Buffy-Boards Battles 2010: Advent Of The Erzatz

[Old Master 3.0]

Buffy Boards Battles 2010: Advent of the Erzatz




Chapter One: Desecrated​

7:48 PM, U.S. EST, 12:48 AM GMT, House Raiden......



Silence.


As still as a lake in winter.


Flannen stands in the doorway of the Raiden Lounge, shaking her head in confusion.

So, it's happened all over the Buffy Boards, then.

Just what the bloody hell is going on in here?! She had been awakened out of a sound sleep in her home in England by the *BB Emergency Staff Beacon*, a call sign that has been used only on those few occasions where a calamity, or something close to it, has descended on these halls.

Calamity. Quite the understatement.

She had teleported/shunted to the pocket dimension where the Buffy Boards exist as quickly as she was able....to find it's sprawling, hallowed halls empty and dark as the void.

These walls have never been empty or muted in it's entire history! A very big bad has happened here, and the back of her neck was getting that familiar tingling sensation whenever something wasn't quite right.

There were no visible signs of incursion. Every external main, as well as every Dorm door, were tightly locked. But SOMETHING obviously set off the beacon.
Add the fact that the bloody electricity is out, and we've got us a bitchin' hootnanny! Why do the lights have to always be out in situations like this?! It's beyond cliche. The communications were probably compromised as well, though she hadn't checked on that as yet.

The other Staffers should have been here by now! Where are they??


An almost imperceptible shuffling sound.


It put her on alert right away and she wheeled around. Time to put her game face on. But in the darkness, there was nothing to be seen.
All the usual furnishings and accoutrement, but no signs of........

From somewhere in that dark, a persistent and eerily unnatural tittering began to envelop the silence, starting from a low register and steadily increasing in volume.
At first, it seemed a single solitary sound, then slowly it was coming from more than one location within the darkness. Multiplying and crescendoing into a maddening cacophony. It was everywhere.

Flannen walked through the main Raiden hall, trying to fix on a location, scanning the area for something, anything. The psycho-symphony assailed her ears fit to deafen her, and making it difficult to concentrate. Her skin began to gooseflesh and a chilly little spot of fear began at the pit of her stomach.

She decided she had had enough of not being able to see. She fired up an illumination spell, though she was still learning how to work the new Staff magicks and could only get them to function temporarily......


"Econa luminaste!"


A tiny sphere of light formed and floated just above her cupped palms. Not very bright but just enough to disperse much of the duskiness. She threw the sphere up at the ceiling, looking up after it to finally see what the dark had been hiding.

Flannen could feel a scream fighting it's way up from her lungs but she supressed that useless urge, assuming a ready stance and firing up her personal defense aura which glowed a bright blue around the contour of her body.

There, on the high-domed ceiling of the Raiden Lounge, hung several humanoid-shaped, trench-coated.......things. Their skin was the color of the blackest, shiniest ebony....with large lidless red eyes which caught the light of the tiny light-orb and reflected it back in prismatic fashion, much in the way cut gems do. Their hair was long and hung down over their face in stringy, wet strands.
Most chilling of all was the fact that they were all smiling. Wide, pearly, sharp-toothed grins....all identical.

One of the creatures hanging in the center of the mass, seemingly larger in size than the rest of them, tilted his head and addressed Flannen up and down with what appeared to be a mixture of contempt and amusement.....or what passed for those things, at any rate.

The thing leaned it's head forward and through it's already smiling, clenched teeth it uttered a single word in a gutteral and venomous tone that sent a violent chill down Flannen's spine........


"Moderator".


The orb of light went out.



(To be continued........)




:: tu ::

 

[Old Master 3.0]

As everything fell into night once more, terror fully gripped Flannen as she saw the entire pool of darkness on the ceiling above her move and spread towards her.

