The PPC Roleplay Board - Latest posts

"Bwhaa?" was all the Fisherman could manage to say as the small kitten leapt at him and attached itself to his leg. His voice was tinny and distorted as it came through his fishbowl-helmet. "I'm not a fish!"

"I think your face disagrees," Evie snarked.

As the Fisherman flailed his leg wildly in an attempt to shake the kitten off, some water sloshed out of his helmet, dousing Lee.

Ian was starting to get tired of just aimlessly wandering around the halls of HQ. He'd seen a lot of strange things as he did so-- not an uncommon occurrence when one worked at the PPC --and so far, hadn't come across anything that explained his and Lee's transformations.

Ian, hang on a sec, Lee said suddenly, her nose twitching as she scented something. I smell... fish.

"Fish."

Yes, fish, Lee replied. Take a left here.

"Lee, I'm not going to go somewhere just to get you a snack," Ian said,frowning.

Ian, I'm hungry, Lee whined, and I won't stop bugging you until I get something to eat.

"Are you sure that it was only your size that changed? 'Cause you sound like a three year old whining for candy."

Fish... was Lee's eloquent reply. Ian sighed and headed down the hall Lee had pointed out, all the while pointedly not thinking about fish. They ended up near the Cafeteria-- the scorch marks on the wall were a dead giveaway --Lee leaping down to the ground as she tried to figure out where the enticing fish smell was coming from. She figured it out just as the Fisherman and Evie emerged from the Cafeteria.

"No, Lee, don't--!" Ian tried to say, but before he could stop Lee, she jumped at the Fisherman with a gleeful cry of FISH! and latched onto his leg, trying to get at the tasty fish.

Laburnum peered up at Moses, who fluttered and giggled. She blinked owlishly at him, then beamed.

"You're a bird!"

"YAAAY!" they both yelled, throwing their respective hands or paws up in unison.

Skyfire pushed open the door of the response centre. Foxglove was conspicuously absent. "Foxglove?"

"I'm not coming out!" came a yell from the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Moses had unfortunately noticed Naomi and Drake. With a loud cry of "YAAAY! Hugs!" he swooped down on them like a hawk. Stormsong grabbed the little otter as he dived, ending up holding the struggling pup upside-down.

Naomi eeps and tries to climb up Stormsong a bit more. then paused.
"Oh.. sorry about that LAburnum. You scared me. Say... you remind me of someone.." she paused frowning. A yip form the ground interrupted her and she turned her head then screamed again.
"TWILIGHT VAMPIRES INCOMING!!!"
as yelled as she spotted Caleb. Something was definitely strange.

Drake moved to intercept the vampire, then paused and sniffed him. then he tried to leap in the ferrets arms.
"BAD DRAKE . Don't let the CAF overwhelm you. I swear, if i were bigger I would Backpack you."

... and a curly-haired blur popped out. "HIIIIII! Hi, guys, it's so awesome to see you all and it's such a great morning if it is morning 'cos I can't see the sun and that's sad because the sun's so awesome but everything's great anyway and-" Laburnum paused to take a breath. "-I just got up this morning and I'm sooooo happy! Are you happy?" She tilted her head. "Wow! You're pink!"

Skyfire backed off. "Okay, now I know something weird's going on ..."

The Fisherman only realised that something was wrong when he woke up lying on the floor of his TARDIS. He went to speak, but found that his vocal cords didn’t want to work, or at least not in the way he expected.

“Whhhaat,” he managed to say in a gurgling voice after a few seconds. “Don’t tell me we crashed again.” As his head cleared and he stood up, he realised that something was very wrong. His skin felt very dry, as if he’d been walking in the desert for days, and Evie was nowhere to be seen. He activated the monitor, which showed that the TARDIS was parked in the Cafeteria at HQ.

“Hello?” a synthesized voice said. “Fish-face!”

The Fisherman looked down to see a round white ball with two handles and a pink eye looking up at him from the floor. He instantly recognised it as a Personality Core from the Portal continuum. Had Evie been… regressed somehow?

“What happened to you?” he asked. “How did you become a core?”

“You think my problems are bad,” Evie replied. “You’re a fish.”

“What.”

“Seriously. Take a look at yourself.”

