Tequila Sunrise Pancakes

…not as strange as you think

 

The Doclopedia #1,377

When Harry Met…: Silky

The old basset hound looked at the three teenagers and asked “Are you guys ready?”

Harry, Ron & Hermione all answered yes. Silky had been training them hard for a month and they were not the same 15 year olds they had once been. They were soldiers now, trained for one mission and one mission only. Once it was over, they could go back to Hogwarts and be kids again. Or try to be.

Silky, a 12 year old basset hound who had seemed rather sweet when they first met her, had gotten much tougher once training had started. She had worked them long hard hours, then worked them some more. Each of them knew exactly what to do and had the weapons to do it. Where once they had felt fear, now they only felt grim determination.

If everything went well tonight, they would change history.

The four of them were standing on a rooftop about three blocks from what looked like a boarded up fish & chips shop. Inside, thanks to magic, it was a huge hall in which Lord Voldemort would address over 200 Death Eaters. After his speech, they would all leave and start his reign of terror.

Or not. Silky was betting on that.

She raised herself up with her four tentacles and looked at the rooftops around the fish & chips shop. She saw very faint red lights 10 of them, indicating that Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix were ready to do their part.

She lowered herself back onto her feet and picked up her weapons. It had been a lot of decades since she had done anything like this, but old skills never die, even when you do. Nine times so far.

“Sweetie, open us a window”, she said to a black Chevrolet Corvette parked a few feet away. A moment later a 10 foot wide 7 foot tall scene appeared in front of them.

“Bloody hell”, said Ron, “I still can’t believe you have a TARDIS.”

Silky chuckled. “She prefers to be called a bus, kid.”

The scene they were watching showed a long hall filled with mask wearing Death Eaters. At one end of the hall, Voldemort sat on a high throne, a smile on his face. He got up and walked a few paces toward the crowd, which went completely silent as he began to speak.

“Okay, it’s showtime. Weapons ready. Step through on my word. You know the rest. Remember, these motherfuckers are nothing but magical Nazis. Okay, Sweetie, make it a door”

Voldemort had just enough time to notice a slight cold draft had occurred when four teenagers dressed in army fatigues and a dog stepped out of nowhere and shot him in the legs. As he felt the searing pain and began his fall, he tried to cast a curse at them, but his power had left him.

From the floor, he watched as the humans and dog, all of whom held machine guns in their arms and tentacles, began mowing down his followers. How could they have gotten in here? This place was the most heavily protected place in the wizarding world. Not even Albus Dumbledore could hope to get in.

Crawling forward, he tried to grab the girl by the ankle. He got a bullet through his hand for his troubles. Screaming in pain he saw several Death Eaters apparate out, only to suddenly reappear and get shot dead. These people were taking no prisoners.

In just under 4 minutes, all of his followers were dead. He was bleeding badly and would not last much longer. The dog approached him.

“Who are you?” The fear in his voice made it quaver as it had never done before.

The dog looked at him. “I’m somebody who fought the real Hitler, you snakefaced Nazi son of a bitch. These are kids who would have suffered greatly in a world with you in it. Now that won’t happen.”

She turned to the kids. “You three did good. Now is when I tell you that you aren’t going back to your own time. See, when this piece of shit dies, you three will disappear. Time will be reset and you’ll grow up in a world that was Voldemort free. Harry will have his parents and maybe some siblings. You’ll all meet at Hogwarts and by the time you’re 15, your biggest worries will be acne and dealing with the opposite sex. The wizards outside will come in here and clean up this mess. Tomorrow the biggest news in the Daily Prophet will be the quidditch scores.”

They all started to speak, but she held up a tentacle.

“No more questions, no goodbyes. No memories of this, either. It was an honor and a privilege, guys.”

With that said, she shot the Dark Lord Voldemort twice in the head with the magic draining rounds that she had bought on another Earth. The three teens vanished.

Silky looked around at all the dead bodies. This was now a room full of good magical Nazis. She could feel the Rejuvenox she had been injected with wearing off. She was going to be a sore old bitch for a day or two.

The Corvette appeared next to her and she got inside. The living room was full of sofas and she climbed onto a very soft one.

“Sweetie, let’s go home”, she said, just before she fell asleep.

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The Exceptionally Witty, Yet Also Quite Profound, Story of Mostly Purple Patty And The Boy Who Dressed Like A Walrus

…co-starring her new best pall, Russ Wall.

The Doclopedia #1,376

When Harry Met…: Luke

The Dark Lord was as close to being giddy with happiness as he was ever likely to get. His enemies were dying nearly every day and his forces were getting bolder. True, he had lost several Death Eaters, like that simpering fool Lucius and the werewolf and others, but they were a small price to pay for such success. Tonight, the final blow would be struck and then the Wizarding populace of the U.K. would serve him or die. The muggles, of course, would just die. And to think he owed much of this rapid success to two loyal supporters from the United States. Two whose hatred of muggles rivaled his own.

