Rigor mortis had not yet set in, but that was because the #transformationers had not yet hit the wulfie. Even if they had, due to the subzero temperatures of undernet, no flies could have survived to take an interest. The wulfie bounded across the snow dodging bullets, sharp sticks, \kicks, and \bans.
Meanwhile, over at #tsa_list, they could hear the chopper in the distance as it flew across the ice encrusted domain of undernet. JessieRoo was securely in his msgbox playing a game of Mao with the trusty computer Genie. Jessie played one card, smiling to himself and said, "Ah, your losing it aren't you?"
Then Genie's automated voice came back, "Talking." And then, just a heartbeat later, added, "Failure to accept, failure to decline, failure to take penalty card, failure to enact motion, failure to conceive, failure to assume, failure to salute the chairmen, failure to sit on your tail, failure to call, five seconds." Roo's eyes narrowed as he glared at the screen. Then, with sublime serenity, Genie added, "Talking."
Taking his glass of Big K Grape soda, Jessie dumped the concoction into Genie's code amidst a swirl of sparks. "Cheatin' bitch!" he muttered to himself as he rose and left his msgbox to return to the vast and empty landscape of undernet.
He found himself amidst many others as they stood and watched the chopper in the distance, and heard the crack of gunfire as they shot flame messages at the cute and helpless wulfie. He came to stand by Ryx and Kodiak who were bundled in their winter were.
"What's it say on the side?"Ryx asked, his long tail swirling behind him.
"#+R@nZ|=0rM@+|0nZ" Jessie read as he squinted into the distance. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed.
"That's leet for #transformations," Kodiak pointed out.
"What the heck are they doing flying so low, taking pot shots at a wulfie?" Kitsune asked as he came to stand at their side. Lance followed quickly behind him, pulling his coat tight. The other members of the channel were not far behind, though Phil stayed inside, watching through Windows. His view was not very clear.
The wulfie ran up and slobbed the Mag rather thoroughly drenching him in wulfie drool. The helicopter landed in the distance, where two figures disembarked. The first was clearly Xodiac, who hefted a rifle and shouted at the #Tsaers as he was known to do, "D@ |=r|N|
Meanwhile, the second passenger, Eeyore, demonstrated how not to throw a grenade. "|=@W|
Xodiac realizing he was being \ignored again, hefted the rifle and fired at the wulfie. The wulfie dropped down and ran past the #tsaers towards the safety of the channel. The bullets streamed harmlessly past the wulfie, but the flame knicked Mag, causing him to yelp in pain. The other #tsaers went afk into the snow. Phil seeing the distress, hefted his bazooka, smashed Windows (and there was much rejoicing), and returned fire, \kickbanning Xodiac forever. Limp, Xodiac fell to the ground and twitched once.
Kitsune approached the wulfie then, and gently stroked the soft fur, and... well, they were inappropriate for the PG rating of this channel.
However, the #tsaers were very concerned about these events, and once back in the channel, began to ponder them over cups of Big K grape soda. Dr.Coe began to stich up Mag's leg, while Mag winced. "Why is it that we have an optometrist stitching up my leg?" Mag asked in discomfort.
"Would you prefer Derksen?" Coe pointed out wryly.
Mag nodded, "Good point. What were they doing flying that low, shooting at a wulfie?"
"Maybe they went stir crazy?" Coe suggested.
"They were already insane," Mag exclaimed. "They were on #transformations!"
Meanwhile, in #tsa_ops, DanSan continued to speak into the radio. "#tsa_list calling #chan_ops, come in, over?" Static was the only thing that answered him, and static of course was incomprehensible as always. More incomprehensible than #transformations speak to boot!
Derksen crept in behind DanSan, carrying a cup of Big K. "Come on, get a hold of somebody, get a hold of anybody, get a hold of Zuul even, we need to report this."
DanSan however became quite irate. "I haven't been able to reach shit in two weeks. Man am I constipated! I doubt if anybody ever talks to anybody else on Undernet, it's too split!"
While the others stood over the body of Xodiac which they'd brought into the #TSA_backroom, JT popped his head in the door and offered, "Maybe we at flame war with #transformations?"
