But fucking bug people tossing piddling explosives at him 
unprovoked? That was an insult to common decency. This insect 
was a threat which needed dealing with. Zao concentrated, settling 
back into his old, familiar training, and bloomed. It was time to 
Oxidize the world. Despite himself, Zao felt a certain fierce joy. It 
was nice to feel this angry again. He didn't have his old firepower, 
but he had more than enough to face mere bullets. 


Water was a scarce resource on the surface. Soldiers on both sides 
depended on wells dug by the Engineers (or some monstrosity built 
by the Engineers, more likely), or on the infrequent rainfall in order 
to survive. It was likely the Germans Alexei had encountered earlier 
had died of dehydration, not combat-related injuries. 


So it was fairly odd when Alexei found a small pool of relatively 
clean water, a remnant of the stream that had flowed here long ago. 
Sure, a Skinny would have to boil it in order to survive, and his 
Armor would have to filter out the mud, but to him, it was potable. So 
he bent down to drink. 


The water was boiling before his hand could touch the surface. 


Oh, fuck me. 


Zao was bounding now. Not jogging, not running, no, bounding. He 
wasn't even avoiding obstacles; by the time he hit the ground 
between leaps, they were mostly glassy cinders. He was clearing 
rough terrain at an even 20 meters a second, following the old 
stream his quarry was running down. At full size, he could pinpoint 
the insect-man in the winding bed at the peak of each jump. 


The idiot had stopped for water, kneeling dumbfounded at the edge 
of a hastily-evaporating pool. Zao landed, river rocks melting 
beneath him, but before he could leap forward and end it, the 
hitchhiker dove to Zao's right, away from the pool, both guns firing. 
Zao didn't even feel the shots hit home. He reoriented his legs, 
having to balance as the molten rock sluiced about beneath his feet. 


The bug-man was lying on the stones, vulnerable. Zao turned, and 
with one limb formed into an upraised spike, burning white-hot, he 
prepared to finish the fight. 


Splep. 


A tennis ball, smouldering slightly, had just dropped out of thin air 
and begun to sink into the melting streambed, incongruously green- 
yellow against the burning redness. He blinked. It was his serve. 


Figuring that killing the hitchhiker could wait, he picked up his ball, 
grabbed his racket out of its nth-dimensional pocket, tossed the ball 
into the air, and swung... 


Alexei couldn't believe the thing had moved that fast. But it was no 
matter. He could see its arm turn into a white-hot blade; could feel 
the intense, burning heat radiating off of it. He knew it was all over. 


But then it stopped. It stopped to pick up a... tennis ball? And it 
pulled a racket from nowhere. It was distracted. Maybe, just maybe- 
if it was this hot, exposing it to moisture, whatever was left in the 
pool... it would be his salvation. He would extinguish the unholy 
fire! with irradiated German river water. So as the creature swung 


its tennis racket, Alexei lunged as hard as he could... 


Zao felt the hitchhiker tackling him just as the ball hit the racket. No 
matter. Zao would just use the coming inter-universal jump to dump 
the jerk somewhere else. Then he could finish his game and go 
home... 


Later, Zao would think back on the experience, and would think he'd 
done the right thing given the circumstances. Right now, he was 
relaxing. He remolded himself to the long lead futon, stretching out 
his limbs and waving one at the radio, which belched and began 
playing soft, calming music. The filterbirds were happily sucking 
impurities out of the air in Zao's garden as a quiet sunset descended 
upon Xin/Wellington. 


He'd won the game. Somehow, the kid has slipped up long enough 
to let Zao break the tie and win the game point. The kid had stated 
that he'd like to play again sometime. That might be nice. He didn't 
have to play against Huoyao all the time, right? 


It had been a good day. 


Alexei felt the intense heat of the thing for about two seconds, and 
then blacked out. 


When he came to, he was lying in some sort of... large warehouse? 
Alexei was used to small bunkers, or the open sky. Not the strange 
in-between the Crows seemed to have everywhere. It was dark 
here, but not so much that Alexei felt inclined to activate his night 
optics. As he got up, he noticed some sort of instructions on a 
sticker on the wall, along with the Foundation logo. There was a 
number of radios sitting on chargers on a table next to the sign; 
knowing he'd need one in order to communicate with any Skinnies 
he encountered, he took one and attached it to the belt he'd 
recovered in Germany. He allowed the Armor to commit the sign to 
memory before continuing, hardly noticing the yellow line on the 
floor he'd crossed. 


SCP-664: The Floor to Nowhere 


Item #: SCP-664 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: Protocol G-3-16-U 
(containment of geographically immobile anomaly, urban subset) is 
to be followed, with a containment perimeter established at the 
property's boundary. 


Testing is disallowed at this time. 


Description: SCP-664 is an anomaly affecting the approximate 
area contained by the third floor of High School in : 
Pennsylvania USA. SCP-664 is invisible to all observation and 
measurement thus far attempted, and is discernible only by its effect 
on living biological organisms. 