Reflexively she spun in a semi-circle and knelt down, slapping the floor hard with the palm of her right hand, setting off a shockwave spell that violently slammed the descending intruders back in all directions.....the satisfying sound of their impact against walls, furniture and pavement reverberating throughout the Dorm.

She quickly rose and ran in the direction of the Dorm's main stairwell. There was too little room to maneuver down there, and she had an idea that she would have an advantage in Raiden's combat training facilities upstairs. The BB's Admins fashioned all of these training sections after the fictional X-Men's "Danger Room", to provide all the members with the best and most complete physical conditioning. The room's holographic environments, hidden weapons and traps would be tough for these creatures to negotiate and overcome....or so she hoped.

Midway up the stairs she turned and looked down over the bannister to gauge their position. The slavering creatures had already recovered and were rapidly pouring, jumping and.....what the bloody hell.....hopping and skipping (??) towards her position on the stairs, still with those blood-freezing smiles welded to their faces and their pseudo-hyena's chuckling filling the air again and reverberating throughout the halls.

Placing her hand on the bannister, she utters a simple incantation.....


"Velora hielan!"


A long, inches thick sheet of ice formed and covered the stairs from where she stood all the way down to the bottom. Some of the creatures that had already reached the steps and were halfway up slipped and slid right back down amid a spew of obscenities, crashing into the dark pile of laughers that were gatherered at the base.

Flannen jetted up the remaining length of the staircase and disappeared down the long hall of the second floor, making for the "danger room".



(to be continued........)

 

[Old Master 3.0]

She was moving at a full-on gallop now, pain wracking her legs as she pitched inexorably forward. Why do they have to make these (expletive deleted) hallways so bloody long??!

In the gloom, she didn't see the training center's door until she was almost right on it. She tried to brake but she still had momentum and she slammed hard into the solid reinforced oak door. Her body had been arched backward in her attempt to make a stop, so it was her chest that made first impact, knocking the wind from her...followed closely by her face. The impact her face made was like someone setting off a camera flash right in front of her eyes. She could feel her teeth crunch and grind inside her head. Her glasses smashed and were thrown clear.
Her body was knocked backward as if yanked by a rope tied to her waist and she met the ornate carpeting five feet away, flat as a pancake and loopy.

Wow....those old kiddie cartoons weren't having us on after all.....you really DO see and hear chirping birds when your bell gets rung hard enough. That's pretty bitchin'.

The sounds of the Smiley Faces could be heard loudly scratching and clawing their way up the stairs now, fast. This smacked Flannen back to lucidity in a hurry.

She stumbled her way to her feet, shaking her head to clear away the dizzies and looked down the rangy hall to make out a flurry of shadows swaying and fluttering against the stairwell wall.

Gotta move.

Flannen turned to the door once more and wobbled towards it. She found the security keypad on the side and motioned to input the entry when a stark realization hit her........during the recent overhaul of the Buffy Boards, all the security codes had been changed, and she couldn't remember what the new ones were! They were all written down on her notepad, and whoopy frickin' doo.....she left it at home.
She cursed her vile luck....and threw in a few more choice expletives just for good measure.....when she heard that familiar tittering down the end of he hall. She turned and through blurred vision saw the entire group of twistedly mirthful abominations now standing at the top landing swaying to and fro like movie zombies, staring at her.....their deep red gem eyes piercing the dusky hall.

Okay boys, now I'm REALLY not in the mood. You want to have this waltz with me, you're going to have to say please. And some flowers would be nice........

She planted her feet and raised her fists, muttering an inaudible incantation to herself, her eyes never leaving the Smilies. Her fists began to glow with an aura of dull blue that steadily grew brighter.


"Come on, then!"


The Smilies moved forward in unison, slowly....deliberately, in zombie fashion. They had finally fallen silent. Silent as the grave.

Oh bollocks...who writes this stuff...??




*End Of Chapter One*




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[Old Master 3.0]

^ Whoa.....forgot all about this one. Time to do an updated re-write...........