Author Topic: Oh look, it's me  (Read 4357 times)

Oh look, it's me
« on: July 21, 2011, 12:49:02 AM »
I don't post fics because I never get the inspiration to write for them. Except for now.



Background: Lenny Bongcloud is this troll chess player whose 'Bongcloud Openings' generally consists of marching his king up immediately from the start of the game. I was recently invited to join a 'chess' tournament where the goal was merely to march your king up to the other side (whoever checkmates another person accidentally loses), and in a spurt of inspiration this afternoon, I made this: (Post 38)



"Checkmate."


The aging grandmaster stood up from his seat, his opponent still brooding over what fatal blunder lead him to lose to such an elderly opponent. Even though he already retired from active play, the grandmaster was still a grandmaster, and today, nobody could beat him.
The bar was dimly lit, and the air more tense than usual. Only a few games were being played. Several more people sat together, carefully noting the grandmaster's every perk in the hopes of exploiting the smallest error, but he didn't mind them. It was getting late already, and he was old, he needed his sleep. Just one more game, he thought. Just one more game.


The door swung open, and a young man slid inside.
He wasn't a tidy man by any standard. Ripples of dark hair flowed around a sketchy headband, as his dark eyes, hidden behind an old pair of sunglasses, squinted at the grandmaster drunkingly.
"Deud, i baet yuo a chsees maan??"
The old man smiled. He would have something to talk about when he got home.


As they set up the old chess board, he cringed. It would be hard to play against an opponent unable to move his own pieces. Surely enough, the young man could hardly do that, drunkenly moving his king upwards on just the second move.
"Are you sure you're able to think properly, son?"
"Danm rigth, im the KING aftre all."
A childish mistake. Perhaps this drunk just wanted another drink. But he did challenge him to chess, so...
"Son, if you keep moving your king like that, you won't survive ten moves in this game."
"Tlel me taht aftter you losse!!"
He sighed. Oh well, what was he expecting? That a young man dressed like him would play a decent game? It was amazing that he even knew the rules. Or maybe he didn't. After all, he was only moving his king.


The old man jumped a pawn forwards.
"Check."
The young man jumped his king up.
"He must be crazy," the old man thought. "I might as well get this over with. It's late..." He moved up another pawn. It was a certain mate in 3. He had nowhere to go.
The young man jumped his king back.
Why didn't he see that! The old man mentally slapped himself. Maybe it was time for him to sleep. He pulled out a bishop, knowing that the young man would be lured by such a tasty sacrifice.
Sure enough, he fell for it.
"Check." Jumping out a knight, he prepared for the final attack. Just one more move, and it would be over. Just one more move.


But wait! What was this? It was not the knight he jumped out, it was another pawn! The young man greedily captured the free piece, moving closer and closer to the back rank. He could not let this happen! What was this feeling, this feeling of despair, of hopelessness? He knew that he had only one hope, and that was to kill the king, check the king and check it and check it until it couldn't move anywhere and slice it and cut it and kill it until it couldn't move, not because it would be killed but because it was already killed, skewered, pinned, forked, cut, diced, checkmated, captured with the sweep of an en passant-
And again. It happened again, another piece for his taking, but this time, it wasn't just a pawn, it was a big piece, a minor piece, a small piece, a huge piece, the knight that he originally planned to bring about his demise was instead captured, eaten, swallowed whole by this barbarian of a king, this barbarian of a player, this barbarian of a world. He couldn't take it anymore, this fear, this anger. A bishop, now, on the second last rank, a fianchettoed bishop that was unprotected by knight or pawn because the knight was dead and the pawn was dead and now the bishop was dead and their murderer, the heartless, cold, killing machine of a king was right in front of him, and now right in front of his rook, his rook, mounting a final assault on this demon of a king, he couldn't lose like this, yes, a rook is always more powerful than a king, yes, he would win, but no, the king just sliced right through, bombarded his rook and crushed it into a mere pile of smouldering rubble and ashes and wood and dust and now the king was on the back rank, the final rank, the last rank, the line separating life and death and victory and defeat and he couldn't take this anymore, he couldn't continue seeing this spectacle of bloody horrible loss, his entire right wing decimated, thoroughly beaten down and crushed off the board, off the field, off the entire face of the world, and by whom? By that king, the inhuman bulldozer of a being, who had to be stopped at all means, any means. He threw his entire force at it and it just didn't shatter, more pawns, more knights, more bishops, more rooks and queens and kings just to kill this one.. this one THING that couldn't be destroyed and he threw pawns and knights and bishops and rooks and queens and kings and he just wouldn't fall, and at the end after all his men were destroyed he could still only see one thing, one piece, one king.


