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damned_lounge2007-10-25 11:10 pm
sugarsweetblood.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_lounge2007-10-25 11:10 pm
Entry tags:
Oktoberfest '07 Entry, "Trick or Treat, Smell my... but That's Unsanitary!" by Kiarae/Rhode
Title: Trick-or-Treat! Smell my... but That's Unsanitary!
Author: Kiarae/Rhode
Beta: Wait, what, we could beta this?! I thought we weren't allowed to talk about it! *cries*
Word Count: 3,504
Rating: So, completely G...though a bit on the morbid side...
Characters: Stork (Storm Hawks), Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (Cowboy Bebop), Danny Fenton/Phantom (Danny Phantom)
Pairing(s): DON'T THINK SO!!
Summary: Basically Stork has ended up wandering Landel’s hallways by his lonesome. This is a an intentionally cute, if slightly morbid telling of his encounter with another teenage patient as well as one very special SCer... ON ALL HALLOWS EVE! No plot really, save for that~
Notes: I'm putting a Damned Disclaimer here! I don't play any of these characters, just adore them to pieces! To Katrina![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hack_ed, Lisa notaghostreally, and Sakki paranoiatic... um... sorry? ^_^;; Maybe this’ll make you laugh, cuz I sure had fun with it!
Slowly, carefully, without a single sound to draw the attention of the monsters, animals, or undea-... oh, why was he even doing this?!
"Moving utterly alone through the hallways of this institution," he was whispering carefully to himself as he snuck along the hallways, analyzing as only he could, "the survival rate is higher for knocking on the Cyclonian's door and asking if Master Cyclonis would fancy a tea party. No, not a wise option at all..." The analysis was not proving to be a very open-minded one at all.
That little comparison was not an option, but if it had been set against his option of wandering the hallways alone, Stork would have taken the less doom-worthy of the options. Master Cyclonis may have liked tea parties after all. She was, in all manners of the word, female. But, he determined, doom was everywhere. It lurked behind every corner, in every shadow, even... with every breath. Any option would have presented doom in its own, calculating way.
His only comfort? It most certainly was not the cracked flashlight slowly dying of a near dead battery. Oh no. That wasn't comfort; that was sad, bittersweet reality. Thoughts of the Condor were his one and only outlet for comfort. Ah, the Condor. His safe haven. Thinking of it reminded him of just why he loathed stepping foot out of his beloved airship - the Condor had defenses! Ample defenses, and food he could stomach, and his team. How he missed his beloved sanctuary!
This was why comforting thoughts were only fleeting fantasies for him. Thoughts such as these only taunted. They laughed while dangling thin strips of hope over their victims like cat toys, playing for only one purpose - distraction. When hope had distracted to the point of... Stork shivered... optimism... the lurking doom would move in, lured by those hopeful thoughts. Closer it would stalk, and closer still, looming, suffocating...
With his free hand, Stork gripped his neck and rubbed it before swallowing hard. His breathing was already hard pressed, and he was twitching violently all over. His eye felt the worst of the tremors, leader only compared with the frequent jerks of his head at the slightest sounds. "I’m doomed, aren't I?" he asked no one in particular. So close had he come with death on countless occasions that the question was mostly a reflex by now. It didn't matter that no one else could hear him. Stork had always known that he would be the last to meet his end. That's how it happened. The one who could sense the doom approaching always ended up dying last. It explained why he was alone now - every last member of his earlier group had met some less than desirable end. Or so he thought. He hadn’t actually seen their ends, just heard their screams as the floor swallowed them or some giant beast carted them off into the darkness. He had no hope for ever seeing a one of them again. "I may as well just reserve myself to death right here and now. There's no point in trying to fight it, really. I knew my time would come while being stuck here. These circumstances make death an inevitability!" he was nearly laughing in his overly-dramatic hysteria.
A toothy-white grin appeared from behind Stork as he muttered to himself. The owner of this grin held an expertise when it came to sneak attacks though she usually preferred sneaking through the computers opposed to real life situations. Both were much fun-fun in her mind regardless, especially tonight with prey that was speaking to itself!
Stork had not heard any footsteps at all, but his over-acute paranoia was able to feel some horrible, terrible, impending doom drawing near. He froze over, straining his human ears for any hints of sound. As doom was always trailing him, he had known of its presence long before having stopped, but when it drew in enough so as to brush his senses, he knew it wanted something. It was there, waiting to fall upon him, rip off one of his limbs, take that limb back to its family grouping - death, destruction, and ruin - to feast upon and then, when finished, come back for seconds... and thirds... and fourths... and dessert... and why was he stuck alone again?!
