six word stories

[bababooey]

six word stories. just a little throw back to the lj comm.

Write a story in six words. Based off the sixwordstories/smuttysixwordstories comms that were created based on this story from wired in which they asked authors of all genres to write six word stories. Each comment should be in it's entirety, exactly six words. Your comment can contain more than one story. Just number or letter them like tfln.

 

Comments

[hacker]

[ Spawning. The word rings somehow cruel and callous in Daisy's ears, a defensive reaction born out of her empathy for this woman's plight, for the unsubstantiated connection between them constructed by a few shared DNA strands. It's funny what a difference the microscopic can make. Her chest aches, flares with pain for a few brief heartbeats before she realizes Tony's comment demands an answer. ]

We have to get her out of there.

[ Which, you know, is what he said, but with an entirely different focus. She charges forward recklessly. ]

Just remember: this isn't her. She has no idea what's happening, no way to control it.

[ It seems myopic, to be so concerned about one woman when that woman has leveled the homes and business of thousands of others already, has introduced a new organism to the ecosystem and allowed it to run roughshod over the whole of LA unchecked, but that's why Daisy's here. The Avengers won't help Amy Matters, but she will. ]

Help me blast through the membrane.

[ She raises her hands, starts counting to three, but gets cut short when Amy's eyes open—no pupils, all white, staring unerringly at the intruders—and a root bubbles up from underneath the stadium grass, cracking the concrete below to whip out and pin Daisy's arms. She lets out a yell of surprise and thrashes against the binds. ]

[transformance]

[ shit. he whips around at the sound of daisy's shout, raising one hand to point at the writhing plant tentacle, as friday struggled to lock onto a weak point ] Oh, no you don't, Audrey II. [ no sooner had he finally got an affirmative and blasted ... probably a bit too close for comfort to daiy's wrist, but another root appeared to take its place. ] No good.

I think she definitely knows we're here now.

[hacker]

Not her. She's not … in control.

[ The arc blast damages one of her gauntlets—surface only, probably, but Daisy's not taking any chances with it backfiring. As she ducks and jumps out of the way of another root, she unstraps it and drops it on the turf. The words come out through gritted teeth while she bobs and weaves over the stadium grass, which seems to be moving, she realizes once she stops.

Daisy looks down, brow furrowed, and the ground explodes all around them as roots rip up to come at them in a flurry of frantic whips. Her hands lift and she snipes the few that grapple near Tony, unchecked vibrations shredding them to a confetti that falls to the uneven mess of concrete, pipes, and turf that make up the ground. ]

[transformance]

[ about that. ] I don't see an off-switch. But I'm open to suggestions. [ the problem is, he knows they don't have much time for weighing their options - not that they have many in the first place. he sails close enough to the ground to try to draw some of their focus off daisy, but there's just always more, the entire place roiling with unnatural life. one wraps around his arm, yanking him backwards mid-flight, and he aims a blast point-blank at it, the tension snapping him further back through the air away from her ] New idea.

What happens if you shake, rattle, and roll that membrane up close and personal?

[hacker]

I don't know—it pops?

[ That's the hope, at least. There's some haplessness in Daisy's answer, obviously distracted by the one-and-off assault of the slinging roots and vines that protect the central gestation pod. ]

[transformance]

Good working theory. Let's test it.

Grab on. [ and with that he... rockets right down towards her, blasting a searing beam through what vines he can, and reaching out an armor to just... scoop her right up, soaring right at the pod and doing a graceful upward arc right before they crash into it, dropping her on top of it and then whirling around in the air above, trying to direct cover fire at the incoming insectoid creatures and vines threatening to converge her. ]

[hacker]

[ Initially, the feeling of weightlessness catches her off guard, but it only lasts an instant, because then she's on top of the pulsing alien bulb while Iron Man, only a few yards away, goes skeet-shooting with vines, roots, and the angry bees that are trying to make their way inside the dome.

Daisy's feet thud, the kind of hollow gulping sound that indicates some considerable surface tension to this pod and thickness to the liquid inside it. Fitz probably has some equipment that could scan and parcel out the composition, analyze it. Simmons would want a sample. She's not thinking of granting anyone's wishes for that right now, though; she's focused on Amy Matters. ]

Whatever you use to stabilize that thing, I suggest you kick it into overdrive. This could get messy. [ With that small warning, Daisy focuses her vibrations downward, amplifying the natural frequency of the thin membrane that surrounds the woman, encapsulates her, until it seizes and explodes, sending the gel-matrix that held her in stasis everywhere, alternatively in a viscous spray and in grainy clumps.

Daisy plummets into the remains of the plant and vanishes among its slick flesh. ]

[transformance]

[ as plant guts spew everywhere, tony finds his suit smeared in them, a particularly big glob landing right on his visor and making him wish for a second that he'd installed windshield wipers. he reaches up a gauntleted hand to wipe it away, but by the time he looks down, daisy is gone.

that can't be good. ] Give me a sign of life, Quake.

[hacker]

[ A croak of a groan answers him as Daisy pushes herself up off the ground in the mess of plant parts and fluids. She looks around through the muck. ]

Don't worry about me. Scan for life—where's Amy?

[ Because Daisy isn't having much luck finding her despite all her best efforts of lumbering to her feet and filtering through the containing leaves that stabilized the bulb. ]

[transformance]

[ breathing silent relief, tony gets friday on that, the little hud sending a cursor across his vision as it seeks out anything. ] You're not gonna like this.

[hacker]

[ A pit hardens and sinks in her stomach as she gets to her feet, shoulders loose with fatigue, legs swaying. ]

No.

[ Denial chokes up and thickens her voice. ]

No. [ It's louder, this time. ] Scan again!

