Contains: Weird Insectoid Alien TF, Tiny TF, violence and death. [Temporary]

The management team from V-LARP: Interlude 1 are back, and enacting on their plan for the Saturday front-line battle. It's John's turn to be the monster, how will he handle it?

John has a bad day

[Aka: Skork goes to war and dies]

John entered the Venn machine with Scott, one of his friends, and who was the front-lines planner of their V-LARP. They were both staff members, and during the Friday night meeting Scott had revealed to John his plans for the Saturday battle between the Orcs and Humans.

John was not looking forward to this, even more dread washed over him once he saw what exactly he’d be turned into. Scott had shown him a picture on his phone of some kind of alien model he had found browsing DeviantArt for inspiration. 

It was some kind of alien insectoid monster, with a towering body and flat carapace head. Scythed claws sticking out its tower body, which melded into another flat carapace lower half with pointed legs, like sharp blades. Like some kind of disgusting insect-taur. It would’ve fit at home in Alien, or Starcraft, or heck even Warhammer40K. 

John was sure people thought it looked ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’ but it wasn’t his style. He preferred the goofy, and more fantasy creatures. Like lobster men, and snake women, or wyverns (Which are not dragons, or vice versa).

The worst part was, John had a massive phobia of insects. Now he had to become one? Crazy, he thought. Couple that with not liking being shrunk, which he had learned after his wife had done so once to spice up the bedroom, which was when he discovered his fear of giants - and John was sure he’d need therapy after today for all of this.

“Awrite Johnny, yeh ready?” asked Scott, in a scottish accent. Funnily enough, everyone just called him Scotty.

“No. And I swear to god, I will get reve-” John was cut off as Scotty pressed the green button on their side of the Venn booth.

John was now the very thing he feared, he tried moving his arms, only to find the scythed claws attached to him. He panicked slightly, causing the legs on his lower half of his body to skitter about on the floor of the booth. John was still panicking when Scotty came round to his side of the booth 50 seconds later.

“Oh, what’s this? A wee bug? Ah guess ah’ll squish it.” Scotty mocked, threatening John with his foot.

John just panicked harder, skittering out the booth and falling down the step onto the floor. Surprising Scotty, who realized immediately he might have gone too far, too soon.

“Relax! It were a joke!” Scotty said, trying to calm John down.

“Ah’m sorry Johnny… Ah didnae mean to panic ye! Ah was just banterin’...” Scott spoke softly, trying to calm John down sympathetically, and lowering a silvery palm sized tray to the 2 inch tall John-monster. 

“C’mon…lets get yeh tae the event, ah promise naybody will step on ya.”

John calmed as best he could. Slowly finding his balance and standing up with the help of his new instincts. He tentatively got onto the silver tray.

“Aye, there ya go wee man.” Scotty said with a smile.

“Listen John, let me remind ya what’s gonna happen, maybe it will calm yeh down.”

John listened to his friend, and tormentor, as he focused on calming himself. Scotty took him to one of the ornate boxes they use to protect tinies during transport to the park enclosure. 

He would be placed in a tiny cage. “Degrading.” John thought. 

Then placed near the kingdom of Stormveil, where Orcs would roll his cage into a building outside the walls. “Shipped off like a dog.” John sighed mentally. 

Then he would be briefed by the Orc priest, and generals, on their plans for him. “Dog of war.” he chuckled mentally, actually finding that one funny. 

And finally, rode into battle against the Elador army. “Or maybe a warhorse.”

“Ya got it John? Dun worry, just hold back. If ye win, ye win. If ya lose, ya lose.” Scotty finished.

“Easy for him to say.” John thought, “He’s not a tiny alien bug!” his panic was now just a general annoyance. Not that he could back out. All the staff had agreed to take turns as the monsters, and it was now part of his job contract to be this monster for this event. 

He pondered this, as his ornate box was opened and he was carried by silver tray to a miniature cage. Not miniature to him though, and very much cramped.

He climbed inside, going in backwards. He had no room to move, and his monster instincts were screaming in protest at the back of his mind. 

“Well Johnny, off to the market with you.” he thought, trying to find the humor in it. 

It all happened according to plan; he had been placed, collected, delivered, and was now before the Orcs.

“Now, let us begin!” said the Orc priest.

“Yes warlock, sir!” said the Orc Generals, raising fists in salute.

“Warlock?” John mused in his head. “Oh that’s right, the orcs think ‘Priest’ is unfitting for godless orcs. That makes sense, maybe we’ll make that change official.”

The meeting had progressed as usual, when to retreat, how they would play it, etc. The biggest exception was John himself, one of the Generals had decided to name him ‘Skork’. 

“Dumb name.” John thought to himself. 

