This weekend at the ICON Games and Comic Convention held at Emperor’s Palace, we will introduce the first of it’s creative kind in Collaborative Fan Fiction. A game for creative fandom writers and geek heroes/heroines.
This isn’t an idea owned by anyone, but an idea that everyone can enjoy to lift their creative writing skills to the next level.
Start with a group of 5 people. Begin at writer number 1 and move in a round-robin to 2, 3, 4, 5 and back to number 1. Each time adding to the fandom story that as been developed. No communication is aloud between you all. Except the communication of a beautifully dynamic short story that continues from one writer to the other with surprise twists and characters.
Excuse my French – but it’s a crap load of fun.
Firstly, I want to say a big thank you to all that participated in this first experiment.
Cass, Zaid, Jonathan, and Bill. You are rockstars, and rock-writers!
Here are their details
Zaid Motola on YouTube here
Bill Masuku on his website here
Cassarica Nadas and her blog here
Jonathan Harding and his blog right here
Without further a due. Here is the first in Collaborative Fan Fiction. A short tale of Dr. Who, Harry Potter, The X-Men’s Wolverine, Pokemon champion Ash and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The Beast with a Thousand Dead’s
Acid rain. Again. Raphael stood peering out the broken window into a city he wants called home, and all he could see was pouring, black, putrid, acid rain.
“Good morning Raph”, Donnie spewed out as he powered up from sleep mode.
Watching his brother’s channels fire up to give his cyborg body life every morning reminded Raphael of his brothers. Mikey. Who disappeared years ago helping the mutant underground against the war with the last of the surviving fascist humans. Leonardo, who was lost to in the final battle against the Kraang to cease power over the world. The Kraang had created a mutagen that would mutate the entire planet, and that’s when it all went wrong. Mutating the planet had brought about the birth of a new kind of mutant. Mutants who could read and control minds. Mutants who could shape-shift and create the power of gods.
“Are we switching on to some Radiohead this morning?”, Donnie buzzed as he walked across the room.
“No, Don. Nothing for today. Today we take New York City back. Today we take back our home. Our lives. For us. For our brothers. And for father. Today we bring down, her.”
Vworrrp Vworrrrp
CRASH!
The Tardis shuddered before coming to a sudden halt. Materialisation is always tricky business when you’re one woman flying a six pilot, space-time vehicle. This old girl never took you where you wanted to go but rather where you needed to be.
“Everyone, alright?”
“Ye, we’re all good, Doc” Graham responded.
“So, where are we? Home?” Ryan inquired while helping Yaz to her feet.
“Not quite. Almost” said the Doctor, carefully studying the console, her eyes fixated on the figures rapidly appearing on the screen. The look of concern furrowed her brow as she established where the blue box had materialized this time. Yaz, who knew that look all too well interjected “So where are we then?”
“Earth. United States. 2059. Manhattan. New York City.”
“That’s fifty years into the future. How’d we get here?” Graham protested woo-woo-woo
The danger signal echoed through the Tardis, bringing everyone’s attention to the warning on screen that flashed amber and red. Without skipping a beat, the Doctor swiftly moved over to the warning visual.
“Right then, we seem to have landed in some sort of dystopian future. There seems to be traces of sulphur nitride in the air.”
The doctor twirled around and retrieved three silver patches from under the console.
“Put these on your neck, this will help you breath out there”
“This means the air is a synthesis of noxious gas that is deadly to humans. This also means that whatever inhabitants are currently here have taken over the planet. And I need to have a quick look at what’s going on.
“Are you all ready?” the corners of her mouth pulled into a smile. They were almost never ready for the perils beyond those blue doors, but they were with her, the Doctor.
Stepping out of the Tardis doors into a thick pink mist that settled on the unrecognizable Manhattan street, the Doctor whipped out her trusty sonic and began to scan the area.
Squinting her eyes to get a better look at her surroundings as she blurted out “Turtle?” quizzically.
Right then, Raphael stepped into the light of the Tardis surrounding them, his brother behind the travellers. “Who might you be?” he said with a snarl.
The doctor perked up and cheerily introduced everyone to the strange creatures “I am the Doctor and these are my friends, Graham, Ryan and Yaz, pleased to meet you.”
Donatello shouted from the back “What do you want here?! Are you part of the Kraang?!”
Raphael moving closer to the group, bared his teeth and screamed “Answer him!”
“We’re friends, we are not part of this Kraang? To be honest I’ve never heard of them and I’ve met a lot of different races in my time. We were on our way back home but somehow our ship muddled up the coordinates. We’re home alright, just not the correct year. My friends and I decided to have a look around since discovering the strange mixture of sulfur and nitrogen components in the air, which doesn’t make sense at all.” The Doctor answered.
The brothers stepped down, they looked human after all. They had not seen humans in what felt like eternity. All but wiped out by the Kraang. “How are they still standing in with this toxic air?” Donnie wondered. Even with his mechanical parts, after all this time his mind was still sound. He knew that something was odd about the group but not menacing.
“I’m Raphael and this is my brother Donatello. We are survivors after the Kraang took over the world. They mutated the entire planet. We lost a lot…” his voice trailed off.You could see the water in his eyes before he caught himself. “Today we take her down.”
“Turtles, hey? Aren’t you supposed to be in the sea?” Graham pipped up from behind the
Doctor. “Who is her?” Yaz, interrupted.
Raphael narrowed his eyes at Graham and turned to Yaz “Haze. After the Kraang mutated most of the planet. The Haze arose, a mutant unlike those who came before. She was the princess of darkness and led the first generation of mutants to cleanse the earth of anyone who was not like them… The worst part of it all. In another life I called her ‘friend.’”
