i. wild west

"You lookin' for a fight, Twinkie?" growled Moe menacingly, twirling his revolver equally threateningly.

From the other side of the street, Calvin raised an eyebrow and laughed. "God, no."

"What?"

"Moe, you're a decrepit snake-eyed mental midget with the natural grace of an intoxicated beluga whale. Also, look up."

"What?" repeated the desperado again, confused, and looked up just in time to get a bucket full of cow slop to the face. He went down like a sack of bricks.

Calvin grinned, adjusted his cowboy hat and gave Hobbes a big thumbs-up. "Nice one, buddy. Let's go get some tuna."

ii. cyberpunk

It took a moment for the information to flood through his eyepiece and over his retina, but when it did, the SubNet user known only as BoyOfDestiny began to smile. He reached for his palm-top and tapped in a comms code.

JusticeTiger picked up almost instantly. "We got it?"

"We got it," agreed BoyOfDestiny, blinking and fluttering his eyelids a bit to gain access to the mainframe. "Give me a minute, and the entire government system will be all ours."

"You can do that?" JusticeTiger sounded incredulous, as if he doubted BoyOfDestiny's hacking skills.

"Genius, remember?"

"How could I forget…"

iii. shapeshifters

"So what do you think?"

"I think it's weird."

"Oh, come on! You're always telling me how amazing tigers are! And now I have these awesome new powers, I don't need to use the Transmogrifier!"

"All I'm saying," said Hobbes, arms crossed. "is that you could have shapeshifted into a tiger that looked a little bit less like me. This is just creepy. How would you like it if I did-" A blur of fur and color. "-this?" finished a human who looked almost exactly like Calvin.

Calvin beamed. "That's cool! Now we can go around and impersonate each other!"

iv. pirates

Susie scratched her nose. "Pirates, huh?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" Calvin scowled, arms crossed. Hobbes tried his best to look menacing, besides him.

"No, not really…" she trailed off. "I guess I just expected you to be… taller?"

"Hey," objected Hobbes. "I'm tall."

"Yeah, but you're a tiger."

"Good point," he admitted.

Susie considered again. "Okay, I'll join the crew. But only if I'm the captain."

"But we already have two captains!" complained Calvin.

"You'll just have to make it three, then."

"Done," Hobbes said, reaching over to shake her hand. "Welcome aboard, Captain Derkins."

Susie beamed.

v. ...in SPACE!

"Squadron of Alliance drones approaching from the left," Hobbes reported into the radio, prepping the fire sequence with a spare paw. "I'm taking them out… now."

"Leave some for me," complained Calvin from the command centre. "You're having all the fun!"

"Fine!" said the tiger, and swivelled his craft around. "I'm letting a bunch through… now!"

"I see them. Here we go- DIE, YOU DIRTY ALLIANCE SCUMBAGS! PEW PEW PEW NYEEEEOW-"

Hobbes rolled his eyes, and turned the tiny shuttle around to head back to base for fueling. "Sometimes, I think you enjoy this sort of thing entirely too much."

vi. born another gender

Ring ring. Ring ring.

"Hello? County Library?" asked Callie, tilting her head slightly. "Yes. Do you have a book on why boys are so weird?"

She paused for a second.

"Yep. That's what I said. You might want to also check under 'obnoxious'…?"

Beat.

"What? You mean there's no research on this sort of thing at all?" She pulled a disgusted face at the phone, and slammed it down onto the hook, before turning to her tiger friend.

"Nothing?" Hobbes asked, flicking her tail.

"Nothing," Callie agreed, brushing a hand irritably through her spiky hair. "Meh. Let's go play Callieball."

vii. schoolfic

"Ladies and gentlepeople," said the new science teacher, striding into class with a massive grin on his face and his blonde hair in disarray. He slammed his papers onto the desk, and leaned forwards to look at the class. "I am your new teacher- you can call me Calvin- and today we are going to learn how to blow. Stuff. Up." He flicked a hand at the door, where an orange-and-black figure was standing. "That's my assistant, Hobbes- yes he's a tiger get over it- he'll be helping out. Now, first- how to obtain nitroglycerin in strange and illegal ways…"

viii. firemen

"I'm about ninety percent sure that you're not supposed to use a fire hose that way," said a tiger-shaped bystander. Calvin turned to glare at him.

"Look, buddy, who's the one in the fireman suit? Don't tell me how to do my job."

"Yeah, but…" the tiger wrinkled his nose. "You're using a high-pressure fire hose to carve rude pictures into that brick wall over there instead of actually putting out the fire in the burning house over there."

"…and your point is?" Calvin asked with a calculatedly raised eyebrow.

"Nothing," shrugged the tiger bystander. "Can I have a go?"

ix. urban fantasy

Hobbes fumbled with the mobile phone for a second. "Hold on, I'll put him on." He thrust it at Calvin. "It's Susie. We've got a problem."

Calvin accepted the phone. "What is it this time, Derkins?"

He listened for a moment, and hit the 'end call' button. "Vampires," he said to Hobbes. "At the park near the school."

Hobbes groaned. "Again?"

"What's wrong with vampires? I like stabbing them. It's fun."

"Yeah, but have you ever tried getting the blood of the undead out of your fur? It's impossible to shift, no matter how much shampoo you use!"

"Just get the stakes."

x. harem

"What I don't understand is why you two have suddenly decided that I need a harem."

"We think it'll be good for you," explained Susie. "Plus, I've always wanted to be in a harem."

"Right," said Calvin dubiously, and turned to Hobbes. "What's your reason, then?"

"Harems are cool," he said simply.

"Right," repeated Calvin. "That's fine. That's good. But apart from Susie, who exactly is going to be in this… 'harem' of mine?"

"Um," said Susie. "Well, we were kind of relying on you for that bit."

"We could put an ad in the newspaper!" suggested Hobbes.

Calvin sighed.