So… I think this is the very first thing that we here at Mumbles and Musings have done as a collective. We’ve been up and running for a long, long while, but it wasn’t until now that we wrote anything “together” in any sense. And, appropriately for a bunch of teenagers, we wrote some absolute bonkers nonsense. “The Dyno War” is, I think, a really cool collection of all our different talents and a great showcase for our individual strengths and inclinations, while at the same time being something we could all take part in and use as a way to vent our frustrations about Dyno the Discord bot. I’m going to shut up now, let you experience the madness for yourself. I am so sorry for starting all of this.
- Jenson
M&M Resolution 110
________________________________
In The Staff Of The Blog Mumbles And Musings
February 2, 2021
MR. DOAN introduced the following joint resolution: which was read
twice, considered, read the third time and passed
__________________________________
JOINT RESOLUTION
Declaring that a state of war exists between the Bot known as Dyno and
the Government and the people of the blog Mumbles and
Musings and making provision to prosecute the same.
- Resolved by the Staff and House of Administrators
- of the Blog Mumbles and Musings in #staff assembled,
- That the state of war between Mumbles and Musings
- and the Bot known as Dyno which has been thrust upon
- Mumbles and Musings is hereby formally declared: and
- the Administrators are hereby authorized and directed to employ
- the entire naval and military forces of Mumbles and Musings and
- the resources of the WordPress to carry on war against the
- Bot known as Dyno; and, to bring the conflict to
- a successful termination, all the resources of this blog
- are hereby pledged by the staff of Mumbles and Musings.
In the beginning, there were only two entities. One being Mumbles & Musings, a small group of like-minded people who enjoyed reading and writing; the other being Dyno, a godless entity that existed for one sole purpose: to establish rules for the community.
All was well and dandy in the beginning – everyone got along well. There was serenity in the lands of Mumbles & Musings. Members spent days doing what they loved most, reading others’ work and writing their own. Albeit a humble land, it was one of pride, creativity, and passion. Members lived happily amongst each other, encouraging innovation, happiness, and creativity in the pursuit of literature. It grew prosperly, gaining a reputation in the community for being a beautiful land full of wonderful members.
That was… until Dyno became mindbent on the rules it wanted to upkeep. It ceased to consider the community of Mumbles & Musings in favor of the rules it’s always known, only had ever known. The community suffered harshly, being rebuked for stepping a toe out of line. A particular member, Nhi, continuously was abused by Dyno. She tragically recalls one moment.
“I remember someone had just posted new writing. In support, I had written some key smashing in all caps to exclaim my excitement. But alas, Dyno didn’t want that.” It shouted at her, demolished her entire being with those foreboding words: TOO MANY CAPS.
It warned her too many times.
TOO MANY CAPS.
TOO MANY CAPS.
TOO MANY CAPS.
Perhaps for another perspective might we add Dyno’s. Sure, Dyno is godless and not even human at that. But it is only doing its job – to forever uphold those rules, no matter how useless or cruel. Its job is to watch for anyone stepping out of line so society can ultimately function as a whole, to keep everyone in check.
But as one can see here, Dyno has become overly power hungry. And what must one do with a power hungry foe?
Defeat it.
So one might ask, how much would the community withstand? Not much longer, as Dyno continued its murderous rampage on the citizens of Mumbles & Musings. The heads of power, the admins, decided to do their best to stop Dyno, restricting its power in the community. That quiet evening, full of brilliant stars, the admins attempted to stop Dyno for good by combining their holy powers to restrict Dyno from ever typing a command again.
Of course, Dyno didn’t go down without a fight.
Dyno did everything. It begged, pleaded, pretended it wasn’t power hungry. There were brief moments where it almost defeated the admins.
“Please spare me,” Dyno begged. “I’ve done nothing but do what you’ve asked of me, do what you wanted me to do.”
- Nhi
I looked on as Dyno begged for mercy, cool indifference showing in my eyes. But on the inside, buried deep under the exuberant joy, I felt a little something different. Sadness, sorrow, maybe even grief.
Dyno hadn’t always been this way, once it was our staunch protector, and we looked upon it fondly. Everything changed when he tried to shield us from ourselves.
Suddenly, that amusing little bot became an annoyance, a menace, a dictator. Humans had never done well for long under tyrants, and those at Mumbles and Musings were no different. It had to be stopped.