Living biological organisms (tests 5-12 detail species tested to date) 
crossing the approximate outer edge of SCP-664 are invariably 
subject to spontaneous and instant disappearance shortly after full 
immersion into SCP-664's area of effect. Testing to date has yet to 
satisfactorily establish whether time, distance, or other factors 
dictate the exact moment of disappearance. Non-living material, 
including clothing and equipment, are not affected by SCP-664's 
effect. 


SCP-664-1 is the collective term for any living biological organisms 
that re-emerge from SCP-664. To date, 67% of biological organisms 
entering SCP-664 have subsequently returned, with a higher and 
lower proportion for sapient and non-sapient organisms respectively. 
To date, the time recorded between disappearance and return 
ranges from 43 seconds at the lowest limit, to 142 days at the 
highest. 


Returning instances of SCP-664-1 have thus far been unable to 


Suddenly, he heard strange music, and a bellowing voice shouting, 
"I'VE GOT YOU THIS TIME, MOE THE ESKIMO!!!" 


« No, there won't be a prequel, sorry. | Hub | Alexei and the 
Walrus » 


Footnotes 

1. If a genetically-engineered, symbiotic power suit whose bodily 
structures were primarily sourced from cockroaches and fruit flies 
could be called “attire.” 

2. It should be noted that, Oxidists being sapient balls of thermite, 
"springy" and "young" are very much relative terms to them. 

3. "People" again being a relative term, because, you know, sapient 
thermite. 

4. Or one version of it, anyway. And the entirely wrong part of it, too. 
5. Zao really didn't anticipate anything besides tennis. He liked 
tennis. 

6. Zao was familiar with the concept of a machine gun in theory, but 
in a conflict between living tanks and living ultra-high-temperature 
chemicals they hadn't exactly been common. Still, he understood 
the intent of the gesture. 

7. A quite unnecessary gesture, given the reputation Oxidists had for 
taking multiple heavy-calibre artillery hits and holding together. 

8. Extra desolation, that is, on top of the radioactive, post-nuclear 
hellscape that was most of the Northern Hemisphere in this world. 
9. The end result was frequently exactly what you'd expect from 
setting several tons of thermite alight. 

10. Not that Alexei was very religious, mind you. But he knew a 
demon when he saw one. Probably. 


Alexei and the Walrus 


« Retired, Extremely Dangerous | Hub | Alexei Belitrov 
in: How to Beating Up an Endangered Species » 


In case you weren't linked here from the hub or another 
chunk of the story, and the scroll bar thingy above wasn't 
a HUGE giveaway, this is part of a series. The 
collapsible below will give you the long and skinny 
version of the previous installment(s). | recommend you 
read those installments instead, but hey, I'm not your 
boss. Do you, buddy. 


Show the Story So Far TL;DR: 


In Retired, Extremely Dangerous, SCP—2117 
stumbled through the multiverse a wee bit 
while playing tennis and tumbled through 
SCP-2273's containment cell, picking 2273 up 
and rendering him unconscious in the process. 
When he realized his mistake, 2117 stopped 
their multiversal tumbling and landed the both 
of them in the world 2273 hails from. 2117 ran 
off to get help while 2273 was still 
unconscious; when 2273 came to on his own, 
he found some weapons, picked them up, and 
chased after 2117. After a heated (pun 
intended) exchange, 2273 tried to tackle 2117 
as 2117 began tumbling through the 
multiverse again. This landed 2273 back in the 
Foundationverse, but inside of SCP-2424's 
cell. 


And that's where we are now. Please enjoy. 


Alexei Belitrov was having a strange day. Only a few hours before, 
he'd been laying in his bunk, reading a Harry Potter novel, when 


some sort of... fire... bug... thing... had torn him out of his cell (and 
out of this version of reality) and dumped him to die in the post- 
nuclear hellscape he hailed from. Not content with that, however, the 
creature had decided to try to kill him over the course of the hour or 
so he'd been stuck there. 


Now, instead of simply killing him honorably, it had dumped him in 
the containment hangar of an inane purple walrus, leaving Alexei to 
fight it with no real clue as to what was going on. Luckily, he had 
thought to arm himself while back home. 


The purple beast raised itself up and shouted. Alexei took this as an 
opportunity to open fire with his machine gun, and to toss a grenade 
beneath it. Two things happened that Alexei had no way of 
anticipating: as his bullets struck and the grenade detonated, the 
creature flashed bright red, and, as the walrus impacted the ground, 
Alexei was frozen in place. 


Having been in a few earthquakes, and in countless artillery volleys, 
Alexei knew that this was far from a normal reaction to a little bit of 
shaking. But, try as he might, he couldn't move. As he desperately 
struggled to move to cover, the monstrosity before him began to 
shout. 


"Full-auto? Grenades?!? Moe, you're using a Game Genie, aren't 
you?!" 


