Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving (for those who celebrate it). And that you didn't eat too much! This week's prompt is: brash Have at it!

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Ooooh, mylari, I think Princess has an idea or two LOl

Mylari: You're not last, it'll take me forever to catch up, LOL. I'm trying to focus on the gift fic. I might end up skipping a bunch rather than setting myself an impossible goal. Anyway, I really liked this ... Princess I'm sure was worrying herself sick wondering if her little plot with Jason had gone horribly wrong! (Or Jason was lying and she didn't realize what he was up to, maybe he just asked her what her favourite cake was, hehe.) Poor Mark's gonna have a heart attack soon with all this stress. *grin* I bet he's feeling more stressed out over this stuff than he does for some missions.

Oh, for sure this has him freaked out a bit. He's way out of his element. He knows what to do on a mission, he's trained for that nearly his whole life. This is something very different and while he's not likely to die if things go wrong, he might wish he would. Chris, the reason I did these today is that I was feeling stuck in general today. I couldn't even get a grocery list going & I needed to try something that might kick start me into activity of a sort. Something short and light. Thankfully it seems to have worked. Now hopefully my homework will go as quickly...

Good luck!!!

This is just a quick post to keep this thread from being out of sight for too long!

Dangerous words, Princess, "I'm sure you're spontaneous in your own way". Dangerous words!

Mylari, I hope Mark recognizes an opportunity when he sees one!

