Judge:
Handelolis
Contestants:
Teoronius
Hagbuttus Malicius
Greyus Wolfus
Spookulus
Gekker
Amhorach
fiendius maximus
PaisleyLemmium
Alikclyes
Sammy
RavenX
Extra Rules:
A small, fat man twitches wildy in his sleep. His dreams are filled with the song of the flames, the call of the leaping orange and red blazes, begging him to help them. Suddenly, his eyes fly open. He sits upright. Someone... or some*thing*... is in his room.
"Who's there?"
Soft cackling comes from one corner of the room, and a single flame appears, dancing in the darkness without any fuel. The little man gapes in astonishment, and then the flickering light shows the one behind the flame, a man all in black, with empty eyes that reflect the flame.
"You... you... what ARE you?!"
The figure's face cannot be seen, but the little man could swear it was smiling. Then it speaks, in a voice that calls to him like only the fires ever has.
"Why, I'm your friend. Your very best friend in all the world. And I'm here to help you."
"Y..y...you are?"
""Of course. I'm going to help you become one with the fire. You've been chosen. Chosen for the greatest of honors. All you have to do is what I tell you."
"Okay. B...but what's that?"
The voice changes, takes on a new pitch. Along with the soothing, seductive call there is a harsh tone of command, a tone that will brook no argument.
(You will listen to my instructions. You will follow them exactly, and act in no way contradictory to them. When I am finished, you will go back to sleep, and you will not remember that I was here. This has all been a dream, a message from the one who loves you.) "Do you understand?"
"Yes." The man's stutter is gone. His voice is nothing but a monotone, and his eyes stare straight ahead.
"Good. Now, here is what you will do..."
A short time later, a figure in black dissolves into the night once again, flows like water into a new form, then walks out into the streets. "Well, that one was easy. Who's next on the list?"
In the night, nine men and one woman receive visitations. One sees the fiery angel of the Lord. Another sees a cackling devil. The man in black appears, as does a simple speaking flame. And to each person, they bring instructions.
The next night, the other contestants stare at Alik in confusion. "Where's all your stuff? No gasoline, no high explosives, nothing! How're you supposed to compete?"
"Relax, I'll be able to do my part."
Alik pulls out the same (slightly battered) AV system, and turns it to the local news. An announcer speaks:
"Police are baffled by the sudden jump in arson that occurred this morning. No less than ten buildings in various parts of town were all set ablaze within a few minutes of each other. Local fire departments reported that water supplies to the areas had all been sabotaged, as had some of their equipment. At each site, a person was seen who was obviously the source of the blaze, but they threw themselves into the fires before police could detain them. With the fire departments unable to stop the initial fires, they have spread rapidly. At least a quarter of the city is now ablaze, and the fire department is unable to prevent the flames from spreading. The mayor has declared a state of emergency, and all citizens living near a current fire are being evacuated. We'll have more on the story as the news breaks."
Alik clicks the set off, leaving it ready for any other away from the field competitors.
"So what does this have to do with you?"
"A little Dominate goes a long way." Alik smiles, grabs some popcorn, and watches the other contestants.
PaisleyLemmium walks onto the playing field dressed in a heavy,
asbestos-and-lead lined shiny metalic full body outfit, and carrying a large
stainless steel Thermos bottle and stainless steel tongs. He finds an
appropriate location, then, with his heavily gloved hands, carefully unscrews
the bottle. A sickly grey vapor pours out. Using the tongs, PaisleyLemmium
removes a small sample of something he acquired on his last raid of one of
Pentex's labs. He very cautiously lights the sample in the flames from someone
else's entry. The sample burns verrrrry slowly, and in a plethora of colors.
PaisleyLemmium places the sample on the ground. He attempts to take the tongs
with him, but the sample has apparently welded itself to them. He decides to
leave the tongs with the sample, and he rapidly steps away from the seering hot
mess. Time passes. The burning sample, having eaten through the tongs, begins
to melt its way into the ground. More time passes. Raw earth is melted
away, as
the sample eats a hole several dozens of feet into the ground. Thick, dark
smoke is billowing from the hole. After several minutes, the volume of smoke
diminishes. PaisleyLemmium removes takes a small metal disk that looks
suspiciously like a coin, and drops it into the hole. He then turns, and runs
like hell (kinda funny looking in the bulky outfit), as a shower of sparks
bursts forth from the tiny hole.
888888b. .d88888b. .d88888b. 888b d888 888
888 "88b d88P" "Y88b d88P" "Y88b 8888b d8888 888
888 .88P 888 888 888 888 88888b.d88888 888
8888888K. 888 888 888 888 888Y88888P888 888
888 "Y88b 888 888 888 888 888 Y888P 888 888
888 888 888 888 888 888 888 Y8P 888 Y8P
888 d88P Y88b. .d88P Y88b. .d88P 888 " 888 "
8888888P" "Y88888P" "Y88888P" 888 888 888
The dust and smoke clear to reveal a drastically altered landscape. The shiny-suited figure of PaisleyLemmium saunters back and removes his helmet as he waits for judging.
