Shousetsu Bang*Bang

This is the Shousetsu Bang*Bang story archive journal, where individual stories in each issue will be posted. Please visit/friend the bb_shousetsu community for announcements and issues of the magazine, which will appear on a bimonthly basis. You may also join the comm for members-only behind-the-scenes (editorial, design, writing, etc.) discussion, especially if you plan to submit a story.

volume 01, issue 01: La Rencontre
volume 01, issue 02: Tales of Magic and Mystery (Halloween 2005)
volume 01, issue 03: Friend or Foe? (Christmas 2005)
volume 02, issue 04: Sweets for the Sweet (Valentine 2006)
volume 02, issue 05: Second Chances and New Beginnings
volume 02, issue 06: Animal Kingdom
special issue 01: A Maiden's Confidence
volume 02, issue 07: Position of Power
volume 02, issue 08: An Officer and a Gentleman (Christmas 2006)
volume 03, issue 09: Asiaphilia
volume 03, issue 10: May-December
volume 03, issue 11: Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down
special issue 02: Amoris Ignis Perpetuus
volume 03, issue 12: 100 Tales of Horror (Halloween 2007)
volume 03, issue 13: Theme-Less Issue (Christmas 2007)
volume 04, issue 14: Short and Sweet
special issue 03: Time & Time Again
volume 04, issue 15: Pop! Goes My Heart
volume 04, issue 16: Faster Higher Stronger
special issue 04: Haunted (Halloween 2008)
volume 04, issue 17: Theme-Less Issue (New Year 2009)
volume 05, issue 18: A Web Of Intrigue
special issue 05: The Road
volume 05, issue 19: He Blinded Me With Science

August 31 - volume 5, issue 20: Picture Perfect (deadline: August 21)

October 27 - volume 5, issue 21: Ninjas Versus Pirates (deadline: October 16)

December 29 - volume 5, issue 22: Theme-less Issue (deadline: December 18)

by Kuruki (来木)



William Ogden sat down to breakfast. He had a lot to do today, but no machine, including the human body, could run without fuel. Before he could get his fork to his mouth, Sasha jumped on his lap. He stroked the cat with one hand and ate with the other. Across the table, John Rutherford chuckled over his paper. John had claimed for many years to be too old and set in his ways to take on a new apprentice, but when Will graduated three years early from Highgate Academy for Science and Invention, John changed his mind. Will didn't need constant monitoring, only a workshop and enough funds to get started.

( ... )

by Yamanashi Moe (山梨もえ)
illustrated by _reirei



Ky brought me the doll near the beginning of the month. She was seriously messed up. The plasticized rubber on her left arm had melted right off, so you could see the metal skeleton holding her together. Both her eyeballs were cracked and one of the optical connections looked like it was probably severed. I thought she was a white model, but she was so dirty you could hardly tell. Her head was bald, she was greasy and dirty, and one of her nipples was gone.

"I know it's a fixer-upper," said Ky, a little sheepishly.

I gave him my best skeptical look. It wasn't that good. "I'll say."

( ... )

by Usagi Anami (兎あなみ)



Adam liked Carpenter because he had a first name that should have been a last name; because he wore rimless glasses; because he raised his hand a lot and never said anything stupid, and when he spoke he said a lot of words Adam had to look up in the library's big red dictionary later, words like "paradigm" and "juxtaposition". Carpenter did more to help Adam's grades in English class than a tutor ever could.

Carpenter liked Adam's silence. He liked the way the lanky, blond boy would follow him like he was caught in Carpenter's gravitational pull. He liked the way he would punch anyone who called Carpenter a faggot or a pussy, liked his dangerously long lashes, liked the constellation of freckles on his arms, and for a while that was enough.

( ... )

by Arisu Riddle (アリス・リドル)
illustrated by snork_nombly



( dramatis personae )

First things first: I am an evil genius. Two years ago I organised a coup that overthrew the President and Parliament and installed myself as Boss of this country. That's my title, as Prime Minister or President just conjures images of balding men with no spines, Leader has been forever tainted by insane man with daft moustaches, and I couldn't very well be King with my anti-royalist tendencies. So, Boss it is. Dr Nemesis, evil scientist, Boss of his own country. My assistant and right-hand man is Scarface, who has been my trusted companion since we met.

Now that's out of the way, we can continue.

( ... )

by Renaissance Makoto J. (ルネサンス・真・J)



Thanks to scoured for the beta.

"You're a sentimental loser," Brandon said, but he was smiling, blushing, and admiring his hand. He even moved it from side to side to catch the weak afternoon light that filtered in through the trees.

"You love it," Reeve countered.

"I do," Brandon agreed, then tapped Reeve's left hand. "Yours matches. Cute. So, what does all this romance mean, man? Isn't there, like, a question or something to go with all this shine?"

