Title: Fighting the FFC 2
Author: DragonLady
Rating: Ohhhh boy
Spoilers: From episodes: Dale the Whale. From fanfiction: "Fighting the FFC" (which you must read to be LESS confused by this story), "Mr. Monk and the X", and "Mr. Monk and the Kitten" by enigma of irony (by the way, I hope you don't kill me for borrowing the kitten, it was just so cute, and I fed it, and gave it water, and, and stuff! Ok, fine, I'll give it back.
Disclaimer: Um, don't read this??
Sharona examined the man through her lashes. He was just an average FEDEX guy. White shirt, white shorts, and little plastic box with a screen to sign her name. Still, she was very nervous about the package her was holding. It was a FEDEX envelope, and reminded her just a little too much of the move The Matrix. In the movie, when the lead character opened the package, his life was forever altered.
Finishing her signature with a flourish, she walked back inside her house. There were still cracks in her ceiling as a result of the recent earthquake, she'd have to discuss the shoddy workmanship with her repairman the next time she saw him. Sitting down, she pulled the zipper from the envelope. Inside, there was a dark purple folder. Actually, folder was an inadequate term. It was more like a case, a large one. A small lock was wrapped around the outside. Taped to the outside of the case was a note.
"This package may only be opened in the presence of all program lead characters."
"Well who…" Her words were cut off by the sound of the phone. Sighing, she stood to answer it. "This is Sharona. You got what? Ok, ok, yeah, Adrian… Adrian I'll be right over. Yeah, I think I can explain."
When Sharona arrived, Adrian was pacing back and forth through his house. "Adrian, hey, calm down." Adrian turned. "I am calm."
"No you're not, you're pacing. Now will ya sit down?" Adrian crossed his arms, then started pacing again. "Adrian, sit down- sit down!" As though hearing Sharona for the first time, Adrian sat. Sharona sat across from him, placing the purple case on the table. "Do you have it?" Adrian sighed, slowly reached into his pocket, and produced a key, wrapped in a baggie.
"Are we sure we want to do this?" Sharona glared at him. "Adrian, you're a detective, aren't you curious?" Adrian twitched. "Well, uh, no. Curiosity usually ends up being messy." Sharona rolled her eyes, removed the key from the baggie, and slid it into the lock. Without any fanfare, the case opened. Inside was a disk. "All that for this?" Sharona removed the disk, flipping it over to look for a label. Nothing, it was clean. Standing, she walked over to Adrian's computer and dropped the disk in the drive. Curious despite his earlier statements, Adrian walked over to lean over her shoulder.
The disk took a few moments to load. As soon as it finished cycling, a logo popped up on the screen, preceded by an arrow and sparkles. "Cute." Said Adrian softly. Words appeared on the screen. CAFW (Characters Against Fic Writers). The words melted away to reveal a video clip. A man stood before them in a gray room. He was partially shrouded in darkness, but Sharona thought she could detect the color of his clothing, sort of black and red. The man stepped forward, and Sharona gasped. "Oh god, I used to love this show!" The man spoke. "Good day to you. My name is Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I know this will seem impossible to understand, or even believe at first, but I will do my best to explain the circumstances of my, as well as your, existence. Basically, it starts with an idea for a program. A producer gathers a crew, develops his 'vision', and hires actors to play the roles he has set up. Often, the program will air, run a few seasons, then get cancelled. This does not ordinarily cause a problem. However, every now and then, a program will come along that grabs the attention of a certain select portion of the viewing community. This is the FFC, or, Fan Fic Community. If you attended last week's meeting, you were no doubt apprised of these people." Adrian and Sharona shared a look. "What the FFC will do is create scenarios for the characters of the program, scenarios that will differ from what the characters would normally do in their day to day life. Sometimes, the scenarios are benign, referred to as 'fluff'. They have little or no affect to our lives. At other times, however, we are placed in situations completely contrary to our behavior. This disk contains all the material that has been written about your characters so far. Read it well, and Godspeed." With that, the video ended, and the screen opened into a file. While Adrian leaned back, Sharona began clicking on the titles contained within the file. She started to smile as she read.
