, news, news, news, and Dora the Explorer were the only thing he had on their free cable television, and there were no new shows recorded. He sighed and flipped through all the news, hoping at least for some Sports Center. However, every news channel was covering the same thing: a new-fangled bomb being tested near Area 51. According to the identical reports by all the on-scene journalists, this bomb was supposed to revolutionize war and guarantee the security of America for years to come.
Brennan mockingly thought, ‘what a load of junk to be spitting out, when they haven’t even tested the thing to see if it works as advertised.’ However, a bomb exploding, even on TV, sounded more interesting than seeing if he could try to pry his little sister off the computer without getting stab wounds. He settled in to watch the show.
The scientist in charge of the experiment counted down “5……4……3…..2…..1…… ignition.” The bomb exploded with a flash of light so bright that even through the TV Brennan had to look away and shade his eyes. But something infinitely more interesting and concerning happened. After the bomb went off, the earth started shaking on the television, which Brennan just took to mean it was more powerful than anyone had expected. However, immediately, the house started shaking! After a few minutes, the shaking had died down, but Brennan had some disturbing thoughts: “If our house shook that bad from here over 400 miles away, what did it do to the people standing there?” He looked back to the television and was surprised to find that nothing seemed to be seriously damaged and no one was hurt. The scientist was being interviewed by several news networks, and said, “While the bomb was a success, the shaking caused by this is a major concern. Hold on a minute…..” and he listened to an earpiece. “We are getting disturbing reports from the Eastern seaboard, Hawaii, and….. Other seismological sites around the world. The earthquake has affected every area on the globe, even boats at sea, and all the sites recorded a quake of the same magnitude every time. These disturbing numbers are being confirmed now….. Please wait a few minutes for confirmation.” While all the journalists started wondering about the explosion and spouting theories, Brennan mused ‘What sort of earthquake acts like that? Not any natural or artificial earthquake ever before….. what have they done?’ Eight minutes of exited jabbering, frantic Twitter feeds, and rumors spreading like wildfire later, the scientist tuned back in, pale and shaking. “I have just gotten one of the most disturbing reports I have ever heard. Astronomers studying the Moon, Sun, and Mars have reported that a tremor, matching the magnitude of the tremors here, have shaken the Solar System. They all believe that if given enough time, this tremor will be felt by every particle of matter for at least 20 light-years, based on the speed of propagation. This news has shaken me, because this tremor apparently follows no rules of physics, including the speed of light, for all these reports came simultaneously. I am afraid we may have just done something horrible to our universe.”
All the journalists and everyone watching the news instantly started flooding the airwaves with reports, speculations, theories, and rumors. Twitter and other social media were forced to shut down because of the sheer amount of panicked messages being sent, reports were coming in that the stock market had already started dropping, and panic started to infuse the world.
Brennan, shaken by these happenings, decided to take a walk to get his mind off these disturbing events. He called out to his mother, obliviously whistling in the kitchen, cleaning up dinner, (for his mother was not very connected to technology, and when message alerts started flooding her phone, had simply turned it off.) and left out the front door to the city park. He decided to get away from people in general, who had been giving him a hard time recently, by sneaking into the wilderness area behind the city park that was off-limits.
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Toonity, E-Day
5:47 PM
Buster Bunny, a blue rabbit wearing a red T-shirt, said, “Alright people, time to film the conclusion of our Big Bang special! Snap to and get moving!” He sighed. This was, to date, the 300th episode filmed since the cancellation of his show on Reality, in the hopes that they would reinstate their series. Plucky Duck, a green mallard with a serious case of the egotistic and a lisp reminiscent of Daffy Duck, slapped him on the back and said “Great job, Busther! If this final scene doesthn’t convince Warner Brosth to sthtart our sthow back up again, they’re insthane!”
He gave a weak smile and said, “Yeah Pluck, I’m sure that this explosion will be our road back to fame!” Plucky exclaimed, “Fame! Fortune again! Thankyouthankyouthankyou, Busther!” and skipped to his spot whistling. Buster said, “Alright everyone, places! Remember that after the final explosion defeating Monty, we all sing the Tiny Toon theme song!” Monty, full name Montana Max, a young, bratty human child spoiled by his rich parents, complained,
” Why do I have to be in the plane loaded with TNT when it explodes? While I won’t die, it’ll really smart tomorrow! Can’t we hire a stunt double or something to blow up instead?”
Buster reminded him “We don’t have the budget for stunt doubles anymore, remember? And you already used all your monthly allowance to buy the Queen Mary! Now get in the plane, we’re about to start filming!”
Monty sighed and got in the plane, which was then hoisted up and started, smoking. While the cameras started filming, the plane spiraled out of control with Montana Max screaming and beating on the cockpit glass. When the plane hit the ground, a tremendous explosion rang out, and a crater was blown into the ground. However, Buster yelled, “Cut! Cut! What special effects artist threw an earthquake in there? That wasn’t in the script!”
The special effects artists behind him shrugged. “We didn’t put any earthquakes in there!”
Buster scratched his head. “Well, if you guys didn’t put it in there, than who did?” The rest of the cast shrugged as well. Buster muttered, “That’s impossible! Earthquakes just don’t happen here in Toonity naturally! Not to mention, but that blew our budget and we can’t afford to retake the scene.” Montana then wobbled out of the hole, dazed and blackened, and asked to no one in particular, “What did I miss?” He then fell unconscious. Buster sighed and walked, shoulders slumped, over to where his best friend, Babs Bunny waited. Babs cried, “Oh Buster, what are we going to do? That ruined our chances of getting back on air in Reality, and I can already feel myself fading away!” Buster noticed with concern that Babs was losing her regular pink color and turning lighter. Babs wasn’t known for resilience against fading, and with their hope of gaining attention gone, she was already starting to fade away.
