The Micro-Scenes Thread

with input from our lovely discord
An Artful Competition Between Speedsters:
Imp's ART classroom:
Saturday morning:
Two reinforced Easels stood facing each other in the room, behind them two extremely strong speedsters with very different GSD, one looking like he could star in the Jurassic Park, the other looking like a shoe in for the companion of Peter Pan she chose her code name after. On the chalkboard a theme the contestants are to sketch to: "Larger than Life"


Imp: You two may be wondering why you are here this morning, and not watching classic cartoons. You see it has come to our attention that there has been a prank war going on, normally that just means a bit more cleanup and repair work, and a lot more popcorn, unfortunately security does get a bit concerned when the two parties primarily involved are both Ragers, so they want this resolved pronto. Lucky for you- or perhaps the Sim team, I the marvelous Imp, have an alternative option, a speed sketching competition, you each have 5 minutes to draw someone or something larger than life starting.... Now"


5 minutes later:
Imp: Time.
Razorback eagerly turned his easel around, on it a picture of the other student in the room, though scaled to fit the page- in the bottom left corner "10x" was written...
Tink lifted up her easel and turned it around to show Imp a scene straight out of Manga and Anime, two Kaiju battling over a city- Except that one of them was clearly Dino shaped...

.....


* anyone wishing to continue feel free

Not Canon

First Day of Spring Term
BMA

Miss Abyss sat in the stupid kneeling position, waiting for something interesting to happen. Sure when the old man curb stomped the big brick, it had been cool to watch but it just showed that the class was probably gonna be hella hard. And after that fight it had been rules and talking. Then anyone with some fighting skill had been called up, she'd included herself in the group since she could handle herself in a street fight, and it had been more talking.

Ito, who Abyss knew was nicknamed the evil old man by the politer students, finally shut up. He and the cute teacher, Tolman, stepped off to the side, it finally looked like something interesting was going to happen.

“Just Me and Filler. Come to the ring,” the old man said.

A plain looking girl with short brown hair stepped up. Abyss smirked, it looked almost like she was about to cry, and she kept looking at the ground. When she'd talked about what she could do, she said she was trained in surviving and removing threats, whatever the hell that meant.

Filler on the other hand looked scared. The bulky teen who seemed like he was made mostly out of a few hundred pounds of muscle, looked at the teachers and asked, “Can I fight someone else. Please.”

Looking around there were a few smirks, but most of the class nervously watched the girl, and there were some whispered words that sounded like psycho, combat final, Counterpoint, and scary. Maybe Just Me really was dangerous, Amalgam had said she was one of the best shifters at Whateley.

“What the fuck is up with everyone? She doesn't look like much,” she told her friend and roommate Amalgam.

All she got in response was a shrug.

“You will spar with no powers,” Ito said, ignoring the whispers and Filler's fear.

Stepping into the ring, Filler stood as far back from Just Me as possible. “Please don't rip my eyes out or anything. I'm just here to learn to fight, OK?” he said.

The girl nodded, not saying anything. They got into position and bowed.

“Hajime,” Ito said.

Abyss's eyes widened in shock as the girl exploded into motion. Filler didn't know what was happening as she bolted past him, grabbed his sleeve and tossed herself onto his back, grabbing his ear with her left hand to hold herself in place and drove her fingers up his nose wrenching it to the side.

Filler howled and lurched around the ring, following his nose. A moment later he stepped out of bounds, and Just Me jumped off his back wiping her fingers on her pants. The boy knelt down clutching his nose and ear, cursing mostly to himself.

“What the fuck!” Abyss said, unable to believe what had just happened. Similar outbursts and gasps kept her from getting glared at by the teachers.

“Point to Just Me,” Ito said. “Again, this time with powers.”

The pair got into position. Now Filler looked pissed and scared, while Just Me was watching him with a blank expression. Bowing again, the fight started.

The girl seemed to increase in size, her arms and shoulders became thick and muscular, her breasts shrank to nothing, and her legs grew longer in just a second or two. Filler stayed back, protecting his face, watching her shift and getting ready to react.

They circled each other, Filler finally threw some quick punches, more to keep Just Me away than to hurt her. Then the girl grinned in a way that would make a shark look friendly, reaching for her waist.

“Don't poison me!” Filler shouted, jumping away.

“Point to Just Me,” Ito said.