"Awwww! You get a kitten!" Adrian turned sharply. "A what?" Sharona kept scrolling. "A kitten, a little tabby. Ohh, that is so sweet, you cuddle it, then you talk to it! God, I think I'm gonna cry!" Adrian went white, backing away from the computer and looking around for the disinfectant. "A cat, I can't have a cat, I'm allergic!" Sharona ignored him, completely wrapped up in the story. When she finished the first one, she immediately began on the second. "I don't know why you're so worried, it's just a story." Adrian froze when he felt something rub against his leg. "S-Sharona?" She waved her hands in a 'leave-me-alone-I'm-reading' gesture. Adrian glanced down, and cried out in panic. "Ahhhhhh, Sharona!" She whirled angrily. "Adrian, what…. awwwww, he's so cute!" She jumped up from her seat, rushing over to pick up the tiny mewling bundle. "Look, he's so tiny!" Adrian held up his hands, his eyes starting to water. "No, no, no, no…. ah, ah..CHOOO!" He darted for the Kleenex while Sharona continued to cuddle the little animal. "Maybe, ah, maybe Benjy would like a cat." Sharona stopped her baby talk to glare at her boss. "Adrian, I have to take care of YOU twenty-six hours a day, we can't have a cat!"
"Twenty-four." Sharona lowered the kitten to the floor. "With you, it's twenty-six." As Adrian backed away from the advancing fuzzball, Sharona picked up the phone. "Relax, I'm sure my neighbor will take it. She already has four cats, what's one more?" While she worked out the adoption with her neighbor, a knock sounded on the door. Since Sharona was busy, Adrian answered it. "May I help you?" A taller man stood behind the door, his body hunched slightly into his jacket. "I believe you can. You see, my name is Kevin, and Sharona is my wife…" The words were barely out of his mouth when something knocked him flat on his face. Adrian jumped back as the body fell onto his floor. Kevin tried to set up, but the force that had knocked him down was sitting on his back. Adrian's confusion trickled away with the shimmer of familiar silver flakes. Agent Darien Fawkes was sitting on the intruder's back. "Hello again Mr. Monk." Fawkes's partner, Bobby Hobbes, appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Mr. Sparkle, I told you to wait up!" Fawkes turned slightly. "Well If I'd waited for you, our friend would have made himself very unfriendly by now!" Fawkes lifted himself from the body. Before Kevin could stand, Bobby aimed a strange looking device at him and fired. Kevin vanished in a shimmering haze. While Sharona and Adrian stared in shock, Bobby returned the device to his belt. "You folks ok?" Sharona nodded slightly. "Yeah, we're fine, how…" Fawkes walked up to the computer. "Yep, virus program, just like Skinner said." Adrian turned to the computer. "What just happened here?" Fawkes glanced back. You got the folder right?" Sharona glared. "We got a psychotic disk!" Bobby shook his head. "This is the wrong folder. It should have been all hard copy, nothing on disk. Your folder was intercepted, then switched with a seek-and-destroy disk. As soon as you opened the files, the situations from that world started to leak into this one." Fawkes shut down the program, carefully removing the disk. "Now you understand why it's so urgent for us to stop the FFC." A mew sounded at their feet. Bobby, panicked, whipped out the dematerialization device. "No!" Sharona darted forward, cradling the kitten in her arms. "It's just a kitten, you don't need to vaporize it!"
"Ma'am, there is no such thing as just a kitten."
"Aw, come on Hobbes, a kitten won't hurt anything." Adrian twitched. "Actually, do you have any idea how many diseases can be passed from cats?" Sharona's jaw dropped, then she narrowed her eyes. "The cat stays!" Bobby glanced at his partner, Darien shrugged. "The cat stays." Reluctantly, Bobby put away his ray gun. Keeping away from the cat, he crossed his arms. "Miss Fleming, exactly how many stories did you read?" Sharona cooed at the kitten. "Just one about the kitten, and part of another one about Kevin and some shmuck named Ted." Hobbes let out his breath in a rush. "Thank god. Hopefully this can be contained."
Another knock sounded. Before anyone could answer, another man walked in. "Hi, I'm Ted, is Sharona home?" Hobbes pulled out his gun and vaporized him. He blew on the tip of his gun while Sharona gaped. "You just shot that guy, how do you know he was the right Ted?"
