Galentine's Present for Blueofthebay
The Shark in the Trench coat
Rose Red walked into Beauty's office. It had been a stressful enough morning without getting a call from the deputy mayor of Fabletown telling her that she was needed in the city as fast as her hunk of crap could take her. Beauty hadn't even told her what, specifically, was wrong. So she definitely wasn't expecting to walk into the office and see a group of five strangers sitting in front of the desk and arguing loudly. Beauty herself was attempting to make herself heard over the loud chorus of voices when she noticed Rose, and waved her in. She whistled and the group in front of her piped down as Rose cautiously walked up to the desk.
"You wanted to see me, Beauty?" Rose said, taking a glance around the room at the group. There was a redhead wearing a black belly shirt and a scowl, a dirty-looking black-haired man smoking a cigarette, a guy wearing a cat-eared cowl around his neck, a white-haired woman eyeing Rose appreciatively, and a muscular gentleman with a mask and what looked like a wrestler outfit. None of them looked familiar. Rose had guessed she was being called into town to bring someone up to The Farm, but all of these Fables looked human enough.
"Rose Red, just the person I wanted to see," Beauty cooed, waving Rose towards an open seat. "This is the, er, Secret Six. A friend of theirs is missing in the city. A SHARK friend." Beauty gave Rose a pointed look. "I want you to find him, and I want him living at the farm." At this the yelling erupted again, until the redhead stood up. The congregation looked over to her, and waited for her to speak in a hush. Rose thought this woman must be the leader.
"King Shark is NOT going to a farm of any sort. We are not staying in this world, either. We want King Shark back and we want passage back to our homeland, and if we can't get those two things, sister, we are going to have trouble." The redhead flashed an impressive set of wrist-mounted blades. The buff wrestler-type stood up behind her and flexed his muscles in a sort of agreement. Then he sort of stared at Rose. It was a bit unsettling, especially with the mask.
"Er… Yes, that sounds all fine and dandy, but there is that whole Adversary business back in the Homelands, kids," said Rose. The Secret Six stared at her, obviously unclear on what she meant. "You know, adversary. Bad guy, took over the Homelands, wooden soldier army…. Ringing any bells?" Still just blank stares.
"Listen, doll, the only 'adversary' we got back home is the JLA. And well most of those hero types. And some villains. Hell, we got a lot of adversaries, don't we?" said the man with the cigarette, chuckling a little. "But none of them is a wooden soldier, far as I know, and no one has succeeded in taking over our world as yet so we have no clue what you and this other broad are going on about." He finished his cigarette and snuffed out the butt on Beauty's desk, earning him a murderous look.
"Alright, so obviously your Homeland is untouched… but why?" Beauty rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe if we figured out why we could have an advantage against the Adversary… Okay, I'll tell you what. I will arrange for your shark pal brought here and passage back to your Homeworld if you guys agree to tell us all about your world and let us send someone to study it when we send you back." The strangers looked to their redheaded leader, and she nodded at Beauty. "Great! Okay, so how about Scandal and Ca- Thomas stay here for now so I can interview them, and the rest of you go with Rose to see my husband. I'm sure he's already located your pal." The redhead- Scandal- nodded at her friends, and the smoker, wrestler, and white-haired woman all followed Rose Red out of the room and down the hall to Beast's office.
"So we never introduced ourselves," said the white-haired woman, sidling up to Rose. "I'm Jeannette. The big guy is Bane, and the other one is Deadshot- Floyd Lawton, if you prefer. You are Rose Red, right? As I understand it, you are the Rose Red from the Grimm Brothers fairy tale. How interesting." Behind them, Lawton snorted. Rose Red turned to glare at him, and asked him what was so funny.
"In our world, there are characters callin' themselves after fairy tale characters, but they're all nutjobs. It's kind of ridiculous to think there's a world where all those goofy fairy tales are real people tryin to keep a low profile. You guys could rule this place, what with all the magic and crap in fairy tales, but here you are all hiding out in one cruddy apartment building in Manhattan." He smirked and shrugged. "Just doesn't make a lot of sense."
Rose Red was about to answer him when they got to Beast's door. They walked in to find the sheriff of Fabletown conversing with Kay. Kay looked over at the group, frowned, whispered something to Beast, and walked out of the room. Beast sighed and walked over to Rose.
"Rose. Good to see you? How are Snow's pups?" Beast asked, ushering the group in.
"They're good. Healthy and adorable and mischievous. But we can exchange pleasantries later, right now we need to find this Shark Lord guy, and you're supposed to point us in his direction." Rose leaned against Beast's desk and crossed her arms. "So spill, where do we find our fishy friend?"
Beast sighed. "Well, weirdly enough, reports have come in from some of our Coney Island families, talking about seeing what looked like a giant shark in a trench coat, hat, and dark glasses coming out of the subway. So, Coney's your best bet. Good luck, guys. If you need anything call me." He escorted them to the door and then pulled Rose aside for a moment. "Rose, listen. Kay saw death on all of those guys, but the worst was your big wrestler pal over there. They've all done dirty deeds, so just… watch out, ok?" He gave her a look.