Buster and the gang all walked, downcast, to their homes. Buster slumped on the hollowed log that was the entrance to his humble home, and sighed. What was he going to do? As the co-host, the others all depended on him to make things right, but Buster saw no solution. He sat there, despondent, as the sun slowly marked off the passing of time.
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Heltus, E-Day
5:47 PM
Lucifer XVII sighed. His kingdom was starting to fall apart from the increasingly volcanic eruptions, and the Earthlings had recently developed a bomb which, according to his scientists, would make it impossible to simply roll over the nations in that world, so there was no escape from this pit, just when all the expenditures of valuable money had been justified with the forming of a capable army. He frowned at another volcano and the weirdly fast earthquake that followed, but frowned when he heard a mental call from his Minister of Science. “Lord, a tremor has just shaken our entire universe, and may have ...altered the strategic picture, due to its unusual properties.” Lucifer scowled. “In what way?” “We’re not quite sure yet, my Lord.” He mentally yelled, “Well than be sure! Call me when you find anything important. If what you bother me with is trivial, than you can look forward to a long ordeal in the Volcano Corps.” The Minister gulped so loud it was audible mentally. “Of course, my Lord.”
Chapter 2: The Beginning
Earth, E-Day
6:07 PM
Brennan smiled serenely as he walked through the forest. His day was starting to look up, and he had nearly forgotten the strange occurrence that evening. He walked the game trails, exploring regions of the park he had never visited before, far away from his home. Suddenly, he noticed an oddly colored spot in the meadow ahead, next to a lone tree in the middle. This spot was bright blue, not sky colored, but more like a child would draw the sky, but the strangest thing was, it was on the ground! Brennan, intrigued, decided to come closer. He noticed that a slight sucking feeling came from the spot, which seemed to indicate some cave. He wondered, “What sort of weird rock is that, and why has no one noticed this before? I know lots of the teenagers around sneak in here….” He kneeled near the spot and leaned over to look in. Strangely, it didn’t look like a hole, and he couldn’t see a bottom. He cautiously stuck a finger into the spot, and was sucked in! He screamed, but no sound came out. Then came the strangest feeling he had ever felt: a tingling feeling that pervaded his entire body, numbing as it went! His vision flashed psychedelic colors, and he heard a random collection of notes that oddly, even though the chords would have ordinarily left him screaming in pain calmed him and felt like music. He then felt simultaneously searing heat and freezing cold, pain and joy, anger and calm, love and hate, happiness and sadness, all warring within him, ripping him apart. He screamed silently again, and then suddenly he felt wind rushing by him and he noticed he was flying upward to a pastel-colored sky with clouds that looked very odd, but before he had much time to muse, he noticed that he had stopped going upwards. He looked down, expecting to be rushing down, but oddly enough, he was floating in midair! He then rushed downwards at high speed. He screamed and blacked out, fully expecting to be dead when he hit the ground.
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Toonity, E-Day
Buster was jolted out of his thoughts when he heard someone screaming. Oddly enough, he didn’t sound like any of the cast, and unlike any other toon he had ever seen or heard. He looked up and saw a very oddly proportioned character flying into the sky. He thought, “Just don’t look down and you’ll be alright!” but sure enough, like always, the man looked down and fell, screaming, to earth. Oddly, he went limp halfway to the ground, looking suspiciously like unconsciousness. Buster thought, “No self-respecting Warner Toon would black out like that in the middle of a fall! Who is this new character?”
He rushed out to find a crater in the earth. To his surprise, what he pulled out of the hole was not an animal, like usual, but a very tall human! The man groaned and opened his, yet again oddly, bespectacled eyes. “Where am I?” He then noticed the giant, sky blue rabbit standing over him. He screamed and stumbled to his feet, yelling, “Mutant rabbit!”
Buster, offended, asked, “Now who’s a mutant? Me?” The man blanched, but not in a wild take, but a subtle lightening of the skin. “Y-you talked! The r-rabbit t-talked! AAAAHHHHHH!!!” He ran blindly away, screaming, until he was knocked out by the low-hanging (for him) basketball hoop, and fell limply to the ground.
Buster ran closer, insulted and confused, and suddenly noticed something odd: The man did not have any customary toon coloring on his body or clothing, and he didn’t have any outlines around himself. Interestingly, the man was still scratched and bruised from his encounter with the ground, and his clothing was dirty, something never found on toons except on single scenes. Buster than put the facts together, and all the color drained out of him and he was left a white outline. “He isn’t a toon, not even a Disney one! He’s.. He’s…. from reality!” Buster, panicked at something never before seen in Toonity and something he had never trained for at Acme Looniversity, ran around in circles until he ran smack-dab into a tree and was knocked out hard next to the man.
Chapter 3 : The Fateful Meeting
Toonity, E-day+1
7:35 AM
Babs, still tired, and losing more energy by the minute, walked slowly past Busters’ house and noticed he was sleeping in the yard, and oddly enough, there was a man limply sprawled next to him! She rushed over, and pulled a handy bucket of water out of her pocket and splashed it on the two. Buster woke up suddenly.
“Wha---- oh Babs, it’s you. I had the most horrible dream last—why am I outside?” He then noticed the man coughing next to him, and his eyes bulged out of his head. “AAAAAHHHH!” He jumped inside his burrow and hid, only his ears and the tip of his head sticking out.
