For the Futurefolken.

[gone_byebye]

The point of re-entry to Ray's world is the same nearly every time. He makes a point of using the same exit from the Firehouse: a door that leads from the building's side into a nondescript alley. The door opens, this time, onto a windy November day. Ray glances up at the sky, then gestures to the others. "Looks like home," he says. A sniff of the air reveals gasoline, horses, and a couple of tough-to-identify stenches. "Yeah, smells like home too. C'mon, guys, I'm pretty sure this is my dimension."

Comments

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"Andromeda. Or Eureka Maru." She skimmed through the books, looking at covers rather than titles. "Uh, key problem with skimming, though, all the writing's in the Roman alphabet."

[gone_byebye]

"... oops. Well-" Ray led the way over to where the alphabet started, and then scribbled the name 'Andromeda' on the back of one of his business cards. "This is what it looks like in our alphabet. I don't think I see it here, for what that's worth."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

She skimmed through.

"Nope. Okay, good, because if it were, I'd have to watch it and probably cringe at the horrible special effects."

[gone_byebye]

"No kidding," Ray said. "The movie I'm in? They got about half the effects right, but any time any of the supernatural nasties turned up on screen it just went to shit. The movie was pre-digital compositing, so they had to use puppets half the time." He shakes his head. "About the only one they really got right was Mr. Stay-Puft."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"Mr. Stay-puft? Sounds threatening."

[gone_byebye]

Ray sighed, and briefly covered his face with one hand.

"Okay, this is entirely my fault, so..."

"There's this building on Central Park West- it's a couple kilometers from here, northwards- that was built with the express purpose of burning a hole between the prime material plane, which is here, where the living are, and the realm of the spirits, which is an entirely different dimension. The goal was to bring in an extremely unpleasant being named Gozer, whose purpose was to destroy human civilization as messily as possible. The guy who built the building had ambitions of rebuilding once Gozer was done and ruling the new world with an iron fist, but he died before his ambition ever came to pass. The building's store of spiritual energy reached critical mass a few years ago, and that's where the trouble started..."

"See, when Gozer showed up, we tried to blast it. It vanished, but it wasn't destroyed- just discorporate. It then informed us and the spectators on the ground that it would take form before going on the rampage and that we, meaning my colleagues and I, now had to choose its form. Which basically meant it would lift the shape out of our thoughts. We tried to blank our minds, but I couldn't pull it off, so I tried to think of the most harmless thing I could. Which in this case was a marshmallow man in a sailor suit, because Mr. Stay-Puft was just about my favorite silly character ever when I was a kid."

"I didn't really reckon on him suddenly turning up as a hundred-foot-tall building destroying monstrosity."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"You fought a giant man made out of marshmallows."

The flat statement was followed by a stare, then a snort, and then she was chuckling.

"Would it be completely horrible of me to ask if you toasted him?"

[gone_byebye]

"Yeah," says Ray. "I'm afraid we did, in fact. The, um, the proton streams sort of set him on fire. Although that just made him mad. Should've seen him go splat at the end, though."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

She laughed even harder.

"Did you have graham crackers and chocolate on hand, at least?"

[gone_byebye]

At that he had to smile. "Don't I wish. No, we didn't, although there were an awful lot of candy vendors trying to make up for part of that after the fact. I mean, never mind that Mr. Stay-Puft had just been up and walking around. It's New York City. People are gonna eat stuff if they think it looks interesting enough."

"It was really priceless to see the several hundred pounds of marshmallow goo go splat all over the dickless wonder who shut off our containment grid to begin with, though."

[rocketsgrownup.livejournal.com]

"Now if only I could get an industrial-sized amount of marshmallow goo to splat on the dickless wonders back in our 'verse," Beka said wistfully. For the few former lovers of hers that were still alive.

Kersplat!

[gone_byebye]

"Sorry," Ray said sympathetically. "The Sanitation Department got to the scene before we could save more than a couple of fistfuls. Next time I'll keep you guys in mind."

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

After making his selection, Harper picked up two or three comics and made his way to the register, smooth as cream, to make his purchase.

After getting it bagged, he turned to the other two, and whistled.

"Andale, andale, arriba! Time to vamoose, muchachos."

He seemed to want to bounce on his heels, but stopped himself, lest his pants started molting inked monthlies.

[gone_byebye]

Ray grabbed his Green Lantern comic and paid for it. "Gotcha. Ready for Rockefeller Center, you two?"

He wouldn't ask. he wouldn't ask. He wouldn't ask.

Not unitl they were in the cab, anyway.

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"Yess!" was Harper's exuberant answer as they left the store and flagged down a cab.

He looked very smug.

[gone_byebye]

"Okay," said Ray as the car rounded the block and started heading uptown. "We'll do the ESB on the way back to the Firehouse. Save the biggest for last. Give you the opportunity to get properly worked up for it. I really hope you were good at what you were doing because I'd like to be able to go back into that store someday."

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

Harper gave him an innocent, 'What, me? You think I did something?' look.

[gone_byebye]

"... well, I guess if they didn't come after us with pitchforks and torches they can't have seen too much."

[trustntheharper.livejournal.com]

"They didn't see anything," Harper said, very assuredly.

He squirmed and reached a hand into his pants. Pulling out an issue of "Runaways," he started reading, as if taking out half the contents of a store in his pants was perfectly normal.

[gone_byebye]

Ray just sighed and leaned back in his seat. It was gonna be a long fifteen blocks.