"BOO!"
"Yaaaaaahhh!!!" The whole of Landel's must have heard the scream that erupted from Stork. If not, then they had at least heard the impressive thud of his head hitting the ceiling, and then him thudding the ground as well. Gleeful giggles started spinning circles around where he fell. Stork was so scared out of his wits that he couldn’t even get a barring on the laughing thing that was circling him, it's prey. All he could manage was a glimpse of some orange and white. "Who...?! What...?! Where...?!" Why ask really? It must be doom playing its usual tricks again.
"Thirty-first, thirty first! Best of times to scare the worst!" Ed chanted as she twirled around her recent victim. Her apparent victory dance wasn't very graceful thanks to an oversized jack-o-lantern mask throwing off the balance of her head. The white sheet she had fastened around her neck as a make-shift cape made up for what grace was lacking, though she may not have had any to begin with. She ended up twirling into a backwards handstand before the downed Stork. "Bad bad stepping out of room. There is safe, elsewhere doooooooooom!" she warned, drawing out that last word eerily just as a ghost would.
Stork's left eye gave its most violent twitch of the night. Just... a little girl... he thought? But that's what they had thought of Lark, and she had turned out to be an evil overlord. At least Lark hadn’t snuck up behind him wearing a pumpkin on her head and greeted him while upside down. He watched the pumpkin sway for a moment before nodding. "Doom. Y-yes, I’m... quite familiar with that," he reassured her as he got to his feet.
Ed's own, shoeless feet were kicking in mid-air. One nearly landed an accidental blow to his face after he rose. She was intentionally putting her feet as close as she could to Stork's face, it seemed. "Trick-or-Treat - smell my feet!" The pumpkin grinned up at him while two sets of toes wriggles in his face.
He backed up to keep from getting his nose broken and then glanced unsurely down at the pumpkin. "That’s... beyond unsanitary..." he shivered at the mere thought of smelling hers or anyone else's feet. The stench of the Storm Hawk's dirty laundry was bad enough, and that was a secondary source.
"Smell smell!" she demanded, bending backwards with flexibility that would turn monkies envious.
Stork took yet another step back determined not to whiff any of the girl's foot order. Honestly, she was barefoot! Considering what he knew ended up on the floors at night - oh, the utter inhumanity of it all - he could think of well over a hundred reason why he wouldn't be smelling feet!
"Ah... no," he stated plainly, somehow hoping that his refusal would be clearer this time.
"Booooo!" This particular exclamation wasn't to scare him, but to express Ed's displeasure at his refusal. She was likely pouting beneath her mask. "Then a trick on you!" She pointed an accusing finger at him. Now she was in a one-handed handstand. Quite impressive considering her severe lack of grace.
The mention of tricks gave Stork even more of a desire to leave. "Um... I'll just... be going now. Heh..." he pointed down the hallway, smiled nervously (his eye twitching once more for good measure), and then started cautiously backing away from her.
Ed backwards somersaulted out of her handstand into a standing position and folded her arms sternly. "No no no! Trick-or-Treat for sweets to eat - a treat for no trick and a trick for no treat! No treat to show, then to bed you must go!" she scolded with what sounded to be one very well thought out, though grammatically incorrect speech. Once her explanation was through, she began advancing on the cowering man. She unfolded her arms and curled her hands as claws. She then bared her teeth, pretending as though they were fangs. "Go to bed now, or... suck your blood, I shall!" she announced with a failed attempt at the traditional Transylvanian accent during those last words.
Ed was not very menacing as every action she took was mere pretend, but her lacking physical appearance was compensated by her words. The very mention of blood sucking had sent Stork's alerts to full. Caution in getting away from her was booted out of the non-existent windows as he took off running as best his human form would allow, leaving a terrified scream in his wake. There was another one for the many hallways of Landel's to echo proudly. He wanted, he needed away from the deranged huma- no, not human. Human's wouldn't have reason to attack their own for blood. There were, however, various rituals and cult practices that involved the consumption of blood, and Stork did know all of those by heart. He was well prepared (intellectually, of course) were any primitives to capture him and offer him up as a sacrifice to their numerous gods.
Cults were not the worst of the ideas swimming through his brain as he ran. The concept of natural blood-suckers reminded terribly of a lengthy list he'd composed for reference that marked various parasites, carnivores, leeches, Vampireswith jetpacks, and...
Stork swallowed hard.
Cannibals!
