Crossover Fan Fiction / Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction ❯ Fee Fie Foe Dresden ❯ Corpsetaker's Curse ( Chapter 1 )

Fee Fie Foe Dresden

“Corpsetaker!” shouted Dresden and pulled the trigger of his .44 Magnum at the back of the Commander Luccio’s head.

In another reality, that would have been it and there would have been the usual drama with Morgan and Luccio’s new blonde co-ed body. And the T-rex disrupting the last of the necromancers. Timing is so important.

In this reality, things were a bit different. In this one, Corpsetaker spoke her death curse between him saying its name and the trigger being pulled. It was a moment that stretched to infinity, and the energy above them powered the curse far beyond their own reality. It was a curse for the ages, and it dragged across space and time and linked through the never never since it was Halloween. A time when Gods can die, and must be present to live another year as Gods. And Dresden was Starborn.

“Live again,” cursed the Corpsetaker. And Harry Dresden froze and then blinked.

Someone else looked out through his eyes. He wasn’t the only victim.

“Akito! Akito!” shouted the Asian necromancer next to the chanting Cowl. She yelped on seeing him and pushed him off his platform, causing the energy to explode out of control, lifting back up from its near funnel-cloud state a moment earlier.

“Dammit dammit dammit!” Dresden shrieked and ran towards the center of the storm of necromantic energy. Sue followed all 20 feet of her prehistoric ghoulish glory, and the one-man band bounced in time atop it.

“Yurika!” he shouted. He wildly fired the remaining rounds in the gun, hitting superzombies, Cowl’s drummer, and the other drummer from the last necromancer present before reaching the necromancer answering to Yurika. She seized him and kissed him.

Sue gobbled down the final necromancer and the storm began to slow down and break apart, saving Chicago from what would have almost certainly been over a million casualties and the rise of a new demi-god.

In this reality Morgan got knocked unconscious so couldn’t have his little temper tantrum about his century old crush getting blasted by his latest arch-nemesis. In this reality, Morgan woke up to news that his old lady was also the new model, and wasn’t that just the ham and eggs? So much drama. Carlos was seriously tired of this and wanted a Big Kahuna Burger, and would be having one once he got back to LA. All this soul-ripper sh..stuff was just way too confusing and far too much like Pulp Fiction for his tastes, thank you very much.

“Dresden?” he asked the slightly older wizard in charge of Chicago. Dresden was still smooching the lady necromancer. He was a good foot and a half taller than her. It was actually painful to watch. He eventually just prodded him and repeated his name.

“Dresden. Hey buddy. Stop it. C’mon man. We need to clean up this place and help talk to your cop lady so we don’t get all bogged down with the authorities here.”

Dresden finally broke it off.

“My Akito!” said the girl breathlessly.

“Silly Yurika. I told you I’d find you.” They looked sickeningly in love. Even as a virgin, Carlos was highly uncomfortable intruding on them.

“Are we back on Earth? The sky was green just a minute ago,” asked Yurika, apparently. Why did that name sound familiar?

“Yeah, you broke up the ritual. Good job it didn’t explode and kill everyone for 10 miles,” said Carlos.

“Where’s the Nadesico? Did you teleport again?” asked Dresden.

“Looks like it. What city are we? And why am I speaking English?” asked Yurika. She spotted the tall tower in the distance.

“Is this Chicago? What year is this?” she asked Carlos, turning to him for the first time. Her eyes were huge liquid pools and he fell into a soulgaze immediately. For Carlos, the Soulgaze was music. And Yurika Misamaru was an aria, one of those romantic ones about chasing love. And she had it bad for her next door neighbor Akito Tenkawa, ever since she was little. She was a ship captain… a space battleship captain, highly trained despite casual clumsiness on the ground. And there was also the shadow of memories of Mars and the Jovian Lizard invasion, of space-warping Chulips, of battles and space stations destroyed and tens of thousands of lives lost in battles across the various planets and above them in our solar system. It was jarring. The gaze ended.

“Oh my!” said Yurika. “He’s a wizard. They have magic here. And we’re 80 years in the past.” She looked at Dresden and they both froze into a second soulgaze in as many minutes.

“Akito!” she finally gasped. “You look really weird this tall. And Yankee! Fix it!” she demanded.

“I think maybe we got magicked, too. We’re in somebody else’s bodies. You aren’t in your own either,” he finally said. Carlos was at a it of a loss seeing this.

“It was the Corpsetaker. She cursed you,” he finally said, realizing it was true. “Oh man, this is really weird. Like a 10 out of 10 on the Weird-O-Meter scale. Only Dresden could have this happen. But where’s Dresden if he’s not here?”

“Where were you last, Akito?”

“I was in my Aestevalis, flying patrol with the girls. I hope they’re alright.”

