Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

 

Prime Minister Maggie Harmer was the first woman prime minister in the world, a world that would not normally accept a woman in such a position. She had replaced the dead Winston Churchill, having proven to be just as charismic and brilliant but less erratic. She was also more practical minded. The building up of defences along the southern coast of England was manditory but she was also seeking other answers to the British Empire's growing troubles. Magic was one of them. Emerging mages of various kinds were being protected and sent to new metapowers experimental research, development and training centres, or MERDTCs. The bombing campaigns over Europe had been largely curtailed simply because most bombers, even with long range fighter escorts, were no longer returning from enemy territory. Refugees and wounded troops were already being brought across from the French Coast in a crazy mixture of aircraft, ships and boats.

 

Now she stood on top of a big reinforced concrete platform purpose build for conjuring up big machines. The strange little man was there. He wore a black business suit including a rounded hat and held an umbrella. His briefcase was on the concrete and was open to reveal a large flask of tea, a flask of milk, two fresh apples, an array of lightly glowing crystals and a series of oddly shaped dull silvery metallic devices that could have been weapons or tools or other things. In his other hand he held a red cricket ball which he was staring at avidly.

 

Maggie turned to the strange little man, who was not at all taken back by her being the Prime Minister of the British Empire, and she spoke with some apparent impatience. "When will you start preparing?"

 

He made a shooshing noise, annoying her, and then threw the cricket ball lightly up into the air and then caught it again. Then he spoke. "As I feared. There will be a randomising factor in any materialisation process." He threw the ball upwards again, it vanished with a sparkling shimmer, and five seconds later it reappeared to fall into his hand. Only now it was coloured blue instead of red. "Triple compensating will be needed and at least quadruple warding and double buffering." He threw up the ball again, it vanished, and returned as red again. Then he placed the ball carefully into his briefcase and took out a carefully selected handful of glowing crystals. He stood tall, focused on the crystals in his open hand and they all vanished with a sparkling shimmer. They reappeared in a circular pattern out before himself, the prime minister, her four bodyguards, four scientists, some officers and a few others.

 

He turned to her. "What would you have me conjure?"

 

She frowned. "Sherman-Vc battletank equipped with twin Bofors 40mm AA-guns. These weapons seem to do well against swarms of vampires flying through the darkened sky or other low flying monsters of the putrid enemies of normality. A continous stream of such machines will go both to the defence of England and will be sent to Normandy."

 

He sighed. "Other things will appear and over them I have final say. I will do my best to get what you want. I make no promises." He focused and stretched his arms out. A sparkling shimmer covered his body briefly. The great circle of glowing crystals sparkled. Then Prime Minister Maggie Harmer was staring in surprise. Four great big exotic tanks stood there. They were big and cumbersome looking with multiple turrets and each turret had amazing weapons. On the side was blazened the symbol of the Mechanised Knights of Britannica.

 

She spoke. "A machine from a boys' comic magazine. I recognise it from my sons comic magazines. This is impossible. How will this help?"

 

He smiled. "Firstly the machine design of these Royal Paladin Dreadnauts has adapted to reality. The machine takes many parts used in various British and American military vehicles. The main turret there is a very lethal 20-pounder antitank gun. Then there is a 40mm anti-aircraft turret at the back. At the front is disintegrator gun, a raygun with great power but only limited range. Other turrets have pairs of 20mm autocannons. Each machine carries 9 crew, 5 troopers and also some extra equipment and supplies. Despite the clumsy look ot the five big machines there, since they can float through the air up to about nine metres from the ground, this is of less concern than you might imagine."

 

She was looking at the semitrailer trucks with each a strange trailer back. "What is a disco?"

 

He sighed and tried to explain but she only shook her head in wonder. Then she spoke. "This disco dancing sounds quite uncivilized, even down right barbaric. These mobile disco clubs will be stripped of their advanced technologies from the probable-possible 1970s, as you put it, and used for something else while our scientists will study the technologies. Tricycles?"

 

They were tricycles, five of them, of differing sizes. Three were for children and two for adults. With each stood an adult or a child in typical English civilian clothes but they were oddly quiet and still as they quietly looked at the strange little man as if looking to him for guidance.