"I'll be fine. I lived with a giant slayer for around a century, didn't I?" She patted Beast on the check and walked over to meet her new pals. They walked down to her car (it was hard to squeeze Bane into the car, he was so muscley he ended up sort of hunched over in the back) and drove to Coney Island. It didn't take long for them to locate the shark. He was making a mess of the Nathan's on Surf Avenue. Mundies were standing in awe as he Scarfed down hot dog after hot dog. They didn't seem to notice he was a shark, or if they did it didn't shock them. Of course, this was New York, where the locals were known for their ability to brush off the weirdest things. In fact, Rose had seen a Mundy running down Amsterdam in a scuba outfit the other day and no one had done anything.
"Should we stop him?" Rose asked as they looked through the doors to Nathan's. She wasn't very knowledgeable about sharks but it seemed to her interrupting one while he was eating was a bad idea.
"Nah, let the shark eat. In fact, I want a hot dog myself," said Lawton, and he walked inside. As he did so, King Shark ran out the side entrance and down Surf Ave. Rose facepalmed. Bane grabbed Lawton and the four of them headed down Surf Ave after King Shark. As they passed Lunar Park, Bane seemed to tense a bit. Rose moved next to him.
"Hey big guy, you okay?" She asked, attempting to pat his arm as they jogged. He looked toward her, and she imagined his brow furrowing underneath his mask.
"I am fine, I am just remembering a dirty carnival such as this back on our 'Homeworld' with a woman who looked similar to yourself." She could feel him checking her out as they ran past the Cyclone and she had to admit she didn't mind it.
"Your girlfriend, I'm guessing?" She wasn't trying to dig, and she definitely wasn't into meatheads usually, but his calculated way of talking interested her. She guessed he wasn't your usual lunk. And of course she'd seen the Nolan movie (Blue was a DC fan, and he wasn't supposed to be without guard), but the Mundies so often got Fables wrong, and she assumed someone pumping that many steroids couldn't be that articulate. To be fair, she hadn't realized until this morning that comic book characters were Fables, either.
"A… 'date'. Yes. I do not have 'girlfriends', per se. But the resemblance between the two of you is quite striking." He thought for a moment. "You both seem to have similar weight ratios, though I believe her breasts were larger." She gawked at him. Was that his attempt at flirting? She opened her mouth to respond and then bumped into Lawton. He turned around to see her flushed face.
"Bane, man, did you say something weird again?" He smirked. "Sorry, lady. Anyway, we're here. This is where he went." Rose looked up. They were at the New York Aquarium. She looked at Bane, who was now staring at the children and signs as if trying to plan an attack.
"Okay, cool, always loved this place," Rose sighed. She turned to address her motley crew. "Okay, so I know you guys are some sort of super team or something- I've seen all the DC movies." The others looked at her quizzically. "Okay, so you guys are totally unaware of how the Fable thing works. That's cool, I will totally explain later. Anyway, in this world, we blend. Or, try to. So, um… Mask off, Bane. We don't need the Mundy cops called." Bane complied and she was glad to see he had a very nice face indeed (although she noted he was no Tom Hardy, which was too bad). "I'm assuming you guys don't have money on you, so I will pay for us all to get in. We will find Duke Shark-"
"King Shark," interjected Jeannette.
"-KING Shark- and we will bring him back to The Woodlands. And maybe we'll grab some Nathan's on the way out of Brooklyn because I am starving. What we will not do is hurt anybody or use any superpowers or venom or whatever. Got it?" Bane looked at her with awe. He was probably wondering how she knew about the venom. "Okay, cool, let's go." She grabbed Jeannette, linked arms, and the four Fables walked into the Aquarium.
CHAPTER BREAK GOES HERE
"So let me get this straight, in this world, we are characters in a book?" asked Jeannette as the group wandered through the Aquarium looking for King Shark. Rose had assumed it wouldn't be difficult to find a shark in a trench coat in the middle of an aquarium, in fact she half expected to find him in an exhibit eating the aquarium's fish. They were currently at the waterfall, and Rose was tempted to drag Bane to sit under it with her just to see his face as the water rushed over the glass above them. The first time she had seen it years ago she had thought it was magic. But then again, her Homeworld wasn't as technologically advanced as his was. He probably saw that kind of thing all the time.
"Yeah, you are. I haven't read it actually, never was a big reader, but I have seen the movies based on them. Er, well not yours and Deadshot's. That one doesn't have a movie. In fact, the only one of you guys with in a movie is Bane." Rose looked at Jeannette apologetically. Jeannette mumbled angrily about how it was an outrage the six didn't have a movie, and Rose nodded sympathetically. "I know that feeling. My sister Snow White is in more movies than I can count, and tv shows and books, and the Mundies have practically forgotten I exist." She looked over to the fish tanks as Jeannette went over to Deadshot, either to complain to flirt, Rose wasn't quite sure. Bane walked over to the touch tank and she followed him with her eyes.
