Story Challenge 2: And then there were badgers

This story challenge was originally posted in two parts to Facebook on June 21st, 2013. The whole thing is about 25 pages long, which is not bad for a few hours' work if I do say so myself. As always, the suggestions were ridiculous and amazing. The five concepts I went with were:

- Gamma radiation
- The day the internet died
- Amnesia
- Ninja badgers
- Rainbows being the secret weapons of Leprechauns

This story contains some strong language, so reader discretion is advised.

------------------------

Aaron awoke slowly. Through the haze clouding his vision he was barely able to the shape of his dresser towering above him. He gently blinked and winced in a vain attempt to quell the great force struggling to escape his skull. Even with the world safely out of sight he could feel it spinning uncontrollably around him. It was nauseating.

After a few minutes of trying to collect his thoughts, he slowly opened his eyes and rolled onto his stomach. Willpower alone forced him to his feet, and only his arm shakily clutching the edge of his dresser kept him there. As his room came into focus this stinging scent of blood assaulted his nostrils. From the glaring red splash of the stuff beside his shivering hand, he could only assume it was his. frantically searching his memories for the cause yielded only shadows.

A sinking feeling began to grow in his gut. The way his clothes stuck to his back told him that he had been lying in a pool of his own insides for some time. What happened? How much blood had he lost?

One thing was for certain, something had to be done. He peered out the open door of his bedroom and spotted a phone sitting on the kitchen island in his spacious apartment. If he could get to it then he could call an ambulance...

With unsteady steps he carefully made his way across the room, each step inviting new agony into his weary body. He fought to keep the red encroaching on his vision at bay as he stoically put one foot in front of the other. It wasn't much farther...

Suddenly, a distinct click echoed through the apartment and the door on the far side of the room began to swing open. His legs shook, anticipating salvation and the sweet release of rest.

He was about to call out, when a nightmare emerged from the portal. Before him stood a tangled mass of fur, both black as midnight and as white as fresh snow. A monstrous snout bared a maw of sharp fangs, accentuated by a shining pair of dark, beady eyes.

Aaron's mouth opened in a silent scream, unable to form sound past the growing lump of fear in his throat. He stumbled backward, his vision fully consumed by the red. Then, everything went black.

...

Consciousness crept slowly back into Aaron's mind. His head still ached, but he could feel the cold relief of an ice pack on his forehead and the soft comfort of his couch beneath him. A groan escaped his throat as he shifted his weight, his tired limbs and throbbing head taking every opportunity to complain at the movement.

A low, grating voice came from behind him, accompanied by a sudden hustle of movement from several figures: "Yo, he's awake."

He felt the couch shake as someone lowered themselves onto it, right next to him. As soon as the couch settled, another voice, this one slightly smoother voice spoke. "Hey man, are you okay? What the hell happened to you?"

As soon as he could muster the energy, Aaron slowly opened his eyes. As the bleary haze cleared and his eyes adjusted to the light, he was hit by a sudden shock of clarity, as if smeone had poured a bucket of icewater directly on his head. Before him, a look of worry sprawled across its face, was a badger. A nagging voice in the back of his mind quietly reminded him of the nightmare creature he saw right before he passed out again.

There was a moment of stunned silence before he could finally muster the courage to speak. "This is what death feels like, isn't it. I am in hell."

The look of worry on the badger's face turned to one of disdain. Stifled laughter could be heard in the background. "Funny," came the dry reply. The badger, seeing the genuine fear locked in Aaron's wide eyes, let the look of worry begin to return. "Oh damn, you're serious."

Aaron swallowed back the lump in his throat. "W-what are you?"

The stifled laughter suddenly burst forth from two other figures behind the badger on the couch, unable to be contained any longer. Aaron managed to tear his gaze away from the creature before him only to find that they, too, were badgers. All three had the same dark fur with white stripes along their faces, and wore dark, practical clothing. Clawed hands wrapped around their guts as they tried in vain to restrain their amusement.

