From One Trickster To Another
The room did not technically exist. Nor did the pleasantly crackling fire, or the fireplace, or the three shiny trophies sitting atop the mantle of the fireplace. But just because it didn't technically exist didn't mean it wasn't real.
Q relaxed in his non-existent-yet-quite-real-armchair, and smirked up at the trophies in a self-satisfied way. He was, he decided, well within his right to be smug. This was the third year in a row he'd won the "Biggest Omnipotent Jerk" award that was run by the humans, and he felt his win was completely deserved. It wasn't easy being a jerk; one had to put a lot of effort into doing jerk-things, and thinking up jerk-ideas called for buckets of creativity.
A noise from behind alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone. As an omnipotent being, he didn't need to turn his head to know who was behind him; he just knew.
"Well well," he said. "Gabriel. Come to whine that you only placed seventh this year?"
"Actually, I came to congratulate you," Gabriel said. He swanned into view, standing in front of the fire and folding his arms across his chest. As usual he was dressed casually, in jeans, a shirt and a plain jacket, quite unlike Q's current favoured attire – the red and grey uniform of a Federation starship's captain.
"Really? Three years of having your high and mighty angelic rear end handed to you on a plate by yours truly, and now you come to congratulate me? Why the sudden humility?"
"Because next year, I'm gonna win." There was a twinkle of confidence and mischief in the Trickster-cum-Archangel's hazel eyes.
"Please," Q scoffed. "You couldn't defeat me even if I had both hands tied behind my back and one leg replaced with a wooden peg."
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "You might have the edge as far as the big stuff is concerned, but I have something you don't."
"Oh? And what's that?"
"The personal touch. I've been tormenting humans for centuries. I tailor my treatments for each particular one, and when somebody's being tricked by me, they know that they're getting a professional, caring service."
"Professional and caring? Don't make me laugh! What you do is mere child's play. You couldn't hack it as a full-time intergalactic trickster."
"I beg to differ," Gabriel objected. "I once stuck the Winchester brothers in a time-loop and killed Dean over and over again, a different way each time."
Q lowered his hand from his mouth, where it was covering a fake, over-emphasised yawn. "Is that all?"
"All? I've barely even begun. Another time, I trapped said hairless monkeys in a series of badly-acted television shows and made them play the parts of the douche-nozzles they hated."
"I once stuck the entire crew of the Enterprise in a Robin Hood-style adventure and forced them to role-play solely for my amusement." Q's words were delivered with the most casual shrug he could manage.
"Shoved a guy into a black hole."
"Threw the Enterprise lightyears through space, right into the path of a deadly and persistent cyborg enemy."
"Made a college prick slow-dance with a little grey alien."
"I'll concede that point," Q said. He'd grudgingly admired that particular prank of Gabriel's. "But still, it's small time. The minor league. The fact that you haven't made it into the top five, even once, shows you're not ready to play with the big boys. You might want to go back to your nursery in the sky for a few years, and come back when you're older. I'd hate to see you hurt yourself trying to best me."
"I tell you what," Gabriel said, still sounding so sure of himself, "I challenge you to a trick-off."
"That's not even a real word," Q scoffed. Angels; they just made things up as they went along. Little more than children, really.
"It is now. So, what do you say, "big boy"? Are you going to put your tricks where your mouth is, or are you going to rely on humans to justify your jerkhood?"
Q narrowed his eyes at the younger, shorter, impetuous omnipotent being. "State your terms," he demanded coldly. He'd show this interloper exactly why he was the high king of tricks, pranks, and being an overall jerk.
"Three days," said Gabriel. "Three days in each other's playground. I'll make myself a nuisance on that little ship you're so fond of, and you can play with the Winchesters."
"That's hardly fair. You'll have an entire ship of people to mess with, and I'll only have two primitive troglodytes."
"You can pick a couple of hundred random humans to work with, if you want," Gabriel offered.
"I'll reduce them to puddles of weeping goo within twenty-four hours," Q assured his opponent. How hard could it be, to annoy twenty-first century humans? They were little more than barbarians. "Of course, we'll need an arbiter. Some neutral third-party to judge which of us has been the most successful."
"Of course. Do you have any suggestions?"
"Well, it can't be anybody from either of our universes, because everybody we already know will clearly be biased."
"Clearly," Gabriel agreed.
"I suggest we enlist the aid of one of the universe's greatest pranksters. A man so deadly, diabolically tricky that he makes you and I look like amateurs."
"Can such a man even exist?"
"Invariably, only in the minds of other men. The person I suggest to umpire this little competition of ours is The Joker, a maniacal antagonist from the DC Comic universe."
"You want to use a fictional character to judge our tricks?"
"He may be the only person qualified for the job. Or do you have a better idea? Keep in mind, I'm not going to agree to anybody like Coyote, Anansi or Reynard. I know what you little trickster-gods are like, how you so often flock together. And I sincerely doubt you would trust anybody from the Q Continuum to judge fairly."
"Actually, your fellow Q mostly hate you, so I'd be cool with that."
Q scowled. "Well I still think it should be somebody neutral."
"Hey, if that makes you feel better, that's what we'll do."
"Three days," he snapped, irritated by the angel's attitude. Not many beings could take that tone with him and get away with it. Now he was more determined than ever to put the youngster in his place.