Babs asked, perplexed, “Why are you screaming, and who is this guy?” She then noticed the non-tooniness of the character and put two and two together. “Wha—Huh? How’d this guy get here?? It-It isn’t possible!” Buster, still hyperventilating, whispered, “I don’t know, but he isn’t supposed to be here.” Babs rushed to hide beside Buster.
Brennan woke up coughing, when a bucket of cold water was splashed on him. “Mom! What the flip?” He tried to sit up and felt an intense pain in his head and he fell over again. “Unngh, not feeling so good….” He then opened his eyes and saw the pastel colored sky and the disturbingly yellow sun. “Where am I?” He looked around and saw the two bunnies staring at him. “What the…. MUTANT RABBITS!” He tried to bolt upright, but fell groaning to the ground when a bolt of lightning stabbed through his skull. “Oh man, just kill me now!”
Buster slowly crept out of his hiding spot and approached him. “Are you alright?” Brennan yelled, “Heck no, what does it look like? I feel like someone hit me with an anvil!” Just then, an anvil plummeted to earth, landing near him. “What the heck?! I coulda been killed! Why are there people chucking anvils around?” He slowly stood up and limped towards the bunnies. “Look, I don’t care if you’re gonna eat me, but please just do it now!”
Babs said, “Why would we ever eat you? We’re vegetarian!”
Buster added,” We would never do that! Not to mention, we would be in our rights, you flying into the air and leaving a hole in my front lawn! That’ll cost money, money I don’t have, to fix!”
Brennan asked, “Sooooo.. you’re not going to hurt me?”
Babs said, “Oh heavens no! why would we?”
Brennan, still hurting, muttered,” Well that’s all fine and good but I’m still in a strange place with giant talking bunnies wearing clothes, and the sky and well, everything is messed up!” Buster replied (having heard with his excellent hearing), “Well… on that note, I think I can explain some of that. You see, you’re in a place called Acme Acres, and we’re Buster and Babs Bunny.” “No relation.” they chorused.
Brennan dazedly said,” Hey those names sound familiar… But you can’t be real! You’re all just characters from an old cartoon!” Babs and Buster, delighted, ask,” You recognize us?”
“Well, yeah, but not many others would. I’ve watched all your old shows and even read some of your fan fiction.”
Babs then noticed that she no longer felt sick and tired. She said, “Oh, Buster, someone still recognizes us! That’s so wonderful! This makes me feel so much better!” and gave Buster a big kiss on the lips. Buster turned red and stammered, “That’s great, Babsy.” Brennan then noticed his stomach was growling and his lips were chapped. “Hey, do you have any food and water? I’m starving.” Buster said, “Sure. One bowl of carrot stew and a glass of water coming right up!” He started to walk to his burrow, but was stopped by Babs.
“Oh no! You can’t cook carrot stew at all! Let me do it,” Arguing all the way to the burrow, they jumped inside, followed by Brennan.
Savoring the actually quite good carrot stew curled up on the couch, Brennan asked,” So what exactly has been going on for 17 years? I mean, your show was canceled in 1995.” Buster said, “Well, since Acme Looniversity is a junior high school and high school combined, and since you’ve noticed that we obviously live long lives, (I mean, look at Bugs! Going strong, and he’s turning 75 next year!) we’ve just been going to school hoping our show would come back in Reality.”
Just then, an alarm clock rang, and Gogo Dodo, an interesting (read insane) fellow that seemed to be everywhere, smacked both the rabbits with a mallet, and said, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! If you’re late to school, you’re cuckoo!” then jumped back inside the alarm clock.
Brennan winced. “Are you guys alright?” Babs said, woozily, “Just give us a sec and we’ll be fine. Oh yeah, stay here. Since you’re from Reality, we really wouldn’t want all of Acme Acres to panic if you showed up. You can use Buster’s Lametendo, ok?” Buster growled, “Hey! Did you ask me before giving permission for him to use my stuff?” Babs winked. “If you don’t want to be hit by a mallet, yes, I did.” “Oh, all right, he can use my stuff. But no carrots, you hear me?” muttered Buster. “Of course! I’ll survive on that ramen you’ve got in the cabinet.” “Well, see ya in 7 hours, Brennan” they said.
Brennan soon got bored of the Lametendo living up to its name. “Oh man, the graphics are hurting my eyes! This is bad even for 1995! I wish I had an Xbox 360, and some Halo.” Just then, out of nowhere, an oddly shaped video game system boasting, ‘Xsphere 360’ hit Brennan on the head.”Ow! And just when my headache went away. Hey, what’s this?” He picked the Xsphere up. “Yes! I love cartoon physics!” He plugged it in and spent an hour blasting aliens away with Halo: Beach. After he finished the game with his legendary skills, (being ranked in the top 1000 video gamers in the world did that to you) he decided to take a nap. He soon fell asleep on the couch.
He woke up when Babs and Buster jumped in, rattling the ground with the weight of the backpacks from school. Brennan yawned, stretched, and groaned. “Oh, man, it’s hot in here, and my back hurts.” Buster and Babs looked up from their homework at the table and stopped, their jaws dropping open and hitting the floor. “Um, Brennan? It looks like we have a problem.” They stared in disbelief, for Brennan had shrunk a few inches, most of the hair on his body was now light blue, and there was a faint black outline around his body. Most disturbingly, it appeared that he was growing a tail out of the small of his back!
Brennan asked, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Buster said “Well, you appear to be, um……. turning into a toon.” Brennan scoffed, “Yeah right! What elaborate practical joke is this? Any second you’re gonna pelt me with cream pies.”
Babs said, “For once we’re not kidding. Here, look.” She tossed a handy mirror to Brennan. He looked inside and saw his now light blue hair.
