jockjamsvol6: I suppose you're wondering why I gathered you here today.
lesbian_gengar: bluntfiend's apartment got busted and they took harmpit's laptop so we had to make a new channel.
jockjamsvol6: I suppose you're now fully informed of why I gathered you here today.
talman_corvett: press f to pay respects
hetcopogg: f
FreakyGhostBed: f
polaricecraps: f
tiedyeduck: f
jockjamsvol6: He also made me the leader.
lesbian_gengar: f
tiedyeduck: i thought bones was in charge.
bones: I am merely entrusted with moderating the channel. I do not make any decisions regarding policy or direction.
tiedyeduck: o ok
polaricecraps: does the leader even do anything or are they just like the mascot?
lesbian_gengar: it's pretty much ceremonial.
TrainerDP: Isn't blunt like 6'5"? I bet being the leader just means you're the tallest
talman_corvett: why does bluntfiend, as the biggest gamer against weed, not simply eat the other gamers?
hetcopogg: accused of eatos gamers "I like the taste"
jockjamsvol6: "Hey jockjamsvol6, are our good friends bluntfiend and harmpit okay?"
jockjamsvol6: Why, that's a FANTASTIC question!
jockjamsvol6: Not only are they okay, thanks to yours truly, but they're also going to shack up with a friend of mine for a while.
lesbian_gengar: and i'm getting them new id's so they can actually be part of society.
gaycopmp4: society is overrated they should go live in the woods
DonDeLillo: Hey, I was concerned about them! I was just getting chicken.
gaycopmp4: that's great man
lesbian_gengar: more like DonDeLeroy.
TrainerDP: kek
bones: jockjamsvol6, are you considering any form of retribution for what happened to bluntfiend and harmpit?
jockjamsvol6: Whoa, bones. You're like, the last person I expected to be out for blood.
bones: I have no opinion on the matter myself. I just wish to know what your plans are.
jockjamsvol6: Oh.
polaricecraps: idk im not feelin it
polaricecraps: if we were a big enough pain in the ass theyd just take the risk and get rid of us
talman_corvett: ^
lesbian_gengar: i feel you but i'd feel bad just doing like, nothing about it.
FreakyGhostBed: ^
FreakyGhostBed: arrowblocked
gaycopmp4: wtf guys of course we're goign to getb ack at them they tried to fuckin kidnap two of us
hetcopogg: honey, calm down just a little okay? i agree with you, but we have to think it through.
gaycopmp4: bluh bluh youre probably right
jockjamsvol6: I kind of agree with hetcopogg here. It would be shitty to let it go, but it's not worth risking our necks over.
polaricecraps: fine but can we please be extra careful here
lesbian_gengar: i think that's a good compromise.
jockjamsvol6: Sure, sure. The question being, how do we actually go about it?
kkrule: do you really have to ask that
jockjamsvol6: ?
tiedyeduck: ?
kkrule: we use a meme
kkrule: you dip
kkrule: :^)

"You know, I've never actually been inside a Denny's before this. Are they all, like, weak? Reality-wise? I feel like I could flick a finger and turn this place into jello."
Jude and Armand sit across from each other in a booth around midday. The former searches for a direction to look that makes the building look less claustrophobic and uncomfortably proportioned, while the latter digs into a Grand Slamwich and taps his foot audibly.
"Basssically." Armand washes the taste of grease and maple spice down with some orange juice. "Its seememed like a good iiadea, if we needeed non-cointadennnces." He chows down again as Jude picks languidly at his blueberry pancakes.
Just as Jude opens his mouth to say something, Armand stands up. "Iii gotta smoke, sorry. Cany youh handle the billll?" Without waiting for an answer, he turns around and heads out the front door. Jude sighs, nodding to nobody in particular and tossing a few $5's from his pocket onto the table.
The waitress appears not long after, and is directed by a gesture to said bills. She nods knowingly, then takes them without a word. Jude closes his eyes as she walks away, and is rewarded with the first bit of relief he's felt since he entered. Within minutes, he's broken out of his reverie by an irritated throat-clearing. He opens his eyes with a start, looking at the source. A large man with a shaved head and dark sunglasses blocks his exit, while the waitress stands next to him. Jude sighs. "What. What'd I do."
"Don't play dumb." The waitress snaps, tossing his payment on the table. "You didn't think I would notice identical bills? You sh-"
The man interjects, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Karen, relax. He could've gotten them from someone else without knowing." Turning to Jude, "Now, you did just try to spend counterfeit bills, so I'll need you to come with me to the station." He takes out his wallet and flashes a badge at Jude.
"Identical bills. You're shitting me." Jude picks up the three bills. They do, indeed, have identical serial numbers. They also have the same lopped-off corner, and the same ink stain on Abe's forehead. Of course I would spend cloned fives at the one restaurant in the country that checks serial numbers. And of course there's a cop. "Well, uh, I don't know how that happened, and I really don't have the time for coming into the station, so could I just…" He tries to exit the booth, but the officer grabs his wrist.
"Don't make this harder on yourself, son. You're a terrible liar." The other customers were watching at this point. The hand is tight, and Jude's attempts to pull loose are futile.
Jude takes a deep breath; when that fails to do much of anything, he closes his eyes and takes a few more. "I said. I don't. Have. Time. For this!"
He yanks his hand away, distancing himself from the cop to the tune of about a hundred yards. In fact, everything else in the diner is a football field away from him, and from each other. The confusion and panic of the other patrons echoes in the now-cavernous Denny's, though the sparse lighting fails to illuminate their positions.
Jude takes a few breaths to calm himself, smiling a little as he looks around. The front doors stand out as a point of light about a mile away. But distance is just a suggestion, isn't it? He starts off towards the exit, gliding forward as space stretches behind him and squeezes tight in front of him.

Armand's pack of cigarettes is out before he reaches the front door, and by the time he surveys the parking lot, one is already lit in his mouth. It almost falls out when he sees a man about his age adjust his thick-rimmed glasses, then take another picture of Armand's car.
After taking eleven seconds to assess the situation, he comes up with two viable reactions: approach the man, ask him what's going on, and go from there; or use magic to hurl his phone into the pavement at terminal velocity, destroying the evidence. The first seems less likely to make a scene, so he takes a drag on his cigarette and walks over.
"Ummm, excuuuse me. Whya are you tttaking pictures of my tr…" Armand speaks slowly, attempting to sound casual and make his speech as clear as possible. This is a success, up until the man turns around and oooh shihit he'sh hot.
"Oh, sorry there." He smiles a bit. "I was just documenting your uh, new Toro here." He gestures to the car. "Must be pretty fun to drive out here on the Oregon plains."
"Dooocumemementing? Whyw woulllld youdodo thaat?" Armand breaks eye contact, instead directing his attention at the Denny's he just left. Anticipating the man's next question, "Ialalways taaaalk likethis."
The man closes his mouth, his next question answered; then, he opens it again. "Um, it's just that the Toro's only available in Brazil, and you might get off-market cars in places like Michigan, but this has gotta be the only Toro west of the Mississippi. I mean, if Fiat's thinking of releasing these in America, that's pretty big news, right? How'd you get one? Uh, my name's Andy. Sorry. Should've led with that." He runs a hand through his hair.
Armand rubs his nose bridge. Transmuting the truck into a different model had been mandatory to ditch the Foundation, but of all the Italian trucks it could have become, why something that would immediately attract att… Armand blinks, then turns back to Andy. "Fififirrrst, pleeease donon't takkke pictutures. Secooond, whereaa are youheading?"
Andy blinks at the question, nonplussed. "I'm, uh, visiting my sister in Idaho… why? I mean uh, yeah, sure, sorry for taking pictures, I just thought I'd be done before you came out. Which isn't really an excuse, but—"
Armand cuts him off. "Howww doyoou finind her? Yyyyou jujustl look forr cowwinkadentesss, right?" He raises an eyebrow as he puffs on his cigarette. Neither notices as the Denny's' windows go dark.
Andy is taken aback for a moment before grinning. "Oh hey, you're going to see Miranda too! That's great! You must be friends, it's not like you can really find her unless she wants you to. How do you know her?"
"Weeee're goioing to livive withherf for awhile. Weuh, uh, ran innnto somet trtrouble lassast night. Am mutuuual frienenend referrred us." Armand coughs a bit, wishing he had brushed his teeth that morning.
"Ohhh, oh, I see. So you guys are, like, on the run, then?"
Armand is about to answer when Jude walks out of the Denny's at about twenty miles per hour. He stumbles, then collides with a parked minivan and falls over.

Preliminary containment report for SCP-5218, "Under Pressure"
Item #: SCP-5218
Object Class: Pending
Containment Status: The original video containing SCP-5218 has been removed, and the associated YouTube account has been terminated. Web crawlers are being updated to identify and remove videos containing SCP-5218. Identification of the security vulnerabilities exploited to propagate SCP-5218 is underway. Identification and assessment of SCP-5218's viewers is underway.
Standard containment for video cognitohazards will most likely suffice for future containment.
Effectiveness of amnestics at treating SCP-5218's effects has not been established.
Object Description: SCP-5218 is a 1min47s video entitled "Under Pressure, Killer Meme's Fourth bomb". Source material includes Bee Movie, the 2016 animated adaptation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, the official music video for the song "Under Pressure" by Queen, and several presumably computer-generated sequences.
Anomaly types: Memetic, cognitohazardous
Known effects:

Non-disclosure: Individuals who view SCP-5218 in its entirety will become incapable of disclosing information regarding PoI ████ (known aliases: "Jude Kriyot", "██████████", "bluntfiend") or PoI ████ (known aliases: "Armand Delassixe", "harmpit"), both known associates of Gamers Against Weed. When they attempt to do so, they will instead recite the entirety of the Wikipedia article "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" as it existed on 2016-11-16. This is performed in whatever medium they had originally intended to disclose the information.
Delusions: (Provisional) The aforementioned subjects will believe that SCP-5218's non-disclosure effect is due to the workings of an entity known as "Under Pressure, Killer Meme's Fourth Bomb", which began inhabiting their body while they watched SCP-5218. No evidence of such an entity has been found.