"Catch you later, grandpa," Gabriel said with a wink. Then he disappeared before Q could offer a witty retort.
o - o - o - o - o
Day 1
The Federation Starship Enterprise travelled through space at Warp 5. Its Captain, the renowned Jean Luc Picard, sat in the command chair, affecting his most casual pose. He managed it, barely, though his fingers tapped his chin at a constant rate, the steady rhythm helping to sooth the nerves which gnawed at his stomach like termites. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong with this vital diplomatic mission; the Flutsies and the Wooples had been neighbours at war ever since their people had clawed their way into space – literally. Now, after months of careful Federation negotiation, it finally seemed there would be an end to the violence. With any luck, Starfleet would be able to arrange access through Flutsie-Woople space, shaving weeks off travel-time to the terminus of the Alpha and Delta Quadrants.
Counsellor Deanna Troi glanced at him from her chair on the bridge, just off to his left. As a half-Betazoid, she could pick up on human emotions, and Picard knew that right now she was getting tightly-leashed nervous tension from him. She gave him a brief, encouraging smile, which lit up the pools of her dark eyes. Nobody else saw that smile; it was meant for him alone, and she timed it well. Picard hated it when his crew saw him weak, or glimpsed anything of his true feelings.
"Captain, we have just established orbit around the planet Toranna," said the helmsman. Or, in this case, helmswoman.
"Open a channel to the surface." The order was issued by Commander William Riker, second in command of the Enterprise, and one of Picard's closest friends.
"Channel open," the helmswoman confirmed.
Riker stood up to address the small colony on the surface. Because of ionising interference in the atmosphere, communication was audio-only. That's why this planet had been chosen for this pivotal moment; neither side wanted any outside interference.
"Toranna colony, this is the Federation Starship Enterprise. We have arrived at your planet with the delegation of Flutsie and Woople ambassadors. Awaiting further instructions and beam-down co-ordinates."
"Enterprise, this is Commander Data." The voice belonged to the ship's third in command, who had been assigned to assist the Federation Ambassador in preparing Toranna for the delegation. Data was the perfect choice for such a task; as an android, he worked tirelessly without being restrained by emotion, such as the nerves which nestled themselves in Picard's stomach at the thought of what this negotiation meant to Starfleet and the Federation in general, and his attention to detail made him a natural candidate for preparing an area that had to so perfectly meet the needs of not only one, but two, alien species. "I am sending you beam-down co-ordinates for the Flutsie and Woople delegations. Ambassador Poltak and I are ready and waiting to receive them."
"Make it so, number one," said Picard, and Riker gave him a long-suffering glance.
"Transporter room, have you received the co-ordinates from Commander Data?" Riker asked over the ship's comm.
"Aye, Commander." Picard almost smiled. It was good to hear O'Brien's voice again. The Chief of Engineering was on temporary assignment, loaned to the Enterprise by Starfleet Academy because of the nature of Toranna's atmosphere. When you needed a transport done right, you called in Chief O'Brien, even if it meant stealing him away from a comfy lecture hall, a class of adoring students, and his wife Keiko's home cooking. "All six members of the delegation are ready for beam-down."
"Make it so, Chief," Picard said. His fingers began tapping more rapidly.
There was a moment of silence. That was natural. It took a few seconds for the transporter to energise, for the patterns to be temporarily stored in the buffers, for the transporter to beam the patterns to the destination, and for the matter-stream to materialise. Picard waited a full twenty seconds, and then began counting in his head. His fingers tapped with fury, now. The count in his head reached twelve before anything happened.
"Enterprise," said Data, from the planet's surface. If Picard didn't know better, he would have said that the android sounded... concerned. "I believe we may have encountered... a problem."
"A 'problem'?" asked Riker shortly.
"A problem, also known as a conundrum, a predicament, a quandary, a–"
"I know what a problem is, Data. But what specific problem are we facing at the moment?"
"The Flutsie and Woople delegation appear to have materialised into each other, sir."
"Come again?"
"There are Woople claws on Flutsie hands, and Flutsie fangs in Woople jaws. Two of the Fluties have only three eyes instead of the usual six, and some of the Wooples have extra eyes on their... well... the rear part of their anatomy, sir."
Picard rose to his feet, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his brow. "Chief O'Brien?" he barked into the comm.
"I don't know what to tell you, sir," O'Brien said. Even over the comm, he sounded like he was ready to faint. "The transport went perfectly. Identical to the previous transport when we sent down Ambassador Poltak and Commander Data."
"Can we beam the delegation back up and restore them to their former selves?" Riker asked.
There was the obvious sound of hesitation. Which, really, was more of a lack of a sound. But it amounted to the same. "I wouldn't recommend it, Commander," said O'Brien. "If this is a technical problem with the transporter, beaming them up again would wipe the trace of their patterns from the buffer and they would be forever stuck with... err... extraneous body parts."
"I want that transporter stripped down," said Picard. "Check every damn millimetre of it. Whatever this problem is, I want it found and fixed within the hour." It was an unrealistic expectation, but O'Brien knew better than to argue. Picard left him to it; he knew that every single engineer aboard the Enterprise would be flocking towards the transporter room like moths to a candle. "Ambassador Poltak," he said, over the planetary-comm, "do you require the presence of our doctor?"
"I don't believe so," said Poltak. His voice was full of measured Vulcan control. "The members of the delegation are understandably distressed, but Commander Data is distracting them with what I believe are intended to be humourous anecdotes."
Picard sat down in his chair, his face planting into both hands in a gesture of ultimate despair. It was bad enough that parts of one species had been grafted onto another, but he knew of no creature living or otherwise which could tolerate Data's attempts at humour for very long.
