Night (Un)life
Originally posted on Tales of the Parodyverse by Manga Shoggoth.
Parodyverse characters copyright (c) 2007 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works.
T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...
Well, it wasn't the night before Christmas (despite what the shops seem to have thought since Easter). It wasn't even Advent, albeit only by a month or so.
It was most definitely not a mouse.
In the depths of the lighthouse a small shape moved, shrouded by the shadows. A person not familiar with taxonomy might have referred to it as a mouse, but mouse it was not.
In the basement, the Doom Gerbil prowled once more.
* * *
The Doom Gerbil was not a happy rodent, even by the somewhat loose standards of small, fuzzy, pink gerbils stitched together with vile necromantic energies. It had finally thrown off its bindings to the Necromancer General (or, more accurately, the bindings had been removed), only to be attacked and eaten by a ... a ...
cat!
It had expended a vast amount of energy regenerating, for no proper evil creature should allow itself to be ignominiously defeated like that. No, it had hidden its essence and rebuilt itself, so it could launch its revenge like a
proper evil menace.
The hunger that had dogged the creature before its encounter with the cat was now acute. It extended its senses throughout the building to see what was on the menu.
It passed over the adult male - it still seemed as unappetizing as before. The female next to it felt vaguely familiar, but reeked of necromantic energies the creature associated with the Necromancer General. Higher up the building...
Perfect. An innocent youngling with a slight hint of the fey to season the dish.
* * *
The Doom Gerbil edged in to the bedroom. A bed stood against one wall, and a heap of shavings (smelling faintly of mouse) were piled against one wall. Checking carefully for the presence of cat, it advanced across the room towards the bed where its prey lay sleeping.
It was distracted by a metallic scampering noise, followed by a load clang as something small, fast and heavy struck it amidships. It looked round, expecting to freeze the intruding creature with a chilling stare. Instead, it just stared.
Before it stood a male mouse, clad in what might be charitably described as horse armour and a jousting helm, struggling to draw a sword. The mouse was hampered in this action by two factors. A warhorse's armour was not designed to hold a scabbard, and a sword (in this case an unfeasibly long one) was really not designed to be handled by paws, let alone very short paws.
"What the hell are you supposed to be?" it asked at last. It had never been amused before (at least, not since its death and recreation as a creature of violence and hate).
"He is Sir Musculus of Muridae, Guardian of the Nest!" squeaked a small female mouse, who was inexplicably wearing some form of cone on its head, with a fragment of ribbon sticking straight up (the fragment being too small to drape under its own weight). The female mouse joined the male mouse in the struggle to unsheathe the sword, with slightly more effect.
"How on earth can you stand up in that?" asked the Doom Gerbil, curiosity finally getting the better of it.
"We had the Manga Shoggoth create it." replied Sir Musculus. "It doesn't realise that a mouse can't carry heavy armour. Unfortunately it doesn't have the blindest idea about swords either."
The female mouse finally managed to free the sword and hand it to Sir Musculus, who held it balancing rather precariously on his hind legs like a rodent about to take a sunflower seed. At this point, of course, the principle of levers caught up, and as the mouse swung the sword over his shoulder he slowly tipped on to his back.
The Doom Gerbil flicked Sir Musculus across the room with a single swipe of its paw. "You didn't expect to be able to stop me with that ensemble, did you?" it jeered. The armoured mouse hit the far wall with a very loud clang, and then fell to the floor with an even louder one.
The Doom Gerbil flexed its muscles, and the leaped for the bed.
That was the theory at any rate. Had this been a Tom and Jerry cartoon, its tail would have stretched like an elastic band, snapping it back to the waiting paws of the cat, one of which was currently holding down the tip of the tail. There would have been an appropriate twanging noise. As things stood, there was simply an outraged squeak (in a sepulchral bass) and a small thud.
"No." commented the cat, who had crept up unobserved. "They just delay things like you until the heavyweights get here. Now, one warning - get out while you still can."
The Doom Gerbil responded with a spinning kick that wouldn't have been out of place in a Kung Fu movie (at least, one written for rodents). The cat was flipped over and over, hitting the wall next to the unfortunate Sir Musculus.
"You OK?" hissed the mouse.
"Never better!" replied the cat, who was pretty much indestructable. "You?"
"Say what you like about the Shoggoth's taste in swords. At least it knows what armour is supposed to do!" replied Sir Musculus. After a pause, the mouse added "Aren't you going to deal with that thing?"