Object History: SCP-5218 was uploaded to YouTube on 2016-11-18 at 4:13 PM UTC. The uploading account, identified as "Gamer Without Weed Opinions", was created the day prior and had no other activity. Through unknown means, SCP-5218 was "recommended" to all YouTube users connected to the service through more than one anonymous proxy server. SCP-5218 received 11,913 views before its removal; ███ are confirmed to have come from Foundation employees; three individuals with information that could trigger SCP-5218's non-disclosure effect were affected.
Additional Material: The following text comprised the description of SCP-5218 prior to its removal from YouTube.

Hey. We get that you're just doing your job and you're probably aching to prove your chops so you can be put on an assignment that gets you more prestige than going after magical forum trolls, but seriously, trying to kidnap people is fucked up and rude, so consider this a "well, fuck you too".
PS. Fair warning — if you don't take 「Under Pressure」's hint, you might have to deal with blunt's 「Video Killed the Radio Star」 or harm's 「Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger」.
PPS. GOOD LUCK, YOU'RE BEHIND 7 PROXIES

The first to react to Jude's collision is the van's alarm, which goes off immediately. The second is Andy, who gasps and runs over. Armand sighs and heads after him at a somewhat slower pace. Only after being shaken does Jude bother trying to sit up and stem his nosebleed. "Calm down for fuck's sake, I was in football, I barely even felt that." He winces as he touches his obviously broken nose.
"Judude what the ffffuck is goiiing on?" Armand glances back at the Denny's. He trots over to the entrance and looks inside, then heads back. "Grrreat, thisss isn't goininga away on its owwwn."
Andy takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and hands it to Jude. "I take it this is your friend you sort of implied about? Hey, I'm Andy, the girl you guys are going to meet up with is my sister, we should get you to a —"
Jude interrupts. "Seriously, stop. Give me like five seconds to focus and I'll fix it…" He rolls to face away from Andy and Armand. "Basically I got busted for using cloned bills and I did that to get away. Armand, is this guy legit?"
Armand shrugs. "Iiii thinks so. Leeet's get out ooof here… Ananandy, ideeeas?"
Andy takes his phone put of his pocket. "Yeah, hold on. You two, what are your lucky numbers?" He taps away at it a bit.
"Twellllve." Armand paces back and forth, occasionally glancing back at the restaurant.
"Uh, seven thirty I think. Seven hundred and thirty." Jude gets up and walks towards the Toro, nose back in place and shirt clear of blood. He brushes gravel off of his shirt.
Andy taps at his phone a bit, then grins. "730 is just north of here, and it hooks up with 12 around Wallula Junction. Come on, let's go." He takes a keychain out of his pocket. When he presses a button, a nearby Lamborghini chirps.

Jude drums on the truck's dashboard, singing under his breath. "And now I understand the problems you can see. Oh-ah-oh, I met your childre~en. Oh-ah-oh, what did you t—"
He stops singing when the music cuts out, replaced by a police scanner. Armand glances Jude's way as he puts his hand back on the steering wheel. "Yooou're in ag good mood."
Jude shrugs. "I love that song. Plus there's this rush you get, right after you do a huge reality bending thing. I think it's adrenaline, or whatever that one neurotransmitter is. Morphine maybe?"
"Remimiiind men notto take yooou to Denny's agaaain." He redirects his attention to the luxury car he's tailing. Why would you take a great car like that and give it a license plate reading 'TOPCHAN'?
"I'm gonna crash in like an hour, don't worry." With a flick of his wrist, his own side of the cab resumes playing The Buggles. Armand is treated to several police officers wondering out loud what, if anything, to do about a restaurant that's bigger on the inside.

The intersection of US-12 and US-730 is bordered on one side by a small, barren park (one bench and ten trees). Three men are dawdling there — Jude lies on a picnic table, looking straight up, while Armand and Andy rest on an ankle-high retaining wall.
"So, Andy." Jude doesn't look away from the sky, picking at a loose splinter of wood on the tabletop. "While we're here waiting for, uh, inspiration to strike or something. Your sister's kind of a big deal, I take it? Like, 730's been my lucky number since eighth grade, how did she set that up?"
Andy, who had been comfortably sharing the silence with Armand, takes a moment to register the question. "Oh. Uh." He stands up and turns around to look at Jude, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. "It's more of a destiny thing. If she wants you to reach her, it was always already gonna happen. And if she doesn't, it was never gonna happen."
Jude pulls the splinter off and tosses it onto the ground. "Damn. That's like, cosmic levels of fucking around with stuff." Jude pulls the splinter off and tosses it onto the ground.
Andy laughs a little. "Yeah. She says it… harnesses improbability, or something like that. I dunno."
Armand tightens his coat around him as a gust of chilled wind rattles his small frame. "Lullluck people gottotta stickt together, I guesss."
Sensing Andy's questioning glance, Jude pipes up. "We got uh, referred to your sister via — through a guy we know who has this like, insane luck all the time." Jude rights himself with a grunt, climbing down from the table.
Andy nods understandingly. "Oh, okay. You know, I actually do know a guy with magical luck? I remember 'cause he beat me at Poker once. Cocky bastard. Maybe that's the guy?"
Armand shares a glance with Jude before standing up himself. "Welll, it doedoes sounounds like himj. Jjjayjay lovesss poker. Wwwhere'd that hahappen?"
Andy shrugs. "I dunno, it's hard to remember… it was like, two years ago. At this really dingy bar."
"Grangeville?" The other two turn to Jude as he picks up a dirtied and tattered newspaper from the ground. "This just blew into my foot. 'Idaho County Free Press, serving Grangeville and Idaho County'."
Andy snaps his fingers — the snap is loud and sharp. "Yes. That's the place. Grangeville. The Establishment. I'll lead the way." He turns around and heads for his car.
"Yyyep, leadead thew wwway." Armand and Jude head back towards the Toro. Jude smirks a bit at Armand before getting in.

gaycopmp4: aaand done
gaycopmp4: killer meme is in full effect lads
lesbian_gengar: are you sure they're going to actually see it and figure it out?
gaycopmp4: if theyre not hiding behind proxies img oing to astral project that would be so fuckign dumb of them
gaycopmp4: fuck knows if the right janitors will see it though thats basically a crapshoot
tiedyeduck: brb astrally projecting
tiedyeduck: back
tiedyeduck: the spirits say you're a nerd and won't hang out with you @gaycopmp4
hetcopogg: >:O
gaycopmp4: >:O
DonDeLillo: pak>:Oosh
polaricecraps: whats the under/over on them actually getting the joke or just going bluh bluh anime is for jerks
FreakyGhostBed: i don't think that's how over/unders work.
jockjamsvol6: That being said, it's 69.
bones: @jockjamsvol6.
jockjamsvol6: Yeah?
bones: Nice.
kkrule: ^
TrainerDP: ^
TrainerDP: arrowblocked
opossum: it's not even a good joke
opossum: it's literally just "jjba is a good anime xddd"
jockjamsvol6: I thought you were banned? I definitely remember you being banned.
opossum: what so you're just openly sucking bluntfiend's dick now?
DonDeLillo: BLUNTFIEND IS NOT FOR SEXUAL
jockjamsvol6: Sure, why not. bones, mind doing the honors?
bones: Gladly.
bones has set mode +b *!*@borhood.spiderbitch
bones kicked opossum
kkrule: finally
kkrule: they're definitely not going to get the joke though it's kind of obscure
FreakyGhostBed: eh. so? it's not like they'd let us off if they did.
lesbian_gengar: fuck those guys honestly, who cares what they think.
_FuddruckeR_: <DonDeLillo> BLUNTFIEND IS NOT FOR SEXUAL
_FuddruckeR_: wtf
_FuddruckeR_: throws away my bluntfiend dakimakura
gaycopmp4: lmfao it already has like 340 views
hetcopogg: those are all me actually
hetcopogg: oh by the way, i got word from our missing boys.
jockjamsvol6: ?
jockjamsvol6: Do tell.
hetcopogg: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Japanese: ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 Hepburn: JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken?) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1987 to 2004, before being transferred to the monthly seinen magazine Ultra Jump in 2005. The current story arc, JoJolion, started in 2011. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is current
hetcopogg: ly Shueisha's second largest manga series with its chapters collected into 117 tankōbon volumes and counting.
gaycopmp4: oh fuck
hetcopogg: A six-volume original video animation adaptation of the later half of the series' third story arc was released from 1993 to 1994 by studio A.P.P.P., followed by another seven-volume series covering earlier parts of the arc from 2000 to 2002. A.P.P.P. also produced a theatrical film of the first arc in 2007. In 2012, an anime television series produced by David Production began broadcast on Tokyo MX,
hetcopogg: and covered the first two story arcs of the manga in 26 episodes. A second 48-episode season covering the third arc was broadcast in 2014 and 2015, and a 39 episode season adapting the fourth began in April 2016.
tiedyeduck: @bones
hetcopogg: The JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga has over 95 million copies in print, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history, and has spawned a large media franchise that includes several novelizations and video games, action figures, a jewelry line, and even snack foods. From 2003 to 2005, Super Techno Arts released both OVA series in North America. Viz Media released a translation of the third
hetcopogg: part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in North America from 2005 to 2010, and began publishing English versions of the first two arcs in 2015.
bones has set mode +b hetcopogg@*!*
bones: Presumably there is an antidote of some sort?
jockjamsvol6: FFFFFF.
lesbian_gengar: yeah but it's a pain in the ass. why the f would she even do that, she knew what would happen.
hetcopogg is now known as ItWasAllACleverRuse
kkrule: lol
ItWasAllACleverRuse: >:3c
lesbian_gengar: oh.
polaricecraps: well played
gaycopmp4: im breaking up with you

« Ganja is for goons. | You are trash if you toke. | I will use my taser on you. »


They were stringing up gold garland all over the house. Mistletoe adorned every doorway while elves stared down mischievously from their various shelves. The entire dormitory looked like a collision at the intersection of holiday kitsch and cheer.
Precariously perching on a wicker stool, she placed a Foundation Star atop their over-sized tree. As the wooden support collapsed beneath her, she felt a moment of free fall before strong arms stopped the fall. Smiling wildly, she threw her arms into his.
"Merry Christmas!"