Mag lay back, his leg now fine, and smiled up at Phil who was surveying the damage he had wrought. "I was wondering when you'd finally get to shoot somebody." Phil gave him a nasty stare. Mag handed it back, he had plenty of those already.
"So how long were they on channel?" Phil asked.
MattRat shook his head, "It says here only eight hours."
"That's not long enough to go insane," Phil mused.
"Bull shit, man,"JT piped up."Ten minutes is enough to put a fur under at #transformations. I mean look at Mag. He's been the way he is since he logged on." Mag just flipped him the bird. JT batted SC out of the way though and proceeded to ignore the bowfox.
"So how many were in their wholist?" Phil asked.
"Ten originally, so there would be eight left," MattRat pointed out, holding his tail tightly.
"Well, I want to go up," Coe said, wiping his paws gleefully.
Back outside in the wasteland of undernet, Ryx was examining the remains of the chopper. "Looks like its filled with alt.fan.furry messages. No wonder it burned so quick. I count 15 megs."
"Ryx, get your fur on!" Coe yelled out from a distance. Ryx stared at the white mass of undernet lag, and shook his head in dismay.
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"This lag may not clear up for a week,"Coe pointed out. "Hell, it never has before. Were the closest ones to #transformations."
"Quit gripping Ryx," Phil said.
"I like gripping." Ryx grumped as he climbed into the chopper. Coe joined him inside, while Phil watched from a distance. Back inside the channel, the other members milled about, while the wulfie watched and observed all.
Ryx and Coe had little difficulty as there was little lag. #transformations looked flamed when they arrived. "I didn't think Jessie had been out this way," Coe murmured as they landed. Ryx said nothing as they walked to the open doorway, and \joined the channel. Ryx snorted simply as complex snorts are regarded.
Winding their way into the innards of #transformations, they discovered some log files, but they were all written in l337. However, it was then that Coe happened upon the trail of Big K, which led to a body. "Ryx!" he called, and the two of them stepped closer. There they found a nameless op of #transformations, his op power stripped to nothing.
"What is that stuff?"Ryx asked, pointing to the files.
"It's all in l337, but I'm going to take it back with us, might be important plots. We could use some of those ourselves instead of stealing them all."
As they moved further into the channel, they discovered much to their horror, a block of solid lag, from which someping had been removed."Maybe they found fossils from a previous geological internet epic like two years ago, and dug it out of the lag?"
"Then where is it?"Ryx asked.
It was then that they stumbled upon the hideously deformed remains. It looked like a lion, but it had bulging amber eyes, and its tail was long and striped, a horrible conglomeration that made their stomachs turn. Creepy music serenaded them in the background. Also, many discarded piles of alt.fan.furry messages were found about the charred body.
"Want to bring it back with us?" Coe asked.
"How are we going to fit it in the chopper?" Ryx wanted to know. "It's a little too big for the glove compartment."
"Don't bother yourself with details, just bring it along!"
Having worked around the plot hole, they presented the body to the rest of the channel, while the wulfie continued to keep an eye upon them. They were similarly disgusted. "Derksen, I'd like you to start an autopsy, right away," Coe said, as they all listened to the spooky music.
"We've got to get JT to change the tapes on here," Kitsune muttered.
Coe pulled the sheet across Xodiac, as they didn't want to look at him anymore. "Well, there's nothing wrong with this #transformationer, physiologically at least. In other areas, well, never mind about that."
As MattRat tried to find the creatures tail, Derksen began to slice, dice, chop, julian, hack, saw, and so forth it open. "What we have here appears to be a set of normal internal organs. I'll do something about that later."
{insert spooky panaromic of the channel here}
Meanwhile, as they were playing a game of Mao, Lance jumped up from his seat. "Kitsune! Would you put this wulfie with the others where it belongs. What's it been doing out here anyway?"
The wulfie turned around and grinned innocently at Lance.
Kitsune nodded, and scritching the wulfie about the neck lead him back towards the kennels. Kitsune liked to spend a lot of time back here. Opening the door, he gestured for the wulfie to go in to #tsa_kennel, though the animal proceeded rather slowly, and settled down in the middle of the floor amidst the other wulfies. Satisfied, Kitsune turned out the light like in any good horror movie, and left them alone.
