A/N: Oh, FBI-Warning of Doom... I've had to watch you twelve times over the course of writing this fic. OvO
I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a good episode, better that than say, Taster of Pork or Bologna (latter's gross and fuck the former PLUS its idiot plot Jhonen how do you fail at writing your own goddamn episode). I just think it's kinda sad that I've watched to the point that I've memorized Slab Rankle's serial number when I can't remember my own Granny's phone number.
Warning: potential OOC for Slab. I tried. I really did. ;-; Most of this is a journal, just an FYI.
Swivvvfff
Swivvvfff
Swivvvfff
All the way up, Gaz's sleeves brushed her bomber jacket's body.
Quite a few stairs to climb.
If it wasn't obvious, Slab Rankle was a far, far cry from a reasonable man. If an automated defense system within the coin-operated rides didn't tip a normal person off, then maybe the lazer grid lining the stairway to his office would. Oh, and by lazer grid, don't assume that meant a bunch of those red lines from spy-flicks one had to maneuver with a can of spray-paint and yoga maneuvers – these were full-on 'disintegrate your flesh' if one even poked a toe in without proper clearance, WHILE triggering an alarm, as if the physical agony alone wasn't enough. Nope - blaring noise to pinch around your head like a thorny crown, while your flesh crumbled, was required to even begin atonement for defying the officer's will.
He was kind of a jerk in that aspect, really.
Luckily someone had puked on system's generator. So, Gaz and GIR had no problem entering the slanting, syrup-brown walls to his office.
Now in the nuclear explosion of music on the main floor, Gaz hadn't really noticed that the mock dog's bizarre silence the whole journey up. With no voices bogging her brain down, this fact came to her attention. As such, she paused at the second-last stair and spared him a glance, to find his green form marching in place, waiting for her to continue.
"I thought you were supposed to be a chatterbox," she grunted, suspiciously cocking her head.
GIR muffled something and gestured to his mouth, pretending to tug an invisible zipper, and then pointed to her.
Huh.
...Was he waiting for her to unfasten it?
…How cute.
He was doomed forever, then.
"Sucks to be you. That thing's staying there forever, if it's up to me," she explained, "I hate noises." Had enough for today, thank you.
GIR hummed a little pout, but bounced after her anyhow. Gaz didn't have time to be humoured by his antics. She had to find Zim, the perpetrator, and access what was coming asap...
The door to the security office soon loomed over the girl. Imposing and grey, it was clearly meant to accommodate for much more brutish folk, and not lean little punks with bad attitudes. The door was unlocked – probably had Pinky to thank for that, supposed the gamer, which let out an odd melting plastic scent from inside. Standing in its shadow a moment, Gaz figured she didn't have to bother really bracing herself for what was inside the room, and so she strode right along in.
Part of her wished she hadn't.
Now, Gaz didn't feel sick easily. And she still didn't count this as "sick feeling". ...But whatever it was, it was cutting it really damn close.
Scratch marks plowed right through the whole, grey floor and all the control consoles lining them. Bullets shells rolled under her soles and several monitors were smashed. And as for the ones that were intact?
When one pictured faulty camera feeds, they might've expected vacant screens or static, dancing lines. Maybe those rainbow streaked patterns and a high, droning pitch.
Utterly and entirely not the case here. In all her experience with screens, Gaz hadn't really seen anything like this. Countless displays stretched to the ceiling. And not one of them lacking damage didn't glow red.
It wasn't just that they were red - they weren't even constant with the colour. It was like the red scribbled itself in, seizuring hysterically down the plastic frames, as though each string was trying to burst out from the technological cage. Something about them grabbed at the tendons of all things, making them crawl and interweave within each other like worms beneath their pores in some instinctual empathy. If Gaz focused her vision, she could just make out words lingering inside the convulsive webs. There was a letter "s" under one streak, and there was a letter "m" and a letter "r", with a little "n" flowering between the paths brushed up to her lenses… "t", "e", "o"... ..."y" "o" "u" "m" "o" "n" "s"-
GIR tugged her sleeve.
She snapped out of this little trance quickly, shaking her head and arms furiously. NOW she felt sick.
What the hell was that?!
Doing her best to have her eyes avoid the screens, in the corner of the room erected a pod-like transport – obviously the elevator Pinky'd mentioned earlier, which was mostly a silver metal – with a black notebook sprawled in front of it. The machine was dented and there were gouge marks on the roof, but it still seemed operational regardless. Its panels were still glowing around it and what have you...