What on Earth was happening? These kind of accidents just didn't happen on Starfleet ships. Well, not very often. That was to say, rarely more than once a year. And the Enterprise had already filled its yearly quota of transporter mishaps, costing the ship one bridge-officer's life. All they'd found of the poor man had been his red-trimmed shirt, smoking in a pile on the transporter pad.
Whatever this problem was, he hoped O'Brien could rectify it quickly. The last thing he wanted to be remembered for was the ruination of months of hard work, and the loss of a vital travel route.
o - o - o - o - o
...meanwhile...
Sam Winchester yawned tiredly and ran one hand across his eyes. He'd had the weirdest dream last night. He'd dreamt that he'd been camping outside beneath the stars, the trees of a dense forest towering over him, leaves outlined against the night sky.
He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. The pale blue sky was above him, leaves dancing gently in the breeze. His body jerked into an upright position, his eyes wide as he looked around wildly at the forest surrounding him. There was no sign of the motel room he'd gone to sleep in. No sign of his bed. A thick, brown cloth sleeping bag fell from his torso, and he looked down, staring in disbelief at the clothes he was wearing.
A glance to his left showed him Dean was still sleeping, gentle snores being emitted from another brown sleeping bag.
Perhaps, he reasoned, this was a dream. But if so, it was the most realistic dream he'd ever had. Even when he'd been sharing his noggin with Lucifer, even when he'd been dream-walking a murderer, even when he'd been astral projecting, the dreams had not been this lucid. Just to be sure, he pinched himself, leaving a tiny point of red on his arm which soon began to bruise.
"Dean," he said. His older brother grumbled and waved a dismissive hand. "Dean!"
"What?" Dean asked, rolling over and squinting through his hazel eyes. Then they too flew open as Dean gave the forest the same cursory glance. "What the hell, Sammy?" he demanded.
"I don't know," Sam replied. "I just woke up and we were here. Do you remember anything about last night?"
"I remember that burger and the side-order of fries," Dean replied. His brows were lowered into a perplexed frown. "Man, that gave me such bad indigestion I thought I was going to have a heart attack." Comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Hey, do you think that's what happened? That I had a heart attack and died, and now I'm in Heaven?"
"No, I think you swallowed a whole burger without even chewing it and it gave you heartburn. Besides," he said, casting back the sleeping bag and revealing the brown leggings, pointed boots and green rough-cut shirt beneath the sleeping bag. "Since when do you turn up in Heaven looking like this?" Dean snickered, and Sam gave his brother a long, pointed look. "Before you start laughing, you might want to look at what you're wearing."
Dean looked down. His outfit was slightly worse; his leggings were not brown, but as green as his shirt, as were his pointy boots. "Sonofabitch!" he swore, hauling himself out of the sleeping bag. "I look like Peter Pan. Why do I look like Peter Pan?"
"I dunno, but if you see Tinker Bell, run. Those fairies are probably still pissed at you for escaping that 'feast of first-born sons' thing." He had to admit, though, his brother did look completely ridiculous. Instinctively he checked his pocket for his phone, hoping to take a picture of Dean-as-Pan for future blackmailing and humiliation purposes, but his phone was gone. He did feel something else in his sleeping bag, though. His hand clasped something sturdy and wooden, and as he stood up, a quarterstaff came with him. "Huh," he said. "I have a... weapon?"
"I want a weapon too," Dean scowled. "Let's see what the magic bag has for me." He crawled into his sleeping bag, seemed to fumble around for a minute, then came out clutching a longbow and a quiver of arrows. "Since when does Peter Pan have a bow? I thought he had a sword?" When Dean saw Sam's expression, his posture immediately became guarded. "Look, I saw the Disney film when I was eight, okay?"
"Okay, I'm not judging," Sam said. "But I think I know what's going on here." Something about these costumes and weapons had tickled his memory. "I don't think you're Peter Pan, I think you're Robin Hood."
"Seriously?"
"Think about it. The woodsy-coloured costume, the bow and arrow... Robin Hood was well-known for his skill as an archer."
"Guess that makes you Little John," Dean grinned. Then he rubbed his hands together and looked eagerly around. "You think Maid Marion's around here somewhere?"
"What? Why aren't you more worried about this?" Dean gave him a blank, questioning look. "How did we get here? What is this place? How do we get out of it?"
"Who cares, man? We're LARPing!"
"But I thought you hated LARPing?"
"I hate those douchebags who dress up like us and pretend to be hunters and speak in stupid emo voices," Dean clarified. "But that stuff we did with Charley a few months ago wasn't that bad. And you have to admit, my ass looks awesome in tights."
Sam shook his head. Trust Dean to find the most childish excuses for not being concerned. And as usual, it was up to Sam to rain on the parade. "Priorities, Dean," he said. "Meg is dead. Cas is somewhere out there, probably insane... again... with an Angel Tablet. And after that first trial, I'm hardly in fit shape to be LARPing right now."
"Well excuse me for looking on the bright side. Hey, you think we'll see Charley again?"
"What is wrong with you, barbarian?" a voice demanded.
Sam spun, and saw man standing a few feet away. He was wearing a mass of dark clothes which were probably meant to be a Sheriff of Nottingham costume, and a sword was sheathed at his hip. There was a haughty, imperious expression on his face.
"You aren't supposed to be enjoying this," the man continued. "You're supposed to find it infuriating, much like your ginormously-sized brother does."
"And who exactly are you?" Sam asked, taking a step towards the stranger.