The entire class saw that his heel was out of the circle. Just Me had stopped grinning, instead she was holding her empty hands out for him see, and had already shrank back down to her usual size.

“Don't be so afraid,” she said in a quiet voice. “You could kill me with a punch, and I can only hurt you unless I'm armed. Come at me next time, force me back and out, or get me in a corner where you can grab me.” Then she went and took her seat again, head down looking like someone had killed her dog.

Turning to Amalgam, she and her roommate shared a confused look. They really had to watch that combat final they'd heard of.

Even by Whateley Standards ...

Ms Carson was uncharacteristically the last to arrive at the small conference room where her security team had assembled. And waited for 5 minutes.

"Sorry for the delay," she said as she sat down "the board had some questions about this situation that I really wish I could have answered."

There was an uncomfortable silence around the table that made it plain that nobody present had the answers she had all but demanded.

"Well, gentlemen?" the headmistress broke the silence before it could grow from uncomfortable into awkward. "Chief, what do you know about the improvised campsite with hundreds of cosplayers we seen to have suddenly acquired at our front gate?"

Chief Delarose was equally unhappy about the situation as the headmistress of the school. Which was understandable for the chief of security for said school. "I am afraid I have been unable to find out much information at such short notice. At 11:41 this morning approximately two hundred riders in accurate replicas of ancient horse nomad armor came riding up the road. On reaching the gate the column split and moved several hundred yard to either side and set up improvised camp, taking great care not to damage trees or undergrowth and they stayed at a safe distance from the wall and its protection."

Headmistress Carson nodded and gestured him to continue, "that much was known two hours ago?"

"Yes. Since then those who finished creating their hidden sleeping spots changed out of their apparently ceremonial armor and into an odd, and unfamiliar, design of tactical gear. They are armed with more than horse bows and a variety of spears and javelins. We have seen modern weapons, with devisor modifications, and they have started light drills with those, rather than with the replicas."

"Any conclusion?"

"At second glance this appears to be a highly trained special forces, but no country that I know of will claim this unit."

Ms Hartford spoke up without being prompted as the chief of security fell silent, "I ran some of the photographs through a database search. There were no facial matches out of 38 pictures. I felt it unneccesary to continue on that avenue of research as it is statistically unlikely to find a significant number of facial matches in the rest. The quality of available pictures is decreasing sharply from here on and getting better pictures is going to be harder now they have begun to actively conceal themselves. Almost as if that inital walking up to the front gate in ceremonial armor and with unconcealed faces was a courtesy call. Whoever made the pictures either was slow on the uptake or did not understand the importance of these pictures to identify these riders."

"So ..." Mrs Carson mused "It is likely not a known villain group?"

The school's head of cybersecurity shook her head, "Unlikley. There are few criminal organisations in the world who can afford to to develop and field operatives at this level and number. We know all of their top agents and none of those is present."

"Anything else?"

"I ran the ceremonial armor through our databases as well. It is a remake of lamellar armor in a style suited for horseback fighting. Due to its relatively poor performance this style of armor was most prevalent in ancient eras. Sumerians and Assyrians made extensive use of it for their upper ranks as metal at the time was relatively expensive and primarily used for tools and weapons instead of stitching hundreds of plates of it to leather coats."
She glanced at her handheld to scan the rest of her notes. "There is no army in the world that has ceremonical historical armor that comes close to resemble this. If they use any, it is either based on 18th century uniforms or very loosely inspired by roman centurion or hoplite armor. There is no Assyrian themed villain group in existence either."

"Thank you. Major?"

Major Burlington-Smythe, commonly called Smythe and even, on rare occasions, Smitty was in an odd position. Technically he was head of the weapons ranges, a semi-independent part of the physics education department. Chief Delarose was responsible for the school security, but that was primarily school cops, albeit heavily armed and hideously effective special forces masquerading as cops. Smythe on the other hand was responsible for training and maintaining the react armor squads and the famous -- incertain circles -- Whateley Reaction Forces. Mixed teams of infiltration, magic and heavy weapons users tasked with protecting studends outside of the school, rescueing them if needed and for sending brutal and final messages to parties who chose to violate Whateley neutratiltiy. As such he oversaw a lot more heavy firepower than the chief of security.

"If that lot decides to come over the wall we will have a fight on our hand. No heavy weapons have been spotted in their kits, so that's to our advantage." He started his presentation. "But ... they are a lot more maneuverable than my boys and girls. I have put everybody on standby on a two team rotation, with the others ready to deploy in five minutes while the active team fight a delaying battle."