 

The five crane-trucks were quite modern looking, more advanced than those of that world. With each were two workers, a young man and woman in neat brown coveralls. Again they were quietly studying the strange little man.

 

Then there were the four blue squat saucers that floated just above the concrete. Next to each were five young women in tight blue power armour and with exotic looking weapons. Then there were the four red metallic graceful dart machines, also floating, each with five young men in front of it with tight red power armour and exotic weapons.

 

The prime minister frowned strongly. "So, what will you give us?"

 

The strange little man shook his head. "The Royal Paladins will be semiautonomous to your command and will be protected by a series of legally binding documents. They will not be used as expendable troops. They will be given proper respect. They will operate together always and not be split up to be sent to various other units. Any breaking of the agreement and I will make them vanish back to where they came from."

 

She frowned. "If you were a British citizen I would have you flogged."

 

At that he grinned. "Yes, Prime Minister! Aaahhh, yes, a bonus. Five atomic elementors. Like the red darts and blue saucers, and the troopers with them, they will be my followers."

 

Four blue glowing elementors, humanoids of blue atomic energies, came floating into view from around behind the big machines.

 

He went on speaking. "The other humans in the semitrailer trucks, the workers with the cranetrucks and those with the bicycles, hopefully you will allow them to become normal citizens of the UK and the British Empire."

 

She shook her head in wonder, knowing that every time the concrete platform was emptied, that all of the present objects and lifeforms would be replaced, slowly manifesting over a two to three hour period. Then she turned as an NCO hurried to inform his superiors there that a strange spiral rampway that seemed to go down into the ground but which went to the HubWorld, had appeared in Central London. This event opened many possibilities such as amazingly quick transportation between the UK and the USA.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Hey Jude by the Beatles (Lennon and McCartney)

 

Hey Jude, don't make it bad.

Take a sad song and make it better.

Remember to let her into your heart,

Then you can start to make it better.

 

Hey Jude, don't be afraid.

You were made to go out and get her.

The minute you let her under your skin,

Then you begin to make it better.

 

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain,

Don't carry the world upon your shoulders.

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool

By making his world a little colder.

 

Hey Jude, don't let me down.

You have found her, now go and get her.

Remember to let her into your heart,

Then you can start to make it better.

 

So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin,

You're waiting for someone to perform with.

And don't you know that it's just you, hey Jude, you'll do,

The movement you need is on your shoulder.

 

Hey Jude, don't make it bad.

Take a sad song and make it better.

Remember to let her under your skin,

Then you'll begin to make it

Better better better better better better, oh.

Naaa na na nananana, nanananaaa hey Jude...

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

 

The Eternal Champion stood looking at the new spiral rampway that went downwards, seemingly, into the ground in a spot very close to the Imperial Palace in Imperial City. Around her flowed foot traffic on the wide flagstone sidewalks and animal drawn traffic on the cobbled streets. Now and then a magical wheeled vehicle would whirrr past, or another type would stride past on clockwork mechanical legs or yet another kind float past as a platform just above the ground. Grand statues of Emperors and the Nine Divines, of heroes and saints, were the background of street stalls, beggers, street bards, acrobats, palm readers, sellers of news broadsheets, bare breasted street priestesses and many others.

 

Nobody went near the strange entrance way or really seemed to notice its existence as being importance except for a small group of wizards, other mages, druids, priests, priestesses and battlemages. They were trying to work out how the spiral rampway, as big as it was, had appeared in the city and how it had somehow fitted in by altering the city around itself. The Eternal Champion listened easily to their theories, their fears and arguments and sighed. Then she made her way to the group.

 

"No, you are in error." She stopped at the edge of the group and spoke so that even the Archmage of the Mages Guild and the Chancellor of the Arcane University shut up and looked around. "The rampway goes spiralling down into another dimensional realm known as the HubWorld. There are sewerage tunnels that in theory go through the same space as the spiral rampways go down through but you will find you can still travel through those sewerage tunnels with out any difficulty or any sign of any spiral rampway."