“Well, that’s just great! What am I going to tell my mom when I get back home? ‘Hi mom, I’m a cartoon now?’ She won’t take that well.” Buster suddenly remembered something. “Oh crap, Bugs, as principal of the Looniversity, he’ll be able to tell when another toon enters Acme Acres if they are school age! You’re not…. School age are you?” Brennan said, “Sorry, but I’m right in the middle of ninth grade.” Buster started pacing. “If we can’t get you a toon before tomorrow, there’s going to be an awkward moment soon when you turn toony enough to catch Bugs’ attention. I just hope it doesn’t happen in the middle of school. Bad things could happen. The last time Bugs got that feeling during school hours, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot showed up, and I still remember that day.” He and Babs both shivered.
Babs just then got an idea, and a lightbulb popped into existence above her head, just to be snatched by Buster. “Sorry, Babs. No light bulb takes today. I need that for the spare bedroom, because I’m out of light bulbs.”
Babs said, “That’s all right Buster. My great idea more than makes up for the light bulb.”
Brennan, impatient and worried, said “Spit it out already, then!” Babs said, “Why not get Calamity to make a machine! He’s one smart coyote, and if we can convince him to build it without knowing the reason, we can use it when he’s in school tomorrow!”
Buster said, “Well, it’s worth a try Babs.”
Babs then said while already starting to move, “Then there’s no time to waste!” She grabbed Buster by the ear and hopped outside. “Stay here Brennan. We’ll be back in a bit!” Brennan sighed. Another couple hours of Lametendo and Xsphere.
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Earth 2, E-day+1
4:00 PM
Dr. Halsey sighed. “Sorry to call you out of retirement, Noble 6, but we registered a solar-system wide tremor yesterday, something possibly caused by alien interference. Ever since your traumatic near-death on the Glassing of Reach, I know you don’t have much tendency for missions involving possible combat, but all the other Spartans and Special Ops teams are out-system on assignments. I need you to investigate these odd spots of tachyon disturbance on the planet. Also, watch out for Covenant spy teams. I know we’re not at war anymore, but they’ll be itching for a look at these spots also, and we know that, allies or not, they have spy teams here.” and with the grace to look slightly embarrassed, “Just like we have… recon teams in their territory.”
Noble 6, armor no longer grey and new, but pitted, blackened and scratched from years of taking on enemies to humanity, saluted. “Yes, ma’am. Consider it done.”
On an Eagle, heading to the nearest tachyon disturbance, Noble 6 checked his venerable, but still lethal, weapons. The original Assault Rifle, still in service while waiting for replacements and largely unchanged after 50 years of use, his M6 personal sidearm, the DMR, the single-shot version used during the Fall of Reach, and his combat knife, notched and pitted, the record of 25 years of survival on a nearly destroyed planet. His superiors were more than happy to let him use the obsolete weapons and the ammo sitting in warehouses, useless and wasting space. He had proved that he was still as lethal as any other Spartan using the new weaponry. The only known Spartan still living from the Human-Covenant War, that lethality and experience had come with a heavy price.
Dropped off on a ridge half a mile from the disturbance, he ran up the rarely-used dirt road, leading to a homestead demolished several years ago. He sidled around the corner of the ridge carefully, his DMR in his hand. The first thing he noticed was a Covenant spy team clustered around a strange spot. Some Grunts conducted various scientific tests, while an Elite, its back turned to the ridge, kept watch over the group. He quietly slunk over behind the Elite, but before he could pull out his knife, a stick snapped.
The Elite, startled, turned around, roaring. Noble 6 reacted quickly – punching the Elite right in the chest. He stumbled backwards, and tripped over a rock. He roared as he fell, “You shall pay for this, Demon!” However, before it could recover its balance, it fell into the spot and its roaring cut off as it disappeared from sight. Noble 6 pulled out his Assault Rifle and cocked it. Before he could fire, the panicked Grunts all leapt into the hole, taking a chance of death rather than certain death at his hands. He knelt to take some readings, but when he pulled out his analyzer, he turned around to check the area, and brushed his toe against the spot. Feeling a strong suction, he resisted, but even his monumental strength was no match for the spot, and he was gradually sucked in.
His analyzer beeped, and the voice of Dr. Halsey rang out. “Noble 6, you’re not reading on my scanners, and I don’t see your transponder. Please respond…….. Noble 6? Noble 6? Come in! Do you read me?.....” The voice steadily kept on, but faded with the setting sun.
Chapter 4: School Pains
Earth Prime, E-day+1
7:35 AM
Chaos reigned. Earth’s people had panicked from the Event, and now a rash of disappearances (including one Brennan Theler, who was not much noticed by anyone except the family) had everyone worried to come outside, and to add to that, strange persons and mythical creatures, as well as aliens, had been turning up, not just on amateur video, but on HD video tapes that clearly show a spaceship. This release to the public had everyone wondering what on earth was happening. The answer, as yet unknown to most the inhabitants, was that many of these things were actually from Earth, just not this Earth. Governments of Third World countries and dictatorships began to fall apart, and even the United States struggled under the heavy burden of mass hysteria.
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Toonity, E-day+1
7:35 AM
“Now here’s a backpack and all the textbooks you’ll need to finish the day. We took the liberty of signing you up for all the basic classes you’ll need to get along as a toon,” Babs said. Brennan grumbled,
“Jeez! I can’t get away from school, even after being thrown into cartoon world.” He picked up the backpack and grunted under the weight. “This is heavy, but I can see why you guys have trouble.” Brennan, over the night’s course, had grown shorter yet again; his hair had darkened to a dark blue, and now had all his arm and leg hair was a light blue as well. He looked almost as toony as Buster and Babs, and they knew that they needed to hurry. “By the way, just how far is school?” asked Brennan.