“The autopilot will probably kick in, and they’ll remote it if he can’t pilot it himself,” suggested Yurika, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Now I know how Miss Fresange feels,” remarked Akito-Dresden. “She time travelled into the past, too. About 20 years. We’ve gone quite a bit further.”

Somewhere in the universe, Elise Fresange sneezed and felt outraged without reason.

“Harry? Harry? Can you help me get down?” keened Butters from somewhere nearby.

+++++++++++++++++++

Dresden’s vision went grey and another person was there behind his eyes.

“Dresden? Dresden? I asked you a question,” said the cute little blonde cop, and Dresden’s best friend in the world. Her eyes suddenly went grey and she blinked in confusion, then looked up at him.

“Who are you?” she asked the very tall man who was standing a little close.

“Uh, wait, Taiga? Taiga? Are you?” said the man, looking down with narrowed eyes.

She recognized those eyes. Her husband seemed to be body snatched into this hulking American. Their gazes locked and a minute later she was certain it was him. She kicked him the shin.

“Stupid stupid stupid! This is your fault, somehow, Ryuji. Why did we ever visit that silly Chupacabraland park? Whose idea was that?”

“Yours,” winced the man. She glared up at him.

“Well, it seemed like the nice thing to do. They did help us find a house to rent, and your job is going okay, right?” He nodded. He ran a cleaning service. Lots of places needed help with moldy bathroom tile, and the pink-haired girl Queen at the city promotion office kept finding him work, which was nice. The girls working with her all shuddered at the site of his glare, but he was born that way. At least they would shake it off and kept him busy.

“I hope my baby is okay. This better not be permanent.”

A hatch opened in the floor and a lanky blonde girl of around 20 arose from the kitchen floor. She was wearing a grey hoodie. She climbed up a ladder and clambered out as they both stared, then awkwardly closed the lid and rolled the carpet back.

“Well that’s enough of that. You okay, Harry?” she asked, turning. Catching the expressions she blinked. “Damn. Three lousy days. And who might you be this time?”

“Ryuji and Taika Takasu, mister and missus, of Japan. Where are we? And who are you?”

“Ah, well this is Chicago, Illinois, USA. I am his apprentice, and you’re the latest victim of a magical accident. The last guests were here for 13 days so you probably will be too. Please take good care of those bodies, since the original owners will eventually want them back again.”

“Why are we speaking English?” asked the woman occupying Karrin Murphy’s body. She looked comfortable with it, so probably short where she came from, too.

“Eh, it’s magic. You get some of the abilities of the body you’re in. For instance you can shoot a gun and know martial arts, and you’re in the body of a cop, so we’ll have to get you to call in sick for the next two weeks.”

“Oh. A cop? Maybe I could just pretend to be her?”

“Oh no. Unless you’re used to killing trolls and hunting zombies and werewolves where you’re from? And dodging vampire hit squads. That might not be a good idea. Best stay here behind these wards.”

“Vampire hit squads? Those exist?”

“Not where you live? It’s a thing here,” explained Molly.  

“I understood that Chicago is a ‘rough town’ but isn’t that a little much?” asked Karrin’s face with a confused look Murphy would kill to deny her own face could ever make. Angry she could do, but confused? Never.

Dresden’s face was kind of pinched and eyes were half closed, as if the dim room was too bright. Odd look for him. Molly had known Harry since she had a training bra, and she’d never seen him like this. Stuff like this was really crimping her attempts at courtship. Only Harry could get a body snatching curse that gets a ride-along. That Necromancer lady was sure surprised about that Pregnancy test after two weeks testing the bed springs as Yurika Misamaru with her sweetheart Akito Tenkawa. This might turn out to be a running theme. Oh dear, there go the bedroom eyes.

“There are condoms in the bedside table. Remember to think of this place as home. It will strengthen the wards which protect the place.”

Molly wished that her magic hadn’t fried every Walkman she’d bought since her power came on. Unfortunately she was just a bit too strong, even for a cassette tape drive motor. Batteries went dead in her pockets. Solid state anything was fried like it was too close to a radioactive source. Butters suspected that magic was some kind of dark-energy from the 99% of the universe that couldn’t be detected except by its large-cosmological scale gravitational effects, and the dark energy which kept it from collapsing. He wasn’t an astronomer, but figuring out Harry’s body was a hobby.

The married couple went into Harry’s bedroom and closed the door. Molly suspected that Karrin would be outraged what was about to happen with her body. Molly wondered if she’d end up with a 13 day vacation the next time this happened. If it happened twice, it would probably happen again. That was a LOT of necromantic energy, and it WAS Halloween, and Harry WAS the target of the curse. Weird one though: Live again? Who does that?

++++++++++++++++

Dresden blinked and his eyes fuzzed grey and someone else was looking out from behind them.