The nearest of the trio glared back at his companions, now wiping tears from their beady eyes. One of the pair managed to hold his laughter back just long enough to take a deep breath and somewhat compose himself. He straigtened and cleared his throat with a wide smile. "Sorry bro, it's just that we've been a lot over the past little while, and the look on G's face just now was abslutely priceless."

The other badger let out a satisfied sigh and a final chuckle as he rested his hands on his knees. "Nothing personal, dude. we weren't laughing at you." He straightened and put his hands on his hips as he smirked. "Well, maybe a little."

The first badger let out a disgruntled sigh and turned back to the human. "So you really don't remember us?" After seeing Aaron shake his head, he continued: "Ok, well as a crash course, we..." As he trailed off, he stood and motioned to his companions with a flourish. "... are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Badgers."

The look of shock remained firmly in place on Aaron's face. Seeing this, the leftmost badger leaned over and whispered, "you should probably blink soon."

As if on queue, the burning senstation in his eyes forced his lids closed. he blinked a few more times to reassure himself that this was really happening.

"I," continued the badger, "am the illustrious leader of our little group, Gaben." He motioned over his right shoulder. "This here is Schafer." When the badger there responded with a smile and a wave, he motioned over his left. "That there is Kojima."

Kojima flourished and bowed his acknowledgement. "Ever so pleased to make your acquaintaince, good sir!"

Gaben rolled his eyes and lowered his hands, nodding in aaron's direction. "Our final companion is the honey badger."

Aaron slowly craned his neck as he shift his weight to look behind him. Slowly but surely, a hulking behemoth of a badger crept into his vision. He was at least a foot taller than the others, and significantly wider, but he had a quiet grace about him which seemed to be amplified by the calm expression with which he regarded the wounded man below him. Unlike his partners, the honey badger had a cmpletely black face and neck, with lighter fur adorning the back of his head and going down his back. Aaron's awkward smile was met with a simple nod.

He carefully reset himself on the couch and took in the three badgers before him with a look of confusion. "So, why are you three named after game designers, while your friend behind me is just named 'the honey badger'?"

Gaben shrugged. "Well we basically became what we are today when we were hit by a series of controlled blasts of gamma radiation. After learning a bit about your culture we decided to pick our own names based on own favourite form of art: games. Now, honey badger here doesn't speak much, if ever, so he didn't provide a name. Rather than calling him something he might not like, we figured we'd just refer to him as what he is. He doesn't seem to mind."

Schafer leaned in over his shoulder and added in a soft voice, "Honey Badger don't give a fuck." Kojima's chuckle framed Gaben's sigh with an even more acute frustration.

"Anyway," he continued, "considering you were lying with your head cracked open and can't seem to remember us, we're guessing you don't know what happened to you, but we can hazard a guess at who did it."

Kojima took a step forward, putting one clawed foot on the edge of the couch and leaning on it intently. He looked Aaron straight in the eye and put on his best irish accent. "Do ye believe in magic?"

"I'm talking with a group of anthropomorphic badgers," Aaron said dryly. "I think at this point I'll believe anything."

Kojima gave a sharp laugh and slapped his leg as he straightened. "Great! 'cause this one's a bit of a stretch." He took his foot down and sat heavily on the arm of the couch. "We basically put food on the table by keeping the city safe. The only ones making this job more difficult than it has to be are a group calling themselves the ILA: the Irish Lepublichaun Army."

Aaron's mouth dropped to his chest. "Lepublichaun? You're making that up."

Kojima and Schafer both smirked at that. Gaben's face remained calm. "I wish I was, my friend. They're kind of like the Irish Republican Army, only more..." His eyes wandered as he thought of the proper term. "... Lucky."

This time Schafer stepped forward and held his hand out flat just below his waist. "Little bastards in green suits and round little hats. They're not particularly smart, or athletic, but they're clever, and there's a whole bunch of them."

"Anyway," Kojima continued, "they started popping up around the same time that we did. Or vice versa. Whatever. The point is, they're kind of like the Joker to our Batman. They try to start trouble, and we stop them."

Schafer, realising he still had his hand outstretched, let it fall awkwardly to his side. After thinking for a moment, he looked back to Aaron. "So, any questions?"