He had never in his wildest... well, perhaps his wildest were a might more extreme than his current situation... but he could claim with ease that he, as a Merb, had never once dreamed of being eaten via cannibalism by a human!! The thought was just insane! This whole place was full of insanity!
Stork fit right in, actually.
He was jarred from his thoughts as well as from his own running as his body collided with another's. He literally bounced from the force and was thrown against a wall, knocking his head hard against it but not going down. Those who ran in panic usually didn't take the time to watch where they were going or to listen for the screams of others coming from adjacent hallways. Both Stork and the other young boy who had been thrown to the floor were guilty of this.
"Owwww," a low groan came from the one on the floor as he pushed himself up from the floor, "real smart, Danny," he scolded. He wasn’t the type to think that others were at fault for accidental collisions unless, you know, they actually were. It was always Dash's fault whenever Danny ended up on the floor because of some "accident"
After shaking the ringing out of his head, he looked up to see just whom he had collided with. He didn't manage to see anyone, or anything actually thanks to the blinding light of a flashlight striking his face. He hissed at it and held up a hand to shade his eyes. "Ow! Hey!"
The beam of light trembled right along with the rest of Stork's shaking body as he kept it glued to the boy. Was it another patient, or a monster that only looked like a patient? There were so many tricks lurking in this institution for Stork to trust anything he saw. He didn’t even have the luxury of worrying over his own throbbing head now that he was no longer alone. At least the Tharaxxian Mind Worms must have taken an equally hard hit right along with him. That was always a plus.
"Hello? I've got my own flashlight, you know?" Danny called, the irritation clear in his tone. Things weren't going his way tonight, and the last thing he needed was another patient making him /lose his eyesight/! He held up his own flashlight for the other to see, hoping that whomever was blinding him would realize the serious lack of a threat. After a moment passed with the light still on him, Danny growled as only an annoyed teenager could and directed the head of his flashlight towards Stork. If that’s how this guy wanted to play, then so be it! "Take that!" Danny flipped on his own beam and returned fire.
Light! Beautiful, blinding white light! This must be it! Stork had always been told of the light at the end of the tunnel, and now he was actually going to experience that sensation of crossing over into the great beyond! Was this the light of heaven?
...
...or that of the accursed pit?
It seemed his paranoia even persisted in death. How it mocked him so!
"Uh, dude?" Danny nudged at Stork's shoulder in an attempt to wake him. He hadn't meant to make the guy pass out like that. Sheesh, it was just a flashlight! "Hello..."
"Ngh!" When Stork awoke the fiery glow had dimmed considerably - death had come and gone in a literal flash and left him still alive, laughing at it's own playful trick. The touch of something shaking his shoulder panicked him out of his death-warmed-over daze. He jumped up, fell over onto his butt, and proceeded to scooch himself far enough away from Danny to where his back pressed and clung tightly to a wall. "A patient... or are you?" Though his jitters were getting the better of him, Stork was managing a quickand completely biased analysis of Danny under his breath. Mentions of camouflage, traitors, monsters, and Wallops were coming up left and right in his mutterings.
Danny had no other option but to simply stare at Stork as he muttered on. Man, this guy was... hm, what was a good word for it? Danny held his chin for a moment, rolling his eyes up a little in thought. Different? Yeah, that worked. Very different. Was he talking to himself? "Arrrrrrre you ok?" Danny attempted to speak to him after a while.
"... and the fact that he, too was running, though that also holds to be commonplace here..." Stork's attention only came away once Danny spoke, his head turning up on the boy. His words stopped, though the analysis was still continuing in his mind. Concern could be falsified just as with any other emotion. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What were you running from?" he asked as an official commencement to the interrogation.
"Me?" Danny squeaked, surprised to have gotten any response from the guy. He pointed at himself for a moment, making sure he understood what Stork was saying, before he motioned a thumb back over his shoulder. "I was," he started, then paused at a realization, his eyes momentarily going wide, "waaaaaaaas running from a ghost! Yep, me, running from a ghost. That’s what I was running from."
No matter how many times Danny reiterated the truth - he really had been running from one very nasty ghost lady - not once did his words sound sincere. Danny couldn't for the life of him make words like that sound sincere - the fact was just too sad in his mind! Ghost Hunter, Danny Phantom, had just been running away from a ghost? Yeah, that would send every enemy he'd ever defeated into a conniption fit! And Tucker and Sam... Danny quickly made a mental note to erase any ghost related events of this evening from thought. He knew his enemies would laugh if they heard, and it would only be worse if his friends ended up laughing as well! Then again, they'd probably laugh anyway whenever he got home and told them about this place. Odds are they wouldn't believe a word of it.