Buster said, “Usually just a fade-wipe away.” Proceeding to fade-wipe to school, they noticed that Brennan had been left behind. Hurriedly fading back to Buster’s burrow, they noticed Brennan standing there confused. “Um… you guys just faded out, and you left me standing here. Any reason?”
Babs said, “Apparently, fade-wipes don’t work with you yet, so we get to run to school. Better hurry, because school starts at 8:00, and it’s 7:45.”
Out of breath and panting after a sprint to school, Buster said, “OK, Brennan, the first door to the right and down the stairs will take you to Calamities’ Toonizizer. Luckily, we convinced him to build one, who knows how.” He snickered. “He really should get out more, he falls for everything nowadays.” They rushed down the stairs to see what Brennan thought the creepiest invention ever built. Shaped like a large, fat spider with a chamber on the other side of the room, it portrayed an odd gloom.
He gulped. “I have to get into that?”
Babs said, “Yes, and you had better hurry. First period’s about to start!” She shoved him into the chamber, strapped him in, slammed the door shut, and started pressing buttons on the machine.
“Uh Babsy? Shouldn’t we at least read the instructions?” queried Buster.
“Nah we don’t have time for that!”
Suddenly, the machine let out a loud beeping noise and the chamber glowed with an unearthly light. Dimly the sound of Brennan screaming could be heard over the beep.
When the machine shut off and the door opened, the obligatory cloud of obscuring smoke rose up, Brennan, unconscious in the chamber, was revealed.
Brennan now had dark blue hair all over his body, except for a light silver stripe over his head and down his back to a long, bushy tail. Buster shook his head. “Oh Babs, I told you not to press buttons! He’s gonna have a hard time today.”
Babs covered her mouth. “Oops!”
Brennan groggily shook his head and looked up. “Oh man, I feel like I got hit by a lead bar in the face.” He tried to walk. “Ooh! And my back! And why do I feel unbalanced?”
Buster said, “Well, Babs here pressed some buttons she probably shouldn’t have, but at least you’re a toon.” Brennan, dreading the answer, asked apprehensively, “What am I? Come on, spit it out, I can take it.”
Buster said, “You’re the most interestingly colored skunk I’ve ever seen.” Brennan stopped dead. “I’m a skunk. Oh great. I’ve watched the show, and I know what happens to anything that even vaguely resembles a skunk, and now I’m a real one with no chance of escape. I just hope that I don’t start to stink.”
Babs said, “We don’t have time to mope or discuss things! We’ve got classes to catch!” Handing Brennan his schedule and a map, she said “Here’s the stuff you need, bye, have fun, see you at lunch!” She then dragged Buster away.
Crestfallen, Brennan said into the darkness, “But I don’t even know which way this map goes!”
Bugs Bunny looked up from his desk. “Eh, a new toon just entered acme acres. Maybe it’s that new student that Babs registered yesterday.” He looked down, preparing for the first class of the day.
Holding the map, trying to find his way to Wild Takes 101, Brennan felt hopelessly lost. The school was so big! Finally finding Wild Takes 101, taught by Bugs Bunny, Brennan felt apprehensive as he saw that he was several minutes late. He quietly knocked on the door and waited.
Bugs opened the door and said, “Well hello there! Am I coirrect in assumin’ that you are the person that Babs signed up yesterday?”
Brennan quietly replied, “Yes.” “Come on in. Seein’ as it’s your first day here at the Loo, I believe I can excuse you for bein’ late.” He walked into the classroom, with Brennan trailing behind. “Listen up class,” Bugs said as he rapped a ruler on the chalkboard. “We got us a new student here, and his name is….. Brennan Theler? Hmm. You’re not from around here, are you?”
Brennan quietly replied, “No sir. I’m from Utah.”
Bugs sat down at the desk, “Take a seat in the back, and just watch today, because you’re new.”
Brennan complied and quietly sat in the back of the classroom, desperately taking notes while most of the other toons seemed to be bored, if not downright asleep! This continued for 3 more classes, which Brennan didn’t have with any of the toons he knew or recognized.
Brennan was relieved when the bell rang signaling lunch. He walked to lunch, hoping that something edible was being served. Alas, it was Mystery Meatloaf for lunch on Fridays, and sure enough he had the misfortune to be stuck without a lunch on Friday. He sidled up to the nearly nonexistent line, and asked for a lunch. A large, beefy personage (Brennan wasn’t quite sure which gender) scooped a large blob of vaguely brownish mush onto his tray. Brennan grabbed as much fruits and vegetables as he could fit onto his tray, and looked around for Babs and Buster. He found them, sitting alone today at a rarely used table (he could tell by the layer of dust on the table), and sat down near them.
Buster grimaced. “So you got stuck with Meatloaf today, eh? Sorry, forgot it was meatloaf day because we always just bring carrots.”
Brennan shrugged. “It can’t be that bad, right?”
Babs frowned. “Yes it can, Brennan. When Monty ate it one day, he was sick for a week!”
Brennan gulped. He finished off all the fruits and vegetables, but he was still famished. He gingerly poked the meatloaf with his spork. It jiggled like a bowl of Jell-o. He took a small bite, and quickly gulped it down.
Babs stared in shock. “How are you not having seizures already?!”
Brennan said while chewing another bite, “It’s not actually that bad. Certainly it’s better than taco soup day at my school.” Suddenly, Buster noticed the unmistakable purple tail come into view, along with its owner. He tackled Brennan and hid him underneath the table. Brennan, choking on his half-chewed bite of Mystery Meatloaf, asked, “What the heck man? Why are--“
He was shushed by Buster. “Hide and be quiet if you want to live through lunch.” Brennan cautiously peeked between the benches, and was shocked to see….her.