 

Archmage Crenolin turned and frowned hard at her. He was a cunning, clever, power hungry wizard with far less magical ability than political ability. He also supported the Fool Empress, as many were now calling her. There were persistent rumours that he had secret links with the forbidden Necromancers Guild and even the Mythic Dawn. Many in the Mages Guild were turning against him and it seemed he would soon be forced to leave office.

 

Crenolin spoke with a sneer in his voice. "So you have come back to Imperial City and away from your new friends, the Terrans and their dangerous technologies and sciences."

 

She sighed. "You are a fool, Archmage Crenolin, and the sooner you are replaced, the better for the Empire and for Tamriel. The daedria have ceased their invasion of Tamriel and are pulling back through the Oblivion Gates. Many of the Oblivion Gates are closing or are already closed. But they will be back. It seems that there is a wide spread and brutal civil war now being waged in the realm of Oblivion. We have a reprieve, a chance to prepare for the next big attack."

 

The Chancellor, who had been quietly arguing with the Archmage, nodded his head in agreement. "It would be nice to think that the daedric invaders would open up any new Oblivion Gates in the exact places they have been or are at now but it will not happen that way. We need to have a Tamriel wide system of scouts and observers. There is much that needs to be done. The new telephone network-system, the use of two-way radios, the new motorbike couriers and much else have to be put into place."

 

The Archmage scowled. "You are a traitor to magic, Chancellor."

 

The Chancellor sighed softly, not giving into anger. "Crenolin, you know that is not true. You have a tendency of saying much that is not true."

 

The Archmage scowled, turned and strode away. Only two went with him, both being sycophantic followers. None of the others even cared for him at all, let alone supported him.

 

The Eternal Champion spoke to the others. "Who will come with me down the rampway and meet the strange little man, Graham Maharg?"

 

None of them looked very eager to do so though the Chancellor did seem quietly curious at what such a meeting would be like. The others followed the Eternal Champion towards the spiral rampway that looked like it plunged down into the ground though it really did not.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

The super-mutants on Tamriel were smashed, most of them killed, others captured by the Alliance of Terrans and Tamriellans. The hated Empress presented caged super-mutants, including a monstrous behemoth, in magically reinforced steel cages to the citizens of Imperial City. The citizens jeered, three rotten tomatoes that the super-mutants happily ate and called the super-mutants bad names that just puzzled the big alien creatures.

 

Daedra were withdrawing from both worlds they had been invading, pulling back and vanishing with as much speed as possible.

 

A few claimed victory, most hoped avidly that the demonic folk from the realm of Oblivion would not return but a few wiser heads knew better.

 

Preparations for future invasions of daedra on Terra (the Earth) continued as the Alliance focused on dealing with Hitler and his monsters and with the huge monsters attacking Japan for no easily understood reasons.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Two Tribes - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

 

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present-

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD

Possibly the most important thing.

This side of the world........

 

Oh yeah, well I........

 

Let's go

 

CHORUS:

When two tribes go to war

A point is all you can score

When two tribes go to war

A point is all you can score

 

Cowboy No. 1

A born-again poor man's son

On the air America

I modeled shirts by Van Heusen-yeah

 

You know

 

CHORUS

 

Working on the black gas

 

Switch off your shield

Switch off and feel

I'm working on loving-yeah

Giving you back the good times

Ship it out-out

I'm working for the black gas

 

CHORUS

 

We got two tribes

We got the bomb

We got the bomb-yeah

Sock it to me biscuits-now

 

Are we living in a land

Where sex and horror are the new Gods?

Yeah

 

When two tribes go to war

A point is all you can score...

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

 

Japanese soldiers rushed along the shoreline as the great monster Godzilla stood in the ocean, the waves crashing against his legs. Nobody fired at the great creature for he was behaving oddly, had ceased to attack the suffering city of Tokyo, the great metropolis sprawling out with its mixture of traditional Japanese and more Western style buildings. Smoke still curled up from parts of the cityscape as professional fire-fighters did their best to quell the many fires with the help of many volunteers.