Hey, wait a minute...? "What were you running from?" he shot right back.
That lengthy answer had been simply dripping with falsehood. Stork recalled similarly toned answers from both Finn and Junko when asked who had eaten the last of Piper's delicious sand cakes. Responses like that were only given when one had something to hide. Yes, the boy was being crafty, that much was certain, but was he hiding some deadly secret, or just a stolen sand cake behind his back? Monster, or insecure teen? Stork knew if he'd had the Condor, either option would have posed no threat.
"Cannibals," Stork gave a short and tactfully morbid response to see just what kind of reaction he would receive.
Danny blinked, raised an index finger, and opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came. He tried again to comment, but he again could not manage the words. At length, he eventually settled with a simple, "... wow..." and blinked once more.
The expression Stork returned at Danny's response was one or patient irritation, the same kind a middle school bus driver had. "Insecure teen," he grumbled audibly.
"Excuse me?" Danny was almost certain he'd heard Stork say something, but hadn't been paying enough attention to know what it had been.
Stork supposed it was better than a monster in disguise, but the truth was just as equally worst-case-scenario worthy. Up until this point, he had been thankful to have never once been stuck alongside Finn and Finn only for any kind of mission. Unfortunately, fate fancied itself the joking sort and sent a remarkably similar replacement for what, he was convinced, would have been Finn were he also present.
Danny was once again left pondering whether Stork was actually hearing anything he said. He mentally shrugged off the other’s strange behavior as being natural for him and held his hand out. "Um, look, sorry I crashed into you before," Danny finally had the mind to apologize, "My name's Danny, by the way."
That was a typical human name. Stork couldn’t help but note the similarity of the double "n"s between Danny and Finn, but he supposed his own "real name" here was no different. He had to wonder if this Danny had just given his true name or the one this place had branded him with. "My name is... Stork," he returned shakily. He accepted Danny's hand with his own trembling one and was pulled to his feet, slouching the moment he was up.
"Stork. That’s an... odd name," Danny commented with an impressive lack of tact.
"Not for a Merb." Alas, such ignorance.
Danny frowned, blinked, then nodded with a smile. "Merb. Riiiiiiiight, gotcha." Naturally, Danny had no clue as to what a Merb was or was supposed to be. He wondered if it was maybe some fancy kind of ghost. Stork didn't look see through though. Actually, and Danny would never repeat this to anyone for fear of his life, he looked and felt kind of along the same lines as Sam. Sam wasn't anywhere near as jumpy, but that type of emo-gothic whatever it was supposed to be called was hard to miss.
Before he could stop himself, Stork had rolled his eyes and shaken his head. Danny clearly had no clue what the Merb species was. At least he hadn't asked for a description.
"So, do you have any plans for tonight?" Danny questioned, realizing that he’d landed himself in an awkward situation. Companionship in these hallways was probably a good thing, and Stork seemed to be alone himself. Danny thought they might be able to work something out, maybe.
Wander off and get horribly lost once more in this labyrinth of hallways? Sit cowering in fear and wait for doom to descend in all its dark majesty? Oh, the wide assortment of options open to them! Stork raised an index finger. "I vote we..."
An eerie wail came sailing along with wind, striking both sets of their ears and sending chills into their bodies. Stork’s intended suggestion had stopped dead as they both looked down the hallway the sound had resonated from.
"I’m coooooming for youuuuuuuu~" the voice struck up again, louder, closer...
Danny and Stork's faces snapped back to looking at each other.
"I vote we run screaming like little girls," Stork finished quickly, eyes darting to Danny.
Danny motioned a hand down the hallway. "After you!"
The two took off running together. Both would have been happy never to have to deal with another ghost so long as they lived.
"Fun for Ed! That's what they said! Scare bad patients into bed!" Ed slowly approached the spot the two boys had been previously, grinning from ear to ear. She twirled around playfully, the grace of her dancing still severely lacking, and flapped her blanket-turned-cloak like a bat. After this strange ritual, she crouched down right in the center of the hall and started sniffing the floor. She needed to get a good whiff in order to track the bad patients' scents! "Ooooooooo, I'm going to find youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu~" she again took up calling her imitation ghost wails as she continued on down the hallway. Ed liked this Special Counseling stuff!
Author: Kiarae/Rhode
Beta: Wait, what, we could beta this?! I thought we weren't allowed to talk about it! *cries*
Word Count: 3,504
Rating: So, completely G...though a bit on the morbid side...