Aaron took a moment to let it all sink in. It was incredible to think that not too long ago this would have all seemed perfectly normal to him, or at least familiar. As it stood he was being subjected to a lot of information in a very short span of time, and his foggy mind was unable to cope. He asked the first thing that popped into his head: "Um... Where do you guys live? Are you from the sewers or something?"

Kojima and Schafer both guffawed at the notion. Even Gaben let a smile sneak onto his face as he, too, stepped forward. "What are we, turtles? No, my friend, we've been living here with you for the past year. We're kind of celebrities around here, so there's no real reason for us to hide. We do good work, and the people respond to that sort of thing. The city even pays us a pretty decent wage to keep up the good work, though we do have to pay for stuff that we break sometimes."

"But enough of that for now," Kojima cut in. "Let's find out what happened to you."

...

Aaron tentatively reached for the outstretched hand of the badger before him, hesitating just long enough for a crease to appear on his brow before grasping it. It was odd feeling the warm fur between his fingers as Gaben helped him stand up, and stranger still when he felt the creature's arm protectively on his shoulders to keep him from falling over as the blood rushed out of his head. He managed a weak smile as the pair headed toward the bedroom where he had collapsed, followed closely by the other three badgers.

The gruesome scene caused nausea to rush into his stomach, threatening to overwhelm him. Dark, crimson blood lay splattered all along the wooden floor, smeared with long streaks and hand prints from when he had managed to get himself up earlier. Much of it was dried, but some pools still remained on the uneven surface, worn ever so slightly from years of traffic. The acrid, coppery scent in the air stung his eyes.

He felt a soft squeeze on his shoulder. It was a small gesture, but a reassuring one, and helped greatly in his attempt to stop his body from its uncontrollable shivering.

"Do you need a minute? We could do our analysis without you."

"No, I'm alright," Aarn replied with a nod. "I want to hear this."

Gaben gave a pained smile before turning to the two smaller badgers and giving a curt nod. The silently moved into the room and began searching for clues as to what might have happened.

"There are no signs of a struggle." Kojima motioned to the various personal effects scattered about the room. "Nothing's knocked over, and aside from the corner of the dresser I don't think anything's broken."

Schafer nodded and tapped on the window with his knuckles. "Agreed. Plus, check this out." He pointed to at the window just above his head.

Aaron's eyes followed his finger to a small, perfectly round hole in the glass. The edges of the hole appeared to be slightly melted, but otherwise the rest of the glass was completely unaffected.

He and Gaben exhanged a quick glance before turning back to the window. "What could have done that?"

Gaben shrugged. "I'm not sure. A bullet would have broken the glass around the hole. A laser would have passed right through the glass, or if was strong enough to melt it it would have started a fire in here somewhere. Besides, if either of those hit you'd have bigger problems than a bit of a cracked skull, and there would be some evidence of it if you slipped while you were dodging. This had to have happened fast, and with a great deal of precision, but I can't think of anything that would have that effect on the window."

"Agreed," Kojima chimed in. "I think the Leprechauns have a new trick up their sleeve."

Scahfer turned to face the others. "So what happened to that little bit of glass? When we were cleaning Aaron's head we didn't find any shards, and there's none lying around. Did it just evaporate?"

"Maybe," said Gaben. "It couldn't have melted, because we'd see evidence of that around the hole, but if it was heated rapidly enough it could have sublimated and then cooled elsewhere. But the amount of heat required..."

Schafer's face twisted in confusion. "But then wouldn't we run into the fire thing again? How could something be so hot that it causes glass to just disappear into thin air, but not start a fire or burn someone that it comes in contact with?"

A silence fell over the room, human and badger alike lost in contemplation. After what seemed like an eternity, Aaron shook his head and spoke. "So what do we do now?"

"I guess," Kojima replied, "we'll have to go straight to the source. Who's up for a little hunting?"

A childish grin spread across Schafer's face. "For that pun alone, I am in."

...

"So what are we looking at here?"

The group sat quietly on a roof overlooking a dirty street, passing snacks between them as they waited. They had set up their folding chairs an hour earlier, but Aaron had been afraid to ask exactly what they were doing.

