ya_assemble | [LN] Dangerously Genre-Savvy [closed to Nico]

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[LN] Dangerously Genre-Savvy [closed to Nico]

"Inspector!" Rafa cried out, as the Inspector's ship crash landed in the purple jungles of Khalafross. Clad in his traditional animal skins, he was an imposing figure, even despite the fact that the Inspector was taller than him. "The danger light blinks! Rafa can see with the eyes of the ship! Our most hated enemy comes for us: Blorgons!"

Native to the planet Tumantis, Rafa was one of the Tessujex, a subgroup of the people known as the Suveteem. In the Inspector's adventures, he had discovered that the Suvateem were actually descendant of a crashed space exploration survey team. (Their name, in fact, was what "survey team" had devolved into over the centuries). The Tessujex had evolved from the animals on board that had accidentally been exposed to mutagens during the crash and developed human intelligence. (Hence the name Tessujex, a twisted version of the words "test subjects.")

After the Tessujex were used as slave labor for centuries, the Inspector was responsible for making the Suveteem realize that the humanoids among them were not the superior species they'd once thought they were and that their claim that they were descended from the gods was false, the Tessujex finally had a chance of being treated equal in their society. After that, Rafa, one of the Tessujex's most noble warriors and resistance fighters had declared that he would follow the Inspector to the end of time until the debt could be repaid, especially if it meant the Inspector could teach him the ways of peace after a lifetime of battle.

"We must leave! Quickly! And fight them in the jungle. Rafa knows the way!"

They had no way of defending themselves on the ship and there was no way to repair it while the Blorgons were on board.

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"You really don't need to do that when we already know that you're -" Troy started but Abed held up a hand.

"I'll allow it. I want to forgo the traditional heroes vs. heroes meet up fight brewing here and see what she and her magic staff have to say," said Abed. "Something strange is going on and I want to figure it out." He briefly raised his eyebrows. "Or I've gone even more crazy than usual, in which case I'll need all the information I can to escape this psychotic delusion and crawl my way back to reality."

Because, well, that was a very real possibility. Especially with Troy having left. He'd been coping but nobody could really say he was doing it well.

Nico flinched as her nails broke the skin, but that was what she needed here. At least her green gloves had unraveled around her hand so that she could dig in with her nails.

"Finite Incantatem."

Hey, he was a nerd, nerdy spells might reassure him, right?

It didn't make Troy flicker.

It made the entire world flicker.

For half a second, they were all in some small town somewhere on an empty street. Abed briefly remembered waking up in a strange town, people ignoring him - people walking through him. Then Nico and Raph coming towards him -surprise, delight that they were real? Was this some kind of present his friends had arranged for? If so, the animatronics were out of this world.

But it wasn't his birthday, was it?

Then a goading voice had echoed out of the shadows saying...something. Something ominous. He remembered Raphael drawing his sais, the Staff of One held out by Nico in his direction? Attacking?

No. Scared. Protective. Looking over his shoulder at something. Something -

And right now he was...floating? Floating a few feet in the air and he felt like he'd been stabbed in the chest. For just a moment, he looked down at his chest to see some kind of -

The flash ended and they were back on the alien planet.

Abed started making a high pitched, siren-like noise of distress, clearly unable to vocalize his fear and confusion and alarm in any other way.

"Now look what you did!" Troy shouted at Nico, reaching out his hands towards Abed's shoulders. "Hey, buddy, hey, it's okay. It's okay. That was a trick, okay? She's just messing with your head. She's an evil Yellow Lantern, and that means she can use fear as a weapon -"

Before he had a chance to place his hands on Abed's shoulders- two shuriken flew towards them. They were deflected by Troy's green aura, but they still knocked his hands away.

Edited 2015-01-18 07:24 (UTC)

"Get away from him, you monster!" Raph said, trusting his instincts now.

Troy was not what he seemed.

He remembered now. Most of it, anyway. He and Nico had been sent to pick up a new myth - a man named Abed Nadir. But there'd been a voice in the shadows as they found him - Benedict's. Saying...something. Some threat about how he was going to use the new myth to destroy the town. Use his imagination.

Then there'd been something crawling on the roof behind Abed, something dark and ugly, lunging -

The last thing Raph remembered was some kind of explosive force slamming him into the ground, hard - and then they'd wound up here, cycling through imaginary scenarios.