The wulfie then began to growl, before his head exploded in a shower of gibs, while the other wulfies all began to howl and snap at the creature, trying to escape their confinement. The ruckus immediately drew the attention of the rest of the channel, though Matt insisted they stay for a few more hands of Mao. Mao was more important than wulfie's being impaled after all.
When they did finally get over there, Ryx bumped into Kitsune. The vulpine looked confused though. "I don't know what it is, but its weird and pissed off."
Ryx turned to one of the others. "Go get Jessie, he'll know what to bring."
As the other channel members crowded about #tsa_kennel, they peered into the depths of darkness, and saw a black and white striped tail lashing about. As they passed their flashlights across it, they caught a glimpse of amber eyes, and something else that did not quite look like a wulfie. It began to cry out in fury, "WHEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
Horrified, Phil began to fire his weapons into the kennel, happy as could be that he got to kill something else, despite the fact they did not appear to do a lot. Finally, Jessie arrived, blinking in a moment of fright at the strange and malignant thing, Phil not actually killing something..
"Torch it!" Ryx cried, wiping the tears with one paw.
For the first time in his life, Jessie hesitated before flaming. But it was only for a moment, and soon, the roo unleashed his hideous fire, bathing that creature in glorious flame. The others could only watch in stunned amazement as Jessie did the only thing he was truly good for.
"I haven't seen you flame somebody like that for at least the last twenty-four hours," MattRat murmured in shock, even as he did his usual best to put out the flames while holding his tail.
Later on, with Derksen in his element, bloody with scalpel in hand taking apart some bizarre creation, they managed to pull him away from that to examine what was left of the creature. After a thorough analysis he finally spoke, "What we are talking about here is an organism that imitates other organisms, and imitates them perfectly. I mean this thing puts Lance to shame."
"Hey!" Lance yelled.
"You see this, this isn't wulfie." Derksen pointed to a wulfie head.
"It isn't?" Kit asked in apparent shock and disappointment.
"No, this is imitation. And this white striped tail, it looks like lemur, but I can't be certain."
"Why not?" MattRat asked.
"It would interfere with the plot," Derksen replied sagely. They all of course accepted this answer, as they knew how sacred the plot was and how unworthy they were to actually be participating in such a good plot as this one!
A short while later, back in #tsa_kennel, Derksen and Kitsune were looking over the few remaining wulfies who had escaped that monstrosity's clutches. "Kit, did you notice anything about that wulfie, anything at all?"
"Well, he was nice and cuddly," Kitsune said."Very friendly."
"What was the wulfie doing in the channel?"
"I don't know, just wandering around all day."
"You mean he wasn't put in the kennel until last night?"
"No, we were, um... too busy."
"How long were you alone with that wulfie?"
Kitsune could only grin innocently at that. He then noticed Derksen's expression and grew disquiet. He also grew petunias but that's another story. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I don't know," Derksen grinned innocently, and that took a lot out of him.
Back in the channel, they examined the logs. "Hey wait a second," MattRat exclaimed. "These aren't #transformation logs! These are #tsa_backroom logs!"
"Oh sorry, that's my log," JT said, snatching them back.
They then read the real logs, and realized that the #transformationers had been spending a lot of their time in one portion of the lag on Undernet. "Looks like they found something frozen in the lag," Kodiak pointed out. "Something from cyberspace."
"Yeah, they dig it up, it thaws, wakes up, probably not in the best of moods. And then it haxorz the channel," Ryx clairvoyantly said.
"So, how could this thing look like a wulfie, or how did it survive the lag?" Jessie asked.
"What do you want from me," Ryx asked, pointing over to Derksen. "Ask him, he's the mad scientist!"
Derksen however was too busy doing his own lab analysis on W. He typed "What is the probability that one or more channel members is infected?"
W replied in his ususal exact fashion. "2 in 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286... I'd go on, but you get the idea."
Derksen then typed, "Projection if organism reaches AOL?"
"Global peace and happiness in 27,000 hours."
Derksen grimaced. "We can't have that!"
Meanwhile, DanSan and Lance moved the remains of the wulfie into one of the many storerooms of the channel. "We'll need to get the passcodes from Phil to lock this up. I'm going to get some of my own logs out of here." Lance said, grinning. Neither noticed that Big K grape soda dripping from the creature as DanSan left the moose all alone in the night, in the darkness, in the... oops, wrong story.