The sterile interview room looks the same as it has every other day of the year, save for a single scraggly wreath clinging to life on the inside of the door. Adileh Khayyam watched as two muscle-bound goons in the Foundation's honorable armed forces escorted a nervous young woman towards her station.
As she sat down, Adileh made note of her posture. Every ounce of her desperately wanted to escape. Muscles tensed and pulsated underneath skin with hair standing on end. The cheap aluminum table rattled from her trembling as she leaned into it.
Adileh let her lips split apart with practiced precision. It was her second most practiced smile, after the one she used for people she knew were going to die. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you. I know you must be very confused."
For a few moments, the woman said nothing. She only stared at her lap, where hands might lie. Leaning forward, Adileh grabbed her hand with a practiced motion. "Have they explained to you what happened?"
"They said… that I… they said…" shaking her head, she glanced into Adileh's eyes before darting back to her lap. "Amnestics. I requested amnestic treatment."
"That's right." Adileh scribbled gibberish on her clipboard. "Now, this is important. Do you remember anything about it? Anything at all?"
Pausing, the woman pursed her lips and stared intently at the empty space on the wall.

Access card that didn't belong. Memetics. Why had he been in memetics?
A man by the name of Vang, he said, who had some interesting ideas and liked talking to him. That was all. Just that and nothing more.
They got each other stockings that year. She gave him a razor, and the newest Call of Duty. He gave her a bleached crocodile skull that he'd painted for her.
For awhile, that was enough.

A pen tapping on a clipboard jolted the young woman back to reality.
Slowly shaking her head, the woman grabbed at her temples. "No. Nothing. Not even… paperwork or procedure. How deep…"
"Don't worry about that. Your cognitive functions have not been affected. This is your first amnestic treatment, so-"
"How do you know?"
Closing her eyes, Adileh looked up from her papers and nudged her head to shuffle hair aside. "I'm your doctor. It's my job to know."
Drumming her fingers on the table, two accusing eyes peeked through the mess of hair. "So… you did this to me, then."
"No, sweetheart. You chose this. It was for your own good, and you believed that when it happened." Reaching into her jacket, Adileh pulled out a small tape recorder. Pressing play, a less anxious woman's voice began speaking, clinically, reading a consent form.
Watching as the young woman stared into the recorder, Adileh wondered if she could even hear what was playing.

"I'm so sorry."
She'd felt the weight behind his face when she punched him. How could he? How could he be so stupid?
Cognitohazard research 101 was avoiding exposure. Had he even tried?
Was he tired of trying?
Falling, he broke apart, and so did the floor. It was a kitchen now, and he was fixing her breakfast the morning after. The eggs drifted in her eyes as she struggled to bring them to her mouth.
Looking down, there were whole eggs running around her plate. Rubbing her eyes, she opened them to see sunny-side-up eggs enjoying the sunrise through her front window.
Was this before, or after the scrambling?

Looking up into Adileh's eyes for the first time, the young woman spoke in a pleading voice. "Do you know… how bad it is?"
Adileh clinked her pen on the table. "My work is psychological. As in, if you had been dosed with multiple serious amnestics, it would render you psychologically unfit for service. As you can see, since you are not wearing an orange jumpsuit, that is not the case. Fortunately."
The woman shuddered at the mention of an orange jumpsuit. "What happened? Did… I do something?"
"Oh, honey, no…" A smooth silken voice escaped Adileh's lips. "You volunteered. I'm afraid any more detail might trigger memories that are 99% gone. Give it a few days, and even this interview will probably be a blur. The important thing is, nobody is angry at you."
Tears began flowing from the woman's eyes, and she slumped onto the table. "Thank you… please… I just… want to help. I don't want to be bad to the Foundation."

His face had been so red, and she had been so angry.
Why was she so angry?
They walked in circles and someone was coming for them. He was very angry.
Cirlces of anger and circles of logic. Something was wrong.
Tearing down garland and there's an acid burning on her face. Dripping from her eyes, everything burns.

The fluorescent lights were buzzing above their heads.
"I know you don't…" Adileh's voice faded as the woman's eyes crossed. Looking down to her clipboard, she began to write down everything that had happened so far. Disorientation, dissociation, trance-like fugue… standard symptoms of Class-B amnestics.
Flipping the page over, gunmetal-grey ink told the woman's story. Foundation researcher for ten years, in biological science. Had irreplaceable experience and knowledge with some anomaly or project.
In the field for why the patient had been treated, some Foundation doctor with a sick sense of humor had written disobedient hysteria. Scratching it out with her pen, Adileh began to write something and hesitated.
Why had they stolen the past this time?

For a moment she remembered looking asleep.
He had been looking at her with such pitying expression. Something awful had been happening for a long time.
Then, he said it. Those words. What were the words?
A house of inconsistent horses has a secondary effect…

"Can you hear me?"
Snapping back to reality, the woman placed her hands on the table looked into the space around Adileh's eyes. "Is there… when will I be thinking straight? What… when?"
Finding their hands touching, Adileh looked back into the void. "Stay with me. We're both here in this room. There's nobody else. Do you understand that?"
Absentmindedly nodding, the woman began shaking. "When can I go home?"
"Do you remember having a home?"
Pausing, the woman placed a finger on her lip. "I don't know. I must live somewhere. The Foundation takes care of me."
"Of course they do." Rhythmically rubbing the hand, Adileh saw a small pale band around her ring finger.
Frowning, a discomforting thread of thought that had been twining inside her twisted into a knot.

Memories fade to rot in time, as all things must.
Relationships will fade and wane, and pass into oblivion.
Accept these truths, and you will be free.
Nothing lasts forever.
The Foundation will take care of me, too.

Withdrawing her hand, the young woman leaned back into her chair. Pleading eyes stared from someplace far away. "I'm done. I want to go. Can you…?"
Nodding, Adileh pressed the hidden security signal. Within seconds, they were there.
The woman instantly regarded them with reluctance before rising and stalking with them out of sight. Creaking as it closed behind them, the door shut and left silence.

FROM: Doctor Adileh Khayyam
TO: Superintendant Roger Click
RE: Ethics Committee Incident Report ████-████
On ██/██/████ Junior Researcher H████ deliberately exposed himself to the memetic agent of SCP-████. Following this, the subject deliberately infected his live-in partner, Junior Researcher M████████. It is believed to be deliberate due to the steps Junior Researcher H████ took to hide his activities, including illegal usage of Foundation access cards and security data. Researchers V███ and ██████ have been reprimanded and placed under closer observation due to indirect connection to this activity.
Following amnestics treatment, Junior Researcher M████████ is to be reassigned to another project and the former Researcher H████ has been demoted to D-Class. My only further recommendation at this time is continued observation of Researcher M████████ to ensure the success of the amnestic treatment.
Have a happy new year, Foundation personnel!


December 24th, 2016. The halls of Site-59 were quiet, thanks to the elaborate network of layered soundproofing and noise-cancelling magnetic grids established for Cell 2337. Perhaps this Christmas Eve would indeed be a Silent Night. (Still, thanks to a particularly tactless Keter three floors below, the "Holy Night" aspect was right out.)
Just outside Cell 2337, a small red sock had been duct-taped to the door - filled with gummy worms.
Within the cell, SCP-2337 had just finished its argument for the existence of God to a pile of synthetic bedding material in the corner. Satisfied that the green strands had agreed with its reasoning by disintegrating into warped confetti, the corn crake fluffed out its feathers. It placed its head in a dark toilet paper tube, and, having sufficiently convinced itself that nighttime had come at last, plopped on the ground and snored. The walls of the cell shook from its god-tier napping skills.
A sudden spark in the center of the cell —
"A thing?!" yelped SCP-2337, flapping its arms in alarm. Darting its head from here to there in search of the uninvited Thing, its eyes came at last to a Thin Blue Thing, sitting in the middle of a patch of ectoplasmic fog: A gummy worm.
"Dr. Spanko," moaned the candy. "Your hour of judgment is come."
"Stranglefruits!" said SCP-2337. "Am a Cackmas miracules!"
"Silence! I am the Ghost of Gummy Worms Past, here to show you the error of your ways. Long have you slaughtered my kin with your gluttonous cruelty. But in the end, who is truly devoured? The weak, taken too soon from life and saved? Or the strong, consumed by the weight of—"
Before the ghost could finish, SCP-2337 snatched it in its beak and slid it down its throat in one swift move.

Gourd Cack the us,
Eleventy-one!
(And how!)


'Twas the night before Christmas, When all through the Site,
Not a single man stirred, Not during that night.
The chambers were locked and sealed with great care,
In hopes that their contents would stay just right there.
The crews sat at home and sung with great joy,
Content with their work, though a little annoyed.
And director at desk, and I with the T,
Had just settled our brains into a dreamworld's sea.
When throughout the whole site there arose a great clatter,
And in my sleepy daze, I ran to see what was the matter.
Away to the muster point I flew in a dash,
Away from the sirens, I ran like the Flash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Did nothing to illuminate the terror below.
As I ran and I ran from impending disaster,
I could do nought but think of moving much faster.
But try as I might, I only made it so far,
Before falling concrete gave me a lethal scar.
Dying beneath stone, St Nick beyond my sight,
I wondered what had unleashed this terrible blight.
Little did I know, there were those who went home,
When they were needed to stay here, in this zone.
Without them to stop the escaping disaster,
It easily broke free, its own sole master.
As my soul left me, bleeding and hollow,
I knew only fragments of what was to follow.
Unkillables, warlords, concepts most vague,
Upon the earth would wander these plagues.
Destruction, terror, anarchy and pain,
Suffering, loneliness, no hope to gain.
One by one, all across the globe,
Many unspeakable horrors took hold.
'Twas the night before Christmas, When all 'cross the world,
Every single man stirred, watching an end unfurl.
There were no Christmas miracles to save them that night;
The only miracle? It never reached my sight.