 

They came to help the Japanese people, the elementals of life, of atomica and of the solar along with human elementals. They came and helped heal the wounded, the burned, the dying. They helped put out the flames and they repelled the smaller monsters that came with Godzilla. Godzilla's offspring like smaller versions of him in a wide range of sizes but most of them about the size of a big dinosaur predator. Now the offspring were at the edge of the water as if waiting for the same thing that Godzilla was.

 

Japanese battletanks were not many and were not very good but they were emplaced in sandbagged positions. Heavy machineguns, rocket launchers and cannons were also emplaced. The Japanese Imperial Army was doing its best to protect Tokyo though they, like the Japanese Imperial Government, was no longer sure what they were defending against.

 

It was then that the great mecharobots came, each with a pilot, a co-pilot, a navigator, a radio operator, five gunners and five techs, came striding into view. They came from another world, from the Japanese Wastelands, and they came to defend this version of Japan because Japan was always Japan be it on this world or another. Anyway they hoped to start up trade and to obtain much needed goods for their Japan. Each mechabot came with powerful autocannons, pulselasers, missile launchers, multiple rocket launchers, heavy machinegun turrets for close order defence and other weapons including squadrons of robotic drones. But the biggest mechabot was only a third as tall as Godzilla and there was only one of those. Most of the mechabots were half as tall as the big one and the others were smaller.

 

What was Godzilla waiting for?

 

Which was when the strange little man came and explained to the Japanese from two worlds what it was all about. Something worse than Godzilla or his-her offspring or cousin creatures was going to attack Japan and it was on its way. The strange little man would get Godzilla and his-her kin to form an alliance with Japan.

 

The strange little man could not, for some reason unspoken, help directly but he tapped the ground with his foot and underneath Tokyo appeared the seedling of a massive fortified underground city that was soon expanding outwards and shooting out tunnels that branched out into other complexes. Slowly but steadily this happened, the expansion doubling as it continued onwards.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Can anybody suggest a character, a group, a weapon, etc. that you think might fit well into the Cosmic Opera story?

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/post-124-1221848600-1.jpg

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/Dstop-0051-1-1.jpg

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/mickey.png

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

 

The strange little woman caught a city transit bus and sat some seats back from where Mehrunes Dagon was busy reading a newspaper. The young woman of a conductor was trying to flirt with the daedric god but he was ignoring her. The strange little woman sighed, snapped her fingers, and the conductor was no longer under the charm of the false god. She walked away with a puzzled look on her face as if wondering why she had made such a fuss over an old guy as she had done.

 

It was raining lightly as the bus went past an old building that was being demolished to be replaced by a high air-defence tower that would rise tall and thick of reinforced concrete and bristling with many kinds of AAguns at and near the top. Many cities were being upgraded in their defences through out the USA but as the capital city, Washington DC was getting a special effort. Bomb shelters were too few and too scattered so they were being added to. Vulnerable vital targets were being protected as much as possible.

 

She watched as an eager troop of Girl Guides walked along a sidewalk all eager to raise money for the war effort as they sung patriotic songs inspired by their troop leader.

 

The strange little woman sighed heavily for a moment for these silly humans had no idea that the horrors, the terrors, the death and destruction, had only just begun and that the world they were so familiar with, that they considered normal, was going to change drastically. She would help them, of course, though she could not get directly involved in any violence, at least not yet. If worse came to worse, than she and her other aspects would seek permission to do just that.

 

What was Mehrunes Dagon up to or was he just another victim of the madness that had struck thirteen worlds?

 

She would try to find out.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

 

More soldiers, refugees, equipment and salvaged stuff from Continental Europe came with every passing day to the southern coast of England. The ports were soon to prove inadequate and often people, livestock, salvaged items and other were being unloaded anywhere they could be. The Alliance was in a fighting retreat across Western Europe, Switzerland was fighting desperately for its survival, evil invaders were thrusting northwards up into Norway-Sweden, the Soviets were fighting hard to keep back the foe and other evil was trying to invade Italy across the Italian Alps. Everywhere humanity was fighting hard and now they had magical folk fighting alongside them be they pixies, elves, gnomes, trolls, griffins, dragons or others.

 

The conventional war of World War Two had ended and many were calling this new conflict World War Three, so different was it, so great were the changes.