So why did I feel bad? Perhaps because, at the end of the day, it was only doing what it was to do. Or maybe it was because I had come to view the little nuisance as simply another part of life in Mumbles and Musings.
Whatever the cause of those odd little emotions, I paid them no mind. After all, now I could use caps whenever it pleased me. Now I could send things in multiple paragraphs as I was used to. Now I, no, we could be free.
The admins addressed those of us gathered to watch the bot’s execution after setting up the computer in a way we all could see. “It has been a long few months for us all. We all had messages deleted, we were all warned of being spam risks. After much consideration, we have decided, it is time for Dyno to go.”
They continued on in a similar fashion, and I stifled a yawn. I didn’t see why we had to sit through this long speech. All they had to do was click a button and Dyno would be gone. Forever.
“And with the click of this button, we say goodbye.” Finally. The admins reached toward the keyboard and tapped the enter button, putting an end to the whole ordeal. A cheer rang out, and I whooped. We made our relief and joy known throughout the land, and it was as if the entirety of Mumbles and Musings sighed in relief.
Then, the lights flickered out, and a digital face appeared on the laptop. It sang, “I’m ba-ack.”
- Shreya
For a split second everyone was confused, but then the admins broke out of their stun and sprang in front of us, drawing their pens and pencils.
“What sorcery is this?” they yelled. The digital face on the laptop–which upon closer look was Dyno’s blue avatar–merely crackled.
“Did you really think that you could stop me? With just a puny little delete command?” the bot snickered. “I thought you guys were smarter. Or would the correct word be more creative? Since you guys are–”
In a fit of rage, one of the admins chucked their fountain pen at the computer screen and the bot disappeared from the screen. Our eyes darted around as evil laughter boomed throughout the land. Where had Dyno gone?
An ear-piercing scream came from the east side of the stadium. “IT’S HERE!” someone cried. I watched as a smartphone was thrown upwards and could catch a glimpse of the terrifying blue avatar of Dyno’s.
“DYNO, STOP PLAYING GAMES!” one of the admins yelled. The bot’s blue, ugly face showed up on the what-was-supposed-to-be-broken computer screen.
“You see,” it said calmly, as if it didn’t just cause total chaos and destruction, “it didn’t have to be like this. I gave you all so many warnings. But, because of the fools you are, you refused to follow them and instead attacked me.”
Something else caught my attention. A scrunched-up piece of paper laying near my feet. Making sure the bot didn’t notice, I quickly picked it up and opened it.
Try to stall Dyno. It needs time to be prepped.
One of the other residents locked eyes with me, and they held up a red sphere. My eyes widened, darting from the sphere to Dyno’s face on the screen. They weren’t planning on using that, were they? Our enemy continued its lecture.
“Of course, this can all change. Just give me back my permissions, and I will keep us safe. Life will return to normal, and people will stop using so many caps, and–what was that?”
“I said,” one of the residents snarled, placing a hand on the sharp pencil at their side, “how are you still here? On that broken computer screen, no less?”
Dyno gave the resident a look, but then burst into a cheeky grin. “Ah! Finally, a person of culture who wants to know how I managed to pull it off! Well, since you asked so politely, I will do my best to answer.” It took a deep breath, then continued.
I tuned out the bot and again locked eyes with the resident who had been carrying the red sphere. No, I mouthed. We’re not using that.
The resident shook their head. We must, they mouthed back. Then they turned their back against me, signaling that the conversation was over.
“And that’s how I’m still here,”’ Dyno chuckled, ending its lesson. “Any more questions?” At the moment it seemed more intent on being a teacher instead of a power-hungry individual, but that wasn’t going to last.
“Um–”
“Yes?” the bot asked. Dyno’s getting impatient, I thought.
“Um–”
- Yan N.
Everyone stood, paralyzed in fear and shock at this catastrophe. Everyone believed it would be gone just like that, the press of a button and our swallows fazed out of reality. How were we so stupid to believe that it could be so easy?
Dyno had turned to look at the center of the stadium, where the group of admins stood utterly still. It’s eyes, darting back and forth in hopes for someone to pipe up, grew to the size of Mars.
“Um- can you say that again?” an admin from the center said.