Lorcan and Mistria Cross first came to his notice after Bellatrix witnessed them killing an entire family of muggles with the Killing Curse. Six people dead and they had laughed and joked about it. In a rare moment of lucidity, she had thought to approach them. Did they know of her Lord? Did they know of the Death Eaters? Why, yes they did and they had traveled from America to join up!

And so they did, after being thoroughly questioned and examined the Dark Lord’s most trusted follower, Severus Snape. Oh, the things they admitted to while under the influence of Veritaserum! Butchery of muggles and mudbloods that shocked some of his followers, but made him smile. Yes, these two mad dog killers would be his perfect weapon.

For two months they slaughtered their way across England, Scotland & Wales. They outdid all of the other Death Eaters combined, sometimes wiping every trace of a mudblood out of existence. Indeed, he had to actually rein them in a few times when their zeal began to attract too much attention. But tonight, their full fury would be unleashed on the perfect target: Hogwarts. When hundreds of their children were dead, along with the staff of the school, the Wizarding populace would be so demoralized that his ascent as lord over them would be easy.

But first, the Dark Lord had to take care of the Potters and their son. Voldemort was no fool when it came to prophecies, so it was best to nip this one in the bud. He thought all of this as he walked up the steps to the Potter home, wand ready to blast open the door.

But the door was already ajar. Had that weak coward Pettigrew warned them after all? His blood boiled at the thought and he rushed into the house, wand at the ready.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw the three Potters dead on the floor and himself standing over them.

The other Voldemort laughed and said, “Hello, me. I’ve come from the future to save our life.”

Time travel? It was, of course, possible, but fraught with far too much risk for him to ever consider. But there he was. Or was he.

Voldemore lifted his wand and said, “Prove that you are truly me! Do it now!”

Again, the other Dark Lord laughed. “Oh, yes, yes. I knew this was coming, of course.” He then began relating how each and every horcrux had been made. By the time he was done, the Present Dark Lord had lowered his wand and was staring at him in amazement.

“But time travel is so dangerous. Why risk it?”

Future Dark Lord waved his hand at the Potters and said, “Because Pettigrew warned them and you would have been killed the moment you set foot in this room. Well, of course, not killed, but you would have lost 20 years of hard work and been reborn into a wizarding world that would…or did…prove much harder to conquer. I made time travel research a priority just so I would not spend two decades in limbo.”

The Dark Lord saw the wisdom in that, but realized something, too.

“Won’t this create a paradox?”

The other Dark Lord smiled. “Well, it would if it weren’t total bullshit.”

And then the real Voldemort was hit with hexes from a dozen different wands as all of his formerly dead Death Eaters and some of the living ones appeared in the room. He hit the floor, agonizing under multiple Cruciatis curses. He barely noticed when his wand was taken and several Aurors apparated into the now crowded room. He did notice when the Potters got up off the floor, but only for an instant. Then things went black.

Hours had passed by the time he woke up. He was shackled to a chair by both cold iron chains and very powerful magic. A few feet away from him was a small table containing all of his horcruxes. On the other side of that table stood Lorcan and Mistria Cross, surrounded by Aurors, the Minister of Magic, the Potters and Albus Dumbledore.

Voldemort was equally filled with rage and fear, but rage wone out and he screamed “HOW?” at Lorcan.

Lorcan walked around the table and bent over so his face was inches from the Dark Lord’s.

“Acting, Tom. World class acting. Well, that and some very high tech doodads, but mostly acting. As my sister might say, you were totally scammed.”

Mistria walked up to stand beside her husband. She was actually chuckling at him. She was laughing at him!

“Yes, Tom, we had everything planned out like a high class con job…”

“Or a well written play”, Lorcan interjected.

“…or a play. We knew exactly where that wack job Bellatrix was going to be, so we made it look like we stunned those muggles. Then we gassed her so she would become very suggestible. After that, we just played the parts that you most needed.”

“All the while, we were also conferring with the Ministry and the good Headmaster here.” Lorcan gestured at the others as he spoke. “We used your own overconfidence against you. Well, that and the fact that you wizarding folks are pretty much blind to ultra technology.”

With that, both Lorcan and Mistria reached up and detached their faces from the fronts of their heads. They were machines!

“Robots”, said Voldemort.

“Androids, actually.” Mistria’s eye winked at him as she reattached her face. “You see, Tom, you had spells set up to warn you against muggles, enemy wizards, magical creatures, spells, even your own followers. But you never thought to do up a warning spell for late 22^nd century technology. Getting next to you was easy peasy.”

“As was keeping you gobsmacked long enough for your “dead” followers, whom you no longer felt the need to be warned about, to just walk in the door behind you.” Lorcan’s smug smile drove Voldemort into a fit of rage that took a couple of minutes to subside.

Once again, Lorcan got face to face. “So here’s the plan, Tommy Boy. We are going to put all of your horcruxes into a box and take them to a whole other reality where there is zero magic. In fact, it’s an Earth that has about six months left before the sun goes nova. That’ll take care of them. As for you, you ugly reptilian asshole, we are going to take you to another Earth with no magic. You’ll be a muggle there. Now, there won’t be any humans there, but there will be plenty of dinosaurs. I hope you can run fast.”