"Easy, if it'd been the wrong guy, the blast wouldn't have affected him." Darien stared. Sharona turned to Adrian while the two men behind her started arguing. "Who ever said the gun wouldn't affect regular people?" Bobby shrugged, muttering something in return. Sharona and Adrian ignored them.
"You ok boss?" Adrian rubbed his arms, trying to ignore the kitten that now snoozed in Sharona's arms. "I-I guess. It's, well it's just a little, uh, hard to believe." Their conversation was cut short by the two agents behind them. "Hey, we may have a problem here folks." The two turned to see Hobbes standing near the door, cell phone in hand. "What's wrong?""
"I just got a call from the Boss. Seems a writer just tried to post a story about you involving a situation with your worst enemy." Sharona looked confused, Adrian looked panicked. "No…."
"Fraid so my friend. It's Biederbeck. Or as he's more fondly known, Dale the Whale."
Fawkes shook his head sadly. "When will they stop?"
Three hours later, Adrian and Sharona found themselves entering the same gray building they had attended the meeting at a week ago. This time, the building was dead empty. "No guards, no maintenance people?" Hobbes shook his head. "This building is a sort of nexus. All Characters pass through here on their way to other character worlds. It's ironic, but without this building, the FFC wouldn't be able to write fanfic 'crossovers'. Have you ever seen the movie Stargate?" Sharona nodded while Adrian looked confused. "Well, this building operates on the same premise. In every character reality, there's one of these buildings. You can access any reality through this building. Oh, and to answer your question, the building kinda takes care of itself. No one quite knows how, but it's always been here, and has always been exactly the same." Darien chuckled. "Sorta like your hairline." Hobbes was about to respond when they reached their destination. It was a large black door. Breathing in deeply, Hobbes looked around the group. "Ready?" At the nervous nods, he reached down, twisted the handle, and threw open the door.
A blast of white light assaulted their senses as they entered the room. Slowly, they became aware of a soft sound, the tick of a clock. Voices were speaking in low tones just out of sight. Sharona looked around, and gasped. "Adrian!" She whispered harshly. Adrian nodded as he too looked around. " Biederbeck 's apartment." The voices they heard were coming from just beyond the door. Bobby took the lead. "Follow me, I think it's this way." Adrian walked up to the door opposite from where Hobbes was heading and flung it open. Hobbes dropped his arms. "Or we could just do it your way." Darien threw his partner a look.
"OH MY GOD!" Sharona rushed to Adrian's side. "What, what is it….. oh my God!" She covered her eyes, turning away quickly as she fought to keep her lunch. Bobby and Darien ran up to Adrian, who was still standing in the doorway, hyperventilating. "Hey, what's the prob…. whoa!" Darien peeked over Bobby's shoulders, and unconsciously went invisible. "I guess we can quit referring to the Official as the Fat Man."
They were looking into Biederbeck 's domain. Biterbeck himself was laid out on his enormous bed, red silk piled about him. He was also, as he liked to put it, 'el fresco'. That wasn't the worst of it. Two other people were in the room with him, Sharona and Adrian. Adrian was rubbing Biederbeck 's feet, his hands wrapped in his socks. Sharona was feeding Dale grapes dipped in chocolate. The Adrian in the doorway was still hyperventilating. Sharona, having recovered some control of herself, approached Adrian and placed a controlling hand on his shoulder, steering him away from the doorway. Darien and Bobby remained behind, heads cocked to the side. "You know, it's like what people say about a car wreck."
Bobby nodded. "In this case, it's more like a sinking ship."
"Titanic?"
"You got it my friend."
Bobby turned to the two people behind him. "You guys alright?" Adrian was still recovering his breath, and Sharona's complexion was still pasty, but she nodded her head. "I-I think so. We just need a few more minutes." Darien smiled softly. "Take your time, we'll deal with this next part." With that, he and Bobby advanced into the room, ray guns drawn. The subservient Sharona and Adrian vanished under the blasts without a pause. Biederbeck, however, took a few moments to fully dissolve under their combined onslaught. Finally, though, Dale was vanquished. Blowing simultaneously on the barrels of their ray guns, Hobbes and Fawkes returned to the real Adrian and Sharona, who were just beginning to stand. Around them, the apartment slowly began fading, until it became just another room. "That's it?" Hobbes nodded. "In this case, that's all it required. However, if this story had actually been posted, we'd have had to track down every location where this story existed, as well as its home origin in order to eradicate it completely. Worse, if you open the story in your reality, it becomes real." Adrian shuddered, mumbling something that wasn't English. "What's he sayin'?" Sharona rubbed Adrian's back. "He's ok, he just gets like this when something really disturbs him."