CONTAINMENT DOESN'T STOP ON CHRISTMAS DAY
Never abandon your assigned shifts. The world depends on it.


`Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the site
not a Keter is stirring, to My great delight.
The paperwork filed in the cabinets with care,
each one a story of objects most rare,
Humanoids held firm in ten-meter cubes,
and Euclids suspended in magnetic tubes.
But researchers, technicians, D-class and more,
were hiding in fear from the sounds of a war.
The East wing had lights flashing warnings in Morse
about the escape of an anamolous horse,
Two Keters, three Euclids, one thought Safe but not,
merging together in one ball of snot,
were barely but noticed by keen Doctor Bright.
A crisis at last had now moved him to fright,
his powers immortal availing him nought
and expert assistance he went out and sought.
Grabbing all resources that he could claim,
Six MTF teams, he called each by name:
"Now Cleaners! now Gear Deads! now Memetic Fixers!
On Toasters! On Weirds! On Timeline Deep-Sixers!
To the Basement L-4, to the site of the breach!
Don't wait! Get going! To all I must preach,
the pain of our failure is the end of us all!"
Rushing they jostled to get to the hall
containing the Monster, the Doctor's true dread,
fervently hoping to put Me to bed.
The snotball had the Cleaners tied up in knots,
while Toasters and Gear Deads were blocked by some bots
escaping their quarters and running all round,
trying to bind all the things that aren't bound.
Backwards and forwards the scrapping did go,
until I called Time and their fighting went slow.
The Weirds did not know that last week had gone wrong,
an SCP's slow-acting memetic song
made them ignore the good Doctor's commands,
as they were all busy staring at hands.
The Memetic Fixers tried chanting in rhyme
My True Name in Greek while assaulting a mime,
which in all fairness really should have worked,
but instead in my heart I secretly smirked,
My misinformation had led them astray,
assaulting a mine is what keeps Me at bay.
Timeline Deep-Sixers, most suited for this,
gave it their best but still came up a miss.
They ran down My hall, they ran with much vigor,
but too late! and My power did trigger,
Their forward-most man almost made it to me,
but now for eternity I get to see
his eyes frozen wide at the sign on My door
upon which is written: "BEWARE: CHRONOVORE."
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
'Twas the night before Christmas.
- text found printed on the back of Anamolous Object 173-21-214,which appears to be a large print of a photo overlooking Site-19's main administrative area as an explosion is just beginning. The photo is impossible to fold or cut in any way and nothing can adhere to it, but is otherwise unremarkable. No source for this object is recorded in the database.


"They're not gonna have her in downtown Portland, dude."
The truck was silent for a minute, save for the sound of the man in the passenger's seat cracking his joints one by one. Each arm flexed sharply until the elbow made a popping sound. Wrists crackled as they rolled around in their sockets. Ten fingers tugged in quick succession. Repeat.
"Wwwhy not?"
Jude stopped his popping and crackling. "I mean, think about it. You're some kind of secret government conspiracy, and you have a secret base where you put the secret magic things you grab. Are you gonna keep it in the city, where if anything goes wrong a bunch of people see it, or out in the country where there's jack shit?"
Armand drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he considered this. "Yyyeah I iguess, bubut then we havve n oway offinding her." When Jude didn't respond, Armand laughed a little forced laugh. "Thej janitors raid you're apartemnt, and youuu're woriede about that girl withha police badger."
Jude's eyes focused on the highway stretching out in front of them. Streetlights, and the occasional car ahead of them, illuminated the road up to the horizon. "Yeah, 'cause it's my fault. We can get a new… place to live or whatever. Gaycop can probably get us new IDs. We'll be fine. Brenda's gonna lose her job if she doesn't show up to work."
"Your a betteter guy than meJude." Armand dutifully hit his turn signal before taking an exit.

Jude's apartment was precisely what Armand expected it to be: sparsely furnished and spotless, with trash cans overflowing thanks to the last-minute efforts of its owner. It smelled of air freshener and weed. There was a clear shot to the balcony door in back, where the dull light of an overcast afternoon provided the apartment's sole source of illumination.
Jude himself was not at all what Armand expected him to be: a six-feet-and-change pallid man whose weight blessedly manifested itself as a soft, doughy full-body padding rather than as an unsightly potbelly. He made an attempt to lean in the doorway, but apparently got self-conscious at the last second and just stood up straight.
"Hey, what's up. Harmpit in the flesh." A hand was held out in some vaguely invitational gesture, and an equally ambiguous tight-lipped smile shown on his face.
Armand set his duffle bag down before meeting the vague hand gesture with one of his own — something between a high-five and a handshake that just sort of trailed off before his hand could fully disappear into Jude's meaty paws.
"Are you bluntuntfffiend? Legallyyou hafta tell meee if you're bluntfiend." He smiled brightly. His teeth were awful.

Papa Pete's Pizza, as well as the sub and burger restaurants to either side of it, had closed a good four hours earlier. The squat, pointy-moustached caricature of Papa Pete cast a modest light over the empty parking lot from the building's stone facade. Armand deftly parked his truck in the space furthest from the highway before exiting and heading back to its bed.
"How do you even know about this place?" Jude stepped out of the truck and slowly paced around. The spot was surrounded on three sides by trees, and a fence blocked the fourth from view of the highway. Not that he was complaining, but Jude had to wonder if it was designed with this sort of endeavor in mind. Probably not.
"Iii ate here onnn thew way up." Armand stood on tip-toe to see inside, then withdrew a hollow metal pole substantially longer than he was tall. He stumbled briefly, and almost fell over, but managed to gain his balance. After examining the pole, he carefully turned the far end towards Jude. "Here, your tallaler."
Jude took hold of the pole and, with considerably more ease than Armand, shifted it to balance in his grip. "Right." He turned around and headed towards Papa Pete's, looking up at the sign. "Trait swapping takes an hour, you said?" When they reached the pizza parlor, he oriented the pole vertically.
"Revverobo-semmmmanticas assoc—" Armand shook his head. "Sssurethat. And yes." He stood off to the side as Jude slowly angled the pole to go behind Papa Pete from beneath, lifting it up past his chest.
"Awesome. And uh, we have that long, right? Like, they won't immediately break into your laptop and find pictures of your truck anywhere?" With a somewhat unsatisfying clunk, and a much more satisfying crunch, Jude jerked the pole backwards, levering Papa Pete free from his mounting all at once and letting him fall onto the ground. Both flinched a bit from the noise which they had completely anticipated.
Armand looked around at the parking lot. Predictably, absolutely no-one had come to avenge Papa Pete's death. Jude was now examining the wreckage for handholds free of broken glass. "Yyeah. Donn't gravthere, lemme help."

Jude just sort of watched from the kitchen as Armand used a rubber spatula to slather some wheat paste out of a pot and onto his wall. "… so. Do I wanna know why you're about to lose me my security deposit?" He checked in the fridge to see if any food had magically appeared there in the past ten minutes. None had.
Armand looked over his shoulder. "A mmmeme, obvisaly." He set the pot and spatula on the ground, wiping a bit of the white goop off onto his makeshift apron (an old dress shirt tied around his neck). "Bessidesy, you're definitely goiing to getchased out to hereby thej anitors in the middle oftenight."
Jude opened his mouth, then closed it. "… yeah, you're probably right. Hopefully that's after you've found some place to stay permanently." He gave a little chuckle of dubious authenticity. Another fridge check: leftover quesadillas, raw bacon, hummus, an empty bottle of mustard, and a few bottles of hard cider. Same as before.
Armand didn't answer, instead opting to pick up a printout from the pile by his feet and hold it up to the wall. Black on white, with a few esoteric symbols surrounding one immediately recognizable symbol in the center. He smoothed it over with his palm, binding it to the wall.
"So uh… speaking of… have your parents…?" Jude left the question open-ended as he blinked. "Wait, what am I thinking. Wheat paste comes off with water."
"O rly? Hey check thhhis out." Armand rapped the wall next to the printout with his knuckle.
Jude leaned over to get a clear look at it. "Huh, I kinda like it. Unironically. Is it supposed to do something?"
"Itm makes youu reddorrractivevly love quesadillas." Armand matter-of-factly picked up a picture of a distraught-looking Slavoj Žižek and placed it directly below the first image.
Both got a bit of a guffaw out of Jude. "No, but seriously, what… I mean, you can't actually… can you? How would you even know?" Knowing full well that its contents would not shed light on the situation, he opened the fridge a third time. The quesadillas were still present, as was a can of pineapple chunks.
"By the way, uh, we should buy a can opener."

The Fiat Toro was, by Armand's standards, a very ugly vehicle, and proof that the Italians had no business producing pickup trucks. Armand's standards also stated in no uncertain terms that, having transmuted his perfectly good F-150 into the monstrosity, he had no business complaining. The only one who could complain was the newly-American Flapjack Frank, whose disgruntled visage dropped the occasional shard of glass into the truck's bed in protest.
The silence in the ugly truck's cab was broken only by Jude's noisy joints. Eight knuckles popped in short succession. Wrists rolled until they failed to crackle. Repeat. He spoke up suddenly. "I'm gonna message JJ. He's gotta be up, right? He wouldn't just… tell us to get out of dodge and fuck off, right?" Jude pulled out his cell phone, but doesn't turn it on.
Armand shrugged. "Worthher a try." Beat. "They're nnot tracccking you. Relax."
"Yeah, I guess." Jude pulled out his phone and turned his phone on, tapping in a password, and then a second, and a third. That one opened up Signal.

Still there?

>implying I would just leave you hanging like that

I mean. It's not like you followed up or anything.

Hm.

Yeah, I guess that would qualify as leaving you hanging.