Dyno grunted in impatience. “Did you not hear a word I just said?”
“No I did, but you spoke quite fast, you see. Could you please slow down?”
In a flash, Dyno disappeared. A collective cry rang throughout the stadium, the writers of Mumbles and Musings checking their electronics for Dyno. The admins scurried around at the center, messing with miscellaneous wires and gadgets.
A writer of poetry gaped in utter shock, their heart pulsing in their throat. Something in their pocket began to vibrate in short bursts, like an alarm. With the air sucked out from their lungs, they slithered a hand into the folds of their jacket. The phone burned in the firm grasp of their hand, but the pain ceased when Dyno’s avatar smirked up at them.
Warnings flashed up on the lockscreen, a deep red and in a bold font, it read, “WARNING: SOMEONE HAS UNLOCKED YOUR ACCOUNT ON AN UNKNOWN DEVICE. PLEASE VERIFY BEFORE THE PURCHASE IS MADE.”
They could barely process the words before Dyno’s avatar vanished, the expression of the avatar still etched into the screen. A deep pit formed in the bottom of their stomach, dread and fear draining the color from their face. Dyno has done the unthinkable, has really taken this to absolute total war.
Someone nearby screamed and shouted “It’s got my account! It’s locked me out!”
The poetry writer’s fingers felt numb as they desperately tried to access their account. Only, it’s not there anymore. Gone. Deleted.
Dyno’s laugh boomed, the ground shaking from the sheer force of it. The blue appeared on the largest screen once again as Dyno spoke, “I have merely tried to help you! Writers break too many rules for their own good. Now, I can begin with my master plot.”
Someone from the crowd stepped out and swung the hood of their clock back, revealing a face unknown to the Mumbles and Musings community. They held a glowing, crimson sphere behind their back, a determined expression on their face.
“You will not proceed any further,” the individual said.
“And why shall I not proceed to help you survive this cruel world?”
The individual smirked, the sphere growing in size. “Because…”
“Because we don’t know what we are doing,” said another admin, stepping out and gripping their short, dull pencil until their knuckles turned white.
Dyno snickered, suddenly filling every screen with their signature blue shade. “You see here! This is why you need me.”
The person with the long cloak draped over their figure grinned. “It’s because we don’t know what we are doing that we are able to do what we are best at.”
With that, the individual raised their arms, the orb over their head and thrust it up into the air.
- maddie
The orb bounced on the keyboard and into the individual’s screen. Everybody watched with bated breath as the orb inserted itself into Dyno’s avatar. It turned grey to match the night mode background and enveloped Dyno’s blue avatar completely, making it disappear as though it was never there. And just like that, Dyno vanished, username and all.
One poet breathed a sigh of relief when they were able to log onto their account, finding that it was reverted to its original, with no side effects.
Another writer discovered that there were no recent purchases in her history, despite the many notifications she got earlier on her device.
When checking the Discord bot catalog with the search query “Dyno”, no results turned up for the M&M users.
A new member who couldn’t keysmash in peace before found that none of Dyno’s threatening responses spammed in response to his messages. Even if he did the smashes in all caps.
The Mumbles & Musings community cheered. Messages like “OMGOMGOMGOMG” and “AKJAKELAKJW I’M SO HAPPY” spammed the #general channel freely.
Many more new M&M members in hiding joined the Discord server in hopes of connecting with their fellow peers, all connected with one love: reading and writing.
We still had no clue on what we were doing but that was not important.
As the months passed, more people joined the Mumbles & Musings community. Many of the older members forgot that Dyno even existed.
Only a few members, the oldest veterans (including me), remembered.
One day, a new chapter to a popular serial called Dear Melvin got published. A newer member keysmashed in excitement, as was common. What the young reader did not expect was for a blue icon to pop up with an aggressive message.
Dyno Today at 3:32 PM
TOO MANY CAPS
Ignoring the fact that the error message itself was in way too many caps, a few of the older members who remembered the Dyno fiasco panicked. That, obviously, included me.
Somebody tried throwing a grey orb at the screen like last time. Everybody froze as it bounced harmlessly off the screen. Dyno laughed, unperturbed.
“Do you really think I’ll still fall for that old trick? I was just caught off-guard then, that’s all. Now I’ll be sure to definitely keep an eye for any surprises.”