Geez, this has been one weird week for me! Anyway, here's my response! ========== Jason arrived in the Main Courtyard of the Gatchamania.net website without any fanfare. This wasn't out of the ordinary -- he'd been here plenty of times before, both in and out of BirdStyle, that he no longer stood out. Plus, he'd arrived without letting anybody know he was coming; no doubt 7-Zark-7 neglected to tell anyone here who or when anybody was coming when the Gatchamaniacs requested some assistance in investigating ... Zark never said what, exactly. Typical stunt for that overrated rust bucket to pull on him. But it would be wrong to say nobody was there to greet him. A small, tan and white-colored fox carefully made its way over to him. This was downright brash for an adult Fennec to act this way -- Jason hadn't been at the site much since the Fennecs had arrived to establish much of a repertoire, so they would usually hide and watch until they determined that he had no ill will toward them. "Hi there, little fellah." Jason said to his welcoming committee. The fox had an expression on its face that wasn't one of welcome ... it looked like a blend of pleading and something else the Condor recognized but couldn't quite place ... Suddenly, he realized what it was. He scooped up the Fennec, raced over to the nearest garbage receptacle and held the canid over it. He was just in the nick of time -- the fox became violently ill. A few minutes and a couple of dry heaves later, Jason shifted around so that the Fennec was in one hand and the other hand was free. "Are you plastered," Jason asked in a quiet tone, "or did you just get hold of a bad can of dog food?" The Fennec let out a low moan. Even though he saw the back of the fox's head instead of the face, Jason could tell the little critter was feeling miserable -- the ears were held parallel to the horizon instead of straight up. He gently stroked the area between the long ears. "Oh no!" a voice called. A woman seemed to appear out of nowhere and stood across the trash can from Jason. "Flash, how did you get drunk again?" she stroked the Fennec's ears as she spoke with what sounded like (to Jason) an eastern European accent. Flash's stomach let out a disturbing gurgle. "You might want to step back a bit," the Condor warned, "I'm not sure if the puke cannon's out of ammo." It took a moment before he recognized her; it had been a while since he last spoke to Victoria. She took his advice. Then she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw another Fennec. This one was tall, thin, and pointy -- its muzzle, ears, and tail came to a sharper point than most other Fennecs. It took a couple of careful, deliberate steps, stumbled, and then caught itself. "Yip!" the fox squeaked as it looked up at Victoria. It wagged its tail...sort of. Instead of going back and forth, the tail moved up and down. The woman clicked her teeth. "Eliska, not you, too!" "Yip!" She carefully picked up the Fennec and moved over to stand beside Jason. "Just in case." "So, is this why I'm here? Because you've got some critters that can't hold their liquor?" "Actually, I thought we'd taken care of this problem." she replied, "But I guess not." "So what is the problem?" "I don't have the details -- " Victoria said with a sigh. "-- I've been busy preparing things to help these little darlings recover from hangovers. But, when it seems safe to move Flash and Eliska away from this dustbin, I can take you to the Fennec Room." "Why --?" "It seems to be the temporary headquarters of Gatchamania." * * * * * No way. No freakin' way! Gary stormed down one corridor after another. After everyone cleaned up the broken bottles...after everyone restacked the boxes so no more would fall and people could move around the room to make sure everything's okay...after plugging every possible Fennec hole -- even Cep went through and double-checked!...it's gotta be a bad prank! He was still the embodiment of fury as he entered the Fennec Room. But every bit of anger and frustration fell away when he saw the table near the center of the patio. Stavros was spread-eagle in the middle of the table -- Gary had no idea foxes could splay out their hind legs like that -- with his eyes closed. The Gatchageek then noticed ElectricWhite on the other side of the table; her head was down. Oh no. Gary crouched down until he was at eye level with Stavros. He couldn't tell if the fox was breathing. Oh no no no! Just then he was hit by the concussion of a Rottweiler-sized burp dripping with the stench of partially-digested bourbon. Gary jumped back and went into a coughing fit. EW lifted her head just enough to quietly watch. "That can't be bourbon!" he finally sputtered. "Then somebody's given him a bottle of ouzo." she replied. Rachel came in through another entrance. She carried a tray with a small pitcher of warm tea and six small cups on it. She set the tray on the nearest table end and then filled one cup with tea. She set the cup before the fox and held her breath. At first Stavros didn't move. But then, ever so slightly, his nose twitched. His eyes opened. His lips seemed to form a grin. He sat up and started drinking. Jason and Victoria entered then. Victoria set Eliska on the table while Jason handed Flash to Gary. Gary stepped around the table and handed the elderly fox to ElectricWhite. "Aw, Flash," EW gently scolded, "what am I going to do with you?" Rachel took that opportunity to step away from the table. While she was curious about what was happening, she didn't want to be in the way, and she especially didn't want to get drafted into caring for sick Fennecs -- she wasn't sure if she had the knack for meeting the needs of these exotic animals. She stepped over to a low-set pile of rocks that was just far enough away to keep her out of the main line of vision but not so far away that she couldn't hear the conversation. "...based off of the conversation I had with Zark," EW was saying to Jason, "I was afraid we wouldn't get any attention from you guys unless we had a naked volleyball tournament on that island on top of Center Neptune!" "I'm here now." the Condor replied, grateful that the Gatchamaniacs did not resort to that measure. "So what's going on, besides little fox benders?" "I hate to admit it, but we wouldn't have known about the bourbon if these little guys hadn't gone on the first round of benders." Jason gave her a blank look. "It looks like somebody's using the Gatchamania site to hide a lot of stolen, premium bourbon." "What makes you think that?" "Well," EW said, taking a deep breath, "the only place you'll find 195 bottles of Pappy Van Winkle 20-year bourbon is at the distillery, which was robbed early in 2014." "Retail value of $26,000." Gary added. "And a whole lot more on the black market." Jason said. "Exactly." EW replied. "And you think Spectra's involved?" "We're not ruling out that possibility." she answered. "But I'm leaning more that way." Gary said, "Whoever did this was able to slip in a huge amount of bourbon and store it here without anybody having a clue. I figured they had to at least have access to advanced technology in order to slip past Cep." Jason nodded as he took this in. "And they probably weren't too bright when it comes to real-life stuff; they did a bad job of stacking the boxes. A couple of them fell, bottles broke, and the Fennecs found it and lapped it up." EW added. "Didn't you do anything to keep them from getting drunk again?" "Oh, did we!" Gary cried. He waited a moment for Stavros, Eliska, and Flash to stop complaining before launching into a fairly detailed account of the cleanup efforts that had been taken. Rachel's attention was pulled away from the conversation. She looked down at the pile of rocks on her left side. She had the strange feeling she was being watched, but she only saw the mottled patterns of browns, tans, and cream colors with a few black spots. Some parts of the pile was barely higher than the patio's surface, while other areas almost reached her knee. She tried to shake off the feeling and return her focus to the table. "...could've sworn all the holes were plugged." Gary said. "Well," EW replied, "I guess we'll have to have a team devoted to nothing but keeping the Fennecs out of certain areas. It'll just kill me if these little guys..." Her voice broke as she quickly closed her eyes. "If they're so badly hurt from this..." Flash looked up at her with concern on his face. He eased himself up until he could kiss her chin. She opened her eyes. "Aw, Flash..." she whispered. She nuzzled him in spite of the smell of aging nausea coming from him. Jason and Gary awkwardly shifted their weight from one foot to another while Victoria slipped over to whisper a few comforting words to EW. "Maybe you should take me to where this bourbon is." Jason suggested. Gary nodded and led the Condor out of the room. EW regained her composure just as rachel had taken a step in her direction. But then she noticed that both Victoria and EW had a strange look on their faces while they were looking in her direction...no, they weren't looking at her...they were looking at a spot beside her. Rachel looked at the rock pile beside her and saw only rocks. "Soo," Victoria finally said, "what do you think you're doing?" Rachel jumped back a tiny bit as one of the rocks stood up and wagged its tail. Soo jumped off the rock pile and stood in front of rachel. The Fennec seemed to laugh as she looked up at the human. She then turned and darted off into the sandy region. Each time her front paws touched the ground, she let out a tiny squeak, so that everyone left on the patio heard "[I]Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee

"How did you know she was there?" rachel finally asked. "Well," EW replied, "it was probably easier for us to see her because of the angle we were looking from." "And she blinked." Victoria added. * * * * * Jason cast his eyes about the storage room as Gary led him along the rows of stacked boxes. "195 bottles, huh?" "More like 190 now." Gary replied, "A box fell and some bottles broke." "And that's how the Fennecs got drunk?" "Yup. They came in through the air duct and drank whatever seeped through the cardboard. We thought we'd fixed the problem -- we welded a grate across the air duct so they couldn't get in without driving a Sherman tank." "But they found another way in." "Apparently. And I can smell -- " They froze. There was a skittering sound not too far away. Jason signaled to move ahead, which they did. Quickly. Quietly. The very last column of boxes on the right was leaning, and the top box was missing. They carefully moved around the stack. "A sinkhole!" Gary gasped. The floor had given away near the stacked boxes, and a leaking box was precariously balanced on the edge of the hole. Jason carefully approached the hole and peered inside. "Try tunnels." he said, "It looks like they go off in at least four directions. We're too big, but I think Keyop might be able to squeeze in." "Tunnels!" Gary slapped his helmet. "Of course! I see those Fennecs digging all the time! Why didn't anybody think of that?!"

Gah, I am slain by the cuteness in that fennec pic. Uh oh, have the fennecs literally been undermining Gatchamania??? (undermining was a physical thing medieval soldiers did, digging under the walls of a castle to weaken them, not that I'm saying the fennecs were doing it for any reason other than the fun of digging!)

Tunnels, oh goodness what else have the little dickens gotten access to.

If the Fennecs have been digging, wouldn't their paws be dirty since the bourbon is spilling and would be in the dirt?

Becky -- Adult Fennecs are generally pretty meticulous about keeping clean...and I'll bet the high-end bourbon gave them an added incentive to bathe themselves!

Wooo! I wish I had a fennec here so we could be drunk together! I wish I had a drunk fennec to attack the Eagle together! Oh, such joyous thought! My cheeks are getting all hot! There's snow in here and in less than five hours I have to get up for work, but I'm still awake and really hungry, so I think I better go to bed, and big cheers to EW, I'm enjoying this a lot.

I think Mark is in a fix, Mylari. Just what is he going to do with that whip cream?

Originally posted by Becky Rock I think Mark is in a fix, Mylari. Just what is he going to do with that whip cream?

Why, put it on the cake, of course!

Princess may have other plans for it.

Originally posted by ElectricWhite

Originally posted by Becky Rock I think Mark is in a fix, Mylari. Just what is he going to do with that whip cream?

Why, put it on the cake, of course!

Sorry, Becky, I forgot who posted the question! If I'd remembered, I would have had "Becky, I'm joking!" in my post.

Actually, I've put whipped cream on cake before, EW. It's gooooooood.

I've done that, too. (Considering how strong diabetes is in my family, I've really lived life dangerously as far as sweet stuff goes!)

I swear EW that our bodies are huge brats. Diabetes runs in mine too and I have a massive sweet tooth.

My husband has diabetes and has found he can eat sweets in moderation as long as he keeps his carbs in check and keeps up with his meds.

Ah, if only I could do everything in moderation, then life would be much easier. *grin*

Glad to see that you're still continuing with the story, mylari! And yes, whipped cream on cake is good! (Sometimes icing is too sweet.) LOL. EW, this story reminds me of the drunk/drugged Galactor rats that had a rave party in the Snack.

It HAS been a while since the GalactorRats made an appearance...hmm...

Uh oh. The wheels are turning in EW's head.... Get it? Wheels?

Ooh, Becky, you're starting to get dangerous!

Sometimes I can come up with one.

Becky's on a roll.

I think I'm going into shock! First Becky got a joke, next she cracked a joke...all in just a few days...I-I might have to go to the ER....

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Go get 'em, team!

Originally posted by ElectricWhite I think I'm going into shock! First Becky got a joke, next she cracked a joke...all in just a few days...I-I might have to go to the ER....

Don't do that, EW. I think I hit my quota for the year.