Either way, Gaz was all too eager to leave this disturbing red room. So much so that for once, GIR's dopey demeanor didn't annoy her at all. He was humming softly under all this oppression, like nothing affected him – a small breeze in an oven, so to speak. Before stepping into the pod, she lifted the book off the ground and jumped in with more haste than was probably consistent for her personality. As per norm, she didn't care. GIR tumbled in after her.
Inside wasn't very spacious. Rounded walls, spanning around plainly... A big button said BELOW BASEMENT SECRET LEVELS TO LABS AND STUFF and guess which one she pressed. With a ding, the doors slipped shut and down the pair descended.
Something was coming up ahead, she felt. When those doors opened, things would stir, and she'd be trapped in the spiral with it all. It'd be a struggle to breathe, and things would break all too easily all around her. It'd probably be hell. These were just basic instincts she felt, and rarely were they wrong.
Might as well read first.
As Gaz sat down to absorb her find within this murky interior, GIR stepped forward. With a tug, his doggy hood rolled back and he let his cyan eyes illuminate the pages for her. He had the stupidest grin she'd seen in a while, and considering the nature of Gaz's company, that was saying something.
To be honest, the girl was greatly confused by these gestures. She didn't really get why the stupid thing was being nice when GIR's one personality trait (that she'd gathered) seemed to be eating everything within immediate vicinity, but hell if she was complaining.
"Alright, alright," she admitted, "I don't get it, but you've been good. …So, when we're done, I'll…" she thought a moment, "I'll… …Okay, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll think of something good to get you, I guess. For Christmas, maybe. You like food, right? Tacos sound good?"
GIR was practically shaking with delight at the mention.
What a happy freak... Gaz took a slight inhale and looked to the cover. On one side, the number #277 was scrawled in chalk. Without any further delay, she spread the covers and delved right into the literature.
March 10th, 3023
Greetings, new comrade. I am… Sergeant Slab Rankle! Finest soldier in all of America. And you… You are officially my two hundred and seventy-seventh sub-log! Here, I will fill your pages with one – and-only-one – specific issue that befalls our glorious fortress, and it is up to you to keep the contents of your pages legible for falling-back purposes.
Your issue… …Is something quite foreboding, Sergeant Slab will not lie. I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶
Come on, Slab! Confidence is key! Gyah, this is already unprofessional, sub-log… Well, here's the subject you'll specialize in: there is a shadow lingering within our vulnerable, lowest areas. You may ask, "well, why don't you put this in the sub-log about the mall's various, susceptible shadows? Log 200?" and the answer is that this one's… Different.
It was found… Or should I say she was found? At 7:11 PM, while I was in the tunnels beneath the main building that're near the memory-wiping sector. Eggheads were just finishing up on that Dib kid for… The third time this year, wasn't it? (God, every time that kid catches wind of something weird, he won't stop coming in to figure us out. But since we keep wiping his memory, he falls for the same trap over and over each time he gains enough nerve to suspect us. Would've turned him into a zombie ages ago, but his father's the last man to invoke the wrath of... Humour is good for staff morale anyhow…) They were taking the idiot up to the top, and since it was still opening hours I stayed behind, just in case some trespassers slipped in these more innocent, sensitive areas.
So it's just trusty Sergeant Slab Rankle and the dear tunnels.
And then that shadow showed up.
I noticed down the hall that all the lights were shutting off (see log 123 for concerns about power-grid). And that those dim patches kept getting closer. There are no windows below ground, so it was pitch black within seconds.
Then there were this pair of weird eyes, sub-journal. A sissy purple. They lit up some weird teeth under them. I ordered for identification, but they approached anyway.
I didn't know what it wanted. It was saying something about needing to purge some child in this… Voice… That reminded me of mother (a complete dead-ringer, actually…how?!), but I turned my flashlight on in its face to get a better look. It screamed and then it disappeared into the dark. The second it did, the lights turned on.
When the Eggheads came back, I explained what happened, and they told me to start taking pills. I know what I saw, sub-journal, make no mistake like those morons and the supervisor did! Whatever it was, I hope that it's the last I've seen of it…
…Think I just saw something on camera C-49. Trespassers! Apologies, sub-journal 277! Sub-journal 31 is needed!
I'll look into this more tomorrow. That is a pledge!