Back at Adrian's apartment, Darien and Bobby finally delivered the correct folder to Adrian and Sharona. In addition, they also gave them a pair of ray guns. "Only use these in times of great need." Sharona gently removed the gun from Adrian's hands. "We will, no problem." Just as they were about to leave, Hobbes turned back. "Oh, and when you read those stories, be sure you actually want to eliminate it before you do something. Some of them aren't so bad." Sharona held up her hand to stop the retreating forms. "How do we know where to go to destroy a story?" Darien smiled. "Read the folder. With that, they walked out the door.
Sharona sighed. "Well, do you want to read first?" Adrian took the folder, cautiously opening to the fist page. "Rubben, aun strippen boska." Sharona grabbed the folder. "Never mind, I'll read."
epilogue
Tanya whistled "Georgia on my Mind" as she sat down to her computer, propping her feet on the painted box beneath her desk. As the black of the screen faded, her brow wrinkled in confusion. "What…" She was baffled, every icon on her desktop had become a skull and crossbones. "Well what the hell is this?" Her keyboard was also unresponsive. Angrily, Tanya slapped the side of the monitor, then pressed in the power button on her computer. She waited impatiently for the computer to boot back up. Finally, the familiar desktop re-appeared. All the icons had returned to their former appearance. Shifting in her seat, Tanya clicked on her story file and scanned for 'The Return of Biterbeck'. Her brow furrowed again. "Well where the hell is it?" She murmured, her voice tightening. It was no longer in the folder. "What the hell is going on here?!!" She yelled into an empty room.
End
Author's note: This was not meant to be pretty. This is a sinking ship, and is now sunk. I think I've now gotten enough sleep to get back to writing 'real' stories again. (Don't blame me, blame the Advil.)
Also, this kinda explains why I never write anything with a higher rating than R. They just keep vanishing out of my computer….
Author: DragonLady
Rating: Ohhhh boy
Spoilers: From episodes: Dale the Whale. From fanfiction: "Fighting the FFC" (which you must read to be LESS confused by this story), "Mr. Monk and the X", and "Mr. Monk and the Kitten" by enigma of irony (by the way, I hope you don't kill me for borrowing the kitten, it was just so cute, and I fed it, and gave it water, and, and stuff! Ok, fine, I'll give it back.
Disclaimer: Um, don't read this??
Sharona examined the man through her lashes. He was just an average FEDEX guy. White shirt, white shorts, and little plastic box with a screen to sign her name. Still, she was very nervous about the package her was holding. It was a FEDEX envelope, and reminded her just a little too much of the move The Matrix. In the movie, when the lead character opened the package, his life was forever altered.
Finishing her signature with a flourish, she walked back inside her house. There were still cracks in her ceiling as a result of the recent earthquake, she'd have to discuss the shoddy workmanship with her repairman the next time she saw him. Sitting down, she pulled the zipper from the envelope. Inside, there was a dark purple folder. Actually, folder was an inadequate term. It was more like a case, a large one. A small lock was wrapped around the outside. Taped to the outside of the case was a note.
"This package may only be opened in the presence of all program lead characters."
"Well who…" Her words were cut off by the sound of the phone. Sighing, she stood to answer it. "This is Sharona. You got what? Ok, ok, yeah, Adrian… Adrian I'll be right over. Yeah, I think I can explain."
When Sharona arrived, Adrian was pacing back and forth through his house. "Adrian, hey, calm down." Adrian turned. "I am calm."
"No you're not, you're pacing. Now will ya sit down?" Adrian crossed his arms, then started pacing again. "Adrian, sit down- sit down!" As though hearing Sharona for the first time, Adrian sat. Sharona sat across from him, placing the purple case on the table. "Do you have it?" Adrian sighed, slowly reached into his pocket, and produced a key, wrapped in a baggie.
