Tag: rp

The giant shark tilted his head at the plexiglass spectacles, eyeing them up with a hesitant expression. “Ye think there’s one in m’ size? Don’t ‘xactly ‘ave a human face,” Bruce began. Even though he was partially away that the Repairman could pull just about anything from his hammer space. Apart from an escape route.

“Well, that’s all right,” the Repairman said. “Lots of people don’t have human faces. I don’t.”

He pulled out another pair that looked identical to his. With a few clicks, the goggles were elongated and curved into something that would easily fit a shark.

“And that’s why I choose Ajax for all my protective eyewear needs!” the Repairman said, as if he was reading a script. He held his hand out as a ten dollar bill drifted onto it, seemingly out of nowhere.

“You ready?” he asked Bruce, holding out the adjusted glasses.

“Oh, well I guess it wouldn’t be too much if I did become a bit larger than usual. I’m ready!”

“Just tell me when to stop!”

And with that, the Repairman pulled the trigger, sending an electric yellow beam at the rabbit with a whirring noise. The Repairman averted his eyes, as he didn’t expect it to be so bright, but he kept the ray as steady as possible.

“Ah, I guess so,” the great white replied hesitantly. “Was thinkin’ more ‘long the lines that ye saw out a lil’ piece ‘f the door and I pull ‘part the metal with m’ teeth.” Bruce glanced down reluctantly at the tool. “Never really handled anythin’ sharp b’fore. Other than m’ teeth,” he chuckled nervously. 

“Ah,” the Repairman said, somewhat embarrassed at his misunderstanding. “Well, that makes more sense.”

He snapped off a length of the handle, reducing it to its original size.

As he turned to the door, he realized he forgot something. He went back to his cart and picked out a pair of protective glasses.

“You need a pair?” he asked Bruce.

“You were… ‘made for this?’” asked the Narrator. He grew slightly giddy as the implications of this information became clear to him. “Does that mean you were an artificially-engineered organism created in some sort of scientific facility? Or maybe that you’re a homunculus from one of those fantasy stories? Or – even – a fictional character, brought into the light of day by some child’s imagination?”

Quiet scratching noises issued from the ceiling; the Narrator was writing something down. “The character opportunities are endless,” he murmured, half to himself. “An eighty-year-old cartoon inkblot, drawn to repeat the same monotonous task” – his voice abruptly rose in pitch – “like Stanley! Like Stanley and his buttons!”

The Repairman’s anger quickly subsided and was replaced by confusion, though he did take a bit of offense at the “child’s imagination” idea.

He sighed as the Narrator began taking notes. He had expected a long day, but for different reasons.

“Eighty-three,” he muttered, as he began boarding up the cracks in the Wall.

He looked up as the voice suggested he was like this “Stanley” guy.

“What buttons?” he asked. If he got the Narrator talking a bit about Stanley’s life, maybe he could piece together something more to this place than yellow carpeting and a disembodied Brit.

“Still, I’d ‘ate to be the one who caused it, even if ye can shake it off in a beat or two,” the great white insisted before his eyes studied the saw fastened into the other’s grip. The shark arches a brow, though he learned a long time ago to not question logic too often in Toontown. Logic, physics, and all sorts of usual rules were bent, broken, and shattered beyond the tunnel walls. 

“Think a lil’ saw like that’s gonna help?” Bruce asked. “If ye get it warped out a bit for me to get a grip with my jaws, I can be ‘f more help.”

“Oh?”

The Repairman was a bit surprised at the idea of Bruce handling this saw. Still, it made sense; the great white was probably stronger and could push the saw further.

“All right,” he decided, “hang on a sec.”

He began to pull at the handle a bit, and then his hands became a blur. Faint balloon noises could be heard.

When the inkblot finally stopped, the handle was far larger, and rounded out to fit a shark’s mouth.

He held the saw out to Bruce, handle-first.

“This work?”