They were supposed to protect him. All along, that was what they were supposed to be doing, and whatever was behind all this, it'd tried to turn them against each other, tried to make it so Abed would fight them so they couldn't get close enough to protect him or help him break free. That's why they'd looked like villains to each other.

While some of it was still fuzzy, one thing Raph did remember clearly was that he and Nico and Abed had been in that street together.

Troy hadn't.

Edited 2015-01-18 07:32 (UTC)

She'd been -- she'd been on the ground. Just a moment ago, when the world flickered, she'd been flat on the ground. But now she was up on her feet, and--

"Get away from him!" she shouted at 'Troy'. He hadn't been there when they'd arrived to bring Abed back to the Pole, he hadn't been there when she'd made reality flicker, he wasn't actually here.

And that meant he was definitely not a friend.

She took a swing at the illusion guy with the Staff, trying to make him back away from Abed.

Troy loomed, the colors of his outfit changing from green to yellow, as he turned into a much taller, more menacing figure - a Yellow Lantern. He held out his hand with his power ring and blasted Nico and Raph back, so hard they went crashing into the boughs of a nearby tree. Then he trapped them there with his ring, vines of yellow light pinning them to the branches.

His ring was strong. Far too strong to be easily broken by their green rings - or even Nico's spells. Clearly, this illusion had far more power here than they did.

"Don't listen to them, Abed. They're trying to make you see what they see, they're trying to control you. And you hate that, don't you? Nobody gets to control you. Nobody's ever managed to."

Abed stopped his squealing noise and recoiled from his friend, shaking his head furiously.

"My subconscious was trying to warn me," Abed said. "That's why you were invisible to them. As much as I want you here, a part of me knew you couldn't be. You left. You went to travel around the world. If this is real, you wouldn't have been there to get dragged into it with me and if this is all in my head, none of this is real and you're still not here."

"It can be as real as we want it to be, Abed," Troy went on. "It's just us now. We can stay like this, going wherever our imaginations take us. Forever. And it'll be more real than the Dreamatorium ever was."

"What about our friends?" Abed asked anxiously.

"What about them?" asked Troy. "We can make them here, just like we can simulate everyone else. That's how you treat them anyway, isn't it? Like they're simulations. It's too hard to figure out how to be friends with them when they're not doing what you want."

Around them appeared a group of people, floating around them in a circle. A tall man texting. A somewhat overweight black woman rifling through her purse. A young brunette woman organizing her binder. An older blonde woman wearing sunglasses and rubbing at her temples, clearly suffering from a hangover. An old man fumbling and nearly tripping over his own feet.

"What about Rachel?" Abed asked, and Troy waved his hand, and a young woman appeared next to Abed, a blonde woman with glasses and a crooked smile.

"Rachel. Rachels. You can have as many Rachels as you want. Princess Leia in a metal bikini Rachel." The woman's outfit was suddenly Princess Leia's metal bikini. "Green, dancing, hot alien babe from the original Star Trek Rachel."

Now the woman was a green Orion from Star Trek.

Abed glanced sideways at her and then stared at Troy accusingly.

"But it wouldn't be the real Rachel. If she can be anything, then she's not the one from our universe."

"It's better if she's not real, Abed. You already know what's going to happen, don't you? The real Rachel will get sick of you. It'll happen eventually - you know you can't stop it. She'll get tired of all the bits and the quirks and the things you do for attention."

"No," Abed said, shaking his head. "No, Rachel said I could stop worrying. She said as long as I didn't keep secrets or manipulate her that we'd be okay. She said I wasn't screwing things up."

"She was lying," said Troy, looming, his voice getting deeper and more menacing. "Do you really think that you'll have what you want out there? It'll happen the same as it always has, Abed, eventually everyone will get sick of you, and you'll go right back into that locker like before, where everyone can forget you. I mean, look at you, you can't even take care of yourself! You don't know how to file taxes, you have trouble tying your shoes, you can't even read analog clocks, and you were arrested by campus security for trying to duct tape someone's mouth shut for saying M. Night Shyamalan is a good director! Out there, by yourself, without me to help you? You'll be nothing! Because -"

"Because I don’t get married," Abed said, interrupting him, sounding as if he was referencing something, perhaps repeating something he told someone else. He was almost rocking slightly in the air, head weaving back and forth slightly. His eyes were somewhat glassy, though what he was truly feeling was impossible for Nico and raph to tell, whether it was what he saw as the truth hurting, or hearing something terrible use the voice of someone he missed to insult him. "I don’t invent a billion dollar website that helps people have sex. I don’t make it into Sundance, Slam Dance, or Dance Pants." He added, "Troy will invents Dance Pants in 2019. Don’t tell him; he needs to stumble onto it."