The Fisherman flicked a switch on the monitor and gaped at what he saw. While he was still humanoid, his head was now distinctly fishy, with large eyes, blue scales, gills and a thin mouth and chin. He looked down at his hands. Still human-ish, but now scaly and webbed.

“What in the Worlds has happened to us?” he shouted.

“Maybe we should go outside, see if we can find any information?” Evie offered.

“Yeah, good point. Hang on though.” The Fisherman rushed off deeper into the TARDIS.

“That’s OK. Just leave me here!” Evie said once he was out of sight. “I’m fine with sitting on the floor. It’s sooo much fun.”

“That’s better,” the Fisherman declared when he returned a few minutes later. He had some sort of glass helmet on; it was open at the top and filled with water.

“Very fetching,” Evie said. “A fishbowl for fish-face.”

“Come on,” her partner replied, picking her up and heading out of the TARDIS.

Heartrending wails echoed through the halls, setting Kestrel's already short temper dangerously close to the edge. The ferret glared down at her chest, the offending breasts on which were still there and giving no sign of disappearing anytime soon. "Can't yew shurrim up, Caleb? 'Tis gettin' on me bloody nerves." Artie clung to her back, muttering miserably in Parseltongue.

Caleb glared at her murderously, seeming to sparkly even brighter as he did so. "Kestrel, Jack now has claws that are longer than most rulers. You shut him up."

The Hunter-turned-Witch in question simply blubbered unintelligibly as she trailed behind Caleb.

"I know, Jack," Caleb muttered. "I think Artie got the sweeter deal. Parseltongue's better than sparkling. Or boobs where there shouldn't be."

At that moment, Kestrel spotted the figures up ahead. "Oi, is that Agent Stormsong an' Skyfire an' their kids? An'... an' a fox an' a liddle person. Who is that?"

Suicide shrugged a little, unsure of how to respond. He knew only that it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time: it was a sign of partial trust, at any rate, and a good thing to do for someone who was going to be spending the day with psychotic patients and their possible hair-pulling tendencies. (He was speaking from personal experience. When he'd first awakened, inexplicably alive and incapable of understanding what anyone was saying, he'd grabbed his 'captors' by anything he could get his hands on.) That wasn't something that warranted thanks in his opinion; it was a given, a part of being in war with another living being.

"You're welcome," he said after a moment. His mental list of modern behaviors reminded him that it was the appropriate thing to do, but Jenni could likely tell that that response--unlike the shrug, and the silence before--was rote. He felt like he'd said and done everything that really meant anything on that score already, and adding more words to it would make the whole thing moot. He'd said his best piece by already doing it.

"I told you last night," Suicide added, straightening up a little. "Quid pro quo, right?" He took the opportunity of Jenni being so close to steal another kiss, but the clock was relentlessly advancing and even his underdeveloped sense of duty was beginning to prod at him. Reluctantly, he stood up and checked his sheathed knife. "So much for getting dressed in a timely manner, I suppose. I hope you know that you're incredibly distracting."

"I didn't start out as an elf, but I'm always up for trying new things. If you want, you two can help me out." Kirill winked at the pair of them. "Incidentally, I'm going to need some scissors-" he stopped short at Emm's expression. "I need them to cut my hair before I change back. Elf hair tastes great in applesauce."

Kirill turned back down the corridor in the direction he was fairly sure his cubicle lay. "I'm not sure about the fishing wire, but unless this transformation has extended to appliances, I'll be able to make our perpetrator squeal like a pig." He threw a glance over his shoulder. "You coming?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you weren't always an elf."

"Oh, brilliant," Kay said sarcastically. "Next you'll be making the extraordinary leap of deduction that I wasn't always a skull being carried around by an idiot whose hair is on fire."

"Well, I don't think it's on fire as much as it is fire."

"That wasn't the important part of that sentence."

Kirill glanced down at the skull. "I like her." He turned back to Emm. "Listen, what we need to do is find the person who did this and make them squeal on how to reverse it. Can you manage the finding if I make with the squealing?" Kirill grinned broadly at the thought- the PPC HQ didn't have the kind of infrastructure or help that Rix Maadi did, but DoSAT was an endless source of entertainment. "I'll need a spool of fishing wire, a ballpeen hammer, and a cordless drill."