( ... )

by Renaissance Makoto J. (ルネサンス・真・J)



PART ONE

( ... )

by frostfire



It had been a completely shit day--hit off instead of snooze, coffee on the dress pants, mixed messages, missed deadlines--nothing life-threatening, but totally Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad territory. So Dave was already struggling to finish all the crap he had to do when Reggie-the-boss stuck his head into Dave's office and said, "Dave, I have to have those design specs in half an hour and R&D aren't answering their phones, I need you to go down there and physically pry the hard copy from their sticky little fingers, okay?"

Dave carefully did not tell his boss to go fuck himself; instead, he set down the two fistfuls of paper he'd been speed-memorizing and said, "Sure, I can do that." It came out pretty evenly.

( ... )

by MYŌGADANI Mōra (茗荷谷 望裸)



Jonathan is on the floor where he collapsed after they reached the safe house, trying to breathe. His gun is still in his hand, and he supposes, through a haze of oxygen debt, that he ought to let go of it, so he does. It clunks onto the flooring, ceramic-and-plastic against the cheap smokeglass.

Aaron, sitting on the floor near him, is breathing almost normally again, but isn't moving yet.

"Wow," Jonathan finally manages. Aaron doesn't answer, but Jonathan didn't expect him to. If he's as out of breath as Jonathan is he probably doesn't think it's worth the effort. "Are you sure we managed to outrun them?"

( ... )

by Ito Ichiru (糸一縷)
illustrated by Seiwa Kaiyura



A few shops away from the modpod, the nervousness that had been plaguing Aiden all the way spiked. He could see the shop, the cyan holosign glowing brightly over the entrance; he could see the door that he'd walked past hundreds of times in his life, but the thought of walking through it rather than past it made his palms sweat.

It wasn't that his mother would kill him if she ever found out. If he'd been that afraid of his mother, he wouldn't be dating Idris. But it felt as if between the breezy streets of the shopping centre and the inside of that shop was a barrier, made from nothing more than social expectation and his own apprehensions, but as strong as any force field; a barrier constructed to create a precise delineation between what his mother would call "our sort of people" and the "freaks" and to keep those two groups separate.

( ... )

by newtypeshadow



To elf gamers, Jericho was a hero. His virtual role-playing game was the first the magical beings had been able to play in the twelve years they had been public. Magic still played merry havoc on most game systems—electronics, too—but Jericho's company was the first to find a way around that.

So while elves were still secretive on the whole, Jericho was less surprised than most would have been when an elf appeared on his doorstep one evening.

( ... )

by Midori Momo (緑桃)



Dr. Theodore Talbot was exhausted. He rubbed at his aching right temple, fingers coming in contact with the bandage covering the five stitches it took to close the gash in his forehead. The way all of his pains were blurring together, he had almost forgotten it was there.

There had been an explosion. Not in his lab, but in the one adjacent to his. Nevertheless, it had destroyed his lab by blowing through the wall and burying all the sensitive equipment under rubble and debris. The irony was that it had been complete chance that Theo was there at the time. After sending all of the assistants home, he had decided there was paperwork he wanted to put some finishing touches on. The next thing he knew there were MPs digging him out from under what used to be his desk.

( ... )

by shukyou (主教)



"Well," said Rishi, his eyes stung to tears by the absolute white of the hospital room, "here we are," and depressed the plunger on the syringe.


( ... )

by shukyou (主教)



PART ONE

( ... )

by Aoime Kouchou (あおいめこうちょう)
illustrated by gabrielsknife



The charge-chuffs chafed Alizarin's wrists. The scales beneath the cold metal bands were cracked and breaking. He stopped struggling a few days ago, after a Thrihar had jabbed electric prods against his back. If he had been anything less then a Sirocco, the electrical current would have seriously hurt him.

He was grateful for his scales and for his feathers. Both kept him warm in the dank confines of his small cell. When he wasn't tied up to the lighting pipes like a piece of meat, he....

( ... )

by Merci



The black mask was the only bit of colour on his naked body as he floated in the tank. It fed him oxygen as he hovered in stasis, his eyes closed to the world. Sascha Evergraves never knew what her clones were thinking when they were so close to completion. His eyes moved beneath the lids, signalling some sort of dream state, and she tapped her pen against her digital notepad, clacking instructions into her schedule before looking up at her project once more. The red numbers ticked down the time left before she could really dig her scalpel into his flesh. His body was tightly muscled, as his predecessor's had been, with long arms and legs. His flesh was fresh and new to the world, but it would be scarred before she was done with him. Sascha had to make some alterations if he was to fight in this new century.

( ... )

by Merci



PART ONE

( ... )