A shapeshifter and the child they replaced reconcile their utter lack of differences.

An intense battle in the sky, as the rumbling of propellers and the flap of wings come head-to-head.

Ahh! That's a damn good one! Love that ending too.

Oooh nice and concise. Count me a fan.

In the apartment block on Mileland Road, they have this elevator. Its pretty old, and it creaks whenever it moves. However, there was this one time where I opened the little service hatch on the ceiling out of curiosity. From the ground floor, I saw twelve more levels upward in the shaft. This was strange, since... well the building only physically has twelve floors.

thisll take a while, so gimme a bit

Between spindly trees and worn stones, snow falls in the forest. On the ivory white ground, there are the footsteps of three siblings, stalking the pristine lands.

-+-+-+-+-

I watched Anima run ahead, looking about with excitement. She stomped around in the snow, seemingly engrossed by the audible crunch each step made. Simple joy, shining on her face.

"'Anima, what are you doing?'" Cogni asked, stood beside me with his ever stoic inflection.

'I'm having fun, Cogs! Maybe you should try it some time!' she called back. She spun about in the cold conditions, performing almost theatrical flourishes and tricks, though the concept of them would not be coined for another few thousand years.

I groaned, stepping upon a shattered rock and looking ahead at the excited Anima with an exasperated glare.

"There can be a time for fun and games later, Ani. Get back here, there could be anything hiding out there."

Anima paused, pondering for a moment before truding over toward me, a little deflated.

'You're no fun, Forti.' she lamented, stamping impotently into the snow.

I shook my head, sighing in response. "Yes well Ani, we haven't got a catch in a while. The last thing you'd ought to be doing is tiring yourself with your 'playing'."

Cogni nodded, an ever matter-of-fact inflection in his voice. "'Indeed. If I remember correctly, it has been just over four days since our last catch. Most distressing, and certainly not conducive to any unnecessary leisure.'"

Anima grumbled, muttering to herself quietly. '...mother would've let me play.'

-+-+-+-+-

I awoke to a strange sight in the night. A cool coat of moonlight shone across the outside, hanging over the forest beyond the cave I sat in. But another light sat beyond the forest trunks and shrubs, piquing my interest, but equally so my concern. It was stark in contrast to the cool blue moon, instead being a warm bath of yellows and oranges, like a second sun.

I struggled to my feet, groggy and tired. Cogni stirred beside me, yawning quietly.

"Hey Cogni. You know where Anima went?"

He looked at me blankly, then looked to the outside of the cave.

"'I know not of the specifics, but I can assume she travelled toward that strange light source.'"

"Helpful as always..."

I steeled my nerves, walking out of the cave and into the cold air, approaching the strange light. It came closer and closer into view, as I swerved from tree to tree, bush to bush.

In the clarity of the light, I saw them. In the open clearing with the smouldering second sun.

Creatures on two feet with pelts across their bodies and sticks in their hands, and beside them was her. Anima, ever curious, ever naive.

I emerged into the clearing, teeth bared and growling. The bipeds got up, looking at me with fear. I could smell it.

Anima looked to me too, eyes wide with shock.

'What are you doing?' she mouthed, looking dead towards me and backing away alongside the furless ones. I simply growled again, taking a step forward to get a better look of the whole place.

There was the bush that had a sun in it in the centre, with a spit hung over it. Aside it, there was a basket sitting amongst the frost and snow, holding... meat.

The smell was distinct, and its sight was rejuvenating. I hardly noticed Cogni arrive onto the scene as I went to investigate the meat stored within the implement. Then Anima stood in my way, huffing indignantly.

'Stop it! Don't take another step toward it!' she warned, keeping her head held high.

"What? What are you trying to do Anima- get out of the way!" I commanded, trying to barge right past her to now avail.

'Stop it and listen to me quickly! I can get us the meat, but you have to listen!'

I paused my advance, taking a step back as I pawed at the snowy ground. The bipeds stood aways back from us, sticks held in anticipation and eyes staring with suspicion.

"Well, what have you got to say?"

She sighed, looking at me earnestly.

'These furless creatures, they have strange practises, and stranger tendencies. But even so, I have found one thing, if I help them in the forest they will give me some of the meat.'