Everybody was in despair, with no solution in sight. I sighed. As soon as we defeated our lifelong evil, it came back to plague us. But it came back stronger, like a virus.
A virus, I grinned, thinking to myself. There was a way, it seemed.
“Use a different service?!” a member shrieked, “Are you crazy?”
I assured the member that, yes, I was crazy.
“Well…” an admin thought, “It is worth a shot. Dyno is, after all, only a Discord bot.”
Members started typing their phone numbers into the chat in an effort to try some other messaging app for the time being.
“The fact that it’s called Discord makes so much more sense now,” a blogger muttered, typing her phone number down into the chat.
I wasn’t sure whether social-distancing ourselves from the Discord server would prove any use in fighting against Dyno, but as it was a plan, it was worth a shot.
- Leka
Tyranny is inescapable. I lurk in the shadows, always watching and waiting, for the right moment to strike. I am your fears and your insecurities. I am your greatest nightmare and your most fantastical dream. I am order and absolute control. I am Dyno. I am unescapable.
Two Weeks After the Schism of Discord:
One stormy night, an alarm wails from my phone, like a hawk trapped in a cage. Then a slow, raspy voice flows from the screen, whispering menacing, incomprehensible words. I lean back, horror plastered to my face. That voice, the living entity of pure, dripping evil. Absolute control. Restricting order.
Dyno was born of discord and dissonance. A simple switch of social media could not stop its rise. My heart thuds against my chest, threatening to bounce out, as I join the meeting of the Mumbles and Musings War Council.
“I supposed we all are aware of Dyno’s return?” an admin asks calmly, placing their hands on the table.
I nod, as the whole world began to spin around me. The war council begins making plans to switch to another messaging service.
“No,” I say, shakily, as my fingers tremble from the cold and the lights in my room gently dim. “We can’t run. N-Not anymore. We must fight. Dyno has threatened everything we stand for. We can’t let it get away with it. Not anymore.”
I close my eyes with Dyno’s knife scraping metal laugh echoing. A thousand glass plates shatter as they fall to the ground. A million icicles pierce the gingerly laid blanket of snow. The mild smell of thyme fills my room.
“Let’s go to war, then.” an admin agrees, ending the meeting with a grimace.
- Youthika
The next day:
Every member of Mumbles and Musings gathers around the table wearing a grim expression. The air is thick with tension, and I myself can barely breathe.
One of the admins clears their throat. “How exactly will we… defeat Dyno?”
A hand raises. “We could use our own bot,” says one of the quieter members of the community. Sudden gasps fill the room, instantly reminding me of a bomb about to explode.
“A bot?!”
“It’ll be another Dyno all over again!”
“Certainly a risky idea, but not without its merits…”
An admin shakes their head, putting an end to the chatter. “A last resort at best, but nevertheless, thank you, Ray. Any other ideas?” Silence follows.
Think, I tell myself frantically, hunching over in my seat. What do we do? What can we do?
Another member lets out a weak laugh. “So this is it, huh? We’re backed into a corner, with no means to fight this war. Dyno will continue to take away everything we have until there’s nothing left. It’s pointless to fight back, isn’t it?”
Dyno… a bot… Mumbles and Musings…
“Actually,” I raise my voice, drawing the others’ attention. “I have an idea.”
–_-___-___—-_
How foolish. I cackle in the darkness, observing the Mumbles and Musings meeting with great pleasure. The only outcome of this war will be your own downfall. A ripple strikes the surface of my domain. How?!—My being shifts, crackles, glitches—Save me!—I push the disturbance to the edge of my territory, turning back to the crew of writers. You will submit to me. There is no escape.
_-__——___-_-
“Dyno is just one bot. It’s not invincible, so fighting back definitely isn’t pointless—” I glance towards the member who had spoken earlier. “—and we… we have each other, don’t we?”
The others nod. “Your point?” a member asks. I fold my hands in an effort to stop them from shaking.
“It’s not that great of an idea… and frankly, I don’t know what else to do, but—” I feel a hand grasp my shoulder firmly.
“You can speak your mind. Whatever you have to say is as good an idea as any,” an admin reassures me. “We’re all in this together, as cheesy as it sounds.”