-S.S.R
l
l
l
March 11th
I – Sergeant Slab Rankle!– went digging through the records today to find leads, as promised. Right off the bat was I disappointed, since sadly ex-head officers Lisa Bart, Tomas Jerr and Jake Finns didn't keep logs at all… My ray of hope came, however, when I found the notes of 3017's janitor Oswald Docs' buried in an old filing unit. At first, you wouldn't even consider touching something so unofficial and hippish, but these notes seem to designate the time when this thing first showed up – since nothing before his time even sniffs at it existing.
Now, everybody wrote this boy off. But immediately, I smelled some similarities to what I'm dealing with. Docs describes encountering something during his shift in the lower floors. Unlike my case, where the lights dimmed automatically, he heard it roaring first, all through the compound. He'd followed the sounds to some corridor below ground, where some goopy pile of bones rested just as it ripped out the generator. It'd been wheezing and vomiting a darker, chunky, odorless liquid, and once it was dark, the breathing calmed somewhat. Doc heard it scrape towards him, and though he describes it as much smaller than I did, it's obvious we're dealing with the same scoundrel. According to his description, it's:
-Dark and unstable
-Hates light(note keep 50th floor on standby – high-powered flashlight need t/b well-stocked on batteries)
-Vanishes upon being "killed"
-Has eyes that change colour(keep in mind)
-Lots of teeth
-Around five feet in size(? sounded much larger when I saw it then again it might've grown over almost six years)
It tried to stab him with something, he wrote, and he tried bashing it with a broom. When that didn't kill it, he beamed his high-powered flashlight directly at its eyes and it disintegrated with a scream.
Now I – Sergeant Slab Rankle! – have proof that this is not some foul hallucination. Sadly, Docs next notes only comment on some sort of circle being inscribed subtly on various surfaces that he noted while waiting for its next appearance... But considering there's a massive bite mark in the page and that this is the day Docs went missing, I think this lead is gone forever. Mick Ducks replaced him as janitor, and he didn't keep any recordings about his cleaning rounds at all. Again, even when I presented these papers, the supervisor told me to take medication. As if I – Sergeant Slab Rankle! – would ever let pharmaceuticals impair me on duty!
As for those circles?
I've seen plenty of rats in my day. Ones affiliated with the devil? Don't make me laugh.
…It's funny, actually. I remember back when that Dib kid was being dealt with last time. Wiping his memory's always tricky – takes huge doses of power for the extractor to get him out of our hair, but I remember when he was half-lucid, he still tried to tell us he was right for attempting to expose our operation. Once, the scoundrel tried to tell us about an alien being an even bigger problem to us both, and tried to get us to help him out with our tech. Lead egghead, that woman… La-something… I remember, she patted his young head, and called him crazy.
Wonder if this is how he felt before that chunk of his mind got ripped out.
l
l
l
March 12-15
All clear.
l
l
l
March 16th
After the green child trespassed tonight (I already wrote down our epic squabble in sub-log 47), I herded the zombies back. Something was off, I noticed several specimens were missing. The lab coats aren't going to like this. I also noticed suspiciously large piles of dust…
Why am I writing these here, and not logs 190 and 12?
…Call it intuition.
Intuition, and the fact I swore I saw purple eyes in the dark…
Me and that freak aren't done. I can taste it.
l
l
l
March 29th
Everyone says it's a clump of rats in the trick of the light, but Slab Rankle wasn't born yesterday!
She made it further this time. I know it's a she, she tried to talk to me again. Didn't stick around long… Now technically, there might've been a nest of these shadowy things, but I have intuition, sub-log! This is a solo-operation!
…She used mother's voice again when she screamed. ...She disappears in the flashlight...
I'm not crazy...
l
l
l
March 30th
Eyes peeled.
l
l
l
March 31st
I don't know what she did or how she did it. I saw him, sub-journal. I saw Docs. I saw three of our missing officers from the last week – Sam A. Clove, Rosanne Verse, and Dale Chipper. And I saw at least six of the missing zombie soldiers.
They stood around me. They didn't look real, sub-log. It was like they were made of plastic… I saw these types of builds back in the war… The skins're too white, eyes… Might as well have been china saucers stuffed in the sockets… Unnatural…
You'd think that they wouldn't be able to get under the skin of Sergeant Slab Rankle, but they did… Something about their eyes. They strip you naked in a second…
They tugged everything out of me, journal. Months of training to withstand interrogation. Undone in seconds. And I didn't say anything. I could feel them, throwing my memories like lemons into a squeezer for them to nourish on...!