"'Ah, so they seek transaction between our services and their resources? Intriguing, and perhaps a solution to our hunting problem.'" Cogni commented from behind us, stepping further into the clearing.

"C'mon Anima, we're going back to the cave, and you're not going to mess about with any more of these two-legged things."

"'Forti,'" Cogni begged, "'I implore you, consider this proposition. This could prove vital if our own hunting grounds continue to yield no prey. Please, consider it for a moment.'"

I pondered, sniffing in the cold, dry taiga air. I eyed the many figures standing about the place. Was... was this what mother would've wanted for her pups?

And is if she was reading her mind, Anima pleaded one last time. 'Please, Forti. They can help us. It's what mother would've wanted for us, to continue to survive. And if we can do it out there or with these creatures it does not matter.'

I stood there, silent. Thinking over... everything.

I stamped a paw on the ground and nodded, resigned to my decision.

"Let's give it a go then, Anima. See where this goes for us."

ooh this is kinda interesting.

can you give me any extra information?

Mister Bin Man

If you're assigned to the goblin enclave in New Vulpa, you either deserved it or your superior hated you.

As Damien could attest, he was victim to the latter.

He grumbled to himself, idly rapping his fingers on the wheel of his sputtering old garbage truck. It rattled and shook as it drove across the potholes of the neglected streets. It was dismal, especially since the draft was whisking away good people.

The truck coughed and groaned as it came to a stop beside a worn down bakery. 'The Rye Idea'. The name made him snicker.

Damien clambered out from his truck, sighing as he approached the alley aside the run down bakery. The smell was foul. The grimy, dented trash cans were loaded into the back of his truck, rattling around like bowling pins. Yeah, maybe some bowling later might be good-

A tap came upon his thigh. He looked down, finding a green little girl.

'Umm, mister bin man... I think I lost something in one of the bins.'

"Oh?" he scratched his head. "Sure, I could check for you."

He pulled one of the bins down and rattled through the dirty metal can, soon pulling out a crude figurine of wood, painted green.

"What's this?" he asked, showing it to her,

'Woah! Thank you, mister bin man, that's it!' she exclaimed, a sparkle in her eyes. 'My older brother gave it to me when he went away, I didn't want to lose it.' Damien couldn't help but smile, seeing her so joyed.

The owner of the bakery burst from the front door, rushing over to the two and putting a hand on the girl's shoulder.

'So sorry, I told her not to get in the way. She's a handful.'

Damien shook his head.

"No, she's just fine."

[WC: 300/300]

"I can barely believe I went along with this."

As a wandering-knight, it is my duty to represent the righteousness of my kingdom wherever I go, assisting all those in need. And whenever I'm in a difficult situation I always think to myself;

"What our most esteemed founder, Lord-Protector Moseby, do in this situation?"

That question has never failed me, except for today.

I do not believe even he, in all his wisdom, would know what the devil is happening here.

It all started when I accepted a quest to save an orcen princess. I've saved many princesses, but an orcen one was a new experience! I wondered what it might be like! I figured she might be some kind of warrior, considering how central combat and fighting is to the orcen culture.

The rescue was the first red flag. It was my 32nd princess rescue at the time, after all. Just liberating a few marauding goblins of their existence and smashing open a dungeon wall. And yet, there she was, free shackles and holding her weapon, still wedged into the skull of one of her captors.

'Oh hello, Sir Knight! You must've been sent to save me! I would've made my way out but neither of these two have a key for the door!'

I tried to ignore it. Many people gain surprising ability in desperation, even towering orc ladies.

No, the strangest part was the journey back.

I was partially correct on my assumptions. She was indeed a warrior. A tall and menacing figure, taller than I, with a large club lined with steel at its end. A devastating weapon that delivered devastating blows.

Yet simultaneously I was so very wrong. Princess Idente, she insisted I call her, was yet more princess than she was warrior. She apologised profusely for her indecent state after being rescued, which I lent my coat to her to remedy. She ate the rations I had given her at camp with spoon and fork! She even curtsied before clobbering a troll's head in as a 'sign of respect'! A peculiar lady, who insisted I help her retrieve her tiara from some bandits whom it had been sold to.

When you have a 7-8 foot tall orc with a steel-lined club, you can figure out for oneself how that encounter ended.