"...But I'm Troy."

Abed held up his fist and green light poured out of his Green Lantern ring in a wave, slamming "Troy" into a tree - freeing Nico and Raph.

"No, you're not," said Abed, his voice filled with absolute surety.

"You heard the guy," said Raph, finally taking to the air again, free from his yellow, viney prison. "Whatever you are, he's not buying it - and we're not letting you mess with him anymore."

Nico, less gracefully, hit the ground; but gamely staggered back up to her feet. A tendril of green light reached out and picked up the Staff of One for her, from where it had been thrown when the fake had tossed her up in the tree.

"It's time for you to get out of here," she snarled. "Whatever your boss was planning is toast."

The fake Troy pulled itself up again and now its evilness was clear. Its mouth had split far too wide and it had far too many sharp teeth.

Abed's eyes narrowed as he recognized what fake Troy was supposed to be.

Parallax.

That meant that he had to overcome fear.

It was much easier to do than it might have been in the past, before he met his friends, before they made it clear they'd stick by him.

"You made a rookie doppleganger mistake. Troy would never talk to me that way. One time he even got angry and gave up a date with a really hot girl at the Valentine's Dance because she said I was weird," said Abed calmly, floating closer to the fake Troy. "The only time he's ever said anything like that was after I was a bad friend and made him cry first over a pillow and blanket fort feud. Then we hit each other with pillows for a few hours and made up."

Abed held out his hand and a green construct grew and took shape - a construct of Troy. The real Troy. All decked out as a Green Lantern like the fake Troy had tried to be.

"Hey, dick! it cried out in Troy's voice. "So I heard you were trying to talk shit about my boy here." It flew towards the fake Troy and punched him in the face. "FYI fake me, the only reason I felt like it was okay to leave on my trip was because I knew Abed would figure it all out and be okay. I knew he'd know how to get help from our other friends like Annie when he needs to and that he can handle plenty of stuff without help. Abed is fine just the way he is and he doesn't need some imaginary world for everything to work out okay. He has friends - no, a family - and maybe that's not as perfect as all the stuff me and him always imagined together in the Dreamatorium but it doesn't need to be. And even the imperfect stuff - like me being gone? That'll change. Because life always works out that way, things change and it's not always bad."

"You're even less real than I am, just a shallow illusion created by a weak mind and -"

The fake Troy couldn't even finish a sentence before the Good Troy punched it in the face again. "I'm more real than you could ever be, because even though I'm part of Abed's brain, I'm saying everything the real Troy would say if he was here." He added, "Here, I'll prove it: My name is Troy Barnes, I like butt stuff, desserts in giant form, and when people give thumbs ups in a cool way."

The construct of Troy came in close to Abed and they did their special best friend handshake, before Troy turned back to the fake, which was still reeling.

"Now me and this magical goth chick and a ninja turtle are going to look really cool and kick your ass, possibly even at the same time."

And the construct dove in to do just that.

Edited 2015-01-18 09:09 (UTC)

"What do you mean 'possibly'?" Raph said with a wicked grin, diving in to blast at the fake with his ring. He started using the ring to toss green constructs of shurikens into the fake, that exploded after impact.

She wasn't sure if she was actually casting spells here or not. But Raph seemed to be able to do some damage the thing pretending to be Abed's friend with his ring, so...

Her constructs were clumsier; tendril after tendril slapping at the fake Troy before hitting the ground. Of course, if any of them actually hit him, he'd be stuck fast where he was, a stationary target for Raph and Abed.

Evil Troy didn't stand a chance now. After the beating he'd taken from them all, all it took was one last blow from construct Troy - who shot a blast of energy from his own power ring - and then with a loud scream, Parallax Troy exploded in bloody shreds. Out of the exploded body flew a horrible yellow bug monster, but another blow from them all made that shatter into a million yellow pieces that blew away on the wind.