Handelolis covers his eyes painfully and mutters something about being responsible for the grounds. Then he has a drink and forget about it for now.
Sammy steps up to the starting line. Burning things down... Hmmm. He shakes his head, discarding one idea after another. A few spiders fall out of his hair. They crawl back up his pants. Sammy gets an idea. It's a very small idea, but it could possibly be very good. Sammy walks away.
The judge sends a flunky with a vid-cam after him.
Sammy arrives at the preppy, yuppy neighborhood. Sammy decides that walnut furniture would probably burn nicely. Now...for the materials...Sammy gets one large can of oil, which he opens in front of him. Sammy makes one last check and seeing no one around (it being the middle of the night,) Sammy lets his arms drop at his sides. A few small dark shapes fall out of his sleeves, followed by several more. A minor army of spiders gathers around Sammy's feet in a few seconds. The spiders march straight into the can of oil, then go off about their buisness this night. After several minutes, the spiders return to Sammy and are reabsorbed. Sammy walks to a sewer entrance and asks "could you make sure it burns?" A whispered response is heard. Sammy takes the can of oil and pushes it down the street. It leaves a trail of glistening oil behind it as it rolls down the hill towards the rest of the city. Sammy removes from his coat a box of matches. Sammy strikes one. Sammy drops one. Sammy starts singing "Rawhead and Bloodybones" by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Sammy walks away. As he hears the main wooden structures inside the house crumble, he screams "PEEK-A-BOO!" Sammy hears the explosion of the can of gasoline a few seconds later and sees a small fireball expand from below the hill. Sammy surmises that the gas can may have hit a car. Sammy walks away, still singing.
The rest of the competitors watch via remote feed as the neighbourhood begins to burn. City burning appears to be popular tonight.
RavenX has been busy while the everyone else watched the screen. Both Spooke and Gekker are surprised by the thermite grenades she has dropped down the back of their togas while they were looking elsewhere. Neither of their mad scrambles with clothing are successful, and with a barely muffled *thump*, they burst into flames and writhe in excrutiating agony before being sent to Narnia so that Hagbuttus can have some measure of quiet.
Amhorach sits away from the game area. Well away. He feels secure enough from what is to come, and decides to initiate the destruction. Taking a device, he relays a codeword and some co ordinates. Placing some dark protective glasses on, he looks at the field and waits.
Approximately three minutes later, canisters drop from the sky, spreading liquid fire over everything. The stands, the grass, the ground, the very Rum of the judge catch alight and burn with a searing intensity. RavenX screams and runs for the Parrlympic pool, her hair ablaze in a wondrous display of prismatic colours as the napalm reacts strangely with her dye.
Handelolis picks himself up from the explosive concussion of displaced air just as the sonic boom from the jets hits the stadium. Glaring around, the blue light of burning Rum rising from his form, he sends Haggbuttus to do unto Amhorach as Amhorach has done unto everyone else.
"Make it nasty, Haggy," he says. "That idiot broke every one of the rules." He then motions to Greyus Wolfus, who lets loose a stunningly quick volley of burning arrows in the direction of Amhorach in order to slow him down. Although he dodges some, the Celtic Malk is riddled with arrows and begins to burn. This is not the worst to befall him, however, as Hagbuttus reaches him at the same moment as the second volley of shafts. An interesting concoction involving naptha, pitch and some compounds that Greyus Wolfus isn't telling about, puncture Hagbuttus and cause him to immolate, taking Amhorach with him in a dazzling display of not-so-spontaneous combustion.
The judge is impressed.
fiendius grabs a fiddle, a supersoaker filled with lighter-fluid and an imperial lighter (sort of like a zippo but british) before running over that darn hill.... that hill behind which tremeropolis stood. or rather was standing currently. avoiding the various terrapins that where wandering around in a daze he starts happily spraying jets of flame every which way but up (after all this is burning things down). after a quick walk through the main street he heads back to the hill to fiddle. later, when he's finished watching the hearth fire with alitanix, fiendius starts to think about the making fur work for you contest.......... funny how the mind works that way......
The judge notes that thanks to the efforts of the competitors in this event, three cities and a large portion of the Games stadium are aflame. He hopes fervently that he shall not be held accountable. Several of the competitors have been gravely burnt by each other and the Parr-o-medics are rushed off their feet. More trouble. Handelolis decides to judge this one on the least amount of trouble created by the respective people involved, and then get the HadOes out of there.
The gold goes to Greyus Wolfus, the silver to Teoronius for his earlier burning in this event [see 'Saying or Doing Something Really Damned Funny'] and the bronze to PaisleyLemmium. When the winners look up from bowin to receive their medals, they find that the judge is nowhere to be seen...