Out in the whirls of undernet, MattRat and Ryx held a secret conference. "Derksen's totally off his rocker this time," MattRat said.
"And this is unusual how?" Ryx prodded.
"This time he's not just faking it! I think he's already purged the list of those who shall be spared. Again."
"Damnit, I just got back on there!"
But before they could speak further, DanSan came running up to them, his fleece in a bunch. "It's Lance! He's changing!"
"So? Lance is always changing."
"Yeah, but this time its into a lemur!" Terror clutched them all at that word! They felt the groping tail of its menace conform to their bodies, which MattRat rather enjoyed.
Running out into the undernet, they found Lance a changing. This of course was not unusual, but the lemur tail and Big K grape soda splashing about was a little bit off the wall. "Don't get near him, it's not Lance!" Ryx shouted.
"How can you tell?" MattRat asked.
"Frink! WheeEEOOOOOOOOOOO!" the creature that almost appeared like Lance (which really isn't that hard to do) screamed into cyberspace. Cyberspace screamed back, and the lemur-thing that had been Lance, was silenced! It was rather shocking.
"We have to flame this thing," Ryx declared along with several firearms, fruits and vegetables, and meat.
"Where's Jessie?"
"We'll have to flame him ourselves," Ryx bellowed, taking out a few extra alt.fan.furry messages and tossing them onto the figure. It exploded in a shower of fire, with only one last earthly utteration (that's not even a word! Who writes this crap?), "PTANG!"
One by one the other channel members approached, seeing their fallen comrade. Then, they realized that one of them was not among them. "Where's Derksen?" MattRat queried.
"Probably plotting world domination as usual, why?" Kodiak said.
"We have to find him, we've been removed from the list of those who shall be spared!" MattRat exclaimed.
"Again?" they chorused, before breaking into song.
"Look this is not the time to build a fire and sing a couple of songs," Ryx admonished (And you can use amazing words just like this too. Simply send three easy payments of $99.95 to FrinkCo. Makers of the electric spittoon. Order now quantities are limited, there's this annoying rat who keeps stealing them all!)
They all rushed back inside and lo and behold, there was Derksen with a fireaxe wasting #Tsa_ops. DanSan was cowering sheepishly in the corner, as he was prone to do. Why they didn't realize DanSan was also missing a moment ago will not be discussed (damn plot holes).
"Stay back all of you, I must kill it before it escapes and brings world peace and happiness!" Derksen cried as he toasted the radio. "If you see something about this big with eight legs crawling towards you, tell me as soon as you can. I have to kill it before it develops language skills!"
Kodiak however had managed to get on the other side and jumped Derksen. However, the cockroach was quick, and flung Kodiak back, knocking him senseless. Before any others could act, Derksen fled by scampering up into the ventilation shafts.
"Didn't we do this before?" Kitsune muttered as they moved to help Kodiak.
"We have to help Kodiak, Coe, can you restart his heart?"
"Dammit Jim, I'm an optometrist, not a cardiologist!"
However, the raccoon graciously conceded and broke out the jumper cables. Yet as he brought them near to Kodiak's chest, Kodiak's chest opened up in terror, trying to get away from the jumper cables. "Frink!!!!!!!" came form that chest, and then a hideous black and white striped tail emerged from Kodiak's backside, wrapped itself around Coe, and the raccoon was lost from sight.
"Flame it!" Ryx shouted.
Jessie was as always quick to oblige.
Kodiak's head nodded off, sprouted legs and started to walk across the floor sadly.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Mag deadpaned in shock at the sight.
Jessie gleefully flamed Kodiak's head too.
DanSan looked at each of the others still standing in the room with them. "If it was Kodiak, it could be any one of us!"
MattRat grimaced as he read from the script. "One thing I do remember is that this, frink, or whatever it is, had Big K Grape Soda for blood. We can test to see which one of us is still furry, and which is a lemur that way."
"Too easy, it'll never work," Jessie muttered.
"Let's strap everyone down. DanSan, you do the honours." Ryx said, taking the flamethrower. "I'm not into that stuff."