Bane studied the pool for a minute, then suddenly plunged his hand into the water and yanked out a grey bamboo shark. The children around him scattered as he eyed the squirming fish. An employee approached cautiously, telling him to please sir put the shark down, but Bane just scowled at him and continued to glare at it, as if the shark had a secret it was keeping from him. Perhaps he thought the shark, being a shark, knew where King Shark was.
"Shouldn't we be looking for King Shark?" Jeannette asked, eyeing Bane. He scowled at her, and then pet the little shark and placed it back into the touch tank. They continued on through the aquarium, but there was no sign of King Shark.
"Well, if he's not inside, then where is he?" Rose wondered as the team studied the Penguin exhibit, looking fruitlessly for a clue as to King Shark's whereabouts. Then they heard screams coming from the Sea Lion show. "Guess that answers that." They rushed over to the stadium, through a crowd of people running out.
"SHARK!" yelled some of the patrons running past them.
"Well, we definitely know where he is now," said Deadshot, adjusting his wrist gun. Rose shot him a warning glance, hoping that would be enough to stop him from shooting in the middle of a Mundy crowd. They entered the stadium to find some terrified trainers standing to the side, staring in horror at a shark fin circling around the pool, and the blood staining the water. Rose looked at the trainers, verified that none of them looked injured, and looked to her new friends.
"I'm guessing that's King Shark?" she said, jerking her thumb towards the shark fin. Jeannette nodded and Rose walked towards the trainers. "What happened?"
"We… we don't know," said one of the girls. "We were getting ready to do the Sea Lion show when suddenly Flopsy barks this weird bark. We look over and there's blood and a shark fin! How did a shark get into the Sea Lion enclosure?" She was shaking. Rose guessed she must have really liked Flopsy.
"It tried to bite Jenna too," a less-terrified-looking male trainer said, jerking his thumb at the girl Rose had been talking to. "But she's fine. A bit of shock though. She was Flopsy's trainer."
"Wow. Well you guys should get her out of here and to a medic. Shock can be serious!" Rose said sternly. The trainers looked at her suspiciously. "Trust me, my sister went into shock, went untreated, she had night terrors for a year!" The trainers took her at her word and rushed the shaking girl out of the stadium. Rose turned back to the tank just in time to see a man-shark jump out of the water with a seal in his mouth. Jeannette shook her head. King Shark spit the seal out.
"I'm a shark!" he yelled. Then he noticed the four people in front of him. "Oh. Hi guys. I found some stuff. It's yummy." He held out the seal corpse. "Flipper?"
"King, dear, we are going to try to sneak you out of here without the people of this world noticing you are a giant talking man-shark, so if you wouldn't mind putting back on that clever trench coat and hat disguise from earlier?" Jeannette pointed to the trench coat, sunglasses, and hat that were piled messily in the stands. King Shark nodded, and put the disguise back on. He just looked like a giant shark-man in a trench coat, hat, and sunglasses, but apparently that was enough to fool the Mundies so Rose shrugged it off. King Shark Picked up the seal carcass.
"Fast food," he said by way of explanation, and the five of them walked out the exit and mingled into the crowd right before the NYPD and the shark handlers got to the scene. They managed to make it to their car by the Sideshow without anyone noticing the shark man eating seal flippers, and Rose found herself wondering if The Farm was really necessary at all. Of course, a man-shark was one thing, non-humanoid animals, pixies, and various other tiny and non-human creatures were a totally different thing. They drove in relative silence back to The Woodlands, interrupted only by the odd comment from King Shark about the quality of seafood on this world and a few flirtations between Jeannette and Lawton.
There was also the staring. Bane wouldn't stop staring at Rose Red. And it unsettled her. She wasn't sure why. She was used to guys looking at her. Heck, she had counted on it in her wild days, it had even been the reason (in a way) she was first exiled to the farm. But this… this was different. It was like he was boring a hole into her soul, and trying to see bits of her she didn't readily expose. Not her lady bits, no, but her warm heart, her fear she was broken, her guilt about Snow and Charming, how hurt she really was by the Mundane World forgetting her existence. She didn't like being exposed, she didn't like being unsettled, and she was becoming unsure as to whether she liked Bane.
They brought King Shark straight up to Beauty's office, where he was scolded by Scandal. He then discovered Bufkin and it seemed to Rose as if he would be preoccupied with trying to eat poor Bufkin for the rest of his time in the Mundane World. She chuckled at that, knowing the flying monkey could hold his own, and decided it was time to head back up to the Farm. She had duties to return to, and nieces and nephews to play with. She walked out of the office to head to her car, when a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned and it was Bane.
"Miss Rose, may I accompany you back to this 'farm' for today? I am interested in seeing these so-called 'fables' that are unfit for 'mundy' eyes, as Miss Beauty says." He had his hands on both her shoulders now, waiting for a response. Rose thought for a minute. This guy was weird, seriously weird, and she wasn't sure how she felt about him accompanying her to the Farm. But then again, he was kind of cute.
"Okay, sure." She took his hand and the two of them walked off to her car together. These heroes may not be in the Mundy world for long, though Rose, but they were gonna be fun to have around for the time being.