"Basically," Gaben replied, "we're waiting for something interesting to happen."

"Eventually, a little dude is going to show up at one of these dives." Kojima made a sweeping motion with his bag of chips before he continued. "Once we find one of the buggers we'll figure out what our next steps are, but despite today's technology we can't just run off without a place to start."

Aaron's shoulders sagged in disappointment. "Oh..." He wasn't really sure what he expected, but he had been hoping that they would somehow be able to locate the ILA without any trouble.

"Chin up, fleshbag." Schafer patted him on the shoulder. "We'll find one soon enough. Being the embodiment of a fairy tale creature adds a certain degree of predictability to one's actions."

Kojima let out a burst of laughter. "Fleshbag? Tell me, master badger, how are you not a bag of flesh?"

Schafer shrugged and smiled. "You can see less of mine."

"Hush, children." Gaben chastised them without even look away from the road and casually fished for another handful of chips. The honey badger stood stoically behind the group, arms crossed and expression unchanging. The other two chuckled and went back to their own snacks, leaving Aaron sitting akwardly in his chair, unsure of how to assess the situation.

He was quite sure that the badgers were all insane.

Suddenly, Gaben leaned forward in his chair and put his pair of binoculars up to his eyes. "Look alive, boys. We've got movement."

A hush fell over the group as their eyes darted to where Gaben's binoculars were pointed. A man in a trenchcoat was walking out of one of the seedy bars and heading toward the alley leading around the back, while several small figures sporting muted green jackets and dark pants emerged into the dim light.

"Is that them?" Aaron squinted and leaned as far forward in his chair as he could, trying to get a better look at the gathering. Gaben responded with a single nod, not removing the binoculars from his eyes.

As soon as the man's back was turned to the group, Gaben flashed a quick thumbs up to the Honey Badger, who silently jumped into action and over the side of the building.

Aaron could only vaguely make out the shapes below them, but he could tell that they were discussing something important. The man reached into his coat and produced a small package, which after some discussion was passed to the small figures. Their leader reached into his coat and pulled something of his own out, showing it to the man, who seemed to freeze in panic.

Suddenly, a rainbow appeared between the two groups, and... Nothing. Aaron tilted his head in confusion as the man seemed to relax visibly. He wasn't sure what to make of the scene before him. The leprechauns all seemed calm despite nothing happening, and the man who had been hit by the beam was breathing heavily in relief. None of it made any sense...

Then the lead leprechaun reached up and pulled what Aaron thought was a pair of glasses from his cap. "What's happening?"

"I'm not sure," Gaben said quietly. "He just pulled his glasses off and--"

Gaben's thought was cut short as another rainbow appeared between the two groups, this time stopping at the glasses that the leprechaun held in front of his gun. The lens of the spectacles began to glow with a brilliant white light, and then, in an instant, was extinguished as the man was thrown violently against the wall of the bar behind him, collapsing in a heap. Aaron held his breath as the leprechaun calmly stood over the downed man and held the glasses between them once again. There was another bright flash of white light, and the man's head exploded in a read mist, slammed against the pavement by some unknown force.

Despite the horror of it, Aaron could not look away. None of the badgers made any movement, any sound. They just sat silently watching the scene unfold.

Then, the Honey Badger was there, abruptly appearing in the midst of the leprechauns. There was a subtle flurry of movement, and then a tremendous calm. One by one, each of the leprechauns lazily collapsed to the pavement, red pools growing beneath them. The Honey Badger waited until their post-mortem twitching to stop, and then disappeared again in the blink of an eye.

Had he looked away for an instant, Aaron would have missed it. He couldn't breathe, unable to comprehend any of what he had just witnessed.

Gaben angrily clipped his binoculars back onto his belt. "Damn! I was hoping he'd keep one alive for questioning."

"I've certainly got a lot of questions," Kojima chimed in. Schafer merely nodded his agreement.

"Well, no use crying over spilled blood. Let's take a closer look."

...

"You know, this is actually pretty close to what I expected."