A high pitched yell soon attracted teh four's attention. It sounded like a very small person was yelling to someone.
"Drake... left left... you silly fox."
A cross sounding yip answered the voice.
"Don't give me that . Now Right!"
A CAF fox came into view, heading for them. On top of the fox, wrapped in a small sheet of blanket was Naomi. She was only 5 inches high, having been shrunk considerably.
"WHOA STOP!!" she screamed as she spotted them, and pulled on the CAF's ears hard from her place on its head.
The fox slammed hard into Stormsong's ankle, sending naomi into Stormsong's ankle. She slowly slid down onto the floor.
"Sorry about that Stormsong. Drake's brakes need adjusting. Also, could someone pick me up please!" she yelled out, not wanting to get stepped on.
"Anyone know what the ERU is going on? I have an idea, but I doubt that's it."
she admitted, thinking back to the incident earlier. After all those flowers had gotten shredded then burned in that 'furnace'.
she looked at Sky then had to stifle a laugh.
"Oh.. I see it happened to you too."

"Not a clue. I was hoping to find someone who did."

"Would someone PICK ME UP ALREADY?!"

Emm retrieved Kay's skull from where it had landed. "Jeez, Kay, no need to lose your head."

"I will hide your keys beneath the cushions of your upholstered furniture, and NEVERMORE will you be able to find socks that match."

"Don't mind my partner. She gets irritable sometimes."

/Dammit,/ Kirill thought, /I meant to get him in the throat. My muscle memory's completely off./ He rolled to his feet, or tried to, but his different proportions and shifted center of mass led to him managing to get his head hooked on the inside of his knee. After several awkward seconds, he was finally able to stagger to his feet with very un-elfy grace.

"Didn't mean to do that," he said to the man he'd crashed into, "I'm not normally this tall. Or flexible." He helped the man to his feet, trying to avoid the flaming hair. "Incidentally, do you know who's responsible for this?"

Kay... well, her skull... ranted furiously as Emm carried her down the corridor.

"The forces of darkness will applaud me as I stride through the Gates of Hell, carrying your head on a pike!"

"'Stride'?" Emm asked.

Kay growled. "Alright then, roll! ROLL through the gates of-"

WHAM. The duo were abruptly crashed into by an angry-looking elven woman. Emm fell to the ground as Kay's skull flew out of his hands and bounced down the corridor. "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow..."

"While normally I'd appreciate having a startlingly attractive elf chick on top of me," Emm said, "your elbow is sticking into my ribs."

Kirill was still examining himself in the mirror when he realized that his clothes had changed as well. He'd been so distracted by the physiological shifts that he'd just noted the faint gleam of urple still coming from his armband, so he hadn't realized that his normal vest-and-pants had been replaced by a disgustingly elfy green and white tunic, cloak, and leggings. He leaned closer, then caught sight of the brooch that held his cloak on and recoiled.

It was the the sun-and-tree signet of the Slesnaya. Kirill gagged as a he fumbled with it, trying to tear it off his body without actually touching it. After a moment's panic, he managed to knock it away, sending the wooden brooch clattering into one of the sinks. It took several washes for his hand to feel clean.

This, Kirill decided, was the last straw. Turning him into an elf was degrading. Turning him into a woman actually offered a number of intriguing possibilities. But turning him into a Slesnaya? A hidebound, syrupy, tree-and-bug-hugging elf-girl? That was the last straw. Whoever did this was going to pay.

Still feeling wretched from the touch of the brooch, Kirill charged out of the bathroom and crashed headlong into the man with the flaming hair who was coming down the corridor.

Caleb was crouched in a ball in the corner of his OC, scowling murderously at nothing in particular. High, wailing sobs grated in his ears, doing little to improve his temper.

The connecting door to RC 273-B opened slowly, and Kestrel crept in with her forelimbs wrapped around her chest. For a moment she stood in front of the doorway, looking simultaneously enraged and humiliated.

"Yew too, then?" she growled.

Despite the lack of natural sunlight, the vampire was sparkling radiantly, and resembled a very irate, human-shaped diamond. "What do you mean, 'too?' you look fine."

With a scowl, Kestrel let her arms drop to her sides, revealing a pair of decidedly humanoid breasts.

"That's just wrong," Caleb remarked. "How about those rookies of yours?"

"Ash's stuck standin' on her--sorry, 'tis his right now-- head. Hope keeps requippin' mallets an' pies an' anvils, fings like that. Artie keeps talkin' in Parseltongue." Kestrel looked past him. "Where's Jack, an' who's that'un cryin' there in the corner?"