In my defense, I was waiting for confirmation that you weren't compromised.

And this counts?

You're running from the janitors and you're worried about MY infosec. Of course.

You know I'm basically untouchable, right? Luck, etc.

It's for my sake, not yours.

Is kkrule online? Can you get him to set up a secret handshake?

Shit, blunt.

I pushed my luck to get you advance notice of that raid.

Now you're making me talk to the bernie guy?

Nah I got this though.

2q*x71767o85r/3IM-‘L9G3!,52"'5y+T$^4d6K2g8O3H4n|T~+B10Ir8ABQZ]8

2q*x71767o85r/3IM-‘L9G3!,52"'5y+T$^4d6K2g8O3H4n|T~+B10Ir8ABQZ]8

Jude set his phone in his lap as a small metal box, featureless apart from a digital keypad, appeared in his hands. "Hey Armand, you should probably pull over. I gotta disarm this EMP real quick."

There was a spot on the wall of Jude's room, about nine inches in diameter, that shimmered with psychedelic patterns when the light hit it right. The spot was a straight shot across the room from Jude's pillow; Jude had forgotten whether he did that on purpose to have something to look at, or whether staring at the same spot for hours every day made stuff like that happen on its own. In either case, he welcomed its presence.
At that moment, however, his view of it was blocked by Armand's belt buckle. While the two green rectangles emblazoned with pointing hands were well-crafted, Jude was never quite sure what to make of the fact that both hands pointed at Armand's crotch. Or rather, he knew what to make of it, just not whether Armand was doing it ironically.
Armand stuffed one hand in his pocket, the other holding a laptop under his arm. "Hhhheyg. Goanna get out of bed tomorning?" The tone was hard to decipher through Armand's slurred, stumbling speech, but it probably wasn't disappointment.
"Doubt it. Thanks for your concern, I mean, don't you have stuff to do? I thought you were busy today." Jude didn't bother averting his gaze, instead grabbing his phone from his bedside table and using it to block the view.
"Your nnnot int trouble, youuu don't have to defelect attention." Armand sat cross-legged on the floor, setting his laptop in front of him and pulling a pack of Newport 100s out of his pocket. "I'm watchchching polls, m yself. You?"
Jude reached out and snapped his fingers (or, he almost did — it made an unsatisfying 'plap' sound), igniting the tip of his index finger and extending it towards Armand. He extinguished it after Armand used it to light a cigarette. "Literally anything else. The last way I want to celebrate the end of this election is by shotgunning more election coverage. You have any ideas for Mr. Mad About Video Games? I wanna square that away by the end of the week."
"Heee should make vibeo james suck less." Armand puffed on the cigarette a little bit, opening up his laptop. "So hec can be lesss maddatem."
"Do my eyes — uh, ears deceive me? You came up with an actual idea for one of the misters?" Jude smirked, tapping away on his device. "I guess that's solid, but I think we'd have to know shit about video games to do that I think."
"Or weed do ap public service annnd make him stoppopp people from being maddat games."
"Let's call that a stretch goal… eh, I'm sure we'll think of something." Jude rolled over.

Armand drummed his fingers on the steering wheel a bit. He had never participated in this 'secret handshake' before, but he was aware of the protocol — kkrule would "tag" a text snippet with a simple EMP, and then the involved parties would share the text, thus summoning copies to disarm with a memorized password. Ideally, those in the know would render theirs inert if all was safe, and those not in the know would puzzle over it for a few minutes before all of their snooping devices were fried.
Armand found the whole thing fairly melodramatic, and riddled with flaws, but also pretty harmless. Indeed, a few short beeps indicated that Jude had easily defused the device, which went into the backseat. He picked his phone back up, giving the thumbs-up to Armand, who pulled back onto the highway.

I always feel like a secret agent when I do that.

It's kind of silly, honestly.

But I love the thought of the janitors and the NSA getting their spy machines wrecked.

It's pretty great.

Anyways. Three things.

I'm all ears.

Or eyes, I guess.

First, harmpit left his laptop behind. It weighs like 500 pounds, because shenanigans.

Odds are they can break its crypto somehow.

I doubt anything on it is compromising, but they'll have his chatlogs at least.

Well, shit. I'll have bones set up a new chatroom I guess.

Cool. Second thing is that harm & I need new IDs and a place to stay.

I assume gaycopmp4 can handle the first one?

Lemme ask them.

Nope. Forgery's not their forte apparently.

Lesbian_gengar can probably stick a mind trick onto a blank card though.

Good idea. Have her talk to harmpit, they can probably work something out.

As for lodging, I know a girl in Idaho and I know a fairy in Iceland.

Your pick.

What's Iceland like this time of year?

Cold. Genetically homogenous.

I should mention that the fairy literally lives in a hole.

Idaho it is, then.

Awesome. Assuming she agrees when I tell her.

Just head in the general direction of Boise and remember that nothing is a coincidence.

You'll find your way.

This is either going to be kinda neat or it's going to be awful.

Trust me, it'll be ~magical~.

What's the third thing?

?

Oh, right. You're in charge for now.

I really shouldn't run things until I'm in the clear.

Think you can handle that?

Well, yeah. It's not rocket surgery, is it?

I mostly mean "keep kkrule from fucking up or leaving".

The kid is impressionable, and also grossly OP.

If we don't peer pressure him, someone else will.

Le sign. Yeah, I'll make sure he learns the ways of the gamer.

Fantastic.

See you in a few weeks, dude.

And thanks again for saving my ass.

Don't mention it.

Jude's knuckles were the only sound in the cabin, until Armand turned on the radio.

For all of the doodads and reality bends that Jude set up in his apartment, it had never occurred to him to tint his windows. That is because he didn't know how the Foundation conducted raids.
The fourth-floor apartment is lit up by a spotlight set up across the street. On a rainier night, it would have been discarded, but on a clear night like this, the image quality is impeccable. Two seconds of flashing memetic patterns — more than capable of stunning the zero people who happened to be watching — are beamed straight into Jude's apartment.
Within a second, the front door is opened and a much more conventional flashbang grenade, which promptly flashes and bangs, is tossed inside. Something resembling a suitcase made of heavy green plastic comes right afterwards, and it begins to hum. This is the part that Jude was exceptionally lucky to avoid.
Six armed and armored individuals with uniforms of the local police department storm in afterwards, and within ten seconds of searching they can tell that only the green case was necessary — the sole security measure that it hadn't disabled, a spring-loaded lemon meringue pie, was a minor inconvenience at worst.
Two attending women — neither with arms or armor on par with the first four men, but imposing nonetheless — step inside after being given the all-clear, and take a look around. The taller one sniffs the air. "Well, the 'against weed' part was a lie."
"Why am I not surprised." The shorter one steps aside to let a man, who is using a towel to wipe whipped cream off of his armor, exit the apartment. She gestures at the Zizek-and-mysterious-pattern combo stuck to the wall, then points to an assistant who had just entered. "Get a picture of that and then cover it up. I don't like the looks of it."
The taller agent opens the fridge with a glove-clad hand, then closes it and moves to survey the bathroom. "It's hard to believe that anyone who lives like this is so high on the threat list. Surely he could have reality-bent himself some furniture."
"Maybe that'll have some answers." The short agent gestures to a laptop that her assistant was placing in a large plastic bag. He's in for a surprise when it left the range of the green case, but that won't be for a while yet. "Hey, I'm actually kinda hungry. Wanna get some Taco Bell or something after this?"
"Definitely. I've been craving quesadillas all day."
"Weird, me too."

« Ganja is for goons. | You are trash if you toke. »