She nodded excitedly, as she was already tired of being this small, only to think about if it has downsides.

“Is there any risk of…becoming too tall?”

“Um.”

He had only ever used the thing on planks, and he didn’t really care about the exact size, just if it was large or small enough.

It didn’t help that this was probably from a futuristic 50’s cartoon, and therefore had no apparent settings apart from one switch (labeled “GROW” and “SHRINK”).

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I really don’t use this that often.”

He shifted a little, looking at the ray gun again.

“Then again,” he mused, “I could shrink you back down to a normal size if you get too tall…”

Having decided the plan, he took aim at the rabbit. The gun made a humming noise as it charged.

“All right,” he said, “Ready?”

She thought about it for a minute.

“Well I did see some sort of gas coming from a strange plant…Perhaps that may of been the cause?”

She wondered if a gas from a plant could even cause a situation like this.

“Seems like as good a reason as any,” he nodded. “Now, let’s see…”

He opened up his toolbox and began rooting through it. After a while, half of him was in there, digging deep until a faint “a-ha!” could be heard.

He came back up brandishing a silver ray-gun. On both sides, it bore the label of Size-o-Beam 2000.

“It’s funny what folks throw away,” he remarked, showing it to her. “You wanna try this?”

Hearing the sudden entourage of clattering noises and clangs of metal, the great white quickly dashed back towards the hole, straining his eyes to catch sight of whatever sign indicated that his companion was unharmed, if calling out wouldn’t work. Bruce was about to shout until he heard the faint but audible voice of the Repairman and the shark let out a sigh of relief. 

“Ye ‘ad me frightened there for a moment. Thought I dropped it on yer head,” the great white answered as the Repairman climbed back up the stairs towards the shark.

“Eh, wouldn’t have been the first time that happened,” he said evenly. Being a Toon, it wasn’t that big of a problem. Sure, it hurt, and sometimes even stunned him, but he could always recover.

Once he was out of the hole, he dug into his toolbox for a moment and produced a handheld circular saw. It had clearly seen better days, judging by most of the yellow from the handle being gone, and its overall unclean appearance. It clashed a bit with the Repairman’s inky form visually, but then, what didn’t?

“Want to just open the door?” the Repairman asked meaningfully.

[[Continued from: http://inabatherabbit.tumblr.com/post/145291266524]]
@inabatherabbit

She looked up, intimidated by the size of the inkblot. “H-hello…” she squeaked “I t-think I’m ok, besides suddenly turning th-is size out of nowhere…”

“Out of nowhere?”

The Repairman had been to some strange locales, and this didn’t exactly feel like the kind of universe where sudden shrinking would be normal.

“So…nothing happened before?” the Repairman asked.

He began waving his hand in a prompting manner.

“No… strange gas?” he continued, trying to think of examples. “No… electric beam? …No potions or mushrooms?”

The sudden change in the Repairman’s plan led a small thread of concern to sew itself into the pattern of Bruce’s mind, but under the duress of the current situation, the shark shrugged off any feelings of self doubt, moving over towards the named toolbox and gripping the upper handle in his jaws. He paced over towards the hole through which the Repairman traveled and unhinged his jaws, letting the box fall to a noisy clatter into the hole. “Ye see it?” Bruce inquired. 

The Repairman looked up at the arm that was menacing him. It was clear that, whether or not it was programmed to clean, it wanted to scrub the inkblot out. Not lethal, granted, but not exactly something the Repairman wanted to go through.

He was thinking about how to avoid the cleaner when the toolbox landed on it with a crash! Nuts and bolts flew everywhere, and the cleaner fell further down, making several clatters as it banged against the walls.

The arm slumped, and the toolbox slid towards the Repairman. He quickly caught it and began checking for dents and fractures. He was satisfied to find no more than usual.

“…Yup!” he replied. “Got it!”

He began to climb back up to Bruce, pausing only to place an “IOU” card on the remains of the robotic arm.