"Why, the Sheriff of Nottingham, of course," the man replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"No, I mean really. Who are you?"
The man gave them an empty smile. "You can just think of me as your new Trickster."
"Great," Dean said. "So... what, Gabriel Junior? Balthazar Two?"
"Please," the man said, with a dismissive snort. "I'm no angel. Primitive beings, really. They can barely even think for themselves. And no, I'm not a trickster-god, so don't bother with the whole 'stake dipped in the blood of my victims' thing. It won't work. I am an omnipotent and all-powerful being named Q, and you, monkeys, are my new toys."
The man disappeared in a flash of light. Sam looked to Dean, sharing his brother's confusion. Whatever this 'Q' thing was, it appeared to something new. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, but out here with no books, no phones and no laptop… He sighed. Why couldn't anything go right for a change?
o - o - o - o - o
Day 2
Captain Picard looked at the chaotic mess which had once been his transporter room. The pad was in pieces, the buffers were exposed, the casing was hanging precariously by wiring from above, and three junior engineers had been sent to sick-bay in tears and beginning to suffer nervous breakdowns.
"Tell me again what happened, Mr Barclay," he said, trying to force himself to be patient. It wasn't easy.
"W–well, C–Captain," Reginald Barclay stammered, his fingers automatically jumping to his mouth so he could bite one of his nails, "I just turned around and he l–looked like... this."
"Do you have anything to add, Mr O'Brien?"
The Chief looked up at Picard, scratching his mane of red hair – on which sat a small black bowler hat – with one thick finger. O'Brien's face was changed beyond recognition; his nose was bulbous, his cheeks ruddy and freckle-covered, but the most telling change was his height. He'd never been a giant of a man, but two-feet four inches was not the standard height for a Starfleet officer, and certainly not for Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien.
"Not really, Cap'n," O'Brien said, his accent far more Irish than usual. "It just... happened. There is that, though." He pointed towards a large pewter pot of what appeared to be gold pieces, a couple of feet away from him.
Picard walked to the pot and picked up one of the gold pieces. It was shaped like an old coin, though it was plain and unminted. "Thoughts?" he asked.
"I think it's l–leprechaun gold, Captain," Barclay spoke up.
"Leprechaun gold? Don't be ridiculous, there's no such thing as leprechauns. What makes you jump to such a wild conclusion?"
"Um, right before it appeared, C–Captain, I was sure I saw... well... a r–rainbow."
"Commander Data to Captain Picard. May I see you in main engineering?" The android's voice was crisp and clear over the comm.
"Can this wait, Data? I'm dealing with something of an emergency right now."
"I'm afraid not, Captain. I, too, am dealing with an emergency."
"I'll be right there," Picard sighed. "Mr Barclay, please escort Chief O'Brien to the sickbay, and then put this mess of a transporter back together again."
"Aye, s–sir."
He left the transporter room and walked the ship's corridors. As usual he could hear the gentle hum of power flowing through the conduits behind the bulkheads. It was a pervasive but comforting sound which he missed whenever he went off-world for any amount of time. Sometimes, when he went on shore-leave – grumbling about being forced to take a break, of course – he struggled to sleep at nights. Planets were just too… quiet.
As soon as he entered engineering, he discovered what Data meant by 'an emergency.' The android was wearing a strange outfit which looked best-suited to an excursion in the holodeck; knee-length lederhosen a garish shade of bright red had replaced the trousers of Data's uniform, and had been teamed with a white shirt with pale yellow sleeves, and a sky-blue bow just below his neck. Atop the android's head was a yellow peaked cap with a red feather sticking out of it.
"Commander Data, have you been spending too much time on the holodeck again?" he asked.
"No, Captain. In fact, I haven't been to the holodeck in several days. Sir, I would like to ask that you touch me."
"What?"
"Touch me, Captain."
"It's okay, Captain," said the Enterprise's Chief Engineer, Geordi Laforge. He was leaning against one of the engineering consoles, perched on the edge with his arms folded across his chest. "I touched him, too."
Picard, against his better sense and judgement, reached out with one finger and gave the android a poke on his exposed arm. Instead of the cool, flesh-effect substance which coated Data's body, he felt... wood. And, upon closer inspection, he noticed joint-lines at the creases of Data's elbows and knees. There was also something very odd about Data's nose. It was... sort of cylindrical, and a little pointed at the end, more like a peg than an approximation of a human nose.
"What is the meaning of this… this… madness?" he demanded.
"I appear to be the character Pinocchio, Sir," Data said. "It's very interesting. And very ironic."
"Yes," Picard said softly. "It's all starting to make sense."
"Sir?" Laforge queried.
"I've just left the transporter room, where Chief O'Brien is, for want of a better word, a leprechaun."
"Sir, though Chief O'Brien is indeed of Irish descent, there is no need to make such a slur on his ancestry," Data said.
"No, Data, I mean he's actually been turned into a leprechaun. Search your databanks, and list for me anything, life-form or anomaly, which is capable of distorting reality in this way."
"There are a number of anomalous events which are capable of producing the effect you describe, Captain," Data parroted out automatically. "Tears in the fabric of sub-space, certain black-hole reactions... I would, however, deduce that this altering of reality has been caused by a sentient life-form, not an anomaly."
"Anomalies don't act with a sense of irony," Laforge said.
The door to engineering swished open, and a huge beast stepped through. It was tall, wide, and covered with a dense layer of brown fur. For some reason, it was wearing Commander Worf's silver Klingon sash. Picard's hand immediately leapt to his comm-badge, his fingers tapping it instinctively.