Characters: Stork (Storm Hawks), Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV (Cowboy Bebop), Danny Fenton/Phantom (Danny Phantom)
Pairing(s): DON'T THINK SO!!
Summary: Basically Stork has ended up wandering Landel’s hallways by his lonesome. This is a an intentionally cute, if slightly morbid telling of his encounter with another teenage patient as well as one very special SCer... ON ALL HALLOWS EVE! No plot really, save for that~
Notes: I'm putting a Damned Disclaimer here! I don't play any of these characters, just adore them to pieces! To Katrina
hack_ed, Lisa notaghostreally, and Sakki paranoiatic... um... sorry? ^_^;; Maybe this’ll make you laugh, cuz I sure had fun with it!Slowly, carefully, without a single sound to draw the attention of the monsters, animals, or undea-... oh, why was he even doing this?!
"Moving utterly alone through the hallways of this institution," he was whispering carefully to himself as he snuck along the hallways, analyzing as only he could, "the survival rate is higher for knocking on the Cyclonian's door and asking if Master Cyclonis would fancy a tea party. No, not a wise option at all..." The analysis was not proving to be a very open-minded one at all.
That little comparison was not an option, but if it had been set against his option of wandering the hallways alone, Stork would have taken the less doom-worthy of the options. Master Cyclonis may have liked tea parties after all. She was, in all manners of the word, female. But, he determined, doom was everywhere. It lurked behind every corner, in every shadow, even... with every breath. Any option would have presented doom in its own, calculating way.
His only comfort? It most certainly was not the cracked flashlight slowly dying of a near dead battery. Oh no. That wasn't comfort; that was sad, bittersweet reality. Thoughts of the Condor were his one and only outlet for comfort. Ah, the Condor. His safe haven. Thinking of it reminded him of just why he loathed stepping foot out of his beloved airship - the Condor had defenses! Ample defenses, and food he could stomach, and his team. How he missed his beloved sanctuary!
This was why comforting thoughts were only fleeting fantasies for him. Thoughts such as these only taunted. They laughed while dangling thin strips of hope over their victims like cat toys, playing for only one purpose - distraction. When hope had distracted to the point of... Stork shivered... optimism... the lurking doom would move in, lured by those hopeful thoughts. Closer it would stalk, and closer still, looming, suffocating...
With his free hand, Stork gripped his neck and rubbed it before swallowing hard. His breathing was already hard pressed, and he was twitching violently all over. His eye felt the worst of the tremors, leader only compared with the frequent jerks of his head at the slightest sounds. "I’m doomed, aren't I?" he asked no one in particular. So close had he come with death on countless occasions that the question was mostly a reflex by now. It didn't matter that no one else could hear him. Stork had always known that he would be the last to meet his end. That's how it happened. The one who could sense the doom approaching always ended up dying last. It explained why he was alone now - every last member of his earlier group had met some less than desirable end. Or so he thought. He hadn’t actually seen their ends, just heard their screams as the floor swallowed them or some giant beast carted them off into the darkness. He had no hope for ever seeing a one of them again. "I may as well just reserve myself to death right here and now. There's no point in trying to fight it, really. I knew my time would come while being stuck here. These circumstances make death an inevitability!" he was nearly laughing in his overly-dramatic hysteria.
A toothy-white grin appeared from behind Stork as he muttered to himself. The owner of this grin held an expertise when it came to sneak attacks though she usually preferred sneaking through the computers opposed to real life situations. Both were much fun-fun in her mind regardless, especially tonight with prey that was speaking to itself!
Stork had not heard any footsteps at all, but his over-acute paranoia was able to feel some horrible, terrible, impending doom drawing near. He froze over, straining his human ears for any hints of sound. As doom was always trailing him, he had known of its presence long before having stopped, but when it drew in enough so as to brush his senses, he knew it wanted something. It was there, waiting to fall upon him, rip off one of his limbs, take that limb back to its family grouping - death, destruction, and ruin - to feast upon and then, when finished, come back for seconds... and thirds... and fourths... and dessert... and why was he stuck alone again?!
"BOO!"
"Yaaaaaahhh!!!" The whole of Landel's must have heard the scream that erupted from Stork. If not, then they had at least heard the impressive thud of his head hitting the ceiling, and then him thudding the ground as well. Gleeful giggles started spinning circles around where he fell. Stork was so scared out of his wits that he couldn’t even get a barring on the laughing thing that was circling him, it's prey. All he could manage was a glimpse of some orange and white. "Who...?! What...?! Where...?!" Why ask really? It must be doom playing its usual tricks again.