"Are we sure we want to do this?" Sharona glared at him. "Adrian, you're a detective, aren't you curious?" Adrian twitched. "Well, uh, no. Curiosity usually ends up being messy." Sharona rolled her eyes, removed the key from the baggie, and slid it into the lock. Without any fanfare, the case opened. Inside was a disk. "All that for this?" Sharona removed the disk, flipping it over to look for a label. Nothing, it was clean. Standing, she walked over to Adrian's computer and dropped the disk in the drive. Curious despite his earlier statements, Adrian walked over to lean over her shoulder.
The disk took a few moments to load. As soon as it finished cycling, a logo popped up on the screen, preceded by an arrow and sparkles. "Cute." Said Adrian softly. Words appeared on the screen. CAFW (Characters Against Fic Writers). The words melted away to reveal a video clip. A man stood before them in a gray room. He was partially shrouded in darkness, but Sharona thought she could detect the color of his clothing, sort of black and red. The man stepped forward, and Sharona gasped. "Oh god, I used to love this show!" The man spoke. "Good day to you. My name is Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I know this will seem impossible to understand, or even believe at first, but I will do my best to explain the circumstances of my, as well as your, existence. Basically, it starts with an idea for a program. A producer gathers a crew, develops his 'vision', and hires actors to play the roles he has set up. Often, the program will air, run a few seasons, then get cancelled. This does not ordinarily cause a problem. However, every now and then, a program will come along that grabs the attention of a certain select portion of the viewing community. This is the FFC, or, Fan Fic Community. If you attended last week's meeting, you were no doubt apprised of these people." Adrian and Sharona shared a look. "What the FFC will do is create scenarios for the characters of the program, scenarios that will differ from what the characters would normally do in their day to day life. Sometimes, the scenarios are benign, referred to as 'fluff'. They have little or no affect to our lives. At other times, however, we are placed in situations completely contrary to our behavior. This disk contains all the material that has been written about your characters so far. Read it well, and Godspeed." With that, the video ended, and the screen opened into a file. While Adrian leaned back, Sharona began clicking on the titles contained within the file. She started to smile as she read.
"Awwww! You get a kitten!" Adrian turned sharply. "A what?" Sharona kept scrolling. "A kitten, a little tabby. Ohh, that is so sweet, you cuddle it, then you talk to it! God, I think I'm gonna cry!" Adrian went white, backing away from the computer and looking around for the disinfectant. "A cat, I can't have a cat, I'm allergic!" Sharona ignored him, completely wrapped up in the story. When she finished the first one, she immediately began on the second. "I don't know why you're so worried, it's just a story." Adrian froze when he felt something rub against his leg. "S-Sharona?" She waved her hands in a 'leave-me-alone-I'm-reading' gesture. Adrian glanced down, and cried out in panic. "Ahhhhhh, Sharona!" She whirled angrily. "Adrian, what…. awwwww, he's so cute!" She jumped up from her seat, rushing over to pick up the tiny mewling bundle. "Look, he's so tiny!" Adrian held up his hands, his eyes starting to water. "No, no, no, no…. ah, ah..CHOOO!" He darted for the Kleenex while Sharona continued to cuddle the little animal. "Maybe, ah, maybe Benjy would like a cat." Sharona stopped her baby talk to glare at her boss. "Adrian, I have to take care of YOU twenty-six hours a day, we can't have a cat!"