They decided that he would ride behind the platoon, taking a backseat until the Orc’s reached the point they would have to retreat. At which point they would part the shield wall. They told ‘Skork’ that if anyone in the Elador army tried to break in the shield wall during this time, he had permission to go all out on them. The idea is to create an alleyway in the shield wall, where Skork and a party of the back-liners, of the Elador army, would battle.

“Alright, Skork, time to get your harness fitted. Remember. You have to pretend to be hurt when cut, and be controlled by your rider when they move the reins.” the Warlock told him out of character.

Skork nodded his head, bumping it accidentally against the bars, and screeching softly in an instinctual ‘ow’. 

“Oh, right, pain reduction. Still though…ow” John thought.

The warlock chuckled. “Sorry, let's get you out of there…Skork.” he held his laughter.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up buddy.” John swore the entire staff would face his revenge…

The warlock opened the cage latches. Actually ‘Skork’ could’ve busted out the cage, but it wasn’t actually a cage. It was Jake, who was Venned on short notice. John realized he’d likely be Venned into a cage for Jake tomorrow, for Sunday’s monster. John didn’t want to hurt his friend, even though it wouldn’t actually hurt him, still.

“Okay Skork, meet your rider.” the Orc announced, motioning off to the side, where an Orc woman walked in. “This is Grunka, she’ll be in control of you.”

“Grunka huh? I wonder if she is actually a she, not bad but not as cute as Chrissie.” John thought as he sized up his master.

“Hey, Skork! Ready to kick some ass?” Grunka pumped her fist excitedly.

-----

And that was how John, now an alien insectoid monster, came to be staring down the Elador army. Having someone on his back was not comfortable at all. Being two horses pulling a carriage was bad enough, but at least he wasn’t being ridden then. Whatever the monster he was is, its instincts at the back of his mind were very upset at being dominated.

“Skork!” called Grunka. “Skork! Skork! Skork!” chanted the Orc army. 

“Still such a dumb name for something so terrifying…” lamented John in his mind. 

“Oh well, looks like I'm up then…”

Skork watched as the hole in the orc line opened for him and, just as predicted, some opportunistic Eladorians charged the opening.

“No holding back, eh?” John leaned into his instincts slightly, and swiped one of his claws swiftly. The heads, and bodies of the people fell to the floor. 

“Oh god! Oh holy mother of... I’m terrifying!”

A brave man approached, giving a speech about the glory and bravery of Elador and its army. 

“Classic.”

The shield walls, now split. Saw a small party approach him to fight. 

“Oh, jeez, gotta hold back…” he thought as he swung slower this time at the shieldsman. Who blocked him. 

“Nice block, guy.”

Then a woman with two swords got a cut on him. 

“Oh no. I have been injured. Ahhh.” which translated to a screech and rearing back by Skork. 

“This is so du- oh, oops…” he realized he had accidentally stepped on the woman, stabbing her though the abdomen. 

“Didn’t mean to do that…oh dear she’s drowning in her own fluids, oh god, oh god, oh god.” he destroyed her head quickly to end her panic. 

“There, wait, where did the spearman go?” Skork felt his reins dragged to the side as his rider dodged a spear. 

“Oh, there he is. I’ll just…” he swung his claw at the retreating spearman, who was now spearless apparently, but the shield guy blocked it. 

“Wow, nice one, but no problem I'll just…” he tried pulling his claw back but couldn't. 

“Uh oh…” he thought and saw the Beast-kin charging him. 

“Oh no!”

He felt his reins snapped, “Yeah, I know, ‘master’ I’m on it!- woah, my balance!” his claw scythe missed the beastkin because the shield guy tugged him away. His other claw stuck in that shield of his.

“There’s two people on my back now? Oh…i think my rider just slid off…dead. Wellp, time to go berserk.” he jostled his unwelcome occupant off his back and acted confused and flailed about at the Elador army, until eventually they put him down.

“Well that was anticlimactic. At least there were a lot of deaths, short and sweet events are better than long drawn out ones anyway.” John reasoned inside his corpse.

-----

Later, the many cut up pieces of Skork were thrown into the Venn Machine, and out came John, the scrawny nerd with below average features, and glasses.

He sighed. “Finally back in my equally disgusting body…”

“Wow John, that bad? Please don’t call yourself disgusting...” said Chrissie, a short mousy girl in glasses.

“Eh, it had some moments, but I didn't enjoy it. And, sorry.”

“Aww, I was watching via the camera on the outside of the enclosure.”

“The one we use to make marketing material, yeah I know.”

“Right, I thought you were utterly terrifying! It was great!”

“Really? But I died so fast…”

“Eh, it can't always take hours, like in anime.”

“True enough, sweetie.”

“Come on, let's go back to the hotel.” Chrissie winked.

“Oh? Making up for my bad Saturday?”

Chrissie giggled.

“What?” inquired John.

“I have a Venned part of myself I’m dying to show you.” she grinned and turned to walk to the hotel.

John blushed and followed after her. “Maybe today won’t be so bad after all.” he concluded.