“Righty-O then! Let’s help these brothers. Firstly, we’d need to find out who this Haze is? Are?” once again whipping out her sonic the Doctor scanned the sky. “Oooh! That looks good, the noxious gas is coming from that way. Come on, then you lot, let’s go”
The brothers looked at each other and then at the rest of the group, “You’ll get used to it,” Ryan said as they started following the Doctor.
“I don’t know about this lady, but she looks like she knows what she’s doing.” Donatello responded.
As the group moved along the outer edge of the city, the Doctor badgered Donatello and Raphael with questions, piecing things together from their answers and whatever information her sonic could give, they spotted a man resting on the sidewalk.
“Another human?” Raphael asked.
“We’re about to find out, look.” Donatello motioned towards a small group of armoured androids walking towards the man.
“Those robots,” the Doctor started, “Kraang, yeah?”
“Oh yeah, Enforcers, not the friendliest, not that the Kraang are friendly to begin with, though.” Donatello answered.
“Should we take ‘em?” Raphael asked.
“We need to keep-” Donatello started
“Watch.” the Doctor silenced him, “There’s something different about that man, even from over here, my sonic is giving me strange readings. It seems his skeleton is made of a strange metal…”
Before she could elaborate further, one of the Enforcers kicked the man, who coughed blood as he shuffled to his feet. A second Enforcer gave him a gut punch, the man was clearly confused, and somewhat dazed, but he expertly regained his footing, and before one of the Enforcers could raise another hand against him, the audible sound of metal slicing through metal could be heard.
The first Enforcer fell to the ground with a metallic clang, having been sliced in half.
“What the…?”
“Is that…” Donatello started, “the Wolverine?”
By the time he was done asking, a very old James Howlett had ripped the three remaining Enforcers to shreds and was now looking in their direction.
“You said my name?” he asked.
Meanwhile…
“Empress… Please you can’t…”
She raised her blood red eyes and glared at her First Commander.
“This is too much- the remaining animagi-muggle hybrids, these “mutants” or whatever aren’t a threat to us anymore. When will enough be enough… Please Herm- ”
A green light flashed and a light thump echoed through the chamber as the body of Neville Longbottom slumped to the floor.
“There is no Hermione, only the Haze,” she muttered.
An eerie silence lingered as she the Haze rose to her feet.
“Trump, Ramaphosa, Xavier – all around me there is betrayal- and now after everything they put us through this imbecile has the audacity to suggest that I have gone too far?!” Hermione seethed with rage as she began pacing in front of the ornate throne.
Harry slumped a little deeper into his wheel chair as he felt an imaginary tingle in the stump where his wand hand used to be. “How did it all go so wrong? ” he wondered.
His mind cast back to the morning when the international statue of secrecy was abolished and wizards and witches announced themselves to the muggle world.
It was supposed to be the dawn of an era of peace and prosperity. Yet the Muggle leaders sought only to abuse the balance of nature.
“How ironic, ” he thought, “that you have now become the very instrument of death that you warned us about.”
“You! Summon General Krang – I want an update in his trans-dimensional transporter so I can cast the Apparition charm on it. This world is dead and I want the migration of all magical beings complete before the fortnight”.
The blue masked turtle beast rose to his feet, “at once empress” he announced as he turned and hastened out of the chamber.
“Come Harry… Let’s go say hello to our guests…”
A lump rose in Harry’s throat as the wheels of his chair began to turn and they made their way down the long corridor to the dungeon.
A young man clothed in a sleeveless denim jacket and cap, skulked the shadows watching the aged man claw through the robots with merciless ease. It stirred his heart nostalgic as he remembered how many countless battles he watched upon and commanded.
He resigned himself to be remaining hidden. Caution was a currency that kept you alive in this world. He had been transported here when testing technology made by his friend, it was meant to be a chamber that connected him across time. He had been the best where he came from. A champion. And the hunger to fight those who rose to the same title in generations to come became an itch. A hunger. And that greed became his hubris.
He wasn’t going to learn anything from this distance at an obscure angle. Removing a small device from his jacket pocket, the lettered R, E, D, was scratched into the cover. The screen lit up accompanied by the voice of a digital assistant. “While no new Pokemon have been detected, the life forms in the vicinity register as mutant, human, and one non-terrestrial organism.”
‘Good to know.’ He thought to himself.
The gases around him were slowly being converted into breathable air by the bulbous two headed creatures floating behind with a barely audible, “WEEEEZING!”
Observe and pursue, they might be the key to getting out of this place and back to his own world.
An alert spewed out onto the Enforcers communicators, “The prisoner has escaped”, Harry shouted frantically. “The Wolverine has escaped”.
“I see him”, Ash responded.
“I caught you once, I can do it again. Freak.”
These mishaps of nature were his prize. The rebellion of mutants that faced Empress Haze and her “tyranny” of this third earth. The more he caught, imprisoned or got out her way – were one step closer to the close of their deal.
“Serve Empress Haze, and she will transport you back to where you belong. Home.”, he kept telling himself.
“This one has to go. The Rioter should do the trick”. Ash pulled and aimed the deadly ball towards his prey.
SCHWING.
Ash felt the warm smell of his blood seeping through the crown of his throat.
“What the f….”. Ash muttered as he peeled out of the cold Sai and fell to the ground.
Raphael drew out his sword as he picked out the communicator from the corpse and said, “Tell your queen we’re coming for her head.”
Harry was silent.
“Whoever you are, you are only mocking your own inevitable death”, came the voice as Raphael held the comm closer to his ear.
He had suddenly turned icy under his green skin.
“Leo?”
Silence. Ice cold silence.
“Leo, is that you?”
The Doctor turned to Graham and whispered, “Lock the Tardis. I think we’re going to be here for a while.”