"Twenty-four." Sharona lowered the kitten to the floor. "With you, it's twenty-six." As Adrian backed away from the advancing fuzzball, Sharona picked up the phone. "Relax, I'm sure my neighbor will take it. She already has four cats, what's one more?" While she worked out the adoption with her neighbor, a knock sounded on the door. Since Sharona was busy, Adrian answered it. "May I help you?" A taller man stood behind the door, his body hunched slightly into his jacket. "I believe you can. You see, my name is Kevin, and Sharona is my wife…" The words were barely out of his mouth when something knocked him flat on his face. Adrian jumped back as the body fell onto his floor. Kevin tried to set up, but the force that had knocked him down was sitting on his back. Adrian's confusion trickled away with the shimmer of familiar silver flakes. Agent Darien Fawkes was sitting on the intruder's back. "Hello again Mr. Monk." Fawkes's partner, Bobby Hobbes, appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Mr. Sparkle, I told you to wait up!" Fawkes turned slightly. "Well If I'd waited for you, our friend would have made himself very unfriendly by now!" Fawkes lifted himself from the body. Before Kevin could stand, Bobby aimed a strange looking device at him and fired. Kevin vanished in a shimmering haze. While Sharona and Adrian stared in shock, Bobby returned the device to his belt. "You folks ok?" Sharona nodded slightly. "Yeah, we're fine, how…" Fawkes walked up to the computer. "Yep, virus program, just like Skinner said." Adrian turned to the computer. "What just happened here?" Fawkes glanced back. You got the folder right?" Sharona glared. "We got a psychotic disk!" Bobby shook his head. "This is the wrong folder. It should have been all hard copy, nothing on disk. Your folder was intercepted, then switched with a seek-and-destroy disk. As soon as you opened the files, the situations from that world started to leak into this one." Fawkes shut down the program, carefully removing the disk. "Now you understand why it's so urgent for us to stop the FFC." A mew sounded at their feet. Bobby, panicked, whipped out the dematerialization device. "No!" Sharona darted forward, cradling the kitten in her arms. "It's just a kitten, you don't need to vaporize it!"
"Ma'am, there is no such thing as just a kitten."
"Aw, come on Hobbes, a kitten won't hurt anything." Adrian twitched. "Actually, do you have any idea how many diseases can be passed from cats?" Sharona's jaw dropped, then she narrowed her eyes. "The cat stays!" Bobby glanced at his partner, Darien shrugged. "The cat stays." Reluctantly, Bobby put away his ray gun. Keeping away from the cat, he crossed his arms. "Miss Fleming, exactly how many stories did you read?" Sharona cooed at the kitten. "Just one about the kitten, and part of another one about Kevin and some shmuck named Ted." Hobbes let out his breath in a rush. "Thank god. Hopefully this can be contained."
Another knock sounded. Before anyone could answer, another man walked in. "Hi, I'm Ted, is Sharona home?" Hobbes pulled out his gun and vaporized him. He blew on the tip of his gun while Sharona gaped. "You just shot that guy, how do you know he was the right Ted?"
"Easy, if it'd been the wrong guy, the blast wouldn't have affected him." Darien stared. Sharona turned to Adrian while the two men behind her started arguing. "Who ever said the gun wouldn't affect regular people?" Bobby shrugged, muttering something in return. Sharona and Adrian ignored them.
"You ok boss?" Adrian rubbed his arms, trying to ignore the kitten that now snoozed in Sharona's arms. "I-I guess. It's, well it's just a little, uh, hard to believe." Their conversation was cut short by the two agents behind them. "Hey, we may have a problem here folks." The two turned to see Hobbes standing near the door, cell phone in hand. "What's wrong?""
"I just got a call from the Boss. Seems a writer just tried to post a story about you involving a situation with your worst enemy." Sharona looked confused, Adrian looked panicked. "No…."
"Fraid so my friend. It's Biederbeck. Or as he's more fondly known, Dale the Whale."
Fawkes shook his head sadly. "When will they stop?"
Three hours later, Adrian and Sharona found themselves entering the same gray building they had attended the meeting at a week ago. This time, the building was dead empty. "No guards, no maintenance people?" Hobbes shook his head. "This building is a sort of nexus. All Characters pass through here on their way to other character worlds. It's ironic, but without this building, the FFC wouldn't be able to write fanfic 'crossovers'. Have you ever seen the movie Stargate?" Sharona nodded while Adrian looked confused. "Well, this building operates on the same premise. In every character reality, there's one of these buildings. You can access any reality through this building. Oh, and to answer your question, the building kinda takes care of itself. No one quite knows how, but it's always been here, and has always been exactly the same." Darien chuckled. "Sorta like your hairline." Hobbes was about to respond when they reached their destination. It was a large black door. Breathing in deeply, Hobbes looked around the group. "Ready?" At the nervous nods, he reached down, twisted the handle, and threw open the door.
A blast of white light assaulted their senses as they entered the room. Slowly, they became aware of a soft sound, the tick of a clock. Voices were speaking in low tones just out of sight. Sharona looked around, and gasped. "Adrian!" She whispered harshly. Adrian nodded as he too looked around. " Biederbeck 's apartment." The voices they heard were coming from just beyond the door. Bobby took the lead. "Follow me, I think it's this way." Adrian walked up to the door opposite from where Hobbes was heading and flung it open. Hobbes dropped his arms. "Or we could just do it your way." Darien threw his partner a look.