"Can we hold the line, should it come to that?"

"Yes, ma'am. This is no larger force than we have held of before, and it has not come prepared for invading the school it seems. No heavy weapons for one thing, and nothing that I can see to overcome magical or psionic defenses. They will have to brute force those and that will slow them down, and cost them. If they are hostile, they are not the main force but a distraction."

"Thank you major. Circe?"

"I have very little to report. There is a distinct magical residue but no active magics. Attempts at scrying have faild as have direct psionic incursions. The lack of active magic suggests at the use of magical amulets to block such attempts."
"Lacking any progress at direct observation I attempted to scry down thair back trail. That fades unusually quickly. Scrying on Dunwhich is difficult but suggested that his group had not been seen in town. This was confirmed by directly questioning the stationmaster."
Looking at the expressions around the table she sighed "By phone."

"So...," the headmistress summarised "We have a large group of highly trained spec ops on our doorstep that nobody will claim and that we cannot find an origin for?"

Ms Hartford spoke up, sounding more hesitant than was her wont, "There is one anomaly that I cannot place and am uneasy to bring up because it may actually give us false information seeing how illogical it is."

Mrs Carson merely raised her eyebrow.

"All of the 38 eight pictures of faces that were clear enough to attempt for facial recognition where of women with ages ranging from late teens to early 30s."

This news visibly confused the rest of the table as much as it clearly did Ms Hartford.

Before anybody could begin to speculate the door opened after a perfunctory knock and one of Mrs Carsons secretraries entered. She made a beeline for the headmistress and whisperes something in her ear, then stepped away respectfully.

"A elven girl says she needs to report to you Major?"

The Major nodded. "Please allow her in."

Mrs Carson nodded and the secretary left the room. A moment after her departure the door opened again and a fairly short raven haired girl entered. Her ethereal beauty and slightly inhuman features marked her as Sidhe which meant that all present immediately recognised her.

"Whisper?" the headmistress asked, the question aimed more at Major Smythe than at the girl.

The girl nodded, and the Major answered the implied criticism of that deceptively mild question. "By sheer coincidence Whisper was almost in place when these forces showed up. I had a telepathic request sent to her to stay in place if it was reasonably safe to do so, try to overhear some communication and then extract herself as soon as possible after she heard enough or it was clear there was no communication."

Mrs Carson's expression made it clear she was not happy with this explanation but would not make a point of it just right now.

"Whisper, report."

"I found a secure hiding spot while the ... they were starting to spread out through the forest. After a while campsites were ready and a handful of conversations were taking place. One of them was close enough for the directional microphone to pick up. After about two minutes the conversation stopped and the two moved away in separate directions. I used the opportunity to retreat towards the wall and slip over it without being seen."

Ms Grimes looked surprised at that last little detail.

"I did not understand the language but the languages department was able to decode it. The full transcript is available but I did not bring that with me because the translation software and expert are still working of further refining the translation. Instead I was instructed to report a summary."

"Go ahead"

"The language they speak is a dialect of a language called Dari. The initial translation contained enough keywords to infer that this group is here because they believe their reincarnated queen is being raised securely in this tower of magic. This queensguard plans to provide additional physical protection until such time as she comes of age and can take her rightful place as ruler of her people. There is one mention of a name that the translation is not yet hundred percent certain refers to this queen."

"And that name would be?" Mrs Carson prodded the nervous Whisper, who clearly had no instruction to repeat speculations.

"Queen Hippolyta"

(This, and some of my older micros, is part of a story I've meant to write for a while now.)