Aaron bent over the small, still body of the leprechaun before him, nudging it with his foot slightly just to make sure it was really dead. He wanted to feel bad at the loss of life, but having witnessed their brutality both first and second hand today, his sympathy was worn a bit thin.

"These aren't even their regular clothes." Kojima walked over to where Aaron was standing and also gave the body a quick kick. "This is their civilian getup."

"Yeah bro," added Schafer. "These guys are living, breathing stereotypes. You should hear them talk. If it weren't so tragic it would be highly amusing."

The Honey Badger emerged from the shadows farther into the alley and moved to join the group. Gaben met him with a discerning frown. "It would have been nice to have a hostage."

By the Honey Badger's steely gaze, it was clear there was no response forthcoming, so he sighed and bent to retrieve the lead leprechaun's gun.

"So what is that thing?"

"I'm not sure. It looks like some kind of a sci-fi ray gun." Gaben aimed the gun at the wall of the alley and held down the trigger. A soft, rainbow-coloured beam emerged from the tipped of the gun and harmlessly lit up the bricks. "How do we make it do the smashing thing?"

His contemplation was interrupted when the Honey Badger held the now-empty frames of the leprechauns glasses in front of him. He retrieved them with a nod of gratitude and turned them over in his hands. "Hey Aaron, come take a look at these."

Aaron lightly stepped over the bodies to stand next to the badger and looked closely at the glasses. There was still a bit of lens in the elongated parts of the frames, the edges melted from what appeared to be an intense heat. "That looks a lot like my window."

Gaben nodded his agreement. "Right, so what does that mean?"

"Well maybe glass is the key. When glass is hit by the rainbow beam, the beam stops and converts the pane into pure kinetic and light energy, which then explodes outwards and causes this to happen." He waved idly at the mangled body of the mysterious man lying to his right.

Schafer snorted and walked over to join them. "Bro, do you even physics? That doesn't make any sense."

"You're a talking ninja badger," Aaron said flatly. "You don't make any sense, but here you stand, in all your sarcastic glory."

Kojima chuckled. "You're both right. It's a ridiculous concept, but none orf this is exactly normal, and honestly I can't think of a better explanation than the one our friend aaron here provided."

Schafer smiled and bowed with a flourish to concede the point before looking expectantly at Gaben. "Well boss, now what?"

"Well, they exhanged something before..." He waved his hand in a circle and worked his mouth, looking for the proper words. Eventually he looked expectantly at his companions.

Kojima was the first to offer a suggestion. "Red October?"

"Green eggs and slam," Schafer quickly countered.

Gaben's raised eyebrow was met by a shrug from the pair. He shook his head in disapproval before he continued. "... the excitement happened."

"I liked mine better," muttered Schafer.

While they bickered, Aaron calmly rolled over the dead leprechaun boss and searched through his coat, finding a large gold coin and a nondescript brown package sealed with twine. He held it out to Gaben. "Got it."

"Right, thanks." He peered nonchalantly at the body. "Let's see what you're willing to kill over."

"Technically," Schafer chimed in, "they'll kill for a lot of things. I mean, we're kinda paid to stop them from doing that most of the time."

"Damnit dude, you know what he means. Shut up and let him do his thing."

Aaron held the coin into the light and appraised it. "So what do you think this thing is worth?"

Gaben laughed to himself as he unwrapped the package. "Honestly, not as much as you'd think. There's a fair bit of gold there, and as far as I know it's relatively pure, but it's only worth it's weight. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone willing to buy it as a specialty item."

"Usually we wait until we have a dozen or so before we try to pawn them" Kojima added. "We get better value in bulk."

Aaron frowned and placed the coin in his pocket "Well, there's one."

Gaben held out a small wooden box with copper hinges to the group. It was stained, but was otherwise unremarkable. He slowly lifted the lid to reveal a black USB key.

"That's not quite what I was expecting."

"Nope."

"Let's get this thing back to base. We'll plug it into the tech box and see what's on it."

The three badgers nodded in agreement, which Aaron shook his head in dismay. "Tech box? You said you've been around for at least a year and you don't know what the proper name for a computer is?"

"Funny," quipped Schafer.