The former Dark Lord was about to say something when Mistria slapped a metallic gag over his mouth. He felt the chair begin to float. It followed the group outside. There was a small brightly colored bus waiting. The back of the bus opened, revealing a cargo area too large for the bus to contain. Once he and the chair were inside, the doors shut.

Luke and Misty said goodbye to their friends and headed for the Bus, where Jeeves, the always competent SmartBot had just loaded the Box O’ Horcruxes.

“So,” Luke asked as they walked, “Oscar worthy performances or what?”

Misty took his arm. “Olivier and Streep could not touch us, love.”

Chapter 13: In Which Our Hero Grabs The Treasure From The Hands Of The Evil Duke, Then Flees On Horseback Into The Night

…the Duke was NOT amused.

 

 

Silky Explains It All
All Of Me

Yes, folks, it’s me, Silky Dawn Cross, older sister to Sasha. I’m here instead of her because she is busy with several of her projects and because I wanted to write something anyway.

Many, if not most of you, know that I am a very old dog. I just turned 79 a couple of days ago. But that is chronological age based upon having lived several lives, including 12 years so far in the current one. Additionally, I was not born in your reality.

Yes, that all requires some explanation, so here we go. Here are my lives, one by one, starting with the first. Please forgive the quick and dirty entries, but I’m saving the details for my memoirs.

Zou Zou Born June 20^th, 1939 Died April 19^th, 1951

Zou Zou was my original name. I was born in Orleans, France to a male hunting dog Basset Hound from England named Bodger and a pampered French house Basset Hound female named Giselle. They were owned by a British man and his French wife. I had 3 sisters and 2 brothers. I was the only one kept as a pure pet, the rest were trained for hunting. We all moved to England when I was 6 weeks old.

All of us, parents included, were Smart. To explain, Smart in this case means human intelligent and sapient. The first thing we were taught was to not let humans find out about it. That version of Earth had a bunch of Smart animals and they knew it needed to be kept secret.

I broke the secret at 9 weeks old when Monette came home from her last year at boarding school. She and I hit it right off and on the fourth day home I made it plain to her that I was a very smart puppy. My mom and dad had to come and tell her about The Secret, which took a while since they could not speak and lacked opposable thumbs.

Anyway, I’m going on too long here, so here is the condensed version of how the next almost 12 years went.

Monette ran off to join the French Resistance when I was just 1 year old. She took me with her.

Ten months in we met three humans from America: Ben, Ted and Harvey. They had three dogs with them: King (a German Shepherd), Scout (a small terrier mix) and Roscoe (the most handsome and dashing Basset Hound I had ever seen).

Spent the next three years fighting Nazi scum and French traitors. Fell hard for Roscoe, who fell hard for me.

Got caught by Nazis and taken to the secret lab of a mad scientist. Caused his experiment with freezing and reviving living creatures to go awry. Ended up frozen in green ice for 6 months.

Thawed out. Felt like hammered shit for a couple of days, then okay. Found out the war had ended two months earlier with the nuking of Berlin and Tokyo.

Monette married Ben and Roscoe & I joined them living in Paris.

Went to visit Ben’s parents in California in 1951. A month later, Roscoe and I (ages almost 13 and 12, respectively) got hit by a drunk driver and knocked into the Feather River Canyon not far from Paradise, California. We both died.

But we got better.

 

Amy “Born” April 20^th, 1951 Died: October 3^rd, 1962

I woke up 8 miles downriver from where I must have hit the water. Roscoe was nowhere around and, I was very confused. First, because I knew I should have been dead and second because my sense of smell was not nearly what it should have been. A quick look into some still water showed me that I was a Border Collie pup no more than 6 months old. Now I was very afraid and even more confused. Several hours later, when I got into Chico, California, my confusion red lined when I read a newspaper and quickly realized that I was not even in my world. I’m not ashamed to say that I found a dark little space under an old car and sort of shut down until I fell asleep.

I dreamed that I was talking to Roscoe across a long distance. We figured out that he, now a Bull Terrier, was up in the mountains somewhere. We also figured out that our regeneration must be the result of six months frozen in green Nazi ice. How we got to another world where Russia was still communist and the USA only had 48 states instead of 52 was a mystery we did not crack.

We expressed our love for each other and vowed to meet in Oroville, which was not too far away. Then the dream faded and I woke up and things went sideways fast. Again, I hit only the highlights.

Figured I’d hitch a ride with some nice human. Walked to highway. Got picked up by two ladies in a small car. Car was hot, they fed me a sandwich, I fell asleep and when I woke up we were leaving Sacramento, headed for the Bay Area. Managed to keep from panicking.

Ran off from them as soon as they stopped in San Francisco, Roscoe’s home town. Figured he’d head there once I didn’t show in Oroville, so went looking for a place to settle in for a while. Chose Golden Gate Park.

After many adventures and finding out that Smartness seemed to rub off on many of the animals I met, I had to escape the dog catcher by jumping on a truck. To Texas.