"Intruder alert, main engineering!"
The beast opened its mouth and roared. "Mwaaaaaarrrrrrgh!"
"Sir," Data said, "I don't believe security is necessary. In fact, security is already here. This is Lieutenant Commander Worf."
"Worf?!" Picard stepped closer to the beast, and recognised Worf's brown eyes beneath the tumble of fur.
"Roaaaaormwaaaargh," the beast said.
"What nonsense is this?" Picard demanded of Data. "And how did you know this was Worf?"
"He has been turned into a Wookie," Data said. "A fictional creature from the twentieth-century Star Wars series of films. Fortunately, I have studied the films in great detail, and speak fluent Wookienese."
"Well, err, tell Commander Worf to get himself down to the sick-bay. And you are to join him, Data."
"Very well, Captain." Data turned to Worf. "Mwwaaaaargh? Roaaaarmwaaaaaargh!"
"Waaaaaarrrrrrgh!" Worf replied. Then, both Wookie and android-puppet left.
"What should I do, Captain?" Laforge asked.
"Report to the transporter room. I don't know what's going on around here, but we need to get the delegations on Toranna back to their normal selves. Mr Barclay has taken over O'Brien's work, but he could no doubt use your assistance."
"Aye, sir. If I know Reg, he's probably quivering in a corner by now."
Laforge left on the heels of Worf and Data, and Picard shook his head. His entire ship had gone mad, and he had a good idea about who was to blame.
o - o - o - o - o
...meanwhile...
Dean Winchester didn't open his eyes. He kept them closed, and tried to pretend that he wasn't in a stupid forest, wearing stupid clothes, carrying a stupid bow. He couldn't even shoot a stupid bow; he could just about manage a stupid crossbow, but he didn't have one of those.
This whole situation was annoying. He and Sam had decided not to play this 'game' of Q's, and they had set up camp for themselves. He'd tried his hand at hunting pheasant, and failed miserably, then resorted to digging up a few carrots for dinner, which they'd had to eat raw because they had nothing to cook food in. Sam had managed to get a fire going, through sheer determination, which was nice, but Dean was quickly staring to miss the perks of reality. Say what you would about skeevy motel rooms, at least most of them had magic-fingers and as much free porn as your mind could safely absorb.
This forest sucked. It was all birds chirping annoyingly and squirrels throwing crap down from the trees. Earlier the previous day they'd been beset by bandits; lacking any skill with the bow, he'd been forced to bludgeon them to death with a stray heavy branch. Sam hadn't fared much better; he wasn't used to fighting with a stave, though it was a marked improvement over the branch.
After their meagre dinner of raw carrots the sun had started to set. Dean had amused himself for a while by singing campfire songs, but he only knew one song (She'll be coming 'round the mountain) and after twenty-three times through the same refrain, Sam had threatened to bash his head in if he didn't stop singing. That had completely killed the mood, so he'd sent Sam off to bed (otherwise known as 'itchy brown cloth sleeping-bag') and offered to take the first watch. He'd woken Sam a few hours before morning, so that he could get his mandatory four-hours of shut-eye. Now, the stupid birds had woken him from his stupid sleep, so he turned over his stupid sleeping bag and looked at his stupid brother.
His stupid brother was not in his stupid sleeping bag. What Dean saw, right in front of his face, was a large, keratinous hoof. There were four of the hooves in total, and when Dean carefully looked up, he saw they were attached to brown fur-covered legs. Above them were huge knobbly knees. Up and up his eyes went, taking in the broad shaggy-haired chest, the huge, almost equine nose and mouth, and brown eyes framed by long dark lashes. At the very top of the head were a pair of expansive palmate antlers.
"Wah!" he said, scrambling backwards, away from the monstrous creature. It was easily eight feet tall at its shoulder hump.
The moose merely looked at him, a baleful expression on its long face. And when Dean noticed his brother's sleeping bag was empty, he squinted at the moose.
"Sammy?" he asked in disbelief. The moose bellowed loudly. "Dude... what the hell?!"
He stood up and walked around his brother, taking an occasional poke at Sam's furry body. This was not good. This really wasn't good.
"Q!" he yelled at the sky, because he wasn't convinced that Q wasn't actually some angel dicking around. "Get your ass down here!"
"Problems, my good fellow?" asked a voice. Dean spun around to find Q behind him, still wearing the same ridiculous outfit.
"Problems? I look like frigging Peter Pan, I have a weapon I can't use, I'm cold, thirsty, hungry, and my brother is a moose!"
"I'd noticed. If you ask me, it's an improvement."
"Why is my brother a moose?" he demanded.
"A good question," Q said. He approached Sam and patted his shoulder. Sam gave an angry snort. "You and your brother were failing to entertain, and you in particular actually seemed to be enjoying the idea of being inside my Robin Hood fantasy. So I decided to mix things up a little, make them a little more... personal. Oh, by the way..."
Q snapped his fingers and Dean found himself back in the hotel room. Only, he was still wearing the stupid clothes. And there was a moose on Sam's bed.
"Great, there goes my deposit," he groaned. "Would you mind turning my brother back, now?"
"Yes, actually, I would mind. My aim is to annoy and prank you, not to cater to your lowly whims."
"But how am I supposed to get Sam out the door? His ginormous moose-head won't fit through it! And what am I supposed to feed him?"