Caleb glanced at the pale, half-naked zombie crouched and sobbing on the other side of the room. "Jack got genderflipped."

Kestrel's eyes widened. "Wait, so Jack--"

"Is now a Witch."

Intern Kirill thought sourly as he looked down at his hand. The melted plastic and glass was fused to the bones in his right hand, and the remaining strings of charred flesh were starting to crack under the weight. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and stepped back through the SEP field in Gnat Alley and through the portal into PPC headquarters.

*POP*
Kirill quite suddenly felt different. One second he was a demon-worshipping sadomasochist with a coffee pot fused to the remains of his hand, and the next- he took stock. Still a demon-worshipping sadomasochist, he was sure, but the important part, the coffee pot part, had changed. His hand was suddenly whole again, with much lighter skin and fingers that were, in a word, more delicate than before. Ridiculously delicate. His entire body had a strange light feeling, as if he'd lost a lot of weight or become much strong stronger. The only exception was an odd strain in his lower back, and the strange sensation of his hair touching his ears (unusual in itself) far higher than his ears normally went.

The intern ran to the nearest bathroom and was worried when he found it quite quickly. If the Narrative Laws of Comedy were still in force, then finding the bathroom was inherently funnier than not finding the bathroom. This worried him. He stepped through the door, took a deep breath, and looked in the mirror.

He was an elf. Skin tone had gone from olive to milk-white, hair had turned blonde and added about eleven inches and- oh. He glanced down, realizing that the change was to more than race and species.

For a second, Kirill froze. His species, his mana alignment, his race, even his sex had been suddenly stolen by some catastrophic event, seemingly calculated to tear away at every facet of his physical identity. He was saved from total catatonia only by a single light of comfort: he now had breasts. This was going to require some examination.

"I'll be in my bunk," he said. No one was listening, but it seemed appropriate.

"I am not going out there."

"What, worried that somebody will see you with no clothes on?"

"No," Kay growled. "I'm worried that somebody will see me with no skin on and you know it." She folded her arm bones over her ribcage and did her best to glare at Emm, which was difficult without eyebrows or facial muscles.

"Personally I think it suits you," Emm said cheerfully. He patted the mass of flames his hair had turned into. "More traditional view of a Reaper, you know? Get you a black cloak, carry that scythe of yours and we could scare the hell out of a few people."

"Look. I am not wandering these halls as a walking skeleton, thankyou. I'm staying in here until I've-"

"Put your face on?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

"Tell you what. I've got a solution that should please everybody."

"And what would that be?"

Emm proceeded to yank Kay's skull from her spinal column.

"Hey! HEY! This does NOT please me! Put me back on my body this instant!"

"Well, this way you don't have to wander anything." Whistling, he tucked the skull under his arm as it... well, she... screamed dire imprecations at him, and went off to find whoever could have caused this mess.

I haven't yet asked for Permission, but could my agents play too?

Lee woke up feeling oddly claustrophobic. She fought free of the blankets tangled around her-- of which there seemed to be more of then usual --and tumbled to the ground. She lay there for a moment, trying to figure out why she was so winded. Her perspective didn't seem quite right; everything was about a foot higher than it usually was. Her ears flattened against her head as she looked up to see the console looming over her.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Lee padded over to the full-length mirror that hung between two of the bookcases and stopped dead when she caught sight of herself. She swore sharply, passing through several languages before she got a hold of herself. Right. Something had obviously happened while she and Ian were asleep, and-

Ian. Lee's eyes grew wide. What if whatever had happened had affected her partner as well? Lee turned away from the mirror, her own troubles forgotten in the face of the possible harm inflicted on her partner. The ladder up to Ian's bunk gave her a bit of trouble, but eventually Lee made it up. After a little bit of panting to catch her breath, Lee made her way carefully along the length of Ian's body, using her enhanced senses to search out any possible problems. She didn't find any until she reached his head; more specifically, his hair. One small, spotted paw darted out to touch it, and the changed texture confirmed her suspicions. It was time for Ian to wake up.

---

Ian. Ian, wake up, Glod-damn it. This is important.