They know about my childhood, somehow. The things mom did to me, they wouldn't stop talking about her… I didn't want to remember those days… Not once in a million years… They brought up the boys in the war… They brought up the old general… God. GOD! HOW?!
I shot them! AND THEY DIDN'T FALL! I shot each of them at least three times each, and all I got was dust! THAT GODDAMN DUST, JOURNAL! WHERE ARE THEIR BODIES?! WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?! WHAT AM IS SLAB RANKLE EVEN FACING?!
Then she showed up. And in mo… No. No, in that brute's voice, she told me the games were just beginning. And then she vanished again.
I hadn't even touched my flashlight.
…
They heard the shots and came down. I am safeguarding us all. Sergeant Slab Rankle does not want their medication.
l
l
l
April 1st
She has a sense of humour…
All day, there were disturbances in the feeds. These red lines. I have to go deep into the wiring to find the problem. Do you know what it was?
Do you know what was stuck in the wiring, sub-log?
A toy train.
A complete replica of Emerald Detour I had as a kid.
The second I took it out, everything returned to normal. It makes no sense.
She's messing with me.
She knows.
She knows everything…
l
l
l
April 2nd-May 30th
All clear…
June 1st
Something's messing with the cameras still. Wiring's fine. I don't know what's wrong. These red lines are annoying.
June 2nd
Where is she? Where is she?!
I see words in these lines! STOP REPEATING "FAILURE"! I WAS IN THE WAR, DAMN YOU! THE GREATEST SERGEANT AMERICA'S EVER SEEN!
STOP IT!
STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT
l
l
l
June 3…August 18th
All… Clear
she's just waiting
l
l
l
August 19th
There are strange circles all over the damn place! NO, SUPERVISOR DOWNS, THESE WEREN'T DONE BY RATS!
He threatened to fire me… Maybe…
No. No, Sergeant Slab Rankle is never wrong! Sure, I was mistaken at Long Sound battle, big deal…! Maybe I made a mistake and cost us 12,000 men
NO.
NO.
MY RECORD IS PERFECT, DAMN YOU!
l
l
l
August 25th
I did it, sub-log. I took the pills.
To be honest, I… Feel normal. Huh.
…Well, the best way for a soldier to move forward is to admit defeat. …To be honest, things feel more sure-fired without these hallucinations. Maybe… Maybe the shadow was just delusions…
Therapy's not needed, but maybe keeping an open mind won't be uncalled for. …Err…
Slab's back on top...?
l
l
l
...
... ...
...
October 28th
She's back.
I don't know how, but she returned. In a miserable use of my reflexes, she killed Pricefield right in front of me. I shot her and my bullets did little to nothing. I watched her tug some blue ball from Pricefield's chest with her tail, and gulp it down like it was a dumpling.
She's bigger now. I don't know how. She's taller than me. She's shaped like a satyr, but her head… It's like some skeletal goat. There are horns twisting out and a pair of glowing eyes. The flesh rolls down her bones like molasses…
I asked her what she's trying to do.
She said it was payback for interrupting a meal.
My flashlight only made her greatly uncomfortable. I could tell she vanished only because she wanted to...
l
l
l
October 29th
EVERYTHING'S WRONG.
HALF THE ZOMBIES HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO THAT DUST.
THE SUPERVISOR WON'T LISTEN TO ME – ME! SLAB RANKLE!
I WILL NOT SURRENDER MY MALL TO SOME CRETIN! PRIORITY ONE IS THAT SHADOW! FOR THE GOOD OF MORALITY AND JUSTICE, I WILL FIGHT!
I AM NO FAILURE.
I WILL MAKE THIS STRIKE COUNT!
l
l
l
October 30-November 14th
I'm waiting
They laid me off but I'm waiting
This is Slab's territory and I will purge it of all threats
…I have a plan.
I'll need to shut off the camera feed to do it, though. And I'll need to lure that kid back in.
l
l
l
November 17th
As I timed it, Dib came back again. Literally could not have picked a better day… If he hadn't returned within the next few weeks from the clues I dropped, I think I might've swiped him myself. Desperate times, journal! Desperate times. Of course his memory got wiped again by the staff, but I knew what to do.