"That's not my problem." Q disappeared in a flash of light and Dean swore loudly. Sam continued to stare.
"You just... don't move," Dean told his brother. Then he hurried to his bedside chest of drawers to hunt for a change of clothes. Unfortunately, the drawers were empty. He checked the wardrobe, and Sam's drawers – he had to crawl under Sam's belly to reach them, which was not a pleasant experience – but nada. All their clothes were gone, as was every chocolate bar and bag of sweets he'd secreted away. The only things left were his weapons and a pile of cash in his holdall. Which meant that if he wanted to eat, and he desperately did, he was going to have to go out dressed like Peter frigging Pan. "Q!" he yelled angrily at the ceiling.
There was, of course, no response. So with one final sigh of despair, and one last command to Sam to remain motionless, he grabbed his money and stormed out of the motel.
o - o - o - o - o
Day 3
Counsellor Deanna Troi had a guilty pleasure. Everybody aboard the ship knew it, and they knew better than to interrupt her during her one afternoon per week of indulgence. Seated at a table beside one of the windows in the ship's ten-forward rec space, she tried very hard not to jiggle her legs with impatient excitement. And when she saw Guinan, the ship's bartender and font of wisdom, approaching slowly with a tray in her hands, she felt a wide grin spread across her face.
"Here you go, Counsellor," said Guinan. She slipped the tray onto the table and placed the huge dish of triple chocolate fudge sundae in front of Troi.
"Guinan, you are my hero," said Troi. She picked up the spoon from the tray and halted, poised over the dessert.
"I'll just leave the two of you alone for some quality time together." Guinan retreated with a knowing smile.
The sundae was not as unhealthy as it would have been a couple of hundred years ago. The replicator was capable of removing all of the dangerous fats and sugars, replacing them with a healthier substitute. It was something Troi told herself every time she came down here, to gorge on the enormous pudding, and it eased her guilt a little.
She dipped her spoon into the sundae, heaping a generous amount onto it. The first bite was always the best, so she closed her eyes and prepared to enjoy the taste explosion as she brought the spoon towards her open mouth. When she clamped down with her lips, however, she found nothing but empty spoon. Her dessert was gone! Troi quickly checked the table and her lap, in case the sundae had dropped from the spoon en route to her mouth, but there was nothing.
She tried again, this time keeping her eyes on the spoon until the moment it entered her mouth. And then... nothing. The spoon was empty once more. Again and again she tried to eat her sundae, but though the amount in the glass was steadily decreasing, she'd had not a single bite. Each and every empty spoon increased her anger and her distress – for nobody should ever get between a counsellor and her chocolatey self-indulgence – until at last Guinan noticed her anguish and came over to investigate.
"What's wrong, Counsellor?" the dark-skinned bartender asked.
"Something is happening to my sundae!" Troi huffed, sticking the spoon into the dessert and glaring at it. "I haven't had a single bite so far!"
"Do you think this could be related to what's been happening aboard the rest of the ship?"
"I don't know," Troi admitted. "There was a moment when I felt a... a strange presence. It seemed amused. But I thought I might have been picking up on one of the crew watching me. Captain Picard thinks Q might be behind this mischief."
"I'm not so sure," Guinan said. "I don't sense Q at all, and normally I'd have felt him right away, if he was here."
Troi nodded thoughtfully. As an El-Aurian, a species known as 'listeners', Guinan was sensitive to certain things, and Q was one of them. She was usually the first to know when Q was making trouble, sensing his presence even before he made himself known.
"Well, I for one think this has gone on for too long," she said. It was one thing to splice two alien delegations into each other, and turn various crew-members into parodies of themselves, but nobody, nobody messed with her triple chocolate fudge sundae.
One hour later, Captain Picard was sitting at the long table in the briefing room, looking around at his senior officers. At present they comprised of Riker, Geordi and Barclay (who'd been asked to come along to report on the transporter status and was now chewing his nails with a nervous vengeance), along with a leprechaun, a wookie, a puppet and a very irate Counsellor Troi. Guinan was there too, because sometimes she liked to come to senior staff briefings, and Picard didn't like to turn her away. She had a very harsh glare. The only member of the senior staff missing was Dr Crusher, who had remained in sickbay to continue running tests.
"Err, Captain," Riker said. "What... um... happened to you? And what are you wearing?"
Picard twirled the long moustache sitting on his upper lip, but before he could answer, Data chipped in.
"It would appear to be the attire of a nineteenth-century French nobleman," the android-puppet said. "Though I am not sure why a white flag has been attached to the back of it."
"It isn't important, Data," Picard said curtly. He was proud of his French ancestry. "Back to the matter at hand. You've all heard what Counsellor Troi and Guinan have said, so it seems that we're dealing with a being that derives some sort of sadistic pleasure from watching us struggle, yet it isn't Q. Thoughts?"
"Here's a thought." It was the voice of a stranger, and man appeared from nowhere, taking a casual, relaxed stance at the front of the briefing room. He was wearing the strangest attire; blue trousers, an undecorated shirt and a green over-coat. "You're all a bunch of morons. I mean, c'mon, this is the twenty-fourth century. I thought humans – and aliens – were supposed to be smarter?"
"Who the blazes are you?" Picard asked, pushing himself to his feet. Worf was right behind him, raising his furry Wookie fists in anger.
"Pipe down, Chewie," the stranger said. "You too, Solo. As for who I am, you can call me Gabriel."