"Thirty-first, thirty first! Best of times to scare the worst!" Ed chanted as she twirled around her recent victim. Her apparent victory dance wasn't very graceful thanks to an oversized jack-o-lantern mask throwing off the balance of her head. The white sheet she had fastened around her neck as a make-shift cape made up for what grace was lacking, though she may not have had any to begin with. She ended up twirling into a backwards handstand before the downed Stork. "Bad bad stepping out of room. There is safe, elsewhere doooooooooom!" she warned, drawing out that last word eerily just as a ghost would.
Stork's left eye gave its most violent twitch of the night. Just... a little girl... he thought? But that's what they had thought of Lark, and she had turned out to be an evil overlord. At least Lark hadn’t snuck up behind him wearing a pumpkin on her head and greeted him while upside down. He watched the pumpkin sway for a moment before nodding. "Doom. Y-yes, I’m... quite familiar with that," he reassured her as he got to his feet.
Ed's own, shoeless feet were kicking in mid-air. One nearly landed an accidental blow to his face after he rose. She was intentionally putting her feet as close as she could to Stork's face, it seemed. "Trick-or-Treat - smell my feet!" The pumpkin grinned up at him while two sets of toes wriggles in his face.
He backed up to keep from getting his nose broken and then glanced unsurely down at the pumpkin. "That’s... beyond unsanitary..." he shivered at the mere thought of smelling hers or anyone else's feet. The stench of the Storm Hawk's dirty laundry was bad enough, and that was a secondary source.
"Smell smell!" she demanded, bending backwards with flexibility that would turn monkies envious.
Stork took yet another step back determined not to whiff any of the girl's foot order. Honestly, she was barefoot! Considering what he knew ended up on the floors at night - oh, the utter inhumanity of it all - he could think of well over a hundred reason why he wouldn't be smelling feet!
"Ah... no," he stated plainly, somehow hoping that his refusal would be clearer this time.
"Booooo!" This particular exclamation wasn't to scare him, but to express Ed's displeasure at his refusal. She was likely pouting beneath her mask. "Then a trick on you!" She pointed an accusing finger at him. Now she was in a one-handed handstand. Quite impressive considering her severe lack of grace.
The mention of tricks gave Stork even more of a desire to leave. "Um... I'll just... be going now. Heh..." he pointed down the hallway, smiled nervously (his eye twitching once more for good measure), and then started cautiously backing away from her.
Ed backwards somersaulted out of her handstand into a standing position and folded her arms sternly. "No no no! Trick-or-Treat for sweets to eat - a treat for no trick and a trick for no treat! No treat to show, then to bed you must go!" she scolded with what sounded to be one very well thought out, though grammatically incorrect speech. Once her explanation was through, she began advancing on the cowering man. She unfolded her arms and curled her hands as claws. She then bared her teeth, pretending as though they were fangs. "Go to bed now, or... suck your blood, I shall!" she announced with a failed attempt at the traditional Transylvanian accent during those last words.
Ed was not very menacing as every action she took was mere pretend, but her lacking physical appearance was compensated by her words. The very mention of blood sucking had sent Stork's alerts to full. Caution in getting away from her was booted out of the non-existent windows as he took off running as best his human form would allow, leaving a terrified scream in his wake. There was another one for the many hallways of Landel's to echo proudly. He wanted, he needed away from the deranged huma- no, not human. Human's wouldn't have reason to attack their own for blood. There were, however, various rituals and cult practices that involved the consumption of blood, and Stork did know all of those by heart. He was well prepared (intellectually, of course) were any primitives to capture him and offer him up as a sacrifice to their numerous gods.
Cults were not the worst of the ideas swimming through his brain as he ran. The concept of natural blood-suckers reminded terribly of a lengthy list he'd composed for reference that marked various parasites, carnivores, leeches, Vampires
Stork swallowed hard.
Cannibals!
He had never in his wildest... well, perhaps his wildest were a might more extreme than his current situation... but he could claim with ease that he, as a Merb, had never once dreamed of being eaten via cannibalism by a human!! The thought was just insane! This whole place was full of insanity!
Stork fit right in, actually.
He was jarred from his thoughts as well as from his own running as his body collided with another's. He literally bounced from the force and was thrown against a wall, knocking his head hard against it but not going down. Those who ran in panic usually didn't take the time to watch where they were going or to listen for the screams of others coming from adjacent hallways. Both Stork and the other young boy who had been thrown to the floor were guilty of this.
