Huh?

[AngelOfDeath]

Amazingly, I was not drunk when I made this. I was just really bored. . . and I need to do SOMETHING with it. So here you all are. The product of my fevered boredom. I was told to make up a story using a planet in the shape of a torus and a moon made of cheese. That doesn't explain much really, just that I'll take stupid challenges.







"Wahhhhhhhh!" She screamed with a sort of fanatical gleam in her eye. Brandishing a stick she charged forward fully intending on injuring the apathetic looking boy across from her. She made it over and swung, only to find him not where her stick came down, but slightly to the side, his own stick jabbing into something that was more soft and giving than one would think. Rather than color with embarrassment she colored with anger. "Damn it all, you always win!"

"You always do the same thing. You can?t just charge forward and expect the person to stand there while you hit them." The boy looked bored and his tone was level.

"I?ll show you. It will work someday, I promise you."

"Yeah, yeah. And someday the world will be spherical." They walked in the general direction of a small town, passing by fenced off farmland on the way. Soon they would pass through the shadow of the Big Cheddar. Best to be inside, as it got cold when that happened, even if it was only for a few hours.

Life on Torun wasn?t easy. Only half of it was habitable, for one thing, being that only one side of the donut shaped satellite actually faced the sun.
The other side, a cold, strange waste, was of little interest to the small population of people. There were a few kingdoms and the usual cadre of social problems, but very little of interest happened on the stable, actually rather dull, little world.

Unbeknownst to the people, a deep evil sat in the depths of their universe. You see, they were created when the gods were young and still had a sense of humor, letting everyone think they had originated from body parts and other humorous theories. Now the gods, and a couple in particular, wanted a little bit more direct acknowledgment for their deeds. These poor kids were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, (or perhaps the right place at the wrong time, it isn?t very clear) and the gods saw them sauntering lazily towards their dull little village.

"I want the girl." It wasn?t really verbal, but what would pass as a verbalization between deities.

"No fair," a surge of disappointment caused a terrible famine in a different plane of existence. "You always get the spunky ones. I want the spunky one this time!"

"Fine fine." When facing someone who could actually whine for a healthy part of eternity makes one slightly more willing to give in. "But then I get to pick the problem."

"Whatever. I was never any good at that part anyway."

A flash of thought later, or centuries later depending on how you saw things (angles could be very important) the conversation ended and there was something like a handshake exchanged between the deities. Time for some action.


*
*
*
"Stop dragging your heels. You want to be caught in the dark?" The boy looked far too concerned with reality. All she wanted to do was aggravate him when he acted like that.

"And what if I do?"

"Then you?d be stupid, like always."

"I?m NOT stupid. I?m just stubborn."

"With you there isn?t much difference." The darkness swept down on them suddenly. There was nothing in the light, just a pitch black almost tangible absence of light. "Now look at this, we can?t go anywhere for at least another four hours, unless you somehow can see in the dark." There was no answer from the girl. After a moment, this made the boy nervous. "Hello? You there?"

"Wahhhhhhhh!" Something solid struck the boy square in the forehead.

"Darn it all! You?re such a brat sometimes!"

"I win I win I wiiiiin!" From the sound of things she was running around in circles singing that to herself. "I-I-I wiiiiiAGGGHH?OOF"

"That?s what you get for running around near a ditch. Seriously, you?re such a spaz sometimes." There was no malice in the words, even if there was annoyance. It was hard to believe they were the same age. Just as he sat down, he noticed something he shouldn?t have, as the tree next to him blazed into light, (rather like a streetlamp, if they had had such things.)

HEAR ME CHOSEN TW? WHERE IS THE OTHER ONE?

"In the ditch."

FOR HEAVENS SAKE There was a feeling of expectation as the girl picked herself out of the ditch, and dusted herself off a little. AHEM AS I WAS SAYING, HEAR ME CHOSEN TWO, YOU SHALL BE GIVEN A SACRED TASK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF YOUR CHARGE

"Well, you haven?t told us yet." Cheeky monkey girl.

"Shut up." He murmured to her. "Yes we do, oh lord."

GOOD. YOU WILL BE GIVEN THE TASK OF TAKING THESE SACRED ITEMS TO THE PRIESTS OF THE CAPITAL. ONCE YOU HAVE DELIVERED IT YOU SHALL FACE AN ULTIMATE EVIL. IF YOUR FAITH IS STRONG THAN A BLESSING WILL HAPPEN. IF YOUR FAITH IS NOT STRONG THEN YOUR WORLD IS DOOMED. At the look of the striken youngsters, who had never really been face with such a terrible command, the god felt a little sheepish. I KNOW IT?S A BUGGER, BUT I DIDN?T CHOOSE IT THIS TIME SO DON?T BLAME. There was a pause.