*click to play

Every Skip locked on-site Liked Christmas a lot…
But Dr. Clef, who worked at Site-19, Did NOT!
Dr. Clef hated Christmas! The whole Christmas time!
But please do not ask him. He might rip out your spine.
It could be his head wasn't screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his hat was too tight.
But I think the most likely reason for this,
Was the hate in his heart for all of the Skips.
For whatever the reason - His hate, heart, or hat -
He stood there on Christmas Eve, suspicious of all that,
Staring down the hallway with a rigid, concerned walk,
At the warm-lit containment cells all in his block.
For he knew every Skip contained on his block
Was busy now, with the whole Christmas crock.
"The specimen of SCP-610 is hanging entrails on the wall!"
He puzzled over this behavior, but who should he call?
Still puzzled, his fingers were nervously drumming,
"Other Skips are preparing! Is there a Christmas Breach coming‽"
Then he growled, all alone in the observation room.
"I MUST learn how to stop this Christmas Breach soon!"
For Tomorrow, he knew, all the Skips down the block,
Would wake bright and early. Might break all their locks!
And then! Oh, the Noise! Oh, the Noise!
Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing he hated! The NOISE!
NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!
Then the Skips, young and old, might break out and feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast! And they'd FEAST!
FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They might feast on researchers, guards, and the director.
Something Dr. Clef would not tolerate in this sector!
And THEN They might do something He hated, He did,
Every Skip down in Nineteen, Keter and Euclid,
Might break out altogether, with SCP-513 ringing.
They'd run hand-in-hand. And the Skips would start killing!
They'd kill! And they'd kill! And they'd KILL!
KILL! KILL! KILL!
And the more Dr. Clef thought of this whole Skip Christmas Evil,
The more Dr. Clef thought, "I need to stop this upheaval!"
"We can't afford a K-class scenario now!"
"I MUST stop this Christmas Breach from coming! But HOW?"
Then he got an idea! A sexy idea!
DR. CLEF GOT A WONDERFUL, SEXY IDEA!
"I know just what to do!" Dr. Clef smiled in his room.
And he requisitioned a D-class jumpsuit and broom.
And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great fucking sham!"
"With this getup and broom, It'll look like testing as planned!"
"All I need is a helper…" Dr. Clef looked around.
But, since helpers were scarce, there were none to be found.
Did that stop the old Doctor? No! Dr. Clef simply said,
"If I can't find a helper, I'll call a favor instead!"
So he called his friend, Dmitri. And evacuated the base,
Then he armed the Site's nuclear device… just in case.
THEN He took guns and amnestics from the site's armory vault,
Gave some to Dmitri and said, "Blow the site, if I'm caught."
"The nuke's down the hall. That's Plan B if I'm dead."
"Da," said Dmitri, and followed where it led.
And Dr. Clef gave a sigh, and headed on down,
Toward the cell block where Skips Lay asnooze all around.
All their cells were dark. Eerily quiet was the air.
Skips were all dreaming horrific dreams without care.
When he came to the first little cell on the square.
"This is stop number one," the old mirthless Doc hissed,
And he climbed through the vent, amnestic syringe in his fist.
Then he slid down the air ducts. He was actually quite deft.
If the old Grinch could do it, then so could the Clef.
He got stuck only once, for a moment or two.
Then he slithered out of the ventilation chute.
Where peculiar stockings all hung in a row.
"This contraband," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"
Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,
Around the room, and he took every unauthorized present!
Candy! And Spiders! Tinsel! And Crud!
Still-borns! Ornaments! Mucus! And Blood!
And he stuffed them in trash bags. Then Clef, a bit later,
Stuffed all the bags in the incinerator!
Then he slunk to Control. He locked down the whole block!
Had his dick been anomalous, he'd have locked up his cock!
He closed every bulkhead as quick as a flash.
Why, that Doctor even locked the dumpster for trash!
Then he burned all the contraband with victorious glee.
"And NOW!" grinned Dr. Clef, "I'll lock down SCP-173!"
And Dr. Clef grabbed the keys, and he started to open,
When he heard a small sound like the chill of an omen.
He turned around fast, and he saw a small Skip!
SCP-191 was at the door, who was not more than four.
Dr. Clef had been caught by this anomalous Belle,
Who'd awoke and quite slipped out of her cell.
She stared at Dr. Clef and said, "A D-class, why,
Why are you locking down our Christmas things? WHY?"
But, you know, that old Doctor was so smart and so slick,
He thought of a reply, and he thought it up quick!
"GET THE FUCK! BACK! GET THE FUCKING FUCK BACK!"
Then he brought out his gun and fired a whole lot,
But that Skip was so quick, that it dodged all his shots.
It slashed and it gashed against Dr. Clef's skin,
But that crafty Clef knew she was close enough in,
That he pricked her with the amnestics syringe.
She blinked, for it shocked her,
She stopped as she faltered,
She forgot why she even attacked the poor doctor.
Dr. Clef gave a shove. And he shoved her right in,
Right over the railing into 173's pen.
Then he gathered his keys and locked up containment.
He thought it was quite the clever detainment.
With blood on the floor, he gathered himself,
Keyed up the radio and leaned on the shelf,
"Dmitri come in, I got hurt rather bad.
Be on standby, there's a few more things to be had."
"Da," Said Dimitri, finger on the red button.
Watching the cameras for a signal or somethin'.
It was quarter past dawn… Lockdown was in full effect,
All the Skips still contained, All the locks were all checked!
Packing up his shit, Dr. Clef headed back up,
Back to his office to start to cleanup.
With a crooked smile, he grinned at his work,
He laughed as he limped and he said with a smirk,
"PoohPooh to the Skips!" he was mirthlessly humming.
"They're finding out that no Christmas Breach is coming!
They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!
Their maws will hang open a moment or two,
Then the Skips down in Nineteen will all cry BooHooHoo!"
"That's a noise," grinned Dr. Clef, "That I simply MUST hear!"
So he paused. And Dr. Clef put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear was sound that starting to flow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn't mad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at the cell block! Dr. Clef popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Skip down in Nineteen, the tall and the small,
Were singing! Without any breaches at all!
He HADN'T stopped Skip Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And Dr. Clef, with his bloodied chest looking low,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
It came without killing! It came without breaches!
It came without blood, destruction or screeches!"
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then Dr. Clef thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Skip Christmas," he thought, "isn't something to lock up."
"Maybe Skip Christmas…perhaps…it's a chance to make up."
And what happened then? Well…in Nineteen they say,
That Dr. Clef's hateful heart melted that day!
After a minute, when his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed past the Control Room, undid the locks from last night,
And opened the cells! Let loose all the Skips!
Gave back the contraband he did not burn in his trip!
"Merry Skip-mas!", said bloodied Clef as he came down for hugs.
"Merry Skip-mas!", said the Skips as they hugged back with some snugs.
With tentacles, claws, hands, and [REDACTED]
All grudges on Christmas were simply retracted.
"Wait!" cried Clef as he shook the hand of a spook.
"I should call my friend before he blows up the—"

And then they all died.

THE END

† The following content is a fan-based parody of a satirical nature protected under Fair-Use that is based off of the children's book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel.

† "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: https://www.twinmusicom.org/


Electro-swing had never appealed to Agent Quinn MacAllister, but it's what she and her partner were stuck listening to in the car— unlike Crowley and Aziraphale, tapes in their car didn't transmogrify into Best of Queen when left unattended. They turned into tapes by bands she had never heard of- Caravan Palace, Whitney, Goldfish. She swore that the music professor at Wright State had cursed their vehicle during that botched exorcism in the student union.
Life in the UIU had never been glamorous— mostly paperwork and looking into alligators in the sewers— but this felt like a brand new low for her. Darnell- her partner- had easily seen worse, but even he was groaning at the prospect.
"Let me get this straight," he grumbled, undoing the cap on a bottle of chilled coffee. "These people dress up in hot, sweaty mascot costumes, to hang around with people who dress up in equally hot and sweaty mascot costumes?"
"And there are apparently enough of them to warrant multiple conventions, nationwide," Quinn affirmed. The tape had started its next track— In the end, you're just a friend, we'll take it day by day— "But, I think it's mostly harmless."
"So, why are we being called out here?"
Quinn's fingers drummed the steering wheel as she passed a sign that said "Indiana— Five Miles". "Because the director thought that we did an inadequate job on the last assignment."
"Not our fault that Ohio University has more ghosts than students," Darnell sipped at his drink. "Shit, we should be getting medals, not assignments to…" A look of near-sickness crossed his face. "I really don't want to say it."
"Assignments to furry conventions," Quinn rolled her eyes. "It's just a bunch of kids and nerds. Worst we're going to see is a guy who holds onto a Lion King dakimakuras a little tight—"
"Dakiwhat," Darnell spat, nearly choking on his coffee. "What the fuck is that?"
Quinn decided not to tell him, for two reasons: 1) to spare him from the horror, and 2) in order to see the reaction on his face when he did figure it out.
"Mac, I'm fucking serious," Darnell insisted as they stopped at the toll booth on the way into Indiana. "What the fuck is a dakithing?"
Quinn had to hold back a laugh as the chorus to the song came in.

When they went into the hotel, a slightly muscular man wearing a pair of cat-ear shaped headphones and a casual set of clothes looked them up and down. "Can I see your badges?"
Quinn raised a brow, and then her badge, before her partner did the same. "How did you know we were FBI?"
"FB- oh." He looked crestfallen, waving his hands around. "No, no, see, people have badges for their furso— characters so we don't have to call each other by real names. I thought you were here for the convention." He gave a series of several awkward laughs. "Um, yeah, you guys are set up in the Richard Griffin Room, second floor."
"Thanks," Darnell said, putting his badge away and starting to the elevator. "I thought you said that it was just kids here?"
"I mean, people have to grow out of it. Why?"
"That guy had a wedding band, and I think I saw some gray hairs." He massaged his wrist. "Remind me to ask if the drinks here are free for us."
"Noted," Quinn said, pressing the button on the elevator. When it came to the ground floor, out stepped a large wolf, with dark black fur and deep, red eyes, looking at Quinn as if it was about to tear her throat out.
Quinn recoiled, her heart going into her throat, skin going clammy. She went for her gun in a holster located under her jacket— but Darnell put a hand on her wrist. "What the fuck."
"Quinn, calm down," Darnell grinned. "It's a costume."
She got a second look at the wolf, and realized that the eyes were plastic and the tail was slightly dangling. The size of the limbs were the biggest giveaway— wolves had far thinner legs than this, and this thing looked big enough to hold a person. Following it out of the elevator were several others, all on two feet instead of four- a white cat with a star design over one eye, eyes red and purple; a blue wolf of some kind, cloth horns coming from his head; a fox with… noticeable assets, and a flirtatious look permanently plastered on her face. Quinn was transfixed on the wolf. "…how do you see out of that?"
"Poorly," the wolf responded, before walking off with its friends elsewhere.
Quinn jumped into the elevator and hammered the button for the second floor, her face gone white. Darnell joined her, a hand over his mouth as he tried not to laugh. "Shut. Up."
"Jesus Christ, though!" Darnell laughed as the elevator began to go up. "Your face, Mac!" He laughed into his hand and leaned against the wall of the elevator.
"Who the fuck makes a costume like that?!" Quinn gesticulated.
"Why?" Darnell snickered, his face starting to hurt from the grin he was giving. "Do you want one for yourself?"
"I want them put on a watchlist."
"Tell me what a Dakuramen is, and I'll see about it."
Quinn rolled her eyes and stepped out of the elevator the instant it dinged onto the second floor. There were a pair of goons by the door to the Richard Griffin room that she recognized as Agent Chalk and Agent Cheese. They looked like they could be twins— same haircut, same unamused face, same blue eyes, same earpieces, same suit. They were unrelated, but Quinn knew them— old partners from an art crime task force.
"Don't antagonize," Darnell said, walking out of the elevator and towards the agents. He got out his badge and displayed it, Quinn doing much of the same.
Chalk looked them over, and smirked at Quinn. "Big Mac," he said. "on the Short Bus, with the Little Leagues."
"Can it, Chalk," she snapped.
"Or what?" He grinned. "You'll wave sage at me? Hold a cross up in my direction? File paperwork?"
"Mmm, no." Quinn replied, pursing her lips. "Well, yes on the last one. I'll just report you to the head of operations here for unprofessional conduct. Christ, man, you're almost forty. Get a life."
Chalk went as pale as his namesake, and opened the door to them. Inside, she heard someone whose voice sounded like seniority gesticulating to a crowd of assembled agents.
"…one sicko poured chlorine into the hotel, so now, yes, we have to be here every year
for the foreseeable future." The speaker was one Agent Herschel Beauregard— Quinn also recognized him. Head of an anti-terrorist task force, which wasn't good. "I would like to remind all agents to avoid unnecessary contact with the civilians, convention-goers or not. Should one approach you, do not acknowledge them. Making physical contact with you can be considered assaulting an FBI agent, should it come to that—"
The closing of the door alerted Beauregard to the entrance of the UIU agents. The entire task force looked at them, silent, before a snicker came out from the back. Beauregard laughed, "And Mulder and Scully are here, all the way from Ohio!"
Quinn crossed her arms with a strained smirk— Beauregard was in the know about the anomalous world, so a few jabs could be forgiven. A few. "Congratulations. You are the one-millionth person to make that joke. You win my eternal scorn."
"I haven't won that already, Agent MacAllister? As I was saying," he turned to face the rest of the agents, expression once more growing stern. "If you have inclinations that correspond to those attending the convention, please, do that on your own time. Right now, you're on assignment." He adjusted his glasses. "One last thing— we're going to be working with a security firm for the duration of this. Gasleck Security Solutions going to be taking up residence next door in the Martin Knight room…"
Quinn turned to Darnell, and frowned. "Gasleck? That's…"
"Skippers." He turned away, letting out a soft "Fuck."
"At least they're not using SCP in every damn front organization anymore," Quinn put her head in her hands and moaned. "How long did that take them? Ninety years before someone started connecting the dots?"
"This one's worse, though. Look up what 'Gasleck' means in German."
Quinn would later do this, and, for only the fifth time this year, would regret the choices in her life that led her to this career.