The world started to shimmer and twist around them. Abed turned to the construct of Troy, looking alarmed.

"You're going to fade away. This is our Drop Dead Fred moment, isn't it. Where you disappear into my subconscious. And I know I'm supposed to be okay on my own but I'm still not sure I will be."

The construct smiled. "You'll be fine. And I'm not fading away. I'm inside your brain, remember? And the real me? Once my trip is over? Once I figure myself out? He'll be back."

"What if the real you likes traveling around the world so much that he doesn't want to come back again?" Abed asked, worried, flicking his finger thoughtfully, head waving back and forth with uncertainty. "What if he does come back but decides he wants to leave again?"

"If the real me wants to travel around the world and live a more exciting life than he has so far, who do you think he'd want more than anybody in the whole world to come with him? Until then, you have this me. In your head."

The construct detached from Abed's ring, suddenly breathing in as if it was taking its first real breath, taking on a life of its own. Suddenly, he seemed far more real and solid and almost...self-aware. He looked up at Abed with new eyes and flew over to him.

"And to be honest, I'm not just in your head. There's magic in this place, Abed. Right now, I'm sleeping on my boat and Levar Burton's making breakfast and I'm dreaming that I'm a Green Lantern. And I'm gonna wake up and write it down in the notebook of things I wanna tell you when I get back - with all the other stuff that's already in there. How all this weird stuff was in my head and how I dreamed that you had to help save the world and that I had to tell you that I believe in you."

Abed's eyes were somewhat glassy as Troy hugged him. Abed hugged him back.

Then Abed's eyebrows furrowed.

"What do you mean I have to help save the world?" he asked, perplexed, drawing away to look at Troy in the face, trying to figure out if his facial expression signaled that he was joking or if he was being serious.

"You're about to find out," said Troy, nodding towards Nico and Raph. He grabbed Abed by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes, now suddenly very serious. "Now, fight it."

The world was falling apart.

"Fight what?" asked Abed.

"Fight it, Abed!" Troy said, suddenly very serious. "Listen, buddy, it's not going to let you go easily, you have to fight it! Fight!"

"Fight what? What am I supposed to fight?"

"Black Mercy, Abed! It's like the -"

Troy didn't get to finish - the world was dissolving too fast. Still, Abed's eyes went wide with understanding and he looked down at his chest just as the false world shattered. Then they were in the real world again and Abed was floating several feet above the street, magical light cascading around him, tendrils of it tugging at reality, trying to shape it into something else. The way the world shuddered as the tendrils tugged at it, the way it drained the color from their surroundings, making them fade, made it clear it wasn't a good thing.

And the source of that light and magic? The horrible bug creature attached to Abed's chest.

Black Mercy. Like the Black Mercy parasites from DC Comics. But worse. Once it had attached to him, not only had it caused him to get caught in a world of fantasy - apparently it was letting that fantasy affect the real world. It was making it break down.

That was what the voice had said, hadn't it? There had been a man saying that he was going to use him to destroy things, then that creature had leaped off the roof and attacked him.

But he was awake and so were Nico and Raph. He could fight. And the fake Troy had been right about at least one thing - he wasn't about to let someone else control him.

So he fought, writhing there in the air, wheezing, trying to pry the horrible monster thing away from where it was attached to his chest. It kept trying to dig in deeper again, where it could ensnare him in a fantasy world once more, but while he couldn't rip it off entirely without help, he was at least managing to keep it from digging in and dragging him back into the illusion again.

Edited 2015-01-20 07:02 (UTC)

Raph dragged himself off of the ground, where the initial magical explosion when the creature had attached itself to Abed had knocked him and Nico.

"Nico, we've gotta get it off him!" he said, reaching down to help her to her feet. "Before it takes hold again!"

Edited 2015-01-20 07:07 (UTC)

Nico let Raph pull her to her feet, then checked her arm. Okay, the myth-healing factor hadn't completely healed it yet -- which was good in ways other than it allowing her to cast spells, since there seemed to be bits of gravel embedded in it, ew.

"I can light it on fire if you get him away from it!"

It was big and black and horrible and looked way too much like the horrible bug she'd had to watch Bunny burn off himself while she healed him. Burning this one too seemed an appropriate method of keeping it away from Abed permanently.