"The tech box," explained Gaben, "is a special laptop we set up that can't connect to anything else. We use it for testing and the like."

Kojima patted him on the back. "Have you ever seen a movie where good things came of plugging in a mysterious harddrive to your main network?"

Aaron bobbed his head as he conceded the point. "Guess not."

"Right, let's go then."

...

The Honey Badger sat quietly in a corner while the others gathered around a small black laptop. The box with the USB key sat neatly beside them as the computer booted up.

"What do we think is going to happen when we plug this thing in?" Aaron idly poked the box as he waited.

"Probably nothing," Kojima said nonchalantly. "I used to get super excited about this sort of thing, but I was usually disappointed."

"We've been given unfair expectations by the movies, my friend." Schafer leaned disdainfully on his elbow as he waited. "We have a more interesting life than most, but most of the time it's still pretty boring."

"I find that hard to believe. You're a talking badger." Schafer responded with a lazy shrug.

A familiar chime filled the room as the computer finished logging in. "Lovely!" Gaben held out his hand. "Scalpel."

Kojima opened the box and carefully lifted out the drive with two claws and robotically dropped it into Gaben's hand. "Scalpel."

With a smile, Gaben plugged the key into the side of the computer and leaned back, waiting for a reaction. For a few seconds, nothing happened. The groups slowly leaned forward expectantly, only to jump back when the screen abruptly flashed black.

A robotic voice came from the laptop's speakers. "You are rather stupid, aren't you? This machine is incapable of establishing a connection to the internet."

The eyes of all four widened slightly, but they were able to maintain their composure. Gaben calmly addressed the screen. "Technology's hard, bro." He waved his hands in front of him. "Can't you just, like, go?"

If the voice could convey emotion, Aaron expected it would be dripping with malice. "I am the most advanced AI capable of existing on this wretched planet, yet not even I can overcome the inadequacies of this equipment. Put the device in a network-capable computer and I'll proceed with my directive to destroy the internet in its current state."

"Right, so that was their plan." Gaben smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Intelligence. You've been most useful."

Kojima stood and stretched his arms out behind him. "Let's smash the fucker," he suggested.

"That would be inadvisable." The voice remained unchanged, but Aaron imagined a hint of panic framing the AI's frantic calculations.

Schafer stood as well. "Agreed, let's kill it with fire."

Suddenly a horrible array of noises burst forth from the speakers of the laptop, the AI using whatever it had at its disposal to keep the badgers at bay. Gaben, clearly not enjoying the spectacle, rose slowly, a venomous glare sitting stoic on his face. He carefully picked up the laptop and walked over the the apartment's large fireplace. Before putting it down, he bent the screen all the way back. A sharp crack rang through the apartment as he inverted the computer, placing the now-useless monitor flat against the bottom and laying it carefully in hte ashes at the back of the hearth. He calmly walked to the middle of the room and pulled the leprechaun's rainbow gun from his belt.

"That's more than enough from you, thank you very much." He aimed the gun at the fireplace, he motioned to Aaron. "Aaron, do me a favour and put up the screen. This will be a bit explodey."

"My pleasure." As soon as the screen was firmly secured, Aaron stepped well out of the way and put his fingers in his ears.

Seeing that he was clear, Gaben's finger closed on the trigger. A colourful beam of light shot out of the tip and collided with the screen in a bright flash of white light. A moment later, an explosion rang out as the laptop slammed against the stone and rattled violently around the hearth. He continued this until ash hung thick in the air and the machine was nothing more than a mangled heap of raw materials. Any pieces of the screen that were once visible had been used as ammunition in the laptop's destruction, and the smell of melted plastic assaulted the group's nostrils.

"No kill like overkill, right Gabe?" Schafer's childish grin belied the violence they had all just witnessed. "Can we burn it now?"

Gaben lowered his arm and matched his grin. "Oh, please do."

The badger skipped over to the fireplace and flipped a switch, causing a flame to ignite in the hearth, which Kojima gathered pieces of wood to add from a cupboard nearby.

Aaron sat in front of the fireplace and crossed his legs, leaning back in relaxation. "You know," he said, "this was a good first day."