She pried that tiara from the cold, bloodied and terrified hands of that bandit. I was utterly aghast I must say.

When at last I took her back to the palace from whence she came, I was surprised. The king and queen, who most certainly must be parents of the terrifying Miss Idente, were both themselves as human as I!

When all was said and done, I left with some 90 odd gold to my name. Enough supplies to get me to the next city. But the gold was not important, I was simply glad not to be anywhere near that princess.

She seems a nice and fair lady, but in battle she is a nice and fair beast. Truly, terrifying.

Thanks! You reawakened the latent spaceflight nerd in me for this one!

Its the year 1977

Apollo 25 has just made the disaster of 13 look like a little booboo. Oh god, how bad it can get.

After attempting to undock the Heavy Lunar Module (HLM) 'Liberty' from the Orbiter for the Lunar descent, a failure to close an air seal caused an explosive decompression in the HLEM, killing the two crew there and damaging the Orbiter along with it.

This is the story of Leman Reynard of Apollo 25.

He woke up head spinning, still strapped in his seat. Blinking to alertness, there was a million things already not going right. The instrumentation was going haywire! Light flooded in spinning columns from the sunlight. Oh. Oh shit!

Leman noticed, much to his horror, that the Orbiter was spinning! He grabbed onto one of the controls, burning the attitude control thrusters on the extremities of the the ship to kill his rotation. One axis after another stabilised. Lateral, horizontal. Alright, great. No longer spinning. He sighed leaning back and fiddling with the radio link. Sure, the Orbiter was currently on the side of its orbit where the Moon blocked sight of Earth, but when it rose in a handful of hours, he had to let Ground Control know what'd happened.

Liberty had gone kaput and now his ship was damaged to an extent he could not fully determine.

Scanning his instrumentation again, he took tally of his fuel. Sure, after Apollo 21, the tanks has self-sealing material, but he had still lost a good amount of liquid fuel to the vacuum of space. Along with two good men and entire lander. All in all, taking it into account... well he should have enough to at least escape the lunar gravity and enter the originally intended trajectory to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. At least that was good. Enough good news to sleep on, for the moment.

Leman awoke to the sound of the radio repeating messages. Peering outside the viewport of the capsule, he watched as the blue-white shape of Earth rose silently above the barren Lunar surface. It was his goal now. Picking up the radio, he responded to the hail, finally getting his first words of with Ground Control in Houston, Texas.

"Houston, this is Reynard. Liberty's been lost with all hands. Its a hell of a problem."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

Some time has passed, and the intended burn on the near side of the Lunar orbit has placed the Orbiter of Apollo 25 and its sole occupant back into a intercept course with the Earth's atmosphere in approximately three days.

One small problem. The Service Module has vented far more oxygen than expected from the explosion. Leman has counted along with the boys on the ground; he has about a day and a half worth of oxygen left. He'll return to Earth as a suffocated corpse.

He was fiddling with one of the specialised zero-gee pens as he contemplated his next course of action, if he was to die, when the radio blared again. Picking it up, he was greeted by a very animated young voice. As he explained;

'Captain Reynard, there's a course of action you can take that might just save your life!'

"Wha- who is this? Where's the rest of Mission Control? I- what did you say?"

'W-well. I am just the janitor for this room while everyone's out, b-but! But! I've been studying the design of your mission's service module by looking over the shoulder of some if the engineers, and I have an idea to extend your oxygen supply!'

Leman paused for a moment. Was he really gonna trust this kid with his life like this? Someone who wasn't even trained in any of this spaceflight business? He was a janitor for Gods sake! What could he do?

Though, what did Leman really have to lose. Ground Control proper hadn't given him any possible solutions, so even if something went wrong and blew up on his face, he'd be dead anyway.

'So, Captain, are you willing to hear me out?' Came the young man again.

"Sure. Alright, kid, what've you got?"

'Oh- wait, really? I- okay... Okay! Alright, here it is. You've got some spare oxidizer from your fuel tanks right? Only the propellant was vented, yes? According to your reports.'

"Yep, I that's right. I have no real way to vent it out so its just dead weight now that I've burnt off most of my propellant already."