“Bugger. This is some kind of Orlon trickery isn’t it?”

“Isambard? Captain Smith,” called a lady’s voice from the other room. She drifted in, wearing sandals and an expression of someone on serious weed.

Molly looked up from her bowl of cereal and sighed, checking the clock.

“Again? Okay, who are you?” Molly asked her boss’s interloper. Possessor? Spirit?

“Isambard Smith, Captain of Her Majesty’s Royal Space Navy, HMS John Pym. And who might you be? And could I get a strong cup of tea. At a moment like this I need strong moral fiber,” he insisted. Molly shrugged and checked a kettle steaming on the wood stove. It was winter and that was the main heat for the basement apartment. She prepped the tea as she’d learned from Luccio on one of her visits here.

“And how about you, miss?”

“Rhianna Mitchell, of New Francisco,” said the hippy occupying Harry’s ex, visiting from LA for fine tuning the Paranet.

“Well, I have news. You are both victims of a magical accident, or curse, but it is temporary and you’ll be back to yourselves in around 14 days. Please take good care of these bodies, since the original owners will want them back in good condition.”

“Magical accident? What year is this?” she asked Molly.

“2006, January. This is Earth, Chicago if you didn’t know.”

“Two hundred years in the past?” squawked Isambard with a very English accent.

“Apparently. Possibly a different universe, too. The circumstances of the accident were very complicated. But you’ll be back to yourselves in a couple weeks. Consider this a vacation, however don’t go outside after dark, and understand that there’s magical hitmen outside waiting to kill you, so this might be a more indoor vacation than you generally prefer. Sorry about that.”

“Not much different than being aboard ship for a long voyage, then,” opined Rhianna. Smith shrugged.

“I hope the owner of this body doesn’t wreck my ship or lose his temper with my pilot. She can be very trying with all those sex jokes,” considered Smith aloud.

“If you end up in the bedroom together, please use the condoms in the bedside table, and remember you’re both wizards so there could be magical consequences to what you’re doing.”

“We’re both wizards?” asked Smith.

“Yes. Me too.”

“Hey Rhianna. It isn’t just you anymore,” nervously joked Smith. Rhianna wore an interested expression and slinked at him then pulled him to his feet and dragged him to the bedroom. Molly sighed. This again.

++++++++++++++++++

Harry’s eyes went grey, again, and someone else was staring out of them, again. This was getting ridiculous. How many times would this happen? Until the energy powering it ran out, and there was a lot of energy. All those Wild Hunt spirits, and the spirits of the dead in Chicago, and several necromancers. Probably years more of this. It was February 2006.

Molly sighed.

“Welcome to Chicago. It is 2006. Do you have anything to declare?”

“Revy is going to be so pissed,” sighed the man in Harry’s body. The shoulders slumped and he looked extremely tired.

“Rock? Rock, you in there?” asked a woman’s voice. Harry’s ex girlfriend staggered into the kitchen. She looked really sick.

“I feel terrible. Get me a bucket. Nevermind,” she lunged for the sink and projectile vomited into it. Black stuff was shooting out. Even her tears were black, like tar or spoiled blood. Smelled awful. She grabbed her stomach and ran for the bathroom slamming the door behind her. More terrible noises.

“Revy? Revy, what’s wrong?” asked Rock.

“Bleurgh. Bleurge. Oh God, this is awful. Make it stop.”

And that was how Harry’s curse accidentally cured the red court vampire sickness. Different soul in the body, sickness couldn’t coexist. Sometime later, there was Gatorade, and bourbon. And stories about life in New York, the gutter of Chinatown, and a very bad childhood. And the no-so-fun conditions of a salaryman in 1998 Roanapur.

“Hey how come its so dark in here and no electricity?” asked Rock eventually.

“Eh, well, you’re victims of a magical accident, but wizards have problems with technology. No cellphones. No computers. We fry them just being close by. So even though you’re eight years in the future, we’re forced to live in very primitive ways just to cope. And that goes for you too, while in this body,” Molly said, pointing at Rokuro. “That’s a wizard’s body. Don’t wreck it because he’s going to want it back in two weeks. And you’ll be back in Roanapur.”

“Where IS Roanapur? Is that Vietnam, Phillippines, Indonesia, Thailand, or Malaysia?” asked Molly, seeking clarification.

“Eh? Kind of complicated answer.”

“Nevermind then. Anyway, if you want to go outside, let me know and understand there are vampire hitmen outside, gunning for your bodies.”

“What me?” asked Rebecca.

“Yes, even you. All that black stuff was proof of your former problem, a sort of vigilante who hunted and killed vampires, but could only do it because you were partly one of them.”

“Really? Huh. Hey, are these stretch marks?” she asked lifting her shirt.

And that opened a whole big other can of worms.