Ian grunted softly and tried to roll over. A sharp Stop! and the feel of claws digging into the skin on his chest made him pause in his motions. He felt a slight weight pressing down on his chest, which made him open his eyes. His bleary gaze focused on a pair of bright green eyes.

“'Posa, get off,” he muttered, gently pushing at the cat sitting on his chest. She didn't budge.

I'm not Mariposa, Ian, the cat said, and Ian's sleep-fogged brain finally caught on to a few things that had been subconsciously bothering him. One, that the cat was speaking to him telepathically; Two, that the voice was Lee's; and three, that Lee now seemed to have regressed into the form of a mountain lion cub.

“What the hell happened to you?”

I have no idea, Lee replied, carefully getting off of Ian and sitting next to him on the bed. I woke up like this. I'm not the only one who's changed, either. Take a look at your hair.

Feeling rather apprehensive, Ian followed Lee's advice and looked closely at his dreadlocks in the mirror after getting out of bed. Lee followed after him, taking a more circuitous route to the floor, but getting there safely all the same.

“I have yarn for hair?!” Ian spluttered, running his hands over his altered hair. “I look like I'm wearing a Glodawful wig!”

I'm a kitten, Lee said in her best GlaDOS impression. With an agile leap, Lee hopped up onto a shelf and then onto the nearest of Ian's shoulders. Much better, she said, carefully balancing herself in a sitting position, her claws gently latching into the fabric of his shirt. At least this way I'm not liable to be stepped on.

“Comfortable?” Ian asked dryly.

Yes, Lee replied, purring a bit. Let's go and see if anyone else has been affected, or, at the very least, know what's going on.

“Good plan.”

With that, the two DMS agents left their RC and headed out into the labyrinthine halls of HQ.

((I got a little wordy with my reply. Sorry about that. Also, this is what Lee currently looks like. *grin*))

... the inhabitants of RC #88 were woken by a loud hammering on the door.

"FOXGLOOOOVE!" More loud hammering. "I know you had something to do with this! Get out here right now!"

"Mum, are you sure it was 'er?" asked Molly, who was leaning on Agent Skyfire as if about to fall over. She broke away and tried to take a step, and did indeed fall over. "Ow! I dunno 'ow she coulda done this."

"I don't know, but whenever something odd happens to us, it's usually something to do with those two, and I'm guessing Foxglove because, well ..." Skyfire pointed to her own fur, which had turned a particularly horrible shade of neon pink, spattered with blue spots. "She's the only agent I know who openly likes anything pink - Stormsong, for goodness' sake control him!"

Stormsong yanked on the leash to which Moses was attached. The four-year-old otter bobbed merrily against the ceiling, flapped his newly-acquired wings, and squeaked "I'm a bird!"

Is this one of those "pass the hatchet" games?

Naomi lugged the heavy saddle bags through the corridor. She blinked and looked around at the room. It looked like a large furnace room. She shivered as she felt the air move. She had no clue where this was, although the large fans covering the wall made it clear some kind of air moval system. She turned to move when a fast blur slammed into her. The bag flew from her hands and into the nearest fan. The fan easily chewed up the bags and its contents. She gulped and looked at her attacker.

(if you are asking why Naomi has it, well, it's from an incident that I'm working on with Labunrum.)

"What . . . ?" she started as he sat her down. She kept finding herself playing catch-up with this man. This was the quickest realization so far—once he took the elastic tie from her it was quite plain what he intended—but also the most surprising, even more than being tackled minutes before. That fit with everything she expected from him. This was different.

He was so quiet. She wasn't sure what she thought he should say, but that was only part of it, an intent stillness that she felt from him. Why was he doing this? How did he know how to do this? The only times she could remember anyone braiding her hair for her had been times when she was small, and it was a mother- or sister-figure doing it. This didn't feel like those times. He wasn't patronizing her in the slightest, he was just . . . helping.

And he was good at it. It was a little uneven thanks to the angle created by sitting beside each other, but it was a good weave nonetheless: secure, but not so tight as to pull the scalp and be uncomfortable. This was another example of what she'd observed of his handiwork with a bandage before, such unusual dexterity and gentleness from someone so rough around the edges. Forget sarcasm; she really could pick 'em.

When he'd finished, she turned to face him and took his hands in hers, brushing the knuckles of each with a kiss. "Thank you."

(( Post title should really be "This means something . . . but what?" but then it wouldn't be a quote from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. ))