OH BE QUIET, I AM NOT BADMOUTHING YOU. YOU GET TOO TOUCHY ABOUT THINGS LIKE ? I SAID YOU?RE A LITTLE FIRE AND BRIMSTONE FOR MY LIKING A LONG TIME AGO. THERE?S NOTHING BAD ABOUT IT, THAT?S JUST YOUR STYLE. WE?LL DISCUSS THIS LATER. A pause.

OK, WELL? HERE IT IS. NOW SHOVE OFF, OR ELSE YOU?LL GET A THUNDERBOLT WHERE THE SUN DON?T SHINE. The tree stopped being lit. Everything went black again for the two teenagers.

"Bloody hell." Said the girl. The world became light again. Had that really taken hours and hours to talk to that god? Had they really talked to a god? It looked like it for the simple sticks they had once carried were now changed. The boy held a mirror, and the girl a sword. Admiring her sword, the girl only noticed her partner?s item after a moment. Then she began to laugh. "I got the sword. Obviously they know I?m the warrior type here."

"I don?t want to talk about it." The boy looked disgruntled. "We?d better get some supplies put together quickly. We don?t want the ultimate evil getting there before we do."

"I?ll show it." The girl swung her sword around. "I?ll give a good one in the nuts and then chop it down with my keen sword." She wondered if she could find something like armor at home.

*
Explaining things to the parents got a little tricky, but when each set of said parents tried to extract the items from the teens, they got a nasty localized thunderbolt that left their hair on end. It was rather worse than static shock and as it could repeat itself as many times as they tried to get the items, it was hard to account with coincidence. So with a good luck and some food, the boy and girl set off. The girl found soon that a pot on the head slid around a lot and was actually quite heavy, but she was stuck with it as if she lost her mother?s best pot she would be in for it when she got home.
The boy, meanwhile, was trying to figure out what was wrong with the mirror. He couldn?t see a thing in it, despite the fact that it looked like it was made from a reflective substance.

They walked for three days, one day to get to the Inner Road, which ran next to the boarder of the Waste on the inside ring. It was the fastest way to go.
The other two days were to reach the capital of their kingdom, the kingdom of Brie.

At first no one would see them, especially the priests. Why would they pay attention to a couple of peasant kids? After a while, the girl looked like she was ready to start using her patented attack on the uppity clerics. The boy tried his best to talk to the men diplomatically.

The girl was mumbling about making some of these holy men eunuchs, so it seemed a good idea to move quickly before they were excommunicated. The boy stopped a kindly looking man who looked very strained. After talking a few minutes, he noticed that the girl, who normally would have already gotten into trouble by now, was staring at the sacred item he had tied to his waist.

"What?"

"Ask that guy a question that can?t be true, like is the sky purple or something." He looked curiously at her, but it was easier to go with it than to argue, and she seemed to have a purpose behind her question. "Excuse me sir, is the sky purple?"

"Of course it isn?t now leave me alone, I?m very busy." The girl sniggered. The man gave her a distasteful glare and moved on.

"Well, why did I do that?" The boy tapped his foot impatiently on the mosaic tiled floor.

"You?re mirror tells you when people lie. Just look at it. When they lie, it goes all smoky. Changes colors pretty frequently actually, when people are angry it goes all red. Pretty exciting actually."

While letting the girl actually talk to people was normally a horrible idea, he actually encouraged her to so he could test her theory. After a few moments and a couple bilious shades of red, he decided that she was right. Opacity gave the varying levels of truth, and the color determined mood. It was a brilliant thing really, and he hated that he hadn?t discovered what it did first. Best not to mention that again, else he would never hear the end of it.

Things would have continued on with the same level of nothing going on, if not for the fact that the girl got impatient and began to scratch designs into the wall. A guard came over and told her to stop that. She told him to go get someone helpful or to bugger off. He tried to take her sword, and got a nasty shock. Several more guards were called who also received nasty shocks. Soon it looked like she was about to lay into some people with her sword for 1. Them trying to take her sword, 2. Them not believing she was sent by a god, and 3. Them touching her in inacceptabel areas in the quest to get the sword from her. Especially number 3. Soon there were going to be some eunuch guards, but luckily a frail old man came down, brushing aside the guards and guiding them further inside the temple.