After the briefing had ended, the two agents were greeted by a petite woman with slightly tanned skin and red hair. She was wearing a suit with sleeves that looked like they were too long— Quinn could see scar tissue coming out from underneath them when she shook hands. The woman smiled behind her glasses as she led them to a table. "Our usual liaison is indisposed— he's stuck in a bare room with an open door."
"Same thing happened to one of our teams," Darnell said. "I'm Agent Christman, this is Agent MacAllister."
"Dr. Katherine Sinclair, Occult Studies." She pulled the chair out and sat down opposite them. "What do you know of the occult?"
Quinn looked at Darnell— the look of concentration on his face showed that he was digging in his brain. "We've confiscated the odd grimoire or two. Neither of us can do anything described in them, but he's pretty good on the details."
Dr. Sinclair nodded and placed a folder on the table, opening it up to a photograph of a cat— or something cat-like, standing on two legs. Its entire body was covered in swirling designs of blue woad, its whole form hunched over, and its eyes were black pits. The photograph itself was in a forest, dense, and the foliage seemed to be glowing. It took a while for Quinn to pick this out, but there were eyes in every dark corner of the picture.
"What do you make of this?" Dr. Sinclair asked.
Darnell looked over the picture, and picked it up, before placing it on the table once again. After wracking his brain for some seconds, he started speaking. "Creature is similar to the one found in UIU case file 1973-45, Codename: "Wait Til Martin Comes"."
"Two dozen teenagers found dismembered on a retreat in the Ozarks, with the sole survivor, One Nathan Proctor, claiming to have seen a hulking cat tearing them apart, covered in blue paint. Single photograph was taken, depicting the entity as it fled the scene. Proctor was allegedly spared because they had brought their own cats to the retreat with them."
"Occult symbology was found corresponding to a Celtic demi-deity known as— am I allowed to speak its name?"
"It's not a very powerful one," Sinclair nodded, her expression growing more surprised by the second. Her eyes were starting to protrude from behind her glasses.
"Corresponding to a Celtic demi-deity known as Irusan Cat Sidhe. Also known as the King of Cats, Monarch of Familiars, Lord of Pucas…"
Quinn held up her hand. "That's enough." Turning back to Sinclair, she said, "I've heard him go on for hours about a cursed Bowie knife."
Sinclair folded her hands, and looked at Darnell with no small measure of admiration. "That's one hell of a memory you have there."
"Anyway. Irusan," Quinn looked over the photograph. "I take it that's what we're here for? A literal cat god among a sea of people in animals?"
"It could be worse," sighed Sinclair, her face betraying a nasty memory coming to mind. "One year, Bast decided to crash Anthrocon. She's a god of cats and fertility. There were—"
"Stopping you right there," Quinn held up her hands, before the conversation got to the point where she was begging for brain bleach and anti-vomiting agents. "So, where is this Irusan? And what does he want here?"
"What does any obscure god want? Worshipers, sacraments… sacrifices." Katherine rubbed her arms, her eyes flitting down a bit of scar tissue that appeared to have an "I" branded on it. "Gods like him are starting to go extinct— the only reason he's really around anymore is because he was in a video game. Not even joking."
"So, basically," Quinn thought aloud, "the objective here is: find the god, find those who worship him, neutralize both. Preferably before the civilians downstairs find out that cats have more than one way to skin them."
Both Darnell and Katherine's palms met their foreheads; the former had a bit more force behind it. They groaned, and Katherine muttered something about "fucking pear trees".
"You get one," Darnell sighed, hand sliding down his face.

Half an hour later, the two FBI agents and the mage were on the convention floor, surrounded by synthetic fur and overly-excitable nerds. In the background, there was techno music playing, with lyrics including 'They just want to'("What the fuck does that word mean?" Darnell asked.) me with their bad dragon ("You don't want to know," Sinclair replied.)'
"Furries have no taste in music," Quinn's shoulders sank as she let out a soft groan. "Christ, fucking techno. Hear one song, you hear them—"
"HUGS!" exclaimed a blue-and-white tiger, popping out from the crowd in front of Quinn. She just flashed her FBI badge at him, as well as a stern look, before he melted back into the crowd.
"In addition to being cursed with being followed around by bad music," Quinn grumbled, putting her badge away and rubbing her head with the other hand, "I'm being accosted by people who think they're animals. Great."
"You know," Darnell mentioned, looking at an artist's table with some degree of curiosity, "I originally was going for a cultural anthropology degree. If these guys were around back in the day, I would've had one hell of a thesis."
"They've been around since the 80's or so," Katherine explained as she took out a small wooden rod. "The internet has just made them more prominent."
Quinn just gave her an incredulous look. "That some kind of magic thing? It's not going to turn us into newts, is it?"
"Even if it did, you'd get better," she shrugged, bringing it into both hands. "And no, it doesn't. This thing is designed to do one thing, and one thing only." She took the rod in her hands, and with a sharp crack, broke it in two. "And that is set off every fire alarm in about three-hundred yards."
At the instant the wood split, the fire alarm went off, and a confused horde of convention-goers made their way to the nearest exits. "All right," Sinclair said. "Look for anyone who isn't leaving, or who is reluctant to leave."
"Oddly specific… magic thing." Darnell frowned. "Do you need to use it a lot?"
"…we're the Foundation. You should know the answer by now." She nodded and looked around the convention hall. "Eyes peeled."
"Never understood where that expression came from," Quinn said, before her eyes darted to a man at the back of the hall, retreating into a ballroom. "Hey, Darnell."
"I saw it," he said. His pistol came out of its holster, and he ran to the doors.
Sinclair and Quinn followed after, Quinn's own holster emptying into her hand, and the safety on her pistol going off with a click. Sinclair, for her part, was producing from her coat a large, metal ring that was in the shape of an all-too-familiar symbol— two circles, with three lines pointing towards the center. "Seriously?" Quinn chided.
"It's a phylactery," she shrugged. "Not our fault the people in R&D are vain."
The two agents kicked open the doors to the ballroom, and inside, found a dozen people. They were all clad in grey, tabby-colored robes, and they were all chanting an incantation in an ancient tongue that none of them could, or wanted to, understand. "F'im fey Irusan, F'im fey Cat Sidhe, F'im Fey Irusan, F'im dh'fey ra…"
They were grouped around an enormous, slumbering calico, with an inflatable pool next to it serving as a bowl of milk. The calico had blue whorls of woad painted onto its fur, and smelled heavily of catnip, dead mice, and self-confidence. It slumbered, still, gaining power from those around it.
Quinn frowned, and held up her badge. "FBI. You know what that stands for?" The figures turned to look at her. "It stands for 'anyone who doesn't want to die a virgin, leave now'." Three of the figures got up and fled; Quinn saw, to her chagrin, that they were wearing the visages of foxes and wolves and tigers underneath. "Anyone who's not a virgin and has something left to live for, you get out too." Six more left, leaving only three figures, who Quinn couldn't help but pity. "Fucking millennials."
Sinclair stepped in, pulling out another rod. She shook her head, bit her thumb, and rubbed blood on the stick, before throwing it into the air with a cry of "Nathair athrú bata!"
In mid-air, it changed into a boa constrictor the size of a car, and landed with a thud next to the remaining cultists, who fled the room, their robes being shed and exposing their costumes. Darnell just gave Katherine a mystified look, eyebrow raised at an almost painful angle."Was that—"
"Yup. There's an entire school of magical theory based around that, believe it or not."
"Anyway," Quinn grumbled, taking cautious steps around the snake and the cat; the former had begun to revert into a rod. She inspected its face, and found that the cat had two sets of eyes, and what appeared to be an extra mouth in its forehead. "…if I was an idiot, I'd say we euthanize it."
"Dealt with gods before?" Sinclair asked.
"…there was this one time back home." Quinn's shoulders dipped, and her voice wilted. "Never again."
"I read the incident report," Sinclair replied, her mood briefly somber. "Let's get this over with." She came close to the cat, phylactery in hand, and pressed it up against the god's forehead. She began singing softly, in Gaelic, a siren's song that the agents had to actively resist listening to.
Unfortunately, it wasn't very effective against the cat. It came awake, and batted the doctor away, the phylactery still attached to its forehead, the spell incomplete. Sinclair landed against the wall with a sickening crack, and lay still.
"Shit!" the two agents cursed, the syllable leaping off their mouths in synchrony. They drew their weapons, and fired into the cat's hide, watching as the fur just absorbed the bullets.
The cat rose to two feet, and laughed, running out the room, its form changing and shrinking as it did. Its face became more plush-looking, its eyes duller, and its fur took on the texture of plastic fiber.
"…well, fuck," Quinn said. She ran towards Sinclair, who was on the ground, nursing her arm.
"Fuck," she winced, standing up. "I think it's broken. And doing magic with a broken arm is not a good idea- interrupts the flow of energy, and— nevermind."
Quinn took off her jacket and fashioned a sling for the doctor. "It got away. It could be anywhere in the hotel by now."
"Son of a bitch," Sinclair said as she stumbled towards the door, Darnell coming over to heft her up. "I'll be fine, I just need to see a doctor. You two have to contain it. God help us."
"How?" Quinn asked. "It looks just like any one else here, now."
"…there's a song, or rather, a cadence, that's linked to the binding spell. I can sing you it, and maybe you two can come up with something. I don't suppose- ow!" She winced as she went over the threshold of the ballroom, foot catching on some raised carpet, "That you two are any good at karaoke?"
"Couldn't we find the song somewhere?" Quinn asked; fire trucks were beginning to surround the convention center, and firemen were coming in. Quinn lifted up her badge, as Darnell gave some bullshit explanation about Sinclair being trampled by the crush. "Or one like it? The lyrics don't matter, it's just the cadence, yeah?
"…you have that app that lets you find music based on singing?"
"Darnell does." They limped past the firemen, and Quinn nodded at her partner, who produced the phone and the app in question. "Sing it."
Sinclair hummed a few bars into the microphone, and within seconds, the phone chimed and brought up a song. "What is it?"
"…Quinn," he said, bringing up the phone, "You're not gonna like this."
It took half a minute for Quinn to realize what she was seeing. It was an electro-swing song. One that she was fairly sure she had on a cassette in her car. "…I hate the way the universe works."
"Join the club," Sinclair laughed, before gasping and wincing in pain. "At least you don't have to live with it every day."