[transformance]

You've gotta get out of there. [ it's not a no, and to be honest, he's still scanning, but what FRIDAY pulls up isn't... particularly normal. ] Whatever she is, I'm not sure living's the word for it anymore. [ but he's not sure dead is, either, and that's what he's worried about. ]

[hacker]

What does that mean?

[ She turns around, fixes her attention up on him in the sky as if she's talking directly to him instead of through a headset. ]

Stark, what does that mean?

[transformance]

GO. [ but it's too late. from beneath the husk of the membrane something arises - something amy-shaped... but there's something entirely plant-like about the cast of her skin, and her hair has withered, hanging unnaturally down in front of her face. she reaches out to try and grasp daisy, and when she opens her eyes, they're completely white - it's impossible to read her expression or tell how much of amy is actually in there. ]

[hacker]

[ It's not the grip of her hand that levels Skye, but the soulless look in the eyes of the woman she'd believed so doggedly she could save, fought so tirelessly to try and rescue from the inhuman gene that Daisy insists over and over again isn't a virus, a plague, a curse, a disease. It looks like one from this perspective. It has consumed Amy. And whatever might be left of her in there, in that moment, Daisy realizes that she wouldn't want to come back from it. The loss, the destruction, the fear.

She knows it well because she went through it, but she was still Daisy—this isn't the same as earthquakes in San Juan. This is Andrew, who'd barely hung on long enough to pull her back from the brink, who'd suffered like he did because nature believed in balance—well what was this trying to balance out? What could Amy's inhuan powers be guiding them towards, what purpose were they serving?

One more person she failed to save. One more person who will be dead because of Agent Johnson. Daisy can't pull her hand away, so she stops trying; instead, she opens her palm, and a sonic flare explodes from it, a sudden, violent hum that shakes what used to be Amy down to her very atoms. The frequency is piercing, and she knows the ripples of the reverberation will scramble Stark's equipment, but she has to stop it. ]

[transformance]

[ the seismic waves rock his flight pattern, and at first he tries to stabilize versus the turbulence, before he realizes that his systems are blinking in front of his face. ] FRIDAY, switch to auxiliary -- [ but it's too late, and the suit goes spiraling towards the ground, slamming him helmet first along the wrecked terrain, digging a trench as he goes, before he lands with a heavy clang. ]

[hacker]

[ She hears the calm staggering back-up procedure come slipping out in Stark's voice in her ear, knows what it means, but it's too late. The ground rattles beneath them even as he crashes too it; the whole city is alive, stirring on a fault line, and Daisy rattles it with the shockwaves of what becomes apparent in the mist that starts to drive up into the smog-thickened atmosphere: Amy, disintegrating, torn apart on the atomic level by the frequency of Daisy's power.

A natural disaster, spurred on in the most unnatural of ways.

As Amy fades, Daisy comes back, the force lessening from her fingertips and her body slumping in time to see what has already started, what she can't stop; the stadium shifts and stirs, splits at its foundation and breaks new seams in the circular dome that shelters it. Turning hastily, she searches Tony out in what remains of the field and runs for him. ]

Stark!

[transformance]

[ the world is coming down around them, and tony just barely manages to disengage his helmet so that he can catch a glimpse of it, his hand falling back down to the ground as he groans. the darkened view of his dead visor was preferable to this. he closes his eyes, trying to will his body to move, even though it already is, albeit as a result of the ground literally roiling beneath it. ] Here...

[hacker]

[ His voice is just loud enough for her to race in the right direction, skidding onto her knees over the uneven ground as she comes up on his side, her hands floundering in front of her a moment at the sight of the damaged suit. Daisy swears, a quiet, self-flagellating thing that gets washed up in the steady rumble of the quake that she spurred, then reaches her hands up to pry off his helmet, faceplate first. ]

Tony. Tony, I'm sorry. [ Grief chokes her up, the loss and guilt swirling together, but she swallows it, sets her shoulders. ] Can you move? We need to go. It's not over yet.

[hyperverbose]

[ he puts some weight on one arm, lifting himself a bit, making some progress ] Yeah-- yeah, no prob. [ he grunts the words, slowly making his way to his feet, gripping her arm with a gauntleted hand for support ] After you.

[hacker]

[ She hurried, hobbling to bring him along with hauling him up and forward towards the makeshift exit they'd made in the wall. They made it fifteen yards before a concrete edge of the roof caved in, crushed the sidelines, and buried the opening under a pile of rubble. ]

Plan B?

[hyperverbose]

There might be another power in the back-up for me to blast us out if we can find a weak spot. But my scanners are dead. Gonna have to find it the old fashioned way.

[hacker]

That's not good. [ Certainly not promising. But Daisy's not arguing either. ] The gates will all have caved in already. We might be able to get out over the top, but without flying on the table, we'd be running pretty high risk of getting crushed by the roof while we cilmbed.

[ She sizes up the part of the arena they'd come through—not the gates for the attendees, but the part of the stadium that stood over the ramp up from the locker rooms. Calculating, she glanced back and noticed that a similar tunnel trailed down from the field on the opposite side. ] There. If the structure was weakened by the tunnel underneath, we should be able to blast a new hole open over there.

*enough power, dammit typos!

[hyperverbose]

[ there are a sure a lot of plants over that way, but he's going to hope most of those aren't alive... anymore. they don't have much in the way of options. ] Then what are we waiting for? Ladies first. [ mostly b/c he is still injured and slow ow ]

[hacker]

Hope the Avengers Training Program includes bleacher runs.

[ Bad joke. She didn't take it back, though, instead surging forward at a pace that's just on the brink of too fast for Tony in his current condition. She offers him support, though, and tries to make it work as they hurry towards that edge, the stadium continuing to crumble in dust and chunks of cement around them. ]