New Hampshire, near Dunwich
2 Sept. 1983
The teen with the waist-length honey-colored hair and matching eyes sat on a window seat, trying to ignore her sister's incessant chatter. OK, so she wanted to hear all of the crazy stuff that went on at the school they were going to, but there was no way she was going to follow an endless stream of gossip about kids she'd never met, spat out at 100 miles an hour without any pauses. I mean, yeah, it was, like, a school for super powered mutants, right? But this was more like a soap opera than a comic book.
She mentally shook her head about that. She actually had always been fond of soap operas. This was more like someone making fun of a soap opera fan who won't shut up about her favorite show.
At least now she could watch them without getting teased by boys about it. A slight smile cross her lips, as she reflected on how much she had already changed, and how much was still to come. Despite how ill she'd become when the changes took hold, the bed-ridden weeks of misery, she couldn't have been happier.
She.
A girl.
The smile grew wider.
It was all she could do to stop from bouncing in her seat in joy. She hadn't known what it was that had held her down before, but as soon as the doctors told her family what was happening, she suddenly knew that this was how it was meant to be, that this was what had been wrong her whole life and that now she could be who she'd been meant to be all along.
The effervescence didn't last very long. Old habits die hard, and a pensive tone overtook her again as she fretted over what would happen if anyone found out. She knew she wouldn't be alone - they wouldn't ask about it on the entrance form if it didn't happen to others, right? - but that didn't mean she wouldn't get taunted or even beaten up by most of the other kids if it got out that Ophelia Candler used to be a boy.
She had already resolved to keep anyone from knowing for as long as she could. But there was a problem with that, and that problem with babbling away right next to her. Could she really trust Sophie not to blab about her being Beauregard? OK, so she'd at least made sure that if Sophie called her 'Bo' she had a cover set up - she'd picked 'Mirabeau' as her middle name, and was ready to tell people that Bo was short for that. But that was just for a slip-up - what if Sophie said something to her friends about her brothers back home, when she'd been here the previous two years? Having her secret come out before she even got the Whateley would be crushing.
Her reflections were interrupted as she felt a tug in her newfound magical senses. Looking out the window, she saw that they were passing through some sort of gate. Had they finally arrived? The question was answered moments later, as the bus came to a stop in front of what she could only assume was one of the dorms.

Appleton, Wisconsin

“I am worried about Vicki,” Hannah Frankenstein said to her husband in her native German.

Jakob sighed. “I am to. She has always been odd, but now.” He sighed again, thinking of their daughter and her growing obsession with the Mary Shelley story of Frankenstein's monster and the past.

The Gothic horror story had been her favourite since she had read it at the age of ten, thrilled at having the same name as the mad doctor. But she had realized it was was fiction, just like the scary and silly monsters she loved. Now... he was no longer sure she could tell it was fake.

“What is she doing now?” he asked.

“She was complaining of her clothes, saying that they weren't suitable for a proper, educated person, she wanted to make her own. Somehow she made patterns of clothes, similar to the 19th century, and then she asked to use my fabric needles and thread. I offered to help her but she said she had all the hands she needs, and took it all into her room. When I tried to go in she told me that it was too crowded and to stay out, she even blocked the door,” Hannah said.

“Was she violent or angry?”

His wife shook her head. “No. She was just very persistent and sure of herself, and she didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't just agree with her. We need to call a therapist for her.”

“If she was violent, I'd think she has Diedrick's. Like that stupid mutant show with the mad inventor.” He worked with a gadgeteer who had the mental illness, a nice enough man who was very good at making new kinds of restraints for police. But when something went wrong, the normally peaceful rotound man would begin screaming and shouting. He also had a habit of entering fugue states and rambling on about his newest interest, something that was becoming all to common with Vicki.

As if thinking about her was enough to make her appear, their small daughter came from the hallway and went into the kitchen. That wasn't odd, what was odd was the baby blue Victorian dress she was wearing. Jakob was not an expert in fashion, much less 19th century dresses, but what he saw looked like it could have come out of one of the historical movies Hannah loved so much.

“Vicki!” Hannah practically shouted in surprise. “How did you make that dress so quickly?”

Their daughter turned to look at them, smiling happily, and adjusted her large, round glasses. “Like I told you mother, I had extra hands helping. They work perfectly, I think Dr. Frankenstein would be proud of me.”

Something about the way the thirteen year old girl said the words set off alarm bells in Jakob and Hannah's head. Jumping to their feet they rushed to Vicki's room, the sound of clicking and and tapping was the first thing they noticed before they even reached the door. Looking in the room, Hannah screamed and fainted, and Jakob wanted to join her.

Inside covering an entire wall was a... machine, for lack of a better word. It wasn't made of steel and wires. It was made of bones, clearly human bones. They were painted in some strange substance with plastic tubes and copper wires connecting them together. In the tubes was a pink fluid that bubbled oddly. Skeletal hands moved in jerky quick motions sewing fabric. A brain sat in a jar of clear fluid with two human eyes connected it. It was seemingly looking at a set of papers, held by still more bones in front of it.

Jakob screamed when Vicki came up behind him, holding a glass of water.