Many adventures across Texas until I got adopted by a wealthy couple who were setting out to sail down to Panama, then to Hawaii. Spent 4 years sailing the Pacific and living a good life. Found that while I never really forgot Roscoe, I thought of him less. Also conferred Smartness to a shitload of other animals before jumping ship when the now fighting all the time couple pulled into Singapore.

Spent 5 years making my way back to France, escaping death more times than you can imagine. Got to Paris on Christmas Day, 1961. Was pretty sick from something I’d picked up in North Africa. Got adopted off the street a week later by a nice older couple.

Vet kept me going okay for nearly a year, but I died in October of 1962. No pain, died in my sleep.

 

Lucky “Born” October 4^th, 1962 Died February 19^th, 1963

First time regenerating as a male. Took some getting used to. Was a Mastiff pup, maybe 5 months old. Made my way to the north coast, hoping I could find a way to sneak my big self onto a boat crossing the Channel. Had meny adventures before getting hit and killed by a goddamn lousy French driver.

 

Honey “Born” February 20^th, 1963 Died May 10^th, 1976

Back to being female and in a Irish Setter body, about 4 months old. Woke up near an airport. Went to mooch food and immediately got adopted by a stunningly beautiful redheaded lady pilot named Gail. Spent the next 13 years with her and loved every minute of it. Travel, parties, Woodstock, celebrities, good deeds, not so good deeds, adventures and met/sparked a huge number of Smart animals. Died of old age in Gail’s arms, at our home in San Diego, but not before telling her The Secret and that I’d visit her at some point.

Daisy “Born” May 11^th, 1976 Died August 18^th, 1986.

Yes, I was a Daisy in one life. It’s a very popular name for bitches. More importantly still, I was a Basset Hound again!

I was 6 months old when I woke up about 20 miles north of San Diego. Decided to go up to the redwoods to think about things. Caught a ride on a train all the way to Eureka. Spent a couple of months there being very contemplative, mostly thinking about all the Smart Animals out there. Finally decided to do something about it.

Spent a year crisscrossing North America talking to groups, sometimes in the hundreds, about what we as Non-Humans should do. Should we organize? Tell certain humans about us? Got many good ideas and comments. Decided to go see Gail. Arrived in San Diego on October 15^th, 1977.

Gail was gobsmacked to see me in my new body, but we quickly sorted things out. Then she introduced me to a friend of hers: Me.

And by “me”, I mean me, Silky Dawn Cross, final iteration of Zou Zou. If your head is spinning, imagine how mine was. Silky gave me a Universal Translator and then filled Gail and I in on a wide variety of things, including the future, who to trust, bleeding edge ultra tech we could have and, in the most bittersweet moment of all my lives, that Roscoe was alive and we would never meet in person.

She also told me that it was time to do some world traveling and form the Non-Human Terran Alliance. Gail volunteered to help me out. I would not find out for many years that she sold almost everything to finance our trip.

Insert here many adventures on all continents except Antarctica. International NHTA formed on September 1, 1978. The future me brought us huge amounts of stuff that allowed the building of Gorilla City, Dog Mountain, Wolf Island and other NHT strongholds. Number of NHT in the world, mostly domesticated dogs & cats, tripled in a few years. Gail and a select few humans were a great help.

On July 4^th, 1986, I was diagnosed with cancer. Future me told me to get my affairs in order, took my universal translator, then departed. Gail took great care of me and on August 18^th, 1986, in Seattle, Washington, I got the injection that ended my life as Daisy.

Jake “Born” August 19^th, 1986 Died August 23^rd, 1998

I LOVED being Jake! He was a Jack Russell Terrier and he had energy and stamina for days. He was good looking and popular with bitches, males and humans.

Woke up nearly 50 miles outside Seattle, on the coast. Decided to just spend a few years traveling. Insert more adventures here than any dog has a right to. Met so many great NHT and humans. Learned how to surf and skateboard. Killed three ex-Nazis in Argentina and two in the USA. Fathered a bunch of puppies. It was a great life.

I died just after my 12^th birthday. Probably a heart attack. Happened up in the Canadian Rockies. Got to see the sunrise.

 

Trixie “Born” August 23^rd, 1998 Died September 28^th, 1998

My very short life as Trixie, the standard poodle, had two distinctions: I woke up farther away from my death place than ever before (Green River, Wyoming) and it was the shortest life of all, just over a month.

Had traveled down into Utah, fell into a hole full of rattlesnakes and that was all she wrote.

Rufus “Born” September 28^th, 1998 Died June 19^th, 2006

Another male, this time a big lab mix who met a nice family that found me, a 5 month old pup, walking across the Salt Flats in Utah. They had 5 little kids (including triplets!) and lived in Fresno, California. It was love at first sight all the way around.

My life with them was just great. I loved those kids (ages 1 to 6 when we met) and they loved me. Of course, I still kept up with NHTA business, as well as maintaining contact with friends, but mostly I was just a family dog.