He went inside a small office and sat them down. "I am One Glazed, can I help you? I am a teacher here."

"About time, now the thing is?" Best not to let her get any further. The boy interrupted her and explained the situation from the lighted tree on up to now. He demonstrated the mirror. One Glazed looked very disturbed, like his world had been just turned upside down (though it would not have actually looked all that different really, as most donuts would not).

One Glazed ran out of the room in a hurry, and returned with even more shriveled old men in more important looking robes. They talked among each other for a while then one ventured to speak to the teens.

"Where are the holy items?" The kids held them up and set them back on their laps protectively. "How do we know they are holy items?"

"Want to take it from me?" The girl gave a nasty smile, her pot slid down over one eye, actually making it more sinister somehow.

"Look we don?t have time for this. Just believe us and we?ll get on with our job. The fate of the Torun is at stake after all. Just thought you?d want us to fix everything sooner rather than later." The boy looked cross, but he held an air of authority that made the older men actually consider his words.
A half hour, some nasty shocks, and a bit of food later, they were taken to the castle with the head priest.

"The king is very sick." The priest began. "It happened very suddenly and now other people are getting sick as well. We?re afraid we don?t know what to do, and one after another people are falling gravely ill. No one is dead yet, but there are rumors in the city of a plague and unrest is causing?. Problems."

The boy nodded. He understood how political stability was tenuous. The girl appeared to be picking out something from her teeth? with the sacred sword. They were led into the royal chambers. A darkness seemed to eminate from the king, at least, the mirror became darker and darker as they approached. It was almost black when they stood next to him. That didn?t bode well. The priest stood back a ways, waiting. Clearly no one really knew what was going on.

"What is wrong with this guy?" The girl was so cheerfully clueless both men almost fell over in shock. Had she heard anything the priest had said?

"Whhhat does you whhhant of mehhee?" The voice was wispy and inhuman.

"What are you?" The words sprang to the boy?s lips.

"I am the Cooker. Once I have eliminated your life forms on this planet, then the Eater will arrive. Your Big Cheddar is what he desires, and your Torun will make a delightful cracker." There was a dry cackle.

"Well, we can?t have that, now can we?" The girl picked up her sword, ready to behead the king. Both priest and boy stopped her bodily, she struggled against them. "Let me do my job!"

The king rose from the bed, changing before them and terrible to look at, making one feel dirty for even seeing him. "You should have let the girl act.
Now you will die here, along with this corpse of a host."

The, er, thing made its way towards the three forms and the priest huddled, praying to his god. The boy and the girl nodded to one another an faced off against the thing. Raising the mirror, a blinding light flowed from it, twining about the thing and holding it still. Bringing up the sword, the girl struck it through its middle and it burst in a filthy hiss: He will come?.

"That?s can?t be good." The boy gave her a dirty look. That was the understatement of the century.

*
"So how do we stop this thing when it eats frikkin WORLDS?" The girl had a point. It did seem fairly impossible as requests went, to stop this hungry colossus.

"I suppose it will just work out somehow. I mean, fate works like that." Truthfully he didn?t know, and no one else seemed to know so he thought that there was little to do at this point.

"Well, Fate can have a good dose of this." She shook her sword. "I?m going to go find that Eater if I have to shoot myself into space. You with me?" her enthusiasm was somewhat catchy. The boy found himself swept up in it. He leapt up and nodded. Very purposefully they strode about the temple, then the castle, then in the direction of a restaurant because she had heard from one of the priests they had some good curry there.

Full, and a little burpy from the curry, they against strode purposefully and yet aimlessly about the city. Naturally, they had to get lost.

"Now what? We?re in an ethnic part of the city and no one speaks our language. How are we supposed to get back to the temple now?"

"Oh you?re so negative. Maybe we?re on the right track and just don?t know it."

"The odds of that are a million to one."

"Then we ARE on the right track."

"You are infuriating, you know that don?t you." The boy scowled.

"I love you too." She said sweetly and ran off laughing, right into a blind beggar. "Sorry mister. I don?t suppose you?d know where we could find the Eater?"

The blind man smiled and shook his little coin box. The boy dropped in a coin. The beggar pointed to a building that had a sign with a cow and pig on it, as well as a picture of some steak and bacon below it. Well, that seemed pretty universal. It was either a slaughterhouse or a butcher shop, or just a really tacky steak house. They thanked the beggar and walked inside, ready to believe anything as (and we all know this) a million to one chances are right nine times out of ten.