"Are you a member of the Q Continuum?" Troi asked.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "As if! Those guys are a bunch of uncreative boring jerks. No, I'm what you would call an angel. An archangel, specifically. Yes, that's right, lowly mortals; God is real. He created you all. You think you've advanced beyond the point of believing in an omnipotent creator-deity, but that's what makes your lives so hilarious; the further out here you come, the further away from God you get. Man, you guys are the biggest joke in Heaven."
"Enough of this!" Picard exclaimed. His patience, which had been wearing thin even before this 'Gabriel' had turned him into the embodiment of a nineteenth-century Frenchman, had finally snapped. "I demand that you return us all to our original states this instant!"
"You, dear ape, are in no position to demand anything. Seriously, two hundred years of progress and this is what you've become? I can only imagine how dull and unimaginative Earth is in this century." Gabriel shuddered at the thought. "Anyway, I think I'm done here. I've no doubts about how this little competition will end; Q will never have bested me. So long, Enterprise-apes, I bid you a not-so-fond adieu."
Gabriel disappeared, and Picard looked around at his crew once more. Worf was frowning – at least, he thought the Klingon was frowning; it was hard to tell under all that fur – and O'Brien looked like he might faint. The transporter room was in pieces, Barclay was humming to himself as he rocked back and forth in his chair, and on the surface of Toranna the Flutsies and the Wooples were literally sharing body-parts.
He put on his best hopeful expression as he addressed his senior officers. "Suggestions?"
o - o - o - o - o
...meanwhile...
Dean tottered down the street, eyes narrowed, head swivelling from side to side as he watched for any sign of danger. A builder working on a building façade across the street wolf-whistled at him. It distracted him for just a moment, and he failed to spot the crack in the pavement. The heel of his stiletto shoe went straight down it, twisting his ankle when he tried to step forward and sending him sprawling to the ground.
Before anybody could come running to help, he pushed himself up and affected an air of nonchalance, tucking his long dark hair behind his ears. His 'mishap' must have happened at some point during the night. He'd woken up to find himself... well... a woman. He had hair, which made a change, and boobs, which made a massive change, and after he'd spent the first hour or so being freaked out, and the second hour or so playing with his new body, he'd finally realised something more troubling; Sam was gone. And since there was no comically moose-shaped hole in the motel walls, he had to assume that this was Q's doing.
He didn't know where his clothes were. Q had probably vanished them. The only clothes in his wardrobe had been a skirt, a blouse and a pair of two-inch stiletto heels. Wearing the shoes gave him a height of around five feet four. Being a woman he could handle – just about – but being short was a complete nightmare.
When the local animal shelter came into view, he gave a huge sigh of relief and tottered across the road in the stupid shoes. A middle-aged man exiting the building held the door open for him, then gave him a wink. It was all Dean could do to stop himself punching the guy.
"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked when he approached the front desk.
"Yes, I'm here about a moose," he said. His voice was female, too, all sultry and slightly foreign-sounding. "Have you seen one?"
"We picked up a moose during the early hours of the morning," the man confirmed. "Is it your moose?"
"Yes!" he gasped in relief. "I'm so glad you've found him."
"You can't just go letting your moose wander around the streets, ma'am. This isn't Canada."
"I know, I know. He just... escaped. From his very spacious and humanitarian enclosure," he improvised. "I'll take him home right away."
"Alright. Let's have a look at your proof of ownership."
Dean gave the very unhelpful man the blankest look he could manage. "My what?"
"Ownership documents. I'm not going to hand over the moose unless you can prove you're his owner."
"I... uh... left my documents in my other pants."
"You're wearing a skirt, ma'am."
"Look, I'm not a woman!" Dean cried in exasperation. "Please, just give me my moose back. His name's Sam, and he's been in my family for years. I don't have any documentation on me, but if you let me see him, I can prove to you he's my moose."
"I don't give a damn whether you're post-op or pre-op or whatever," the man said with a frown, "but you're not seeing that moose without proof of ownership, and trying to label this as a hate-crime isn't going to get you anywhere; I am fully supportive of the LGBT community, but just because you've got plumbing issues doesn't mean you get a special moose-pass."
This was not going as Dean had hoped, and he suspected he was past the point when fluttering his lashes would get him anywhere. Why was this so difficult? From what he'd seen, pretty women always got their own way, and he knew for a fact that he was a pretty woman. So why wasn't it working for him? What was he doing wrong?
"You haven't heard the last from me," he warned.
With a huff of indignation he left the animal shelter and walked around the corner of the building, out of sight of the receptionist. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and this surely was a desperate time indeed. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes and began to pray.
"Cas, I hope you've got your ears on, man, 'cos I really really need to see you. Sam and I... we're in a lot of trouble. We could use your help."
A gentle fluttering sound told him his prayer had been successful; he opened his eyes to find his trench-coated friend standing there looking rather puzzled.
"Dean?" asked Cas, looking down and squinting, as if that would make things better. "You've changed your gender."
"I didn't change my gender, somebody changed it for me. Against my will, I might add."
"Who did this to you?"
"Some douchebag called Q," Dean scowled. "He a friend of yours?"
"No, I've never heard of him."
"Well, d'ya think you can change me back?"
Cas snapped his fingers, and Dean looked down. He still had breasts.
"Great," he sighed. "What am I supposed to do now?"
"Perhaps you could look at this as an opportunity," Cas suggested.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I have often wondered if our relationship might be different if you were a woman instead of a man."
Dean stepped back, and held up a finger of warning. "First of all, I can't believe you've ever wondered that. And second, if you come any closer, I will punch you in the face."