Died on June 19^th, 2006 at age 9 while protecting the oldest child, Renee, from a drugged up mugger. Tore his throat out, but he shot me and I died a few minutes later in her arms.

Silky “Born” June 20^th, 2006 Not Dead Yet

I regenerated for what I am convinced is the final time on June 20^th, my original birth date, in 2006. Convincing factors were being a Basset Hound again, looking exactly as I did when Zou Zou was 6 months old and the emptiness in my heart that told me Roscoe was finally gone. In fact, he had died a year earlier at age 15, nearly 16.

I woke up in Lodi, California and was literally grabbed up off the street 10 minutes later by a young Hispanic woman who named me “Mamas” and said I would be a good breeder.

Insert here 6.5 years of being used by backyard breeders to produce a litter a year. While these folks were not evil, they were still assholes, although they treated the other bitch, the male and myself well. Still, after almost 7 years as a puppy factory and watching telenovelas all day with the grandmother, I was ready to scream. Fortunately, after a brief illness, my ability to get pregnant was impaired and they unceremoniously dumped me at the SPCA. Later, Sasha would unceremoniously dump them in Patagonia.

After that, most of you know the rest of the story. My life these last 4 years has been the stuff of fantasy and legend. To say it has been my greatest adventure ever is a vast understatement.

I just turned 12 and, in the manner of we canines, know that my life is well past the halfway point. After dying 8 other times, one more death does not bother me. I have very few regrets.

Still, I do know that life can throw some crazy curveballs, so if I have to update this again after Silky dies, I won’t be too surprised.

My Life Among The Dice Rolling Geeks

…and how it grew

The Doclopedia #1,375

When Harry Met…: Sasha

Date: June 13^th, 1943

Place: First floor girls lavatory, Hogwarts

Tom Riddle walked into the girls lavatory about two minutes after he saw Myrtle Warren run in, sobbing like the blubbering mudblood cow she was. He had a confident smile on his face because he knew that very soon, he would have his first horcrux. Finding the proper spell had been time consuming and expensive, but he had done it.

Finding the Chamber of Secrets had been done without expense, but had taken almost as long. Now, as the rightful heir to Salazar Slytherin, he had the basilisk to command and soon it would kill that worthless girl and help him create the first of several horcruxes, each holding part of his soul and granting him immortality.

Walking over to the sink while ignoring the sobbing coming from the nearby stall, he spoke in Parseltongue and watched as the entrance to the Chamber opened. He spoke again and heard his pet approaching. In a few seconds, it came into the room.

Only to suddenly fall over, dead. Tom whirled around, looking for whatever had done the killing. He had just enough time to feel a sharp sting in his neck before he was wracked with pain and fell to the floor dead.

Sasha Jane Cross walked over and sniffed the bodies. The were dead, no doubt about it.

“Concentrated cone shell venom. Get’s ’em every time.”

She then went over and removed the sound dampener from Myrtle’s stall. Now, that the poor girl could hear what was going on, Sasha spoke to her.

“Hey, Myrtle, come on out. We need to talk.”

The door opened and Myrtle had just enough time to say “You have an American accent!” before Sasha sprayed her with Dream Gas.

Now addressing a totally zonked out girl, Sasha said, “Okay, Myrtle, listen up. You are going to go back to your room and forget ever coming in here. You are also going to find new strength of will and confidence. If anyone teases you, you are going to get right up in their face and tell them to bugger off before you kick their ass. Now run along.”

The human left as ordered and Sasha put up a large sign that read “Goodbye, Heir of Slytherin!” It was very colorful and cheery.

Then she put envelope addressed to Albus Dumbledore and the current headmaster on Tom Riddle’s body before removing the dart from his neck and the much larger one from the basilisk’s midsection. Finished with that, she stepped back and said, “Let’s get outta here, Sweetie.”

A moment later a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle materialized next to her and Sasha climbed it. Then it faded away accompanied by the tinkling of wind chimes.

It was less than 15 minutes later that three fourth year girls walked into the lavatory, saw the bodies and left screaming. Over the next several days, a very thorough investigation took place and it was established that Tom Riddle had indeed found the Chamber of Secrets and was going to attempt a horrific spell. He was deemed to have been killed by persons unknown, the entrance to the Chamber was closed and sealed, the lavatory was completely remodeled and by the start of the next term things were back to normal.

The biggest mystery, however, was never solved: where did all those dog pawprints come from?

He Bought A Yam, A Ham, A Clam And Some Spam.

…Damn!

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The Doclopedia #1,374

When Harry Met…: Daisy

As soon as the portkey brought them to the graveyard, Harry was ready with his wand and knocked the rat-faced little traitor back about 30 feet, slamming him into a statue. The helpless Dark Lord was flung a few feet away to where Daisy, who had portkeyed in with Harry was waiting.

“How’s it feel to get your ass handed to you by a kid and a dog?”

The tiny figure hissed at her and she shot him with a phaser on stun. He went out like a light.

Harry was just picking up ratface’s wand when the big snake came lunging at him. It would have gotten him, but a phaser blast on “disintegrate”, made short work of the great reptile/horcrux.