"No." purred the cat. "I am looking forward to watching someone else getting on the sticky end of this setup. This should be amusing.". The cat climbed on to the foot of the bed, followed by a slightly confused pair of mice.
* * *
The Doom Gerbil scrambled on to the bed, and crouched on the pillow, gazing at its victim. It now faced a terrible choice: awake, or asleep. It should be noted that either choice was terrible, albeit not for the Doom Gerbil. It was still a hard choice. Asleep meant a quiet takeover, and the possibility of some real evil in an innocent wrapper. Awake added the terror of the victim to the bouquet.
The choice was taken from it when the cat and the two mice climbed on the bed. The sudden weight on the child's feet was sufficient to rouse it slightly. A pair of half-open, half-asleep, large green eyes half-focussed on the creature.
The Doom Gerbil tensed, ready to leap at its victim's face, claws extended to burrow into the human, devouring it first physically, then psychically, and finally spiritually. A true three-course meal, had the creature understood the concept.
...
The Doom Gerbil tensed, ready to leap at its victim's face, claws extended to burrow into the human, devouring it first physically, then psychically, and finally spiritually.
...
The Doom Gerbil tensed, ready to leap at its victim's face, claws extended...
...
The Doom Gerbil was experiencing another feeling that it had not known since its unrebirth at the hands of the Necromancer General.
Adoration.
It didn't help that it was fairly sure that the cat was smirking at it.
* * *
The first through the door was Visionary, summoned by the two metallic clangs and the knowledge that there should be no metallic clangs in a room where his daughter is sleeping. He was closely followed by Urthula Underess, who had dropped in for a quiet drink (and not to make sure that she was still on the radar of one Visionatus Improbablus. No, she was just being neighbourly and visiting the man who snatched the Willingham Lighthouse from her extremely irritating uncle. So she could thank him. Again. Besides, life was seldom dull around Visionary. In a manner of speaking, that is...).
Being undead, Urthula had much better low-light vision than Visionary. So while Visionary was scrabbling for the light switch (having heard a murmured "Daddy, there's something strange on my bed"), she immediately discerned what sort of creature was sitting on the pillow.
"Baby! Where have you been!" she squealed, sounding more like an excited schoolgirl than the sophisticated ghoul-about-town that was her usual persona. The Doom Gerbil was swept up by a pair of undead hands, and lifted up to a pair of undead lips. "MMMmmmmnm! Little baby! Mummy has missed you soooo much!"
She turned to Visionary, once more the sophisticated adult. "Visionary! There should be my old hamster cage in the basement. Bring it up, would you?"
"The one with the glowing runes?" checked Visionary. "We tried to use it for the mice, but they refused to go in it."
"That's the one!" exclaimed Urthula happily. "The seal of Odobenidae, Otariidae and Phocidae, combined with Great Seal of Solomon inscribed within the Grand Seal of Atlantis. Because my little baby would keep trying to chew through the bars. Naughty boy! MMMmmmnm!"
The Doom Gerbil quaked in its old Mistress' hands. When Visionary returned with the cage it was ceremoniously dropped in and the door sealed. The adults then left the room with a whispered "Goodnight" and to the sound of frantic scrabbling and really outraged squeaking.
* * *
The three remaining animals watched the adults leave. Once the child's breathing indicated that she was asleep the female mouse turned to the cat.
"Exactly how much of that were you expecting?" she squeaked.
"Not its owner turning up, at least." replied the cat. "Now, if you will excuse me, I am going somewhere where I don't have to act like one Abraham DeLacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley and I can eat the damn mice!"
The cat stalked out of the room as only a cat can. The mice scampered back to their pile of shavings.
The room fell silent.
Footnotes:
Fans of the Doom Gerbil (or Doom Hamster, as its species seems to shift with the writer) will find its previous appearance at
Heart of Darkness Epilogue #4: Bad News About the Doom Hamster.
Its original mention was as a gerbil, HH wrote it as a hamster, and I mentioned it in
How to Bind an Elder Creature as originally Urthula Underess' hamster, with the Necromancer General referring to it as a Gerbil (this being only one disagreement between the two of them). One of the big differences between a hamster and a gerbil, of course, is that a gerbil has a tail.
Abraham DeLacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley is the stray tom in The Aristocats.
One of the staples of Manga, Anime and related games is the Character-with-the-sword-twice-their-size.
And, for those who have forgotten, Naari/Magweed was gifted with - amongst other things - the friendship of small animals. Lisa's cat is usually not too pleased about this.
NIGHT CHILDREN: THE BLOG.
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