Cas disappeared in a flash of light, and for a moment Dean thought he'd offended his friend. Then Q appeared in his place, and Dean reached for his absent gun.
"Well well," Q grinned. He was no longer dressed as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Instead, he seemed to be wearing some sort of ridiculous red and grey one-piece. "Mr Winchester. Looking rather pretty today, aren't we?"
"What's this all about, Q?" Dean asked, gesturing at his new body.
"You're named after a woman called Deanna, so I merely turned you into another woman with the same name. Don't worry if you start hearing peoples' thoughts, that's part of the package."
"Look," he said, with as much patience as he could muster, "you've had your fun. Turn us back."
"Fun?" Q scoffed. "You've been terribly boring. The twenty-first century is so... primitive. And it smells foul. But tell me, do you think I've been a bigger jerk than Gabriel?"
"Right now, I gotta go with 'hell yeah.'"
"Excellent!" said Q, a wide grin playing across his face. "I believe this contest is 'in the bag' as you humans say." He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light.
Dean looked around, then turned his gaze to the sky. "What contest, Q?" he shouted. "Q? You get back here right now! Do you hear me?"
o - o - o - o - o
Gabriel materialised outside Q's secret fortress of solitude, and met the older omnipotent being with a victorious smile. Nobody in their right mind could deny that he had played the best tricks and been the biggest jerk over the past three days. There was no way Q was winning this time.
"Ah, Gabriel," said Q, "I see you survived the twenty-fourth century. I hope you weren't too traumatised by your ordeal."
"It was a walk in the park," he replied. "I wreaked so much chaos and mischief that the crew of that little ship might never recover."
"Ha! We'll see about that!" Q turned to face his fortress. "Shall we see what our arbiter has to say about it?"
"Certainly."
Gabriel followed Q into the gothic, castle-like building, into the same room in which he'd initially issued his challenge. A green-haired figure wearing a striped suit and a maniacal clown-grin was sitting with his feet up on a dark oak desk.
"Gentlemen!" The Joker said, sitting up. His grin—almost impossibly—widened even further. "Come in, come in, have a seat! I've been watching your progress with great interest!"
Gabriel joined Q in sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk. "And as I'm sure you've seen, my tricks were by far superior to anything this old has-been could come up with," he said, gesturing at Q with his thumb.
"Au contraire, non-ami," Q interrupted, "my pranks were of a far superior quality."
"After careful consideration," The Joker said, and both Q and Gabriel leaned forwards in their chairs, "I've decided on a winner."
"Well, don't keep us waiting!" Q demanded. "Spit it out!"
"I've decided," continued Joker, "that neither of you is deserving of the title. Three whole days of pranking, and not one person died in either of your realities. In fact, I'd say your pranks are little more than light-hearted mischief. Even Edward Nigma could have come up with better gags! No, I'm afraid there's only one thing for it. I'm naming myself the Big Kahuna, and taking your fortress of solitude as my new base of operations."
The Joker reached down under the desk and pulled a lever that Gabriel hadn't seen before. But he didn't have time to contemplate what it meant, because the floor opened up beneath the chairs and he found himself being pulled down by gravity, Q only a second behind him. When he saw the glistening underground lake beneath him he closed his eyes and held his breath just before he was plunged into the icy-cold water. Kicking out with his arms and legs, he came up gasping for air, his normally adorably floppy hair all soaked and getting in his eyes.
"You put a trap door in your fortress of solitude and then let Joker have access to it?!" he demanded of Q, who looked just as drenched and about ten times as pissed.
"Of course not, you simpleton! The Joker must have installed it whilst I was busy pranking that floozy and his moose," Q scowled. "I can't believe this! Tossed out of my own fortress of solitude by a comic-book character!"
"Yeah, he's a bastard alright," Gabriel agreed. How dare that ridiculous clown show up an archangel like this! He glanced to his former nemesis, and saw the same plan forming in Q's eyes. "So… temporary truce?" He offered his hand.
"Just until this Joker situation's dealt with," Q nodded, accepting the proffered hand.
"Nice grip."
"Thanks, I work out." Q rubbed his hands together. "Now, as for that annoying little gnat… I'm going to swat him like the irritating pest that he is. By the time I'm finished with him, the word 'Joker' won't even exist in the English language."
"Or in any language on any world," Gabriel amended.
"Yes, we shall wipe him from existence!" Q gave a malicious smile. "Come, my friend, to my back-up fortress of semi-solitude. We have a Joker to prank."
Author's Note: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this light-hearted foray into the world of tricks. The idea behind it came from io9 .com's article "10 Omnipotent Beings Who Are Also Jerks." Feel free to google if you want to see the full list. Oh, and don't worry about the SPN boys, or the crew of the Enterprise; Sam and Dean enjoy their new roles and are now starring in a brand new PI-cop show called "Deanna and the Moose" and are rich and famous TV stars (Sam gets high-quality oats imported from Spain for every meal). Meanwhile, Data found his new body 'fascinating', Worf forged a new career advertising hair-loss serum to Bolian men, O'Brien found being pint-sized meant easier access through small engineering shafts, and Barclay eventually put the transporter back together again. As for the Flutsies and the Wooples, they gained a new perspective after being grafted to each other and renamed their race 'Flooples', ushering in an era of peace and prosperity.
So, what next? Do you like Castiel? Want to know a bit more about the Garrison? Friday, two weeks hence (7th June). See you then.