"Owwww," a low groan came from the one on the floor as he pushed himself up from the floor, "real smart, Danny," he scolded. He wasn’t the type to think that others were at fault for accidental collisions unless, you know, they actually were. It was always Dash's fault whenever Danny ended up on the floor because of some "accident"
After shaking the ringing out of his head, he looked up to see just whom he had collided with. He didn't manage to see anyone, or anything actually thanks to the blinding light of a flashlight striking his face. He hissed at it and held up a hand to shade his eyes. "Ow! Hey!"
The beam of light trembled right along with the rest of Stork's shaking body as he kept it glued to the boy. Was it another patient, or a monster that only looked like a patient? There were so many tricks lurking in this institution for Stork to trust anything he saw. He didn’t even have the luxury of worrying over his own throbbing head now that he was no longer alone. At least the Tharaxxian Mind Worms must have taken an equally hard hit right along with him. That was always a plus.
"Hello? I've got my own flashlight, you know?" Danny called, the irritation clear in his tone. Things weren't going his way tonight, and the last thing he needed was another patient making him /lose his eyesight/! He held up his own flashlight for the other to see, hoping that whomever was blinding him would realize the serious lack of a threat. After a moment passed with the light still on him, Danny growled as only an annoyed teenager could and directed the head of his flashlight towards Stork. If that’s how this guy wanted to play, then so be it! "Take that!" Danny flipped on his own beam and returned fire.
Light! Beautiful, blinding white light! This must be it! Stork had always been told of the light at the end of the tunnel, and now he was actually going to experience that sensation of crossing over into the great beyond! Was this the light of heaven?
...
...or that of the accursed pit?
It seemed his paranoia even persisted in death. How it mocked him so!
"Uh, dude?" Danny nudged at Stork's shoulder in an attempt to wake him. He hadn't meant to make the guy pass out like that. Sheesh, it was just a flashlight! "Hello..."
"Ngh!" When Stork awoke the fiery glow had dimmed considerably - death had come and gone in a literal flash and left him still alive, laughing at it's own playful trick. The touch of something shaking his shoulder panicked him out of his death-warmed-over daze. He jumped up, fell over onto his butt, and proceeded to scooch himself far enough away from Danny to where his back pressed and clung tightly to a wall. "A patient... or are you?" Though his jitters were getting the better of him, Stork was managing a quick
Danny had no other option but to simply stare at Stork as he muttered on. Man, this guy was... hm, what was a good word for it? Danny held his chin for a moment, rolling his eyes up a little in thought. Different? Yeah, that worked. Very different. Was he talking to himself? "Arrrrrrre you ok?" Danny attempted to speak to him after a while.
"... and the fact that he, too was running, though that also holds to be commonplace here..." Stork's attention only came away once Danny spoke, his head turning up on the boy. His words stopped, though the analysis was still continuing in his mind. Concern could be falsified just as with any other emotion. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. "What were you running from?" he asked as an official commencement to the interrogation.
"Me?" Danny squeaked, surprised to have gotten any response from the guy. He pointed at himself for a moment, making sure he understood what Stork was saying, before he motioned a thumb back over his shoulder. "I was," he started, then paused at a realization, his eyes momentarily going wide, "waaaaaaaas running from a ghost! Yep, me, running from a ghost. That’s what I was running from."
No matter how many times Danny reiterated the truth - he really had been running from one very nasty ghost lady - not once did his words sound sincere. Danny couldn't for the life of him make words like that sound sincere - the fact was just too sad in his mind! Ghost Hunter, Danny Phantom, had just been running away from a ghost? Yeah, that would send every enemy he'd ever defeated into a conniption fit! And Tucker and Sam... Danny quickly made a mental note to erase any ghost related events of this evening from thought. He knew his enemies would laugh if they heard, and it would only be worse if his friends ended up laughing as well! Then again, they'd probably laugh anyway whenever he got home and told them about this place. Odds are they wouldn't believe a word of it.
Hey, wait a minute...? "What were you running from?" he shot right back.
That lengthy answer had been simply dripping with falsehood. Stork recalled similarly toned answers from both Finn and Junko when asked who had eaten the last of Piper's delicious sand cakes. Responses like that were only given when one had something to hide. Yes, the boy was being crafty, that much was certain, but was he hiding some deadly secret, or just a stolen sand cake behind his back? Monster, or insecure teen? Stork knew if he'd had the Condor, either option would have posed no threat.
"Cannibals," Stork gave a short and tactfully morbid response to see just what kind of reaction he would receive.
Danny blinked, raised an index finger, and opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came. He tried again to comment, but he again could not manage the words. At length, he eventually settled with a simple, "... wow..." and blinked once more.