They did as instructed, and started the blood sampling with DanSan himself. Their breath caught in their throats as they waited in dire anticipation, wondering whether it was really DanSan there at all. Their hearts thudded in their chests, tongues panting, daring dreams no mortal ever dared dream before (feeling the excitement yet?). Yet, as he sliced through the steel wool, only normal blood came free. Quite a lot of normal blood in fact, as the stupid mutton sliced an artery.
While DanSan wrapped some towels over his arm to stop the blood flow, Ryx nodded. "Okay, you are not a lemur. And neither am I." Ryx sliced one finger, and red blood dribbled. "Now, we check Dr. Coe." Again, normal blood.
"This is nonsense," Kitsune said.
"You were very close to that wulfie, admit it. We'll do you last." Kitsune could not help but grin at that. "Wipe that grin of your snout too!" Ryx declared as he moved to check Mag.
Yet, as Mag's blood spilled, it was not red, but a deep violet and it bubbled and frothed as it spilled out. Ryx jumped back in sudden fright, as he much preferred the Orange soda. Mag began to vibrate and frink even as the furs tried to get away from the vile lemur. Tied down however, they were fairly unsuccessful.
As the deep amber eyes bulged from Mag's countenance, and that black and white stripy tail emerged, DanSan tried to flame him with the Burned Fur Manifesto, but it was not sufficient, hard as that is to believe! Instead, what had once been Mag, ate the mutton, and licking its lips said, "Wheeoooo!"
It then began to move towards Phil, who was swearing, "Damnit, you liberals, you took all my guns away again! And I was doing good this time too."
Yet Ryx was very quick with his own flames, almost putting Jessie to shame. Almost. The lemur that had been Mag smouldered with only a tiny, "cheep".
Returning to those few remaining, Ryx then tested JT. The blood was blessed red. Kitsune piped up then. "He's furry. Looks like somebody owes me money!"
They glared at the fox for a moment, and then the others were tested, Jessie, MattRat, and Phil, all normal furs (well as normal as they get). Kitsune was last, and when his blood spilt, it too rained purple! (Don't you just feel the urge to read Eye of Argon now?). "Oh, er, shit," Kitsune said, before his four tails wound together into a black and white striped monstrosity!
However, with Jessie untied, he was flamed instantly. The thing that had been Kitsune did not stand a chance.
"Okay, that's all of us. We have to find Derksen to test him. Let's split up to increase the body count," Ryx suggested.
"Excellent idea!" said the voice from the airshaft.
"So its agreed," Ryx said. "Now, should we go off alone, or in teams?"
"Alone!" the voice from the ventilation shaft called.
"All right, we meet back in here regardless in a half hour, give or take lag. Agreed?"
"Agreed!" the voice from the airshaft cried gleefully.
And so, they went their separate ways, most completely unarmed as the voice from the airshaft requested. MattRat however did not leave instantly, but peered into that yawning gulf, and called out, "Who Goes ThereT?" He was quick to find out as a black and white striped tail wrapped itself around his head and pulled him in. As he struggled, he seemed to recall dreams about being smothered like this before.
"Mmmm, crunchy!" resounded from the airshaft then, and once more, all was silent.
As agreed, most of them met back there at the channel. However, a quick survey revealed that two of them were missing, and that 9 out of 10 Americans think Florida should be nuked for the safety of mankind. Yet the mystery of one of them was quickly solved as they found something lying on the floor.
"It's MattRat's tail." Ryx realized. "It's been stuffed and mounted."
"He would have wanted it this way," Phil surmised.
And just then, all of the power went out around them, the emergency lights flickering on, then off, then on again. After a while they got annoyed by this. "Damnit, Derksen killed the chat client!" JT exclaimed.
"Server room," they chorused, though they did not break out in song this time as there was no power to the Karaoke machine.
When they arrived, JT went to examine the server, while Ryx held up the flare, and Phil scanned the area, armed with various sharp sticks. "How's the server?" Ryx called out.
"It's gone!" JT called back.
"Can we reboot it?"
"No, it's GONE!" JT called back, eyes wide.
Yet Phil had strayed a bit too far from them, and as he turned around a corner, the cockroach appeared from behind, and latched onto his face. Phil lamented the fact that he had left his pocket nuke in his other set of fur.