Yes, that's it, he couldn't win because he saw, he saw too much, he tried to see what could only be felt with the calculating precision of his mind, trained and honed over so ever many years. Wasn't that how he became a grandmaster? With his mind? Not because of something useless like his eyes. No, not just something useless, his eyes were not useless, they were a burden, an obstacle, something even worse than useless or unnecessary, his eyes were evil, his eyes were the enemy. Yes, now if he only didn't have any eyes...


A scream filled the bar. An old man at the corner of a small table. A young man opposite him. An old man, once just an old man, and now a sightless man, a man with two fingers where his eyes should have been. A smile curled up his face, as he realized the situation he was in. Yes, he'd sacrificed too many pieces, but now with his king at the back rank, he could easily kill it with a-
"Checkmate."


What?


"Checkmate."


What?!


"Checkmate."


His lips couldn't move, his mouth couldn't speak. His eyes were bleeding and he couldn't see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste. He couldn't feel anything.
But he could see, and he saw that in his frenetic urge to kill the king he attacked with his own king in the process. Oh, woe, how could his own king, such a weak king, a measly king, win against the barbarian who murdered so many, and so many single-handedly? How could his own king decide to move into the zone of danger, move directly in front of such a monster?


The wail of a siren penetrated the silence, and suddenly, he could hear, and smell, and taste, and speak. The bar was in a frenzy when the door opened and the medics stormed in, carrying the old, aging, blind grandmaster swiftly and silently onto a white, pristine stretcher, so directly contrasting the damp, dark, horror of the bar.
"Wait."
"Sir, you're bleeding, you're going to die if w-"
"Wait." The grandmaster paused. His eyes were hurting. His lack of eyes was hurting. "What's your name, son?"
"Me?" The young man hesitated. "Lenny."


And in all that commotion that surrounded them, a brief silence shone through, a silence that lasted a year, a century.


Lenny took off his sunglasses.


"Lenny Bongcloud."


YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
« Last Edit: July 21, 2011, 12:51:36 AM by Mushyrulez »

Re: Oh look, it's me
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2011, 11:06:02 AM »
I will never look at trolls the same way again. This was hilarious! I should see how it's done a chessboard and see the hilarity that will ensue.

Crow's Dumping Ground of Art

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Esifex

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Re: Oh look, it's me
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2011, 11:30:16 AM »
The only thing I'm thinking, though, is 'what happened to Grandmaster's Queen?' Without using another piece to capture the queen, there's no way in hell a King could've gotten that far.

Re: Oh look, it's me
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2011, 04:57:47 PM »
Oh, he took the queen, I guess.

Paste the following lines into this where it says 'paste PGN'.

[Date "1977.07.20"]
[Result "1-0"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 c5 2.Ke2 b6 3.Kf3 Bb7 4.Kg4 h5+ 5.Kf5 g6+ 6.Kf4 Bxe4 7.Kxe4 e5 8.Kxe5 Qc7+ 9.Ke4 Qc6+ 10.Kf4 Qa4+ 11.Ke5 Nf6 12.Kxf6 Bg7+ 13.Kxg7 Rg8+ 14.Kxg8 Nc6 15.Kg7 Ne5 16.Kf6 d5 17.Kxe5 f6+ 18.Kxd5 Qd4+ 19.Kc6 Qd6+ 20.Kb5 Qc6+ 21.Kxc6 Rc8+ 22.Kb7 Rc7+ 23.Kxc7 Ke7 24.Kb7 Kd7 25.Kxa7 Kc7 26.Ka8
*

(After that, the grandmaster moves his king next to the white king, but I can't really notate that cause it's an illegal move ;)
(Also, since I made this up on the spot, I wasn't really thinking about position etc. The grandmaster's brain starts getting borked at the end so that's why he made all those crappy moves, I guess.)