The expression Stork returned at Danny's response was one or patient irritation, the same kind a middle school bus driver had. "Insecure teen," he grumbled audibly.
"Excuse me?" Danny was almost certain he'd heard Stork say something, but hadn't been paying enough attention to know what it had been.
Stork supposed it was better than a monster in disguise, but the truth was just as equally worst-case-scenario worthy. Up until this point, he had been thankful to have never once been stuck alongside Finn and Finn only for any kind of mission. Unfortunately, fate fancied itself the joking sort and sent a remarkably similar replacement for what, he was convinced, would have been Finn were he also present.
Danny was once again left pondering whether Stork was actually hearing anything he said. He mentally shrugged off the other’s strange behavior as being natural for him and held his hand out. "Um, look, sorry I crashed into you before," Danny finally had the mind to apologize, "My name's Danny, by the way."
That was a typical human name. Stork couldn’t help but note the similarity of the double "n"s between Danny and Finn, but he supposed his own "real name" here was no different. He had to wonder if this Danny had just given his true name or the one this place had branded him with. "My name is... Stork," he returned shakily. He accepted Danny's hand with his own trembling one and was pulled to his feet, slouching the moment he was up.
"Stork. That’s an... odd name," Danny commented with an impressive lack of tact.
"Not for a Merb." Alas, such ignorance.
Danny frowned, blinked, then nodded with a smile. "Merb. Riiiiiiiight, gotcha." Naturally, Danny had no clue as to what a Merb was or was supposed to be. He wondered if it was maybe some fancy kind of ghost. Stork didn't look see through though. Actually, and Danny would never repeat this to anyone for fear of his life, he looked and felt kind of along the same lines as Sam. Sam wasn't anywhere near as jumpy, but that type of emo-gothic whatever it was supposed to be called was hard to miss.
Before he could stop himself, Stork had rolled his eyes and shaken his head. Danny clearly had no clue what the Merb species was. At least he hadn't asked for a description.
"So, do you have any plans for tonight?" Danny questioned, realizing that he’d landed himself in an awkward situation. Companionship in these hallways was probably a good thing, and Stork seemed to be alone himself. Danny thought they might be able to work something out, maybe.
Wander off and get horribly lost once more in this labyrinth of hallways? Sit cowering in fear and wait for doom to descend in all its dark majesty? Oh, the wide assortment of options open to them! Stork raised an index finger. "I vote we..."
An eerie wail came sailing along with wind, striking both sets of their ears and sending chills into their bodies. Stork’s intended suggestion had stopped dead as they both looked down the hallway the sound had resonated from.
"I’m coooooming for youuuuuuuu~" the voice struck up again, louder, closer...
Danny and Stork's faces snapped back to looking at each other.
"I vote we run screaming like little girls," Stork finished quickly, eyes darting to Danny.
Danny motioned a hand down the hallway. "After you!"
The two took off running together. Both would have been happy never to have to deal with another ghost so long as they lived.
"Fun for Ed! That's what they said! Scare bad patients into bed!" Ed slowly approached the spot the two boys had been previously, grinning from ear to ear. She twirled around playfully, the grace of her dancing still severely lacking, and flapped her blanket-turned-cloak like a bat. After this strange ritual, she crouched down right in the center of the hall and started sniffing the floor. She needed to get a good whiff in order to track the bad patients' scents! "Ooooooooo, I'm going to find youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu~" she again took up calling her imitation ghost wails as she continued on down the hallway. Ed liked this Special Counseling stuff!
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UNYIELDINGLY AND WITH THE UTMOST LOYALTY AND FILAL PIETY --
wait
still for srs I AM LAUGHING. and boy does it hurt. My roommate may have lookd at me oddly a few times. ILU ILU ILU.
*goes to giggle in a corner now*
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And I love Stork! <333
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feels like a little kidno subject
Dude, one, I love you simply for putting Danny in. Two, that is some amazing level of awesomeness. Three, I swear I won't draw Stork and Danny running down the hall like little girls
in dresses.That is just....purely amazing. *bookmarks this for-EVER and EVER and EVER*
P.S.; I do call everyone a dude. << >>
P.P.S.; you're so lucky, you get the barely-ever-used GRATUITOUS SPORK ICON~
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dresses would be hystericalno subject
Ohdamn, half-term break.WELL, FINE. BUT GET ME REFS FOR STORK FIRST. OTHERWISE YOU GET NOTHING.
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And uh. I only need ones with a good view of his scared-face and a few with his body. O.o
YOU AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE.
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Glad you liked it! I had fun writing it.