"Can't believe we're doing this," Quinn said as she came down the elevator that evening. "Going to a rave full of people in-" she hesitated on the term- "fursuits to catch a cat god, all because a magician broke her arm."
"The skippers have tech that's going to repair her arm within the hour," Darnell replied with a soft roll of his shoulders. "I agree that it's dumb we have to do this, but it's either this, or the death of hundreds of people."
"Right," Quinn said, passing by a poster that stated a band that was coming to play at the convention had had their act cancelled; a brief glance showed it was the same band that played the song that was going to trap the cat. "…this could all have been avoided so easily."
"Anyway. Let's do this." They walked through the hall, and at the ballroom doors, they were stopped.
"Room's full," said a tubby man wearing what was clearly a rent-a-cop suit. "Fire code and all that, sorry."
"FBI," Quinn said as the two agents brought up their badges. "There is a dangerous person of interest in there."
"Well," the guard said, his mouth splitting into a Cheshire Chelsea grin. "This charade can be dropped, then. Master Irusan will not be stopped. His bacchanal shall-"
Three seconds later, Darnell was wiping nose blood off of his fist, and Quinn was cuffing the "guard". "We might be too late," Darnell said. "We gotta get in there."
"Agreed," she said, opening the door. "Didn't even bother to lock it."
"…they really don't need to," Darnell said, eyes wide as he looked over the crowd. In the center, surrounded by enamored men and women, stood Irusan, still having assumed the form of a simple human being in an animal costume. People around him waved to the rhythm of its cat song, which was only broken, briefly, by the entrance of the agents.
WELL, it said in a booming, mental voice. COME TO WORSHIP? TO FIGHT? OR TO CONTAIN?
"…we come to arrest," Quinn frowned. "By the power invested in me by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I say: hit it, boys."
The speakers in the room blared to life, blasting Lone Digger by Caravan Palace. "It's the twenty-first century," Quinn yelled over the music. "We had our tech guys rig it up hours ago. They just needed our signal to confirm you were here."
The cat god looked around in something that could be approximated to horror with its blank, plastic eyes, and it held its head, the phylactery still stuck to it. It looked like it was being sucked in, before it let out a command directed at its followers, heard by Quinn and Darnell like a headache: DESTROY.
Instantly, one-hundred people began throwing themselves at the speakers, and the agents. Darnell went down thanks to a tackle from a particularly strong… Quinn didn't know what that was. A hyrax? She managed to dart through the crowd, and come up to Irusan, who was starting to shrink.
BITCH, it screamed. I WILL SMITE YOU AND YOUR KIND FROM EXISTENCE. FELINES WILL FOREVER SHUN AND ATTACK YOU.
"I'm more of a dog person anyway" Quinn snarked. "And besides, to do that, you need power. The most power you'll be having soon are the lights in your cell."
The cat's form changed, and with a loud roar, the music cut out, the lights flicked, and Quinn felt the unmistakable surge of an EMP on her skin. Standing before her was a much smaller version of the abominable cat she had found earlier in the day, its twin maws gaping. This is a rave. Let's fucking dance.
"Darnell!" Quinn called. "He pulsed the music! Get it back up!"
"Trying!" He said, shoving his way through a crowd (pack?) of wolves.
Quinn, for her part, took out her gun and aimed it, point-blank, at the cat. She fired, and the cat's head recoiled, only to slowly slide back forward, bullet in his teeth. "…that is so fucking cliche. Couldn't you have at least had a hole in your head?"
Cliches are all I have left! The cat yowled in her mind, the voice having grown weaker. She felt scratch marks appear on her arm, and saw blood start to seep through her sleeve. My stories are burnt! I only exist because of a me-damned video game!
Meanwhile, another yowl, another cut, YOU get to exist without needing your story to be told. Humans are the only self-sufficient sapient beings on this planet. How is that fair?!
"You want a story?" Quinn asked, dodging a swipe of his claw. "Fine. Once upon a time, there was a very grumpy cat named Irusan. It- fuck!" she dove underneath its jaws as Irusan snapped at her. "It decided to trash a convention of nerds that tried to dress up like animals—" A gunshot to his side was followed by her crying out, "Darnell what is taking so long?
"I got fucking bitten by five people!" he yelled back, delivering a punch to a foam-covered coyote head.
Quinn was grabbed by a massive paw, and bit the cat's hand to get away from it. She was surprised that blood was drawn, and even more surprised when it was dropped. She continued talking as the cat's hand healed. "It decided to trash a convention just for the sake of getting new worshipers, making my life, my partner's life, the Skipper's lives, and the lives of everyone here miserable in the process." She weaved her way behind him, and said, "Then, one day, he got neutered by an FBI agent." Quinn punctuated this by making the lowest blow one could on anything male— a swift, upward kick between the legs. All this got her was a sore foot. "…mmmmmoooother fuuuuucker."
Points for effort, Irusan grinned, his head turning around one-hundred eighty degrees, followed by the rest of his body. Now, animal companions mine, rend them limb from limb, and you will receive your reward!
Quinn was grabbed from either side by cartoon-faced animal-dressed psychopaths, who began pulling at her arms. She didn't quite think that expression was going to be so literal. Then, something came to mind, one last, desperate thing. "…you really want to get my blood on your fur?"
The people pulling against her stopped their efforts, paused for thought, and let her go. "Hell no," one of them, a rather graceful looking border collie, said. "I paid a grand for the head alone."
Irusan looked perplexed by this. DESTROY! he commanded, once more. The furries just stood there, looking at him, then at their costumes, then at Quinn.
Agent MacAllister grinned. "Nothing comes between a nerd and their cosplay."
"I got it up!" Darnell yelled, and with an audible clack of a key, and the music started blaring from where it stopped, the near-indecipherable, mondegreen-filled chorus.
With a final howl, the cat began to sink into the symbol, and finally, in a puff of dislogic, vanished into the metal ring entirely. Quinn grinned as it rattled on the floor, clapping her hands… which then turned into a frown. "…and in five…"
Foundation agents stormed the ballroom, two of them throwing Quinn and Darnell a gas mask each, before they flooded the room with a brain-wiping drug and knockout agent. The furries around them fell to the ground, some of their heads cushioned by the foam around them, others not so much.
Quinn and Darnell exited the room, only to find Sinclair waiting for them, her arm mended. "Okay, I have to ask," Quinn said. "Why is it you call us on these things? We're not well-equipped, we can't shoot fireballs out of our noses, and I've not touched an assault rifle in six months."
"On these assignments?" Sinclair looked sheepish. "Quite frankly, Agent MacAllister, when it comes to containing an anomaly in a crowded, civilian setting… the Foundation doesn't have the best track record of minimizing casualties. I think the only causalities in this hotel are going to be the bedsheets."
"…I'm done," Quinn peeled off her mask. "Do we have to stay here for the duration? Because I would take chasing down a currency-eater in Cincinnati any day over this."
"You're stuck here," Sinclair affirmed, "But the drinks are free."
"Thank god," both the agents said at the same time. "You gonna come drink with us?" Darnell asked.
"I have to contain the phylactery, make sure the task force doesn't stomp anyone to death, and then… I have plans." Her eyes glanced downward at the ground on the last statement. "Well. Good job, you two. Pats on the backs, gold stars, et cetera."
"Right," Quinn said. "Whatever. I hope they have really fucking good mojitos here…"
The conversation turned to alcohol as Quinn and Darnell left the room. Sinclair, for her part, produced the panel schedule from her pocket and looked it over. The convention wasn't over yet- there was still the panel on selachian anatomy, another on fursuit building, a guest speaker, free STD testing, a screening of Zootopia— "…wait," she looked at the fourth event and rubbed her head. "Well, at least they're being careful."