"OH MY GOD!" Sharona rushed to Adrian's side. "What, what is it….. oh my God!" She covered her eyes, turning away quickly as she fought to keep her lunch. Bobby and Darien ran up to Adrian, who was still standing in the doorway, hyperventilating. "Hey, what's the prob…. whoa!" Darien peeked over Bobby's shoulders, and unconsciously went invisible. "I guess we can quit referring to the Official as the Fat Man."
They were looking into Biederbeck 's domain. Biterbeck himself was laid out on his enormous bed, red silk piled about him. He was also, as he liked to put it, 'el fresco'. That wasn't the worst of it. Two other people were in the room with him, Sharona and Adrian. Adrian was rubbing Biederbeck 's feet, his hands wrapped in his socks. Sharona was feeding Dale grapes dipped in chocolate. The Adrian in the doorway was still hyperventilating. Sharona, having recovered some control of herself, approached Adrian and placed a controlling hand on his shoulder, steering him away from the doorway. Darien and Bobby remained behind, heads cocked to the side. "You know, it's like what people say about a car wreck."
Bobby nodded. "In this case, it's more like a sinking ship."
"Titanic?"
"You got it my friend."
Bobby turned to the two people behind him. "You guys alright?" Adrian was still recovering his breath, and Sharona's complexion was still pasty, but she nodded her head. "I-I think so. We just need a few more minutes." Darien smiled softly. "Take your time, we'll deal with this next part." With that, he and Bobby advanced into the room, ray guns drawn. The subservient Sharona and Adrian vanished under the blasts without a pause. Biederbeck, however, took a few moments to fully dissolve under their combined onslaught. Finally, though, Dale was vanquished. Blowing simultaneously on the barrels of their ray guns, Hobbes and Fawkes returned to the real Adrian and Sharona, who were just beginning to stand. Around them, the apartment slowly began fading, until it became just another room. "That's it?" Hobbes nodded. "In this case, that's all it required. However, if this story had actually been posted, we'd have had to track down every location where this story existed, as well as its home origin in order to eradicate it completely. Worse, if you open the story in your reality, it becomes real." Adrian shuddered, mumbling something that wasn't English. "What's he sayin'?" Sharona rubbed Adrian's back. "He's ok, he just gets like this when something really disturbs him."
Back at Adrian's apartment, Darien and Bobby finally delivered the correct folder to Adrian and Sharona. In addition, they also gave them a pair of ray guns. "Only use these in times of great need." Sharona gently removed the gun from Adrian's hands. "We will, no problem." Just as they were about to leave, Hobbes turned back. "Oh, and when you read those stories, be sure you actually want to eliminate it before you do something. Some of them aren't so bad." Sharona held up her hand to stop the retreating forms. "How do we know where to go to destroy a story?" Darien smiled. "Read the folder. With that, they walked out the door.
Sharona sighed. "Well, do you want to read first?" Adrian took the folder, cautiously opening to the fist page. "Rubben, aun strippen boska." Sharona grabbed the folder. "Never mind, I'll read."
epilogue
Tanya whistled "Georgia on my Mind" as she sat down to her computer, propping her feet on the painted box beneath her desk. As the black of the screen faded, her brow wrinkled in confusion. "What…" She was baffled, every icon on her desktop had become a skull and crossbones. "Well what the hell is this?" Her keyboard was also unresponsive. Angrily, Tanya slapped the side of the monitor, then pressed in the power button on her computer. She waited impatiently for the computer to boot back up. Finally, the familiar desktop re-appeared. All the icons had returned to their former appearance. Shifting in her seat, Tanya clicked on her story file and scanned for 'The Return of Biterbeck'. Her brow furrowed again. "Well where the hell is it?" She murmured, her voice tightening. It was no longer in the folder. "What the hell is going on here?!!" She yelled into an empty room.
End
Author's note: This was not meant to be pretty. This is a sinking ship, and is now sunk. I think I've now gotten enough sleep to get back to writing 'real' stories again. (Don't blame me, blame the Advil.)
Also, this kinda explains why I never write anything with a higher rating than R. They just keep vanishing out of my computer….