Fifi la Fume was a purple skunk that immigrated to America as a child. She was smart, athletic, and actually quite attractive, but there were two major problems with Fifi: Any cartoon with a tail and a white stripe down their back was instantly mistaken for “le skunk-‘unk” and jumped on when within sight range, held by a grip of steel that was the downside to her athleticism. Then, whenever she had strong emotions, she started emitting a nauseous cloud that could (literally) peel the paint off the walls and make people black out in seconds. These combined for an interesting fact that she often chased unfortunate toons for several days, and these toons were out of school for weeks after their ordeal, being held in the hospital quarantine room for treatment of stinkiness and fume edemas in the lungs.
Buster sighed, relieved. “She didn’t see you. You’re lucky she isn’t feeling upbeat and optimistic today.” Brennan was familiar with her gushy French style onscreen, but nothing had ever been able to make her depressed for more than a few minutes. That she was depressed hinted at something calamitous. “What happened?”
Babs whispered, “ Hamton was forced to break up with her. His parents are even more neat-freaks than him, and with her odor and shed hair, his parents threatened to disown him if he didn’t break off the relationship, and Hamton loves his parents more than anything and complied with their wishes.”
Just then someone screamed, “Look out! The meatloaf’s going to blow!” Someone had slipped a stick of dynamite into the meatloaf, and meatloaf was known for its volatility and explosiveness at Acme Loo, often used in traps and science classes related to high explosives. The giant pot swelled, and everyone dove for cover. The lunchperson (still couldn’t tell the gender) reverted to their natural form: a lump of cast iron, ensuring their safety. Then the meatloaf exploded, flinging meatloaf everywhere and sending the tables (and the people hiding under them) flying into the walls.
Groaning toons were scattered around the edges of the cafeteria. Due to the amazing recovery abilities of toons, most were up within a minute, sporting nothing more severe than a few scratches and bruises. However, Brennan lay groaning underneath a cafeteria table. Buster and Babs rushed over and dragged him out from underneath the table. Buster looked at Brennan with concern in his eyes. “Looks like we need to get you to the infirmary.” He tried to pick Brennan up, but he screamed and blacked out.
Brennan woke up in the infirmary with a casted arm and a boot cast. He had an excruciating pain in his side, and he moaned. The nurse, an old, kindly lady, walked in and her eyes widened when she saw that Brennan was already awake. “Oh dear, I must not have used enough Valium the first time around.” Brennan felt a prick in his good arm, and passed out again.
He woke up again, as the nurse bustled in. “Well, you look good enough to go to class now, so just be careful where you walk, because you’re going to need this crutch for getting around.” She handed him a crutch and a class excusal slip. “You need to hurry if you want to get to the last class of the day!”
He crutched out of the infirmary and down the hallway to the last class of the day: Cartoon Physics 701. He slowly made it down the hallway, but just as the door to the classroom was in sight, Brennan heard a scream. “Ooh la la!” He stumbled when a heavy weight landed on his back, making him wince. The heavy weight in question exclaimed, “Le skunk ‘unk! You are, how you say, mine!” Fifi (for so it was) squeezed him, and he grimaced in pain as he felt the bones in his arm grind together. He sniffed, and an expression of revulsion crossed his face. “What IS that?” Then the full stench hit him in the face like a fist, and he dropped to the ground, briefly unconscious. That ended when both his and Fifi’s weight landed squarely on his broken arm.
He screamed and his back spasmed, and as he convulsed, he managed to throw Fifi off (A truly Herculean feat with only one hand). He curled around his arm, tears coursing down his face. He whispered brokenly, “Please just go away.”
Fifi rushed towards him, but even as he cringed, Babs held her back. She tactfully said, “Feef, he’s not feeling too good right now. Give it a couple hours.” Held back, Fifi relented and was led to class. Brennan was helped up by Buster, and he slowly limped to the classroom.
When the lecture started, Brennan was dully disappointed that the lecture was on the basics of real physics that day, which he had already learned. Tired and sore, Brennan fell asleep at his desk, but unfortunately that day, the teacher. Professor Wile E. Coyote, broke the norm of uninterested teachers.
He tapped Brennan, smirking, and as he groggily looked up, Wile asked in a British accent, oddly enough, “What is the force of gravity from the Earth when twenty million kilometres away compared to the force of the Sun if it is one hundred and thirty kilometres away? If you answer the question wrong, a 1,000 page essay on gravity is due….” He glanced at the clock. “One hour from now.” Brennan, completely flabbergasted and brain blank, looked around for help. He suddenly blanched as he noticed the spot, similar to the one he had fallen into, on the ceiling. Wile noticed his pale face and followed his gaze. “What that? That’s been here since first period, and nothing has happened. Hopefully it’ll get cleaned up today. Now stop stalling!”
Chapter 5: Coming Together
Toonity, E-day+1
Brennan thought furiously but could come up with no answer. Wile said, “Time’s up!” and dumped a stack of one thousand papers on his desk. “Better start writing!” Brennan groaned, and started scribbling furiously.
Half an hour later, Brennan was sitting back, shaking his sore hand. He thought, ‘It’s a lot harder to write when I appear to be missing my pinky.’ Brennan sighed, but before he could get back to work, he glanced up, and realized that the spot now had a large, orange spot growing steadily closer. He stood up, craning his neck to get a closer look, and all the other toons noticed his expression and also glanced up.