They found a particularly large man and squared off in front of him as he consumed plate after plate of meat chunks. He didn?t even look up from his gorging.

"We?ve got you now. You?d better promise to leave things well enough alone here or else we?ll burst you like the boil you are." The obese man looked up and barely gave them a second glance before going back to his feeding. What a disgusting creature. The girl drew back with her sword while the boy readied the mirror.

"I?m afraid you have the wrong person. I wouldn?t stop you, but seeing whatever is inside that thing would put me quite off my food for a day or two." A genteel slim man approached them.

"Are you the Eater?" The boy asked solemnly.

"Why yes, and who might you be?"

"Back fiend, I?ll take you on! One on one! Right now!" The girl threatened him with her sword. The Eater just looked amused and pushed her sword to the side.

"Now, that?s not very nice. Let?s just sit down and discuss things like civilized people." Bewildered, they all sat down in a booth facing away from the fat man. "Now what is the problem?"

"Well, for one thing, you tried to kill off our entire planet." The boy looked a little cross.

"Cooker messed up again did he? I fear he gets a little overzealous."

"But you still plan to eat the Big Cheddar? And Torun?"

"Well, I?m less keen on eating Torun now, after looking around (it?s a little dirty you know). But the Big Cheddar will hit the spot after the turn around a rather meaty solar system I just did."

"We?d rather you didn?t eat it, if you don?t mind. It kind of holds our planet in orbit you see. Flying off into some random direction would sort of kill us all."

"That?s a shame. I suppose you should move first then."

"WHERE TO?" For once the girl was actually paying attention.

"There?s lots of nice places out there, that I haven?t eaten. Too bitter, Not my taste. There?s a couple fairly clement places. A very nice one that?s all round, like a ball. The change of pace might be good. You people could branch out a little more." The Eater was so friendly, it was hard to think of him as an ultimate evil.

"How are we supposed to get there?" The boy looked very intent.

"That isn?t my problem is it? Now if you?ll excuse me." He gave a little bow to the girl as he stood up to leave. She had to be restrained by the boy from going after him and stabbing him in the back.

"Look at the mirror." The boy pointed to the image portrayed of a pretty little globe. It was a planet with a satellite around it that looked very much like a nice white cheddar base. "I think this is the miracle. I think the gods are going to relocate us there. We just have to believe they will and trust in the gods. Come on, we have to go tell everyone to pray for a miracle." The girl, still angry, followed behind.

"I didn?t even hardly get to use my sword?" she mumbled

*
For once the whole world was collectively praying to the gods that created them. To the gods, this is just what they had wanted to hear. It was nice to get a little attention once in a while and it was a darn shame you had to frighten an entire planet to get that kind of attention. They weren?t going to let anything bad happen to the people, they just needed to put the fear of gods in them.

"Now?" The question was impatient. Mountains wore down to pebbles as the voice waited.

"Not yet. It has to be more dramatic."

"There goes the Big Cheddar. Ooo I can really feel them all pray now. Boy are they scared."

"That?ll teach them to ignore us. You can bet they?ll remember this."

"Now?"

The pause now was only the span of a human heartbeat.

"Now."

Torun went ::parp:: as every single person on it disappeared.

*
The boy and girl looked at one another.

"That was?. Er? interesting." The boy looked a little green.

"That was bloody terrible, is what that was. I feel like someone just took me apart and put me back together." Actually?.. well?. Nevermind.

"Yeah."

"So, this is a globe, eh? Not very impressive. And that little cheesy moon is too small. And not the right color." She didn?t want to like it. It was too different too fast.

"I think it?s alright." He paused. "We?d better go find everyone else."

"You?d think that they would have at least brought us our cities too? building everything again will be a bit of a pain."

INGRATE

The word burned in their mind and suddenly buildings sprung up around them.

"Thanks!" the girl saluted with her sword, and the clanging echoed in her head as she was still wearing the pot. "Owowowowow."

"Serves you right." The boy was still a little resentful that she had gotten the sword, and this was very gratifying somehow to see her stumble around with her ears ringing.

"C?mon. I bet people will want some sort of explanation."

"What will we tell them?" The girl asked, running a little to keep up.

"We?ll tell them the gods are crazy, that?s what we?ll tell them."

HEY, a voice said in their minds NO CRAZIER THAN YOU?