'Okay, gotcha, so, the Service Modules of all the Apollos since 21 are using Liquid Hydrogen - Liquid Oxygen mix right?'

"Yes, that's... That's right."

'Okay, so this is the crazy part. You need to draw oxygen from the LOx tank and vent it into your capsule to keep breathing.'

"What?! Are your crazy that's- wait..."

There was silence for a good half-minute.

'Uh, sir? Are you-'

"That's genius! I- I could make this work! Alright, thank you, uhh, what's your name?"

'Jeb, sir, why do you ask?'

"Well, thank you Jeb, I hope Mission Control informs you of the outcome of your plan."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

The capsule of Apollo 25 would jettison the service module minutes before striking the first layers of Earth's atmosphere. Its ablative heatshielding pointed against its velocity, capsule blazed through hot gas like a bullet as slowly but surely it decelerated from nearly 10km/s to only a handful of times the speed of sound.

Drogue chutes deploy in a cluster of three to slow its decent. The capsule lurches and groans under the sudden strain of parachutes.

Barely a km off the ground, the drogues are cut and the landing chutes deploy in a cluster of three. Apollo 25 has slowed to barely four metres per second of descent velocity. The heatshield, blackened and burnt, is jettisoned into the water has slowly the Capsule lands among the waves beneath a blue sky.

The flotation devices burst from their small housings on the bottom edges of the capsule as a barely standing Leman, straining to stand from nearly a week in zero-gee, looks out through the viewports at Earth once again.

In the business, we call these' 'oh shit moments.'

Aitella had only an hour 'til what might be the most important day of her career. This case could prove so shockingly fruitful for her, it would make the awkwardness of the past years worth it.

So why, oh cruel fate, did this have to happen now?!?

She was splayed out in her bathroom, writhing around the cramped tile floor in her dragon form, molting like some common reptile. It was not a particularly painful sensation, simply very uncomfortable. Like being unrelentingly tickled in areas you're not ticklish in.

There's a knocking at the door of the room.

"Oh you're fucking kidding me." the writhing dragon muttered under a gutteral breath.

With a creak the door opened, and a man holding a half-empty beer can stepped in with a faint smirk on his face. He took a sip of the can, smacking his lips a few times.

'Hey there Aity, smack havin' some troubles I'm seein'?'

She groaned, scowling with slitted yellow eyes.

"Ugh... Monty, you fucking suck..."

'Oh dear, Aity, you flatter me!' he chuckled, finishing his beer can and crushing it underfoot, 'Now, was there anything you might need help with?'

By this time, Aitella was already wriggling out of the shell of her former skin covering, groaning and cursing.

"You... shit... cold..."

'Got it, blanket and a hot chocolate comin' up, Aity.' Monty nodded, snapping his fingers into finger guns as he stepped out of the room. But a few minutes later, he returned with a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. The dragon, now covered in brilliant amber scales and drenched in slime, accepted the offerings handily. She should be back in working order in no time.

"I- thanks, Monty."

'Ah don't worry 'bout it, darl. I'll get your court-things or whatever ready 'fore you leave, just focus on staying well.' He assured her, patting a scaly shoulder and inadvertently drenching hid hand in slime which promptly washed off in the sink behind her.

'Just don't say I ain't never done somethin' for yous.'

She smiled, a toothy sarcastic smile.

"No promises, Monty."

superb

really something to bite my teeth into

A large amount of henchmen have defected because the other guy has a better dental plan. It's most ironic that the villain they left has a dentist alias.

Rock and stone!

(I admit I don't have enough knowledge on the 1st iteration of the battle of the Somme to do this prompt justice at the moment. I'll read like 1 wikipedia article later and get back here soon as I can)

It doesn't matter where, when or how, we'll make the Jerries quake in their goosestepping boots!

Love this! Quality! Mhm!

What am I even gonna say about this? Its great! Fuck, I love this! I thirst for more!

Now that's good! Absolutely love it! Considering the turret is described as a 'dome' I'm going to assume its gotta be some form of rounded turret, something cast maybe. This narrows our search a LOT. Most of the candidates are going to either be French or American as they love their cast, round-boi turrets.

Personally I'm going to believe its an M46 Patton, for no particular reason at all.

Anyway nice work! Loved reading it!