“T-Thanks”, Harry said, his eyes wide with surprise.

Ratface started to move and Harry blasted him with a paralyzing spell. Then he went and helped Daisy drag the limp Dark Lord over next to Ratface. She placed a small device on each of their foreheads, then she and Harry sat down to wait a few minutes.

“I think this has gone pretty well so far. No dead student, your headmaster has probably got the imposter taken care of, these two are no longer a threat and in a few minutes, we’ll have the rest of his followers. Yeah, our plan is going well.”

Harry looked at the dog, who had a phaser in one…err, hand…a device like a tv remote in another, a wand in her third and a piece of beef jerky in her fourth. Okay, they weren’t hands, they were octopus arms with smaller tentacle-like “fingers” on the ends of them. She was a basset hound, although much slimmer and a bit longer in the leg that the typical show basset. Her ears were very long and she had mostly red fur, with a few small blotches of white. He collar was colored with three broad black stripes separated by two very thin white stripes. She had told him that it marked her as a third level black collar practitioner of Drunken Fox Dog Fu. Harry took her word for it.

“It’s your plan, Daisy. I’m just going along with it.” He resisted the urge to pet her on the head, even though he suspected she would like it.

“True,” she said, taking a bite of the jerky, “but I could not have done it without you. I’m sorry you had to go through all that bullshit earlier in your life, but believe me, it would be a day at the fair compared to what was supposed to happen today and over the next few years.”

Harry could only nod in agreement. If what she had told him was true, and he did not doubt that it was, he would gladly take the last 14 years instead of the next 3.

“Well, it’s that time, Harry. The nanites are done getting into those guy’s brains. We can wrap this all up.”

Daisy took the remote and pointed it at ratface. He got up from the ground and then picked up the tiny Dark Lord, who was looking at the her with more hatred than she had ever seen. That sort of warmed her heart.

Harry handed ratface the wand they had taken earlier.

“You know what to do.” Harry’s voice was cold and he would have been lying if he’d said that he didn’t want to kill them both right now. But he wasn’t a killer, so he just stepped back and watched as the traitor bared his forearm and sent up the signal.

“Okay, Harry,” Daisy said as she threw the invisibility cloak over herself. “You know what to do.”

Harry quickly lay face down, his right hand holding his wand beneath his apparently stunned body. He eyes were mostly shut, so he saw the followers of the Dark Lord as they appeared.

There were only seven who answered the call. They wore masks, but removed them at a wave of the Dark Lord’s hand.

“Come forward,” the cowardly rodent said. There was fear in his voice, but then, there always was. “Come look at the Fallen Boy, before we begin the ritual to restore our Lord.”

The seven came forward. Not a one had their wands drawn. Just as Daisy had told him, this was going to be a quick and one sided fight.

The moment they stopped, Harry rolled over and blasted two of them with a petrification spell. The remaining five had just enough time to look surprised before Daisy blasted them from behind with stun spells and phaser fire. The whole battle took about 4 seconds.

Daisy and Harry slapped magic draining manacles on ankles and wrists until the seven were trussed up good and proper. Then they walked over to a spot halfway between ratface and the followers and laid out all the horcruxes that were still functioning.

“Well, Harry, will you look at this. A fistful of horcruxes. Of course, we are missing a diary, a ring and that bigass snake, but we still have a cup, a diadem and a locket. Whatever shall we do with them?”

The Dark Lord was feeling enough terror that he was able to twitch a bit. Daisy adjusted the remote and he froze, although his eyes still reflected his fear.

Harry looked at Daisy and said, “I think we ought to destroy this junk.”

With that, he pulled a phaser out of his pocket, adjusted it to the “disintegrate” setting and he and Daisy destroyed the three items in one quick blast.

Daisy walked up to the small former dark wizard asked him, “How does it feel to be mortal, snakeface? I think I should tell you that there was another horcrux you did not know about.” She pointed to Harry.

She then proceeded to tell him the full story, including how a week ago she had given Harry a powerful drug that stopped his heart and, few minutes later, had revived him from death with another drug.

“I got to have a nice chat with my parents, Tom.” Harry smiled as he said it.

A few seconds later a whole group of people appeared. The headmaster was there, along with the more than a bit mad former Auror and several current Aurors. They gathered up all of the followers, including ratface, and whisked them away to the wizard prison, which Daisy had helped to seriously upgrade a few weeks ago. This left the headmaster, Harry and Daisy alone with the…thing…now known as Tom.

“Sir, what shall we do with him?” Harry doubted that the headmaster would kill it.

“Oh, I have a place for him to live out the rest of his life. Sadly, I predict that will only be a few days. Now if the two of you will excuse me, I think I’ll just take Tom and go. Don’t stay too long Harry. I suspect the celebration will be the stuff of legends.”

With that, he was gone.

“He’s right about Tom’s lifespan. Looks like it’s 82 hours, 17 minutes 22 seconds as of right now.” She put away her phaser and the several wands she had collected. She pressed s button on the remote and it dissolved into a silvery goo that then slid into her small backpach with everything else.

