INHUMANOIDS REDUX
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Chapter 1: The Thing in Amber
The scent of coast redwood filled the air as a cavalcade of military recovery vehicles towed a towering amber monolith atop a massive reinforced flatbed down the dirt road. Standing along the sides of said road was an army of Park Rangers, state troopers, personnel from the National Guard, reporters, and various and sundry looky-loos, while a news helicopter dominated the sky, the sound of its rotor nearly drowned out by that of hundreds of cameras snapping in unison.
"With me is Doctor Herman Arm–" a reporter on the ground began.
"Herc," a man just out of the camera's field-of-view butted in.
"Excuse me– I mean, Herc Armstrong, leader of the Earth Corps, the United States Geological Service's elite hazardous environment exploration team," the reporter continued. "Would you care to comment on rumors that the monolith was emitting a strange sound and glowing when it was discovered by a pair of campers? Or that it supposedly contains the skeleton of some long-extinct dinosaur? And that the trees seem to be …'speaking'?"
The camera panned over to the subject of the interview– a buff-looking man with a black flattop clad in what looked like a pressurized deep-sea diving suit with a grappling hook launcher in place of its left hand.
"We're not sure about the skeleton part yet, Miss Walker," he began, "but as for the other two claims, I'm sure there's a rational explanation for–"
"What's that?!"
Herc's head swiveled around to see the top of one of the redwoods precariously tilting in his direction. A moment later, he lunged forward and tackled the reporter to the ground, the both of them landing a mere couple yards away from what proved to be the thing's point of impact.
"Thanks!" the latter said. "This is Barbara Walker, signing off from Los Padres National Forest, where mysterious events are definitely taking place!"
As Miss Walker made her exit, Herc could swear that, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something lurking among the trees.
If I didn't know any better, he thought, I'd swear that–
His train of thought was suddenly derailed when he heard a noise come from the monolith– more specifically, a banshee-like wail with a pitch high enough to border on ultrasound.
Okay, that settles it– maybe now's a good time to have a nice long discussion with the other guys and see if we can't come up with some answers that make a lick of sense.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Well, here it is– the big 100. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised I managed to reach this milestone in the first place– especially considering that the main reason I even signed up in the first place was just to leave a review on some fic that I can barely even remember. And yet, after 11 years, I've somehow managed to go from just some guy who wrote a brief one-shot shipfic for a British puppet show that I bet most of you have never heard of to some guy who somehow managed to, among other things…
Become the most prolific contributor to this site's Jem category
Write an entire fic that was just a setup to a meme reference (said fic being In Blackest Day, In Brightest Night) and somehow have it turn out to be a good story in its own right
Try and write something resembling a novelization of a then-contemporary video game (and somehow predict things that would turn up in said game's sequel released a fair few years later, meaning that I'm either lucky, clairvoyant, or that someone at Arkane read that old Dishonored fic– and if it's that last one, I'll let whoever read it take the credit rather than accuse them of stealing an idea from the worst fic I've ever published to this site)
Get one of my Jem fics read and approved by none other than Samantha Newark, aka Jem's VA from the original show
Write a Batman: The Animated Series fic that one reviewer said that they could picture as an actual episode of the series
Co-write a Spider-Man fic (speaking of, I can indeed confirm that Spider-Verse Domestics is not only dead, but according to recent correspondence with Brackets002, he considers it an old shame. That being the case, said correspondence also revealed that he thinks the material I wrote for it still holds up.)
As for what's next on the horizon (apart from updates to The MECH Chronicles, On the Cutting Edge of Rock, The New Face of War, this fic, and further entries in PPGA), here's what I'm currently willing to confirm…
A shiny new W.I.T.C.H fic
A long overdue Extreme Ghostbusters fic or three
My own PPGA-style takes on Totally Spies and Winx Club
A new Transformers fic set in the same universe as The MECH Chronicles, starring what are essentially the Autobots' and Decepticons' respective "B-teams"
And to wrap this all up, I'd just like to say one thing to everyone who's followed and/or put me or my work on their favorites list, taken time to review said work, been inspired to write their own fics by what I've put up here, decided to seek out and/or revisit the original source material because of my fics, or generally just enjoyed whatever I've put up here, all I have to say is "Thank you".