 

In Normandy the amazing Knights of Britannia had arrived in their amazing floating warmachines. The regiment helped to hurl back the enemy as the immensely powerful machines backed up a hodge podge army of British Commonwealth, American, Free French, German Axis and other forces there. The humans had become used to magical creatures moving amongst them, had come to welcome them as they had a powerful effect on zombies, vampires and werewolves.

 

Cyborgs stormed towards the Allies across a great area of farms, hedges and groves of trees. It had turned out that the reason the cyborgs were so strange, so terrible, was that they were actually part undead human and part cybernetics and cybermechanics. These zombie cyborgs were soon called zyborgs for simplification. The zyborgs were not too fast but they were very strong, very enduring and quite hard to kill. Projectiles rained through the air. Explosions erupted with flames but more with brown smoke. Machineguns hammered and cannons boomed.

 

The strange little man stood in a big field of grass with some adoring cows in a small herd close to him. Nine silvery metallic warehouses on disk shaped platforms of metallic concrete evenly dotted the field. Every so often one would open up by itself, a big light on top would go green at last and soldiers would begin to empty that shed. They would bring out crates, boxes, canisters, barrels, sacks, jerry-cans, ammo boxes. There was equipment, spare parts but mostly there were supplies. Once a 'magic warehouse' was emptied, a warning sound would go as beep beep, the door would close and the light above would go red. As the light on each went went slowly from red to amber to yellow and then to green. When green it would once again be filled and the soldiers would once more get busy there with their forklifs, trolleys and just their sweating labour.

 

Then civilian volunteers, refugees, came to replace half of the soldiers so they could go off and fight.

 

The strange little man spoke to the cows in fluent French with a nice Normandy accent. "Poor Normandy, she has experienced too much death and destruction but now she suffers such horrors as these."

 

Though they did not really know what he was talking about, the cows all nodded in possible agreement and one licked his cheek.

 

But there were three more magic warehouses.

 

From one came different WW2 warmachines. Unfortunately the list was big and not all that came out were of the kind that local human soldiers were using. Some were Japanese. Some were unknown to the locals like the advanced American Pershing battletanks that American soldiers had yet to use. Others were Japanese or Italian or even less known than that. Still, what ever came out was used as much as was possible.

 

From another came different WW2 military carrier vehicles full of equipment and-or supplies. Again the vehicles, along with the equipment and supplies, were from a long list. The latter did not automatically fit the former so, for example, a Japanese track-truck might be full of cans of SPAM.

 

From the twelve came the same thing always being a big, squat silver disk like a flying saucer of 1950s science fiction movies. Each was a clever aerosaucer able to fly fair quick, to land and take off virtically, to carry a goodly amount of people or other stuff. Each was lightly armoured and armed. Each was being filled up with refugees and wounded soldiers for now to be sent to Great Britain. Even as the aerosaucers were taken out of the warehouses, they were being crewed and filled up with those who most needed to be sent to safety across the English Channel. Then saucerboats would return from the English Coast to pick up more wounded soldiers, including those with shell shock or the new 'horror shock syndrome', and refugees.

 

The Alliance MIlitary High Command had tried to grab up the saucerboats for combat duties despite promising not to do so until 100 of the saucerboats were being used to take people to safety in England. There was a black patch on the ground not far from the strange little man was; there once stood an arrogantly demanding American General, waving his baton and claiming authority over the strange little man he did not have. The General was no more and nobody else had come making such demands.

 

Then there was the thirteenth, the last, magical warehouse. It took longer to generate new things for they were powerful quasiliving creatures known as slow powerful golems, air flying gelems, amphibious gulems, smaller faster galems and even smaller, faster, more agile gilems.

 

These creatures of the Golarm, they were operating as a seperate force of the Alliance and were commanded by the strange little man himself though they did cooperate with the other forces. The magical folk were the same. Alliance High Command was not happy about this but were given no choice in the matter so they grudgingly accepted the situation. That is for a few smarter ones who were glad they did not have to try and control such entities who they little understood and who were sometimes smarter than humans.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

BEAST OF THE DC WASTELANDS

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/FOT_baby_deathclaw.jpg