The orange spot suddenly landed in the middle of the classroom, crushing several desks as toons dived away. Through a cloud of dust, Wile, irritated said, “I say! Do you mind, we’re in the middle of a lesson, chap!” Just then the dust cloud cleared, and everyone abruptly froze, and Brennan stared in shock.
The spot was resolved into a large, orange humanoid with a strange double mandible mouth, and as it stood up it towered over every person in the classroom, (Even Wile, who at 4’ 11” was the tallest toon in the school) as it was about seven feet tall. It shook its head, glanced around, glanced up, then did a double take at his surroundings. “What in Altholezen?” it growled. “What manner of insanity—“He was cut off as a horde of toon-sized, triangle shaped objects landed on top of it, and were revealed to be a mass of smaller, oddly shaped creatures. One squeaked, “The Demon! It may be coming here!”, and then all the other creatures, minus the first, started running in circles, screaming.
The toons, still frozen with shock and fear, slowly backed away from the intruders, and the largest of the lot looked at them. “What manner of insanity are you creatures? You seem to be two-dimensional……” He trailed off. “Gods, I must have hit my head on a rock!” His theory was quickly disproved, as yet another creature dropped from the spot, landing just behind the creature. As it stood up, as yet unnoticed by the largest, it was larger than even the tallest of the others, at nearly 8 feet tall. Just as the first creature began to turn around, it jumped on top of the thing, pressing it to the ground, and methodically proceeded to twist its head. The first stopped struggling after a crack was heard, and lay there, unmoving.
The casual display of death and violence unfroze all the toons. They all rushed out the door, slammed it behind them, and proceeded to empty the local Hammerspace grid, throwing anything and everything at the door to barricade it shut. Brennan watched in disbelief as he watched various objects fly by, most of which should be impossible for the others to hold, let alone throw around.
Then Professor Wile yelled, “Everyone! Utilize von Rabenstrange’s Third law of Cartoon physics!” Brennan scratched his head in confusion as all the toons then made a wisecrack, then jumped as a storm of anvils suddenly fell through the tiled ceiling and landed just behind the pile of objects.
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Meanwhile, Calamity Coyote pumped his fist in Toon Chases 703. After countless years of trying and failing to catch his partner in comedy, Little Beeper, he finally caught him as Little Beeper had inexplicably not pulled out a large object to crush him, as usual. He tried to pull out a Hammerspace sign to show his elation (Having chosen to remain silent around others), but found that almost nothing remained in Hammerspace, including signs or anything else that could possibly be used to write on. He scratched his head, and looked a question at Little Beeper. He shrugged, (Being a linguistics and eye-reading expert), then kicked Calamity in the face and sped off farther into the course. Calamity picked himself up and was soon chasing after him.
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Noble Six looked up after his elimination of the Elite and saw a squad of Grunts running in circles screaming in their Pidgin English, “Leader dead! Leader dead!” He calmly pulled out his assault rifle and gunned them all down. Only then did he look around to find his position. He noticed he was in some sort of classroom, and the Sun was high overhead. He realized, “I’m in some sort of classroom. Good thing that no one is here. Maybe it’s lunch.” Just then he heard a loud series of thumps at the door, and the sound of voices, followed by another, louder series of thumps. He shook his head, angry at himself. “Well, that’s just great, there were a bunch of people just outside, and if they didn’t see the death of the Elite, they certainly heard the gunshots.”
He took a look at the surroundings, looking for a way out, and while he noted several escape options, he also noticed the strangeness of his surroundings. He thought to himself, “Is everything here 2D? And why are all the colors so pastel bright?” He looked down at himself. ”And I’m still three-dimensional, while this room is two-dimensional….. can’t really wrap my mind around that conundrum.” He decided that escape and safety was more important than location and physics at the moment, so he decided to try the most obvious exit, as well as the one that would provide the easiest escape: the door. Twisting the knob and pushing, he noticed that he couldn’t open the door. He employed all his strength, but even his genetically-enhanced muscles and the actuators in his suit could not budge whatever was behind the door. He ripped it off his hinges, only to be confronted with a large, bewilderingly random collection of heavy objects. He thought, “Who was walking by here? The marching band, football team, all the mechanics students, the deliverymen, and the janitor? What are the odds against them all walking by just as I appear?” Not being trained in complex mathematical equations, he shrugged and looked for an alternate avenue of egress.
He walked to the window, only to find that this classroom appeared to be in a large campus building, and it was four stories above an odd garden that appeared to consist of metal spikes placed haphazardly into the ground. Knowing that even with the latest technology, falling forty feet did not exactly ensure that he could walk (or run) away uninjured, and adding to that a collection of sharpened metal stakes, the chances of walking away unhurt dropped to an alarmingly low chance. He looked up in frustration, and was confronted by ceiling tiles simply held in place by thin metal girders. He jumped up, and at the first hit, a ceiling tile broke into several small fragments, and fell to the floor.
Several hits later, and hearing what sounded like police outside the door, he jumped up into the crawlspace, pausing to push several bundles of wires away. Hearing a creak, he surmised that the flimsy aluminum girders installed to hold the ceiling tiles in place would not hold the considerable weight of a half-geared Spartan for long. He quickly picked a direction and crawled several yards, passing a series of support bars that he believed to go into the wall at the edge of the classroom. As he went a few yards past the bars, the girders creaked and suddenly collapsed, dumping him in the hallway in front of….. a bunch of large animals wearing clothing? He stopped and stared, wondering exactly what had happened to him.
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Brennan let out a sigh of relief as the door was barricaded and the school police, a handful of former mall cops with tasers and sidearms, arrived and began setting up a cordon between the door and the rest of the school. He thought back to his first glimpse of the two creatures, an unshakeable sense of familiarity in his mind. He started as the descriptions came through the fog of fear, and he started to unobtrusively slide away down the corridor, putting as much distance between himself and the cordon as possible.