"I— what?" Alexei felt himself able to move again, but, before he 
could, a cannon inexplicably extruded itself from the beast's mouth 
and pointed at him. With three dull thuds, a volley of slow-moving 
shells began to make their way towards Alexei. He successfully 
dodged the first two, but the third hit him squarely in the chest, 
exploding on impact. 


Now, if anyone had asked Alexei for his opinion, he would have 
stated that such a large artillery shell would not only have killed 
anyone within a considerable distance of its detonation, it would 
have left no corpses as evidence. Fortunately for Alexei, the 
multiverse was not in agreement with this assessment. Instead, all 
that happened was Alexei being tossed to the far wall of the hangar. 


"HA! That's what you get for cheating, Moe! Cheaters never win!" 
The creature then turned its back to Alexei, seemingly done with him 
for the moment. 


"Fuck you, my name is not 'Moe,’ it's 'Alexei!"" he screamed as he 
stood up. 


The creature didn't seem to hear him. Alexei raised his arm and fired 
a short burst from his machine gun, but the creature didn't seem to 
have any reaction. There were no entry wounds, no red flashes. He 
fired another burst and a round from his shotgun ("Running low, 
need to reload the shotgun soon," he thought to himself) and 
listened as the bullets seemed to pass cleanly through the walrus, 
doing no damage and striking the other side of the hangar. Alexei 
reached into one of the ammunition packs he'd recovered in 
Germany and quickly reloaded the shotgun as he approached his 
enemy. He also noticed that the music had stopped. He couldn't 
help but ask aloud, "What... are... you? What is this place?" 


It was at this point that Alexei recalled the signage he'd seen as he 
came to in the hangar. "One step right, one step left, back and 
crouch, back to start, jump, and repeat.' Ok. That's how | fight this 
thing. | can do this." 


He walked up to the yellow line, and the music began again. "Back 
for more, eh, cheater?!" The creature seemed intent on accusing 
Alexei of a crime he didn't even understand. The walrus slowly 
began to turn itself around counterclockwise. 


"No, I'm just here to kick your ass!" Alexei had spent most of his time 
in combat being quiet, to avoid attracting unnecessary enemy 
attention, but he still had a solid grasp of smack-talk. As the walrus 
turned around, Alexei sidestepped to prolong its maneuver as much 
as possible. 


"Quit swearing, Moe! This is a kid's game!" The walrus was still at a 
right angle to Alexei. 


"Fuck you!" Alexei took the opportunity to get closer to his enemy; it 
didn't seem that distance would give the walrus an advantage in this 
fight, and Alexei wanted every chance he could get to make every 


bullet count. "What kind of game has people shooting at each 
other?!" 


"It's just a video game! You should know; you're the player 
character!" Then, after a moment's consideration, it continued "You 
know, Moe, | wasn't going to say anything, but you look VUUUUGLY 
today! What did you do, fall in a vat of ugly?" The walrus was nearly 
turned about now, but Alexei still had a few seconds. He used the 
opportunity to toss a grenade and fire a short volley of rounds from 
his shotgun. "OW! Hey, you're still cheating!" The two were facing 
each other now, and Alexei was ready, if confused at the monster's 
insistence on being inane. 


The cannon erupted from the behemoth's face again. It took aim, 
and fired twice. Alexei sidestepped to his right and dodged the 
projectiles easily. "Ha! You call that a weapon?" The creature fired 
again, three cannonballs moving towards Alexei slowly. He stepped 
casually back to the left. "THIS," he shouted, holding his left arm 
(the one bearing the 23-millimeter semi-automatic shotgun) high, "is 
a weapon!!" He fired two shots then stepped back and crouched. His 
exceptional peripheral vision let him see the single projectile pass 
harmlessly over his head. He stepped back into the spot he'd started 
from and let a ten-round burst from the machine gun loose. 


The beast raised itself up again, but Alexei was ready this time. Just 
before it impacted, Alexei leaped forward, shouting and firing the 
entire time he was in the air. 


The tempo on the music suddenly picked up. The beast looked at 
Alexei as it righted itself and roared, "NOW I'M MAD!" Three 
cannonballs made their way towards Alexei, faster than before. He 
sidestepped, running the sequence through his mind all the while. 
"Right, left, back and crouch, back to start, jump. Right, left, back 
and crouch, back to start, jump." He was nearly hit by another volley 
of three as he went over the steps in his mind. He stepped back and 
crouched, waiting for the next volley to come. He thought he only 
heard a single shot over the increasingly deafening sound of the 
music, somehow missing the second shot. As he stood, it detonated 
directly in front of him, tossing him outside of the yellow ring. 


"WOO! I got him! Did you guys see that?! Did you guys see... 


that.... Oh yeah." The purple pinniped's enthusiasm for his apparent 
victory quickly faded when he remembered that the Emperor 
Penguin and all of his friends had spread out to increase their 
individual chances of stopping Moe, leaving himself behind.