Harry sat on the ground and gave her a long hug.

“Thank you, Daisy”

Daisy licked his cheek as a rather garishly painted school bus materialized behind her. She held up one “hand” with her fingers in a position that Harry recognized from a television program.

“Live long and prosper, Harry.”

And then she got on the bus and was gone.

Goons In The Tool Shed

…we never knew how they got in.

 

The Doclopedia #1,370

Assorted Characters: The King Of Dice

The true name of the King of Dice, along with his whereabouts after the Great Dungeon Delve, may never be known. Rumor has it that he was the actual author of 2^nd Edition Monsters & Mayhem. The story goes that he submitted a manuscript of over 350,000 words to the First Game Master, all in hopes that some small portion of it might be used to expand 1^st Edition M&M. Sadly, he only had the one copy and it “got lost in the mail” according to the Office Manager at Monstrous Mayhem Games. At the age of 16, the King of Dice was crushed by this news. At the age of 19, he was outraged to read a copy of 2^nd Edition and see much of his manuscript in it, credited to the former Office Manager, now Lead Designer for the company. The King knew he could not fight them in court, so he began plotting a different revenge.

Jump ahead 10 years and it’s the 25^th anniversary of M.M. Games and the First Game Master is at MonsterCon to GM a delve into his famous “Dungeon of the Hell Dragon”. Three teams of 6 characters enter the massive dungeon from three points, all trying to get to the third level and kill the Hell Dragon. The GM is trying to stop them.

The whole event is televised to 27 countries and a $100,000.00 prize goes to any survivors when either the 6 hour clock runs out or the Hell Dragon is dead. The GM’s notes are checked by a private team of experts and no changes are allowed. The same goes for the 18 players and their characters. All official rules for the game are in effect.

The live audience at the con is packed with gaming luminaries, including the newly appointed CEO of the company, the former Lead Designer. He is accompanied by several potential investors, all of whom he hopes will invest money after they see the new 4^th Edition rules. This will hopefully get the company back on stable ground after the disaster that was 3^rd edition rules.

The game begins and the King of Dice quickly reveals how he got his name. Years spent developing the right hand and arm moves to allows him to roll whatever he needs 80% of the time pay off as his team first kills one of the other teams and then hauls ass through the dungeon grabbing loot.

In the arena, many bets are made on the King beating the First GM.

Finally, the King’s elven archer, a human druid, a half troll barbarian and an elven mage are in the last room, facing the Hell Dragon. The players are sweating, the GM is sweating and every one of the 10,000 spectators has fallen silent. Initiative is rolled and the King gets to go first, but the Hell Dragon goes second. If the Kings arrow doesn’t pull off some sort of miracle strike, the party is almost certainly doomed.

The bowman lets fly an arrow previously soaked in an elixir the druid had mixed up and the mage had cast True Flight upon. The King rolls his dice…

…and scores a direct hit to the dragon’s mouth!

The damage is rolled. 9 points, not even a scratch. The GM is about to roll versus poison when the King asks for a rules check.

“That was an elixir of wattleberries. I had them in my pack and they were approved before we entered the dungeon. Could the judges please read from page 67 of the “MAYHEM!” magazine from June of 1980?”

After a short search, the judge read “wattleberries are tasty indeed, but it is also known that when made into an elixir by a druid of 7^th level or higher, said elixir will paralyze any dragon, regardless of size, for 7 turns if introduced into their bloodstream.”

Everyone in the place knew two things at that moment: (1) that bit of throwaway text, written by the First GM himself, was an official rule, and (2) the King was about to win.

Short work was made of the dragon, the King’s team was victorious, the crowd went nuts and the newly minted CEO was out 50,000 large due to a bet.

Hoping to get past that debacle, the CEO took the investors up to his suite to show them the new rules and the business plan for the next 5 years. Sadly, when he got there he found all of his paperwork, mock ups and his laptop gone. In a panic, he called the home office only to find out that the couriers he had called them about 4 hours ago had come and gotten everything in his office two hours ago. Except he had never called them about couriers at all.

The King of Dice spent the rest of the convention drinking and eating on other gamer’s nickel. When the con closed, he drove off with the youngest daughter of the First GM, a young lady who had often listened to the Line Manager/vice President/CEO discuss his plans for the future. Neither of them was ever seen again. At least, not with those faces.

A day later, a group of professional thieves gladly accepted a sum of money for all of the CEO’s stuff. The middleman who paid them later sold the stuff to an up and coming game company. That company later produced a game that everyone agreed was the New Hotness.

The CEO lost his job in a rather swift board meeting. The company took 4 years to even partially recover.

The First GM spent the rest of his days writing his memoirs and being a guest at up to 15 conventions a year. It took him 10 years before he would speak about “That Day” as he called it.