Raph ran forward, pushing through the force the magic was exerting. It was like trying to walk against a strong wind, but finally he reached Abed, grabbed the bug thing and wrenched it off of him.

It took all of his and Abed's combined strength to finally rip it off. As soon as it was off of him, Abed dropped several feet to the asphalt and was still.

As Raph clutched it in his hand, it started grasping at him, trying wriggle free to poke a hole in his chest now.

It wasn't really having the best of luck.

"Ha! Nice try, but there's no way you're digging through my plastron anytime soon," he said, taunting the creature. Then he punched it three times and threw it to the ground so hard that it was dazed. "Nico, now!"

Nico raked gravel out of her arm with her nails, releasing more blood to trickle down toward her elbow.

"Disco inferno."

It wasn't dancing to death in red-hot iron shoes, but Nico was pretty sure that spell would be appropriate at some point in the future. But the way the flames were musical instead of crackling wasn't completely ridiculous.

"That should take care of that," she said, backing away from the musically-writhing bug-thing and toward Abed. She didn't want to look away from it until she was sure it was dead -- no last minute surprise lunges, thank you."

The creature burned up and finally crumbled into dust.

Abed was still lying in the street, clutching at his chest and gasping. His chest was bloody, though it seemed superficial - or at least seemed like his myth healing was making it heal quickly.

If he seemed a little overwhelmed and slightly terrified, it was because he was.

Mainly because she and Raph were still there and he was still lying in the street and this hadn't ended. None of it had ended.

It wasn't the same siren noise as earlier but he made a strange little whine as he lay there that made it clear he was beyond distressed. This wasn't fun. This wasn't the safe pretend that he and Troy had always indulged in.

His chest hurt and his shirt was splattered with blood and he still had no idea what was going on and it wasn't going away.

Edited 2015-01-20 09:09 (UTC)

"Do you really think it'll be that easy?" came a voice from the nearby roof, and there was Benedict, staring down at them with a sneer. "You won't get getting away that easi -"

He was interrupted by Abed raising his hand and blasting him clean off the roof with his Green Lantern ring.

That he still had. Somehow.

That, if Raph and Nico really thought about it, he'd been wearing when they'd first come running up. His myth power.

Naturally, what with him loving comics and being incredibly imaginative, his myth power was one of the most versatile and creatively-inclined weapons in fiction.

Edited 2015-01-20 09:15 (UTC)

"Welp," said Raph, as Benedict flew off the roof and probably into someone's geraniums. "That takes care of that, I guess. Let's get him out of here."

Abed was shaking his head where he lay on the ground.

"No. Nooo. Not trusting anyone played by Charles Dance. Bad idea."

He seemed to be talking more to himself than them and was clearly in no state to really help himself. And who would have been? After getting yanked into a strange world, then getting attacked by a Charles Dance villain and infested with a creepy bug monster that sent him on the world's worst trip, it was amazing that he wasn't just screaming his head off at the moment.

Nico was really thankful that he wasn't screaming his head off at the moment.

"Come on," she said, moving over to offer Abed a hand up. "Let's get you somewhere safe before that Benedict guy tries for round two.

She was going to continue, but there came an interruption in the form of a horrible scratching noise from behind her. Nico tensed up and looked to Raph.

"Please tell me that's not what I think it is."

More of the little creatures came scuttling in from everywhere. Over fences, hopping down from nearby roofs, out from under cars...

"What I think it is is our cue to go," said Raph as he took out his emergency snowglobe from the pouch at his belt.

"The Pole!" he shouted into it, tossing it in front of him. Then he practically body-checked Nico through it and dragged the prone Abed through it by the collar.

The portal closed behind them just in time.

Abed was still limp and dazed as Raph dragged him into the middle of the floor in the lounge area of the Pole.

He simply lay on the floor, looking up at the toys whizzing around the workshop.

Then he covered his eyes with his hands.

At least he wasn't making shrill noises?

Nico climbed to her feet, rubbing her shoulder -- she really needed to figure out how to not hurt herself falling at some point. The portal had closed before anything buggy could get in after them.

"You okay?" she asked Abed awkwardly, trying to stand over him without, you know, standing over him like she was trying to intimidate him. Face-covering wasn't the usual reaction to Santa's workshop...

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