I repeated her words in my head, and re-read these entries, journal. I know what she wants. She wants that kid. I knocked the eggheads out when they were done with the extractor. Membrane's kid was unconscious, so I grabbed him by the oversized head and used him as bait.
She came. I'll give her credit, she wasted no time trying to kill me. But – SLAB IS ALWAYS PREPARED!
While retreating, I put two-and-two together. Most of the building is powered by generators. That's where she put her circles – around the exposed generators! Clearly, the power going out all over this sweet, dear mall is thanks to that. So…
So what if I purchased a generator she hadn't defiled yet?
And hooked sixty-seven stage lights to it?
I raced her to the plaza. I was prepared.
Fourth of July, journal. Fourth of goddamn July.
You should've heard her SCREAM. IT'S NOT FUN WHEN IT'S YOU, IS IT?! SHE CRUMBLED APART AND SCREECHED MY NAME AND I WATCHED HER DIE
I WATCHED HER FUCKING DIE
IT WAS GLORIOUS.
IT'S DONE.
HER SCREAMS ARE PROOF.
SLAB RANKLE WON THE FIGHT
FREEDOM, FREEDOM
SLAB RANKLE'S DUTY IS DONE! LIBERATION FROM THESE MEMORIES AT LAST.
...
...Continuing, Dib woke up and looked at me like I was insane. He asked to go home and I showed him the door.
I was howling the whole time. UFO kid of all people told me I sounded nuts and went home. He won't remember a thing. ...I think this is what my English teachers called irony.
…Ha. I deserve some down time. Tomorrow, I'll… I'll find another branch suited for me. Time for this old dog to find new turf. This mall…
This mall is finally safe...
...
If Gaz struggled to read between the smudges and furiously scratched out pages, she could barely make out new "battle tactics" to join security wings and the like.
But the legible part of November 19th was much more interesting.
...
November 19th
Why.
Why, I did everything right.
She's not dead.
No. No, despite everything, she isn't.
The supervisor called me. All of the zombie specimens have been eaten.
All of them.
All they've got left is that crazy dust.
I'm waiting in the office now.
She renovated it while I was gone. Every screen is red now.
I don't know when she'll come for me. I don't know what I'll do. The screens laugh at me. I'm tired of running. I threw the pills out. I'm wAI-
The final "t" started as a vertical line going down, but its base was sent flying in a chaotic, black line. It tore through the white, as though the man who'd crafted it'd been forced to swipe his arm back violently and suddenly from the page...
Despite everything, when the doors slipped open with a ding, Gaz felt herself jolt slightly.
Her stop...
A/N: Each staff person's name is a reference. They're all cartoon (and a pair of game) character's names spliced together. See how many you can get.
I didn't want to get specific as to what fucked up shit happened in Slab's childhood, so that's why it's vague. I figured he wouldn't be the sort to directly write down all the EARNESTLY awful stuff that's happened to him, y'know? Also, those of you may remember that the monster sounded way deeper when talking to Zim - certainly not with a woman's voice like it did with Slab. This is not an inconsistency. Trust me.
On a sillier note, Slab was supposed to write his name with big, bolded stars beside it during less insane portions like the fabulous jr. high school girl he secretly is deep inside (I WANT THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL MUSICALS TO STAR ALL THE INSANE DRILL SERGEANT CHARACTERS IN ALL FICTION EVER COULD YOU SEE SLAB, TF2'S SOLDIER, COACH OLEANDER, SERGEANT HARTMAN AND ALL THESE OTHER BATSHIT CRAZY MILITARY DUDES BELTING "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" LIKE GRAVELY MOTHERFUCKERS GIVE ME THIS HOLLYWOOD DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU'LL MAKE CHRIST ALMIGHTY), but the site wouldn't register the text symbols. x'c I'm kinda sad I didn't get to truly add unadulterated man-childishness to the mix, but oh well...
Considering how little I've been able to sleep, I think these two bad boys are gonna be totally spruced later. Probably in an Orwellian style without me ever telling you guys, mweheheheh... Think I should bump the rating to an M, or are we still good? And should the "Adventure" genre be swtiched to "Mystery"? Also, is Gaz alright? Always open to suggestion, folks! :P
(PS: I do not intend for there to be any more than friendship between Gaz and GIR, so... Yeah.)
Well. Uh… That was that. See you at a saner date hopefully maybe? :P