"We have to blow the channel then. Send #tsa_list back into the endless lag of undernet.." Ryx and JT then began to set up the channelbomb, which they conveniently bought on Ebay for even less money than the Ark of the Covenant - though still more than Quebec.
But JT as he moved further in the server room, was suddenly beset by Derksen and was assimilated off camera.
Ryx looked up and tried to ping his friends, "JT, Phil? Hello? Hello??? Anybody out there? Who Goes ThereT?" He felt a shudder at that last utterance, wondering where he'd heard that before.
Then, the floor burst before him, and to his horror, he beheld the wulfie merged with Derksen, towering over him, and trying to slobber him. That black and white tail lashed about behind him, while fierce amber eyes gazed downwards. Ryx thought it actually rather cute. He hated cute things.
"Ah, fuck you two!" Ryx said, throwing the channel bomb at the lemur-wulfie-cockroach-kitsune-bear-bowfox-rabbit-rat-moose-skunk-sheep-raccoon thing, and \quit the channel to get out of the way.
{nice panaromic explosion of the channel complete with geyser of fire}
Ryx slumped in the wasteland of undernet as he watched the channel (burn, baby, burn!). Finding a lone 2 litre bottle of Big K. Yet as he turned, he saw the roo, standing, ready to flame.
"Where were you, Jessie?"
"I thought I saw Derksen, I had the urge to squish the bug, but he lost me in the lag." Jessie said, slumping down. "The others?"
Ryx shook his head. "\kickbanned. Are you?"
"Of course, are you?"
"Of course" Ryx handed the roo the bottle, and he slurped. Turning to the inferno that was #tsa_list, he sighed, and held the bottle up. "To the New Year."
Ryx took it back and nodded, "To the New Year. May we stay out of a rut this time."
{fade to black.... to ominous black... to midnight black... oh, just turn your screen off}
The List of Those Who Shall Be Blamed Yet Again:
MattRat: (who caused our torture by typing this)
Jason Lehrer: (Official l337 speak translator, he definitely needs to die don't he?)
Deranged Kitsune: (On whose laptop this atrocity was committed, and whose DVD spawned this)
John Campbell Jr: (Wrote the original story Who Goes ThereT, which is a lot better than this!)
John Carpenter: (Who stole Campbell's work, and from whom we stole the plot)
Jon Sleeper: (Whose name we stole as well because it sounds similar to the above, this was the extent of his involvement, do not lynch him on our account! Do it for other reasons.)
Sue: (Blame Sue, she made the costumes)
Crystal: (MattRat's dog, who insisted we torture you yet again)
Other things stolen in the process of creation: The Statue of Liberty, the Hope Diamond, the wreck of the Titanic, responses to TSA stories, and several Florida ballot boxes (and boy do we feel stupid about that last one!)
Outtakes: (you knew there was a reason you read this far)
Ryx speaking about Derksen: "I don't want him in my msgbox, put him in #tsa_tech"
Kodiak when offered to lead them: "I'm sorry, I can't be an op. I've only been on channel a little while"
Ryx recording a Tsa_list log in case we don't make it: "Nobody trusts each other anymore. It's like RL."
Jessie glares at Ryx as the skunk holds the dynamite "You're going to have to go idle sometime"
Ryx: "Well, I always keep my client open"
Ryx to Phil and JT after they discover Jessie is missing "Get ready to flame Jessie, just in case"
When they toast the channel: "One, two, three, four, let's all have a flame war"
"Too bad Jessie isn't here for this"
"Where is he anyway?"
When the wulfie gibs. "Well, I'm NOT cleaning this up!"
Coming Attractions:
License to Frink
Starring 00Wheooo against the dreaded PTANG organization.
"Big K, grape, shaken not stirred."
"Do you still sleep with a twinkie under your pillow?"
"My name is Ptang Galore."
"I must be dreaming."
Frinkenator
He was the only hope for a future where mankind was ruled by a potato. And his only hope was... a lemur?!
"I need your frink, your ptang, and your wheeoooo."
"Phased plasma rifle with a 40 watt range."
"Yeah, we just got those in this morning, how'd you know about those?"
"You expect us to believe the father of your son was a lemur sent from the future to protect you?"
Last Updated: Sat Mar 6 2004 22:13:48