BONUS ROUND 4 - PROMPT FUSION

[a1c0bb]

"Fusion is just a cheap trick to make weak prompts stronger!" - a quote from Steven Universe, probably

for this bonus round, it's all about combining two ideas. for example "high school AU" + "secret identity" or "soulmate au" + "mafia au"!

to submit a prompt or fill, reply to this post on Dreamwidth!

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill any prompt (even if it's your own or your teammates)!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:
PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]
if you are participating as a vote-only member, use this format:
PROMPT: VOTER

for your fill  post title, please use the following format:
FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]
if you are participating as a vote-only member, use this format:
FILL: VOTER

POINTS - BONUS ROUNDS
For prompts: 10 points each (maximum of 100 prompt points per team per round)
For fills:
First 4 fills by any member of your team: 100 points each
Fills 5-10: 50 points each
Fills 11-20: 40 points each
Fills 21-50: 30 points each
Fills 51+: 25 points each

Comments

PROMPT: TEAM SARA/NEON

[skatergard]

traveling the world + hacking

this prompt is being posted on the behalf of riot in bloom!

FILL: TEAM CATRADORA

[hopelessgemini]

words: 1001

ship: carmen sandiego/julia argent

extra notes: rauauagh,, i miss these guys sm

This week, they’re in rural Scotland. Julia perches on the armchair beside Carmen and peers over her shoulder at the papers in her lap, hair adorably unkempt.

“And you think this thief is headed where, exactly?”

There’s an unusual edge to her voice. Carmen can’t blame her for it. They’ve been on the move for months now, trying to track down an unnamed thief by themselves. No help, no contact with the others, just them and their slowly dwindling funds, and it’s eating away at them both.

She leafs through the papers instead of dwelling on it and pulls out a map of the sleepy town they’re staying in. “The old war museum.”

“... Why? It doesn’t fit with their pattern,” Jules protests. “By all accounts, they should be targeting the big cities. Why come all the way out here?”

Carmen shrugs. “Just a hunch.”

She makes a face. “Did your hacker friend —”

“No! No. Player doesn’t — I haven’t spoken to him in months. Since we got into this mess.”

Julia’s head tilts to one side. She’s remarkably observant, Carmen notes. “Well, I really hope you’re right. I hope this can all be done with soon.”

\

Four months, two weeks, and five days.

That’s how long it takes.

They don’t catch the thief that night at the old war museum, but they do steal his phone, and from there, it’s simple. Julia Argent, the most brilliant girl Carmen has ever had the pleasure of roping into her dumb amateur sleuthing, hacks in within minutes, and they’re on his trail instantly.

This is where the real chase begins.

The thief — Lucy Adams, 32 — makes it all the way back down into England and hitches a plane ride from Stansted Airport into France. Kind of predictable, actually; Carmen kind of wishes she’d gone for something more daring. A boat chase, maybe.

In a stroke of genius on Jules’s part, they corner her at the Eiffel Tower. It’s all rather grand and dramatic, which is what Carmen had been hoping for. She’d never expected anything like this when she’d gotten into this mystery shit, but it’s a little vindicating, honestly. It feels like she’s part of something bigger than herself, something more than picking up little petty crimes in her hometown.

“You were right,” Julia remarks that night, sprawled out on the shitty hotel bed. Her hair is ruffled again, her clothes woefully unironed — nothing like the neat and tidy student she’d been before Carmen had dragged her twice around the world, nothing like the hacker skilled enough to rival Player she’d first met on an online forum three years ago. Carmen thinks she couldn’t possibly love her any more than she does now.

“What did I say?” she grins. “My hunches are always correct.”

“Spooky,” Jules says. And then — “Carmen, this doesn’t mean we won’t — work together anymore, does it?”

Far too casually, far too openly, she stands up from the window seat and tilts her head to the side to face her, quiet and honest. “As if I could ever get tired of working with you, supergenius. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t see you every day.”

“I’m not that smart,” Julia huffs. Is Carmen imagining things, or is she blushing?

\

Actually, they go their separate ways.

Or, more accurately, Carmen goes back to her friends and apologises for abandoning them in the middle of the night on a wild goose chase, promising to find Julia at their old meeting spot in the afternoon, and sits in her usual seat in her favourite cafe and waits for the better part of three hours.

No message. No call. Nothing.

She’s fine, the barista informs her — fine and intending to pick back up on her schoolwork like nothing happened. She’s still poking around on that old forum and solving people’s random computer issues for them, but she doesn’t answer any of Carmen’s attempts to reach out, and it breaks her a little, if she’s honest.

Carmen does her best not to mope about it, and fails miserably. Zack and Ivy keep her busy by sending her newspaper clippings and old articles, and she keeps turning to her side to ask Julia her thoughts and finding no one there. Suddenly the whole world is a shade dimmer; suddenly the sun doesn’t feel half as bright on her skin. She misses Julia — Jules — like she misses her own right hand.

And, desperately in need of something to do with that new raw ache in her chest, she takes up travelling again.

It’s not like she has much money to do it with in the first place, but she figures she’ll survive a road trip across America. Zack and Ivy offer to come along too — then, when it becomes clear this is a Carmen Thing, they settle for just sending her what money they can so she doesn’t run out of gas halfway to the middle of nowhere and die.

So she takes off.

And everything is fine.

\

Month three post-Julia Argent. Carmen is still, rather pathetically, checking up that old forum. She’s sure Julia’s forgotten all about her by now, but it can’t hurt to look.

This is, in fact, exactly what she’s doing when her computer screen goes white.

She nearly leaps out of the back of her truck. The only thing that stops her from hurling the laptop into the road out of shock is raw instinct and the three words etching themselves onto her screen — Hello Carmen! - Julia.

There’s barely any signal out here, but she digs her phone out of her pocket and tries to call her anyway. Jules picks up immediately, and her voice is crackly and weak from sleep and laughter but Carmen doesn’t particularly care.

“You hacked my computer, Jules.”

Julia laughs. “Good morning to you too.”

“I assume I’ll get an explanation for the vanishing act?”

“You assume correctly,” she says, softer. Carmen hopes, rather foolishly, that she knows she could never really hold a grudge.