The Hella Late, But Actually…Well, Hella Late…Story Of Mostly Purple Patty And The Lazyass Blogger

co-starring her pet dormouse, Marvin

The Law of Unexpected Consequences Made Manifest

 

So, this happened in 2012, on our way back from CatCon 4…

 

“Fifteen minutes later, Joe flipped switches and turned dials and we popped up in the middle of London, circa 1972. We had not been moving, so when we popped out of nowhere, it was a real crowd stopper. Joe said we had to wait 5 minutes before we could hop again, so I gave in to a mad urge. After running to one of the closets, I hurriedly threw on a rather gaudy outfit, complete with a top hat and cane. Then I left the bus, where a couple of hundred people stood looking at it in slackjawed wonder and traffic was backing up badly.

 

I walked up to a largish group and said “Hello, I’m the Doctor. Can any of you tell me how to get to California in 2011?” Jaws REALLY dropped then, plus three people fainted and one guy dropped his bag of groceries.

 

I then got on the bus and, while the Doctor Who theme played through the external speakers, we hopped. Joe informs me that we most likely created the trigger event for spinning off an alternate reality. Cool!”

 

As is the way of our family, we all had a good laugh and promptly forgot about it for just shy of 6 years. Then, for reasons unknown, Daisy brought it up during dinner. This pretty much piqued everyone’s curiosity, so we opened a temporal window to 3 seconds after we left.

Naturally, since history cannot be changed, the event never happened in our reality.

But in the new reality that we spun off, the shit hit the fan in damned near every way possible.

Right off the bat, there was a panicked stampede. Most folks ran like hell away from where we had been, but more than a few ran toward the spot. Some of them were cops. Two were television cameramen along with the reporter that had been doing some man in the street interview. They had caught our whole appearance in the background and immediately started interviewing people live on the air. Just like they had recorded us.

Live.

And seen by about two million Brits.

Live.

Including Her Majesty, The Queen and several people connected.

As my wife of 21.5 years said, “Holy shit, that can’t be good.”

We fast forwarded a week and found England in both a panic (everyone in government, many normal folks) and near throes of ecstasy (Whovians, geeks in general). Reports of Tardis sightings were in the thousands, along with Dalek sightings, Cybermen sightings, etc, etc. Every even slightly eccentric mode of dress would get your ass hauled in for questioning by everyone from Scotland Yard to MI6 to the NHS. Outside of England proper, things were a bit less panicky, but governments were still keeping an eye on things.

Meanwhile, Whovians from all over were pissed off that the series had been stopped so everyone the cast, crew, producers, BBC officials and the guy with the fish & chip shop ’round the corner could be grilled six ways from Sunday by government officials.

We popped forward another week and found out that somebody in Arizona had managed to get a pic of us popping in when we visited the Grand Canyon. That person got 36 very clear photos of the bus, the dogs, me taking a leak over the edge of the canyon and Avis Crane taking pix of a cactus.

If you guessed that those photos fired the giant shit cannon, you are 100% right.

WE STOP NOW FOR A SHORT EXPLANATION OF TRANS TEMPORAL CONNECTIVITY

You might think that two different appearances in 1972 should have spun off two different new realities, you are perfectly right to think that. You’d also be wrong.

See, for reasons that tend to put me into an eye glazed trance, like events often sort of seek each other out. Thus, these two sightings sort of hooked up into a cohesive unit in the same timeline.

Just like 9 more sightings, mostly in the USA, but also in India, Scotland, Portugal and Tokyo did. One big happy family of Doctor and/or Tardis sightings that created a Shitnado all over the world.

BACK TO OUR STORY

Then somebody noticed that, in the 3 instances that my voice was recorded, I spoke with an American accent. That pointed all eyes at the good old USA, who, let’s face it, would be the country most likely to get up to strange shit like that.

But wait, it gets even better!

People started finding photos and paintings and such of me and the bus from all over history, in like, 90 countries. Hell, they got 57 photos of me, Grace, Spike and his wife Mary, just from Woodstock alone.

Note: They didn’t question any of our duplicates on that Earth because the oldest of us, me, was only 18 and did not look anything like I do now.

By the time a year had passed, the world was pretty much freaking the fuck out, so we all figured we needed to go change their history, which is entirely possible, because it was not ours anymore.

With the Fabulous Four in human bodies, we popped the bus back to just about a minute before we first appeared. This time, however, the bus looked like a common delivery van and appeared in an alley where there were no witnesses. We all left the bus, took up strategic positions and waited.

A few seconds later, the bus appeared, everything happened as it had, but as soon as the bus was gone, there was a big puff of smoke and there we all were, me dressed as before and Grace & the dogs holding mirrors and flashing lights.

“Thank you, ladies & gents! That bit of magical trickery was courtesy of the Dr. Mysterio, Illusionist Extraordinaire! I hope you enjoyed it and I hope the Beeb doesn’t sue me!”

There was laughter and the reporter saying a series of rude words and us making our getaway and then us making a real getaway.

Needless to say, my loving wife, had more than a few words for me about how much shit I had stirred up.

That is, until Daisy pointed out to her that she had probably spun off a reality that time  in 2015 when she whipped out a wand and Stupified 5 bank robbers in New York City. At noon. On a Wednesday. Right near at least 4 security cameras.