“Isn't it cool, Father? It's only a prototype, but it took all night to build it. I'm certain once I get more material I'll be able to improve the design. I've had to replace the brain three times already,” his little girl said.

***

Fox Cities DPA
Wisconsin

There were days Davis hated his job with the Department of Paranormal Affairs. This was definitely one of them.

In the interrogation room was Viktoria Frankenstein. The thirteen year old girl, dressed up like she was from a Victorian novel, was contentedly writing in a notebook. With her frizzy, curly hair, sharp chin and large forehead, no one would ever call her pretty, but unlike many mutants she looked baseline. She was also quite pleasant if you didn't mind how she nattered on obsessively about her 'ancestor' Dr. Frankenstein, the benefits of proper clothing, and the human body. Taking one look at her macabre devise, and he knew she was a devisor with a particularly tragic focus.

The fact she was almost certainly suffering from Deidrick's, just made her situation worse.

About the only good thing that had happened was that her parents had called the DPA instead of the police or MCO. Robbing a graveyard and using human remains for a devise was not going to be ignored, but the DPA could pull enough strings to keep her from getting prison time or even a permanent record. Her mental state would help there as well.

Sighing he left the monitor and went to talk to the girl.

Knocking on the door, he stepped inside a moment later. Vicki didn't look up, she was too busy writing in her notebook. “Hello Vicki!” he shouted to get her attention.

She looked up, her hand slowly stopped writing. “Hello Mr. Carpenter, how are you?” she asked in pure Wisconsinite, unlike her German born parents.

“I'm going to be honest with you, I'm a little worried, Vicki. We need to know how you got all those bones and body parts,” he said, trying to sound curious with only a hint of concern.

“My pets got them. I'd like to show them to you, they're really cute, but they're hiding in a nice little burrow I had them dig in my backyard. I don't want them getting hurt.”

“Your pets?”

“Uh huh. Rabbits and gophers, and a few moles and a bunch of rats and mice and other things. I found Igor first, he's a big grey rabbit. He'd been hit by a car, but I made him come back to life, and he got me other animals that had died. Now they're all alive and helping me with my great work. They're really cute too,” Vicki said, smiling happily.

“You brought them back to life.”

“Uh huh. I'm not as good as Dr. Frankenstein, but I'm going to learn as much as I can and continue my ancestors work. Eventually I know I'll be able to properly bring a person back from the dead, or make a new person entirely, and vindicate his name. That will prove that the harlot Mary Shelley, was a slanderer who hated my ancestor and dragged his name through the mud.”

Davis shook his head. He'd heard some delusional people before, but this was definitely a new one. At least the only person Vicki seemed to hate was long dead. “All right. How exactly did your pets get the bones and bodies?”

“I had them dig a tunnel to the cemetery and sniff out the proper materials that I needed. Then they broke them into parts and dragged them back. Getting the brains was hard, especially with intact eyes. But I was able to fine tune their brains so they could bring the entire skull to my lab more carefully. It would have been easier if I could have just dug up a whole body, but I'm not strong enough to do that.”

Thank god for small blessings, Davis thought to himself.

Out loud he asked, “Do you know that you shouldn't dig up human bodies?”

She blushed and looked down at her hands, looking nervous for the first time. “Yes, Mr. Carpenter,” she said in a soft voice. “But I need them to do my great work! How else can I prove to the world that Dr. Frankenstein wasn't just a fictional mad scientist but a true genius who was trying to do a wondrous thing and succeeded?”

He moved his hands in a calming gesture, managing to stop Vicki before she started down a monologue or strangely polite rant. “OK, Vicki, I'm going to go talk to your parents. Pretty soon a doctor is going to come and talk to you, do you mind waiting here a little while longer?”

Frowning, Vicki sighed an shook her head. “I would like to return to my machine, I need to break it down for parts to make a better model. But I'll stay here. Maybe the doctor will have some advice on how to deal with the embalming fluids, they interact badly with my own chemicals.”

“Thank you Vicki, I'll try to have this done as quickly as possible.” Leaving the room, Davis felt very sorry for the psychiatrist who would have to diagnose Vicki, that would not be a pleasant conversation.

Going to his office, he got a pamphlet for Whateley. Getting the girl out of town before her grave robbing became big news would be for the best. And if she was at Whateley, she wouldn't be near any graveyards, which should help keep her out of trouble until they could drill it into her head that grave robbing was bad.