However, this was cut short when the ceiling just in front of the cordon creaked alarmingly, then broke, dumping the grey creature just to the side of the mall cops. It looked up, but then froze, its sky blue visor facing the toons’ way.
The school cops, scared out of their wits, fumbled out their guns, and one stuttered, “P-please c-come with us. You-You’re under arrest.”
When the grey figure saw the pistols aimed in its direction, it reacted quickly, pulling out a sidearm from a holster on its right thigh; a sidearm much larger and lethal-looking than the school cops’ guns that also had a small stain on the barrel. Strangely, this stain was blue. The mall cops gulped and dropped their now-pitiful pistols, and said, “S-sorry, mister.” The figure swung around and looked at the group again.
Fifi suddenly took a running leap straight at the creature, Babs crying out, “Feef!”
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Noble Six looked away from the odd sight of giant animals when a small group of very short, overweight humans bumbled up, and said, “You-you’re under arrest.” Turning to them, he was suddenly confronted with drawn sidearms. His combat instincts kicked in, and he whipped out his M6, cocking it on its way up. The mall cops gulped, and dropped their weapons. Satisfied that he was in no danger from them, he holstered his pistol and again turned towards the strange animals. Noticing their odd coloring, he wondered, “What kind of person dresses up giant animals, and then dyes them outlandish colors?”
His musing was interrupted when a purple-dyed skunk came flying out of the crowd, towards his helmet. Dimly hearing a pink bunny make some sort of noise, he tried to whip his hands up, but even in SPARTAN Time, he could not bring his hands up fast enough to block the animal. It landed squarely on his visor, uncomfortably close in his HUD, blocking his vision and also clouding his motion sensor.
He reached up to pick it off and set it down, but it pounded on his visor, opened its mouth, and incredibly, began to speak, saying “Vous monstair! Vous cannot point ze weapons at our police!” He blinked, taken aback at this animal, seemingly speaking in an accent reminiscent of Cote d’Azure, and plucked the animal away from his visor. Remembering the psychological “training” (read torture) he was forced to endure so long ago, he looked around for hidden cameras and speakers. Finding none, he turned his nonplussed gaze back to the animals. Activating his external speakers, he asked, “Alright Mendez, what ****hole did you crawl out of, and why the animals?”
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All the toons stared in horror as Fifi landed on the figure’s blue visor. It reached up, presumably to knock her off, but she started berating the figure. “Vous monstair! Vous cannot point ze weapons at our police!” This definitely knocked the figure off-balance, as its head came back and it froze for a moment. Then it came back to life, grabbing Fifi by the scruff of her neck and pulling her of its head, looking around, and finally, a crackle was heard, emanating from speakers on the side of its helmet.
A deep, rich voice emanated from within. “Alright Mendez, what ****hole did you crawl out of, and why the animals?”
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Earth 3, E-day+2
Admiral of the Red Dame Honor Harrington, Duchess of Manticore and Steadholder of Grayson, sighed as she sipped her hot cocoa. Another long day of work, and this was not work on the front lines, but testing weapons prototypes! Sure, these plasma missiles, both capable of the devastation of energy torpedoes on an unprotected target, and the impeller missiles’ ability to penetrate sidewalls, could make the current wars, both the known one against the Solarian League and the shadow war against the Mesan Alignment, much easier. But the Star Empire of Manticore’s best admiral should be on the battlefield, not doing grunt work in a system only valuable precisely because it held nothing of interest. Nimitz, her telempathic treecat companion, sensed her steadily spiraling downward thoughts, bleeked softly, and dug a claw into her arm.
She was jerked out of her reverie, and prepared to go back to the flag bridge for another long shift of weapons testing, along with her companion ship. As she walked the quarter-kilometre to the flag bridge lift, she finished her cup of hot cocoa and tossed into a waste recycler.
HMS Retribution, a pod super-dreadnought of the Invictus class, was one of the largest structures ever built by mankind. At 3 kilometres long, a half-kilometre tall, and a quarter kilometre wide, this starship held enough power to make planets uninhabitable, even without the plasma missiles currently being tested. No single ship could hope to best it, and nothing any other navy not in the Grand Alliance had could scratch it without overwhelming numbers, and even then, they would pay a heavy price for her death.
She walked onto the flag bridge, officers snapping to attention, and said, “Be seated.” They all went back to their duty stations, and Honor took the seat at the center of the bridge. She asked her navigation officer, “How are the shake-downs going?”
He answered, “All shipboard systems are nominal, and the plasma missiles, while still having problems integrating with standard missiles, are performing well within their damage estimates on both unpowered drones and impeller drones.”
He was interrupted from continuing his report when the sensors officer shouted, “Ma’am! Tachyon disturbance detected, directly in front of us!”
Honor started. Tachyons had only been created in small amounts in artificial conditions, and none had been found naturally. “Scan it!”
“Already completed Ma’am,” the sensor officer reported. “Size estimate at 2-3 metres in diameter, as it is a round object that appears to be emitting them.” Too late, Honor remembered something. “Helm! Full reverse thrust, emergency military power!” But the impeller wedges and inertial compensators could only decelerate so fast without pulping the vulnerable humans inside, and their best was not good enough.
When HMS Retribution hit the disturbance, in an eye-twisting moment to the cameras of her sister ship, while the ship got no smaller nor the disturbance any larger, the Retribution fit inside, and she, as well as the 4,000 men and women who crewed her, ceased to exist in this universe.