Parisian Nightmares

Memory Modification and Marvelous Madness

"You fell out of the sky," John muttered, pointing a single shaking finger at the four very dusty people who had crashed through the ceiling. 

"We're very sorry, Doctor Watson," Penthesilea told him in an icy voice that didn't seem sorry at all. "A thousand apologies for startling you."

"Startling me!? That's an understatement if I ever heard one," the doctor sank to his knees, eyes wide. "Sherlock, this isn't one of your elaborate hoaxes, right?"

Sherlock, however, was frozen in shock, his lips trembling as if he was trying - and failing - to construct a full sentence.

"Again, I apologize," Penthesilea adjusted her collar. "Unfortunately, I am dealing with four irresponsible little ankle-biters who are the only ones who can save us all."

"Yes, there are four of us and we're very stupid, we know that," Luna said meekly.

"Shut up," Penthesilea crossed her arms.

"YOU SHUT UP YA POO," all four of us lunged. 

Penthesilea dodged.

Meanwhile, the owner of the shop had fainted from shock and was peacefully foaming at the mouth. 

"Oh dear," The unfazed young woman announced. "She's passed out." She stretched out her hand and made a talon-like gesture over the old woman's face.

The shopkeeper's eyes fluttered open and she staggered to her feet. She stumbled over to the counter and sat down again, almost as if she had forgotten about us. In a robotic manner, she lifted her hand and turned on the radio. 

"What did you do to her?" asked Chloe.

"Memory modification," Penthesilea informed her. "And I'm afraid I will have to do the same to these two gentlemen." She started walking towards Johnlock, who were both still attempting to register the situation.

"Wait a dam minute," I protested. "Isn't this a good thing? They know about us and we didn't have to organize a fancy exposition monologue or anything. We can just grab the two of them and go back to Paris."

"They are in shock and need time to adjust. Did that not occur to you?" Leia knelt down in front of the two dudes and got ready to do her memory wipe thing again. 

Luna tackled her and she tumbled over with an undignified grunt. 

I gave her a thumbs up. Thank the gods.

"Does anyone have a supermarket trolley we can use?" I asked, moving forward to tie them all up with spare hair ties. 

"Yeah, I just saw one rolling past in the street," Chloe replied, looking up from her phone.

"I'll get it," Ama sped out of the doorway and returned a minute later with the severely battered supermarket trolley. Its wheels were lopsided and the handles were nonexistent, but it would have to do. 

"Now we have to load them in."

- time skip brought to you by Peepeepoopoo Corp. and Gross Oil & Co. -

"Thank you," we waved some random grumpy people out of the shop. They had helpfully loaded the livid tied-up people into the very small trolley for us. I guess we might have shouted at them a bit too much. 

"Does anyone know how to make a portal?" Chloe asked. 

"Actually, no. But I'm sure Henny Penny has a book about that hidden in her jacket pocket," I waved my hand in the air carelessly. 

Luna glared at Penthesilea with the most sinister look she could muster (it wasn't very sinister, but still) and let out a surprisingly harpy-like shriek, "Where's your portal stuff?"

"MMMGRFLSS," She yelled back. 

"Well that's rather unkind," Luna said. She put her hand in Penthesilea's jacket pocket and pulled out a small notebook.

"NGGGG," Penthesilea informed us, wriggling angrily.

"She says the information is on Page 4, next to the index about hypnotic farting," Ama deciphered.

Luna flipped through the yellowed pages to one that was slightly charred at the edges. 

"There's a picture of Rick Astley," she said, dismayed.

"This is great news. Penthesilea knows about Rick Rolling," I screamed, stomping my feet.

"WRONG PAGE, YOU DIMWITS," Penthesilea screamed, spitting out the gag. She grumbled for a bit and began working on the binds.

"Who put the gag on her and did such a bad job of it?" I asked, accusingly.

"It doesn't matter," she shook off her ropes and stomped over, slapping the small book out of Luna's hands. "I'll open the stupid portal myself."

"Ya yeet," Luna whispered, not very menacingly.

The cold, raven haired young woman crouched in a sturdy horse stance in front of the dust-coated wall. She then spun around and gave the wall a mighty kick that resounded through the interior of the shop. 

The concrete wall crumbled unceremoniously to miserable chunks of dust and debris.  

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Ama screeched, jumping up and down in pure panic. "WE DON'T HAVE MONEY TO PAY FOR AN ENTIRE WALL!"

"Patience, Amadora," Penthesilea made a fist and punched the air in the lovely hole she had just created. 

Everyone stood in silence for a while, waiting for something awesome to happen. 

"Well that's just lovely," Chloe complained, breaking the silence. She started to drone about how much she wished she had a book to pass the time. 

As Chloe yammered on, a spinning, silver dust ball had already faded into existence where Leia had attacked the air. By the time I had noticed it's existence, the dot had grown into a fairly large orb the size of a boulder, and was emitting some sort of golden light.  

"Get the trolley with the two characters on it and go through the portal in a single file," she commanded. 

Luna shoved the trolley through the rapidly whirling sphere, where it was promptly consumed by the sifting, silver sand. 

"The portal I used was completely different. This one is lamer," I observed. 

"GO!" She yelled. 

"Jeez, OK," I dove headfirst into the portal. 

There was one very meaningful thing I learned after entering the dirt cloud: do NOT dive headfirst into a portal.

 I spat out several mouthfuls of portal-sand and tried to claw the dirt out of my eyes as the wind pushed me gracelessly towards a small door. "AARHGHGHERHGHHE," I sneezed angrily, trying my best to ignore the sand that had gathered in my armpits. 

At least the view was nice. The sandy desert inside the portal was blanketed by swirls of scarlet dust. Starlight pierced through the red turmoil, illuminating the dunes. It would have been enjoyable if not for the gallons of dust in my lungs.

Something hard hit my ankles, knocking me off my feet. I tumbled off the gust of wind I had been riding on and through a doorway into a dimly-lit grey room. 

"Get up," Chloe leaned over me, hands on her hips. "We're back."

"WAHOOOOOOO," I screamed, disoriented.