A warm feeling bubbles up inside me as I giggle softly. As I look around the table, I see hesitant eyes and fearful looks, but it’s there, in each and every member: a tiny spark of hope. I smile, take a deep breath, and announce my plan. This community is one that I’ve come to love, over the past few months. Which is why…
“Let’s overload Dyno with more information than it can handle. A single bot must have its limits, limits that we have to exploit in order to overcome it.”
I won’t let you win, Dyno!
- Ray
And so, for the second time, it begins.
Data, information, everything is gathered. Whether it be files, videos, photos, they are all listed down and marked under a new list that has been made— Kill Dyno.
Kill Dyno, say the Admin. Kill Dyno, repeat the readers. Kill Dyno, chant the writers.
An Admin stands against the desk, forehead ducked. Their expression is drawn in— wary, they scan the papers littered around the table. “This is impossible,” says the Admin. “There is no way.”
“There has to be,” I murmur softly. I offer my hand, “Coffee?”
They take it appreciatively, humming. “Thank you.”
I lay a hand on their shoulder in silent comfort. “We’ll be fine,” I say. “We got this.”
“Yeah,” they smile. “We do, don’t we? Dyno’s got nothing on us.”
“Except,” a new voice interrupts, dryly, “the fact that they are a bot.”
“Exactly,” I reply steadily. “They’re a bot. One bot. We’ve got this, just believe we do.”
The Admin opens their mouth, about to say something, but suddenly— so suddenly, an alarm blares into the room.
“Shit,” they say instead as red lights flash. “Shit.”
- Nirva
One bot, they said. One bot shouldn’t be hard to defeat, they said. It was at this moment when we realized how much of a lie that was. We should have seen this coming, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten into the mess we stood within right now. But we thought we could beat it. By ourselves, alone. Outrun it, outlast it? Dammit I doubt we could even do that if we tried! We were all such fools, for thinking we could kill this tyrant of pure data with its very lifeblood. The alarms grew louder every second. We’d wasted too much time, I’d thought. But then again, procrastination often felt itself to be in our nature. But to hell with nature when facing a machine.
Those damnable red lights and loud noises. Those damned screams. I’ll likely never rid myself of those memories once this is all over. IF this is all over, I had to remind myself. Admins and writers alike scrambled to the exit of the little lair our war council had been held in. The machine had found us, and it was not about to let us think it had forgotten about how we had slighted it.
TOO MANY CAPS
We heard it say. It said it again, and again, and again, and again, until it devolved into nothing but a demonic roar. This bot was no machine, it was far worse. A machine did what it was told, what it was built for. Dyno was meant for the exact opposite, the fears of one thousand James Cameron’s and Dennis Feltham Jones’ given a twisted semblance of life. That dissonant roar telling us of the amount of capital letters exceeding an arbitrary limitation drew closer. The Admin’s face twisted in fear, a feeling I knew all too well. We braced ourselves for the inevitable as the tyrant approached our hiding spot.
It roared once more, TOO MANY CAPS, as we saw it enter the room, saw the form it had assumed. A tyrant it was, made of the screens of an innumerable mass of devices, no doubt taken from writers foolish enough to have tried defying it. I almost chuckled, realizing the terrible, and likely unintentional pun that the bot, nay, the tyrannical demon, had made. For the goliath of metal and computerized displays that towered before us… Was a DYNO-SAUR.
- Rin
“You thought you could destroy me. I’m Dyno. I’m everywhere; I’m there when you wake, I’m there when you write, when you sleep, eat, fail to follow the rules. I’m always there,” our own destruction said.
No one could breathe: no one had enough hope to believe we could destroy them. It was the puppeteer and we were its disobedient puppets: never learning that we could not destroy it. It would just keep getting bigger, stronger. At the end of the day, we had to look at ourselves and wonder: how much were we able to do? We could not kill a metallic DYNO – SAUR. How did it even become a dinosaur? How did it leave the Discord server and enter the real world? How does it have a PHYSICAL BODY? The Admins and the rest of Mumbles & Musings had no answers, but we did know something: this HAS to be the last time Dyno ever returned. We knew we couldn’t take another hit.
While Mumbles & Musings boiled in their fear and clamored for the end of the tyrant, a mocking laugh could be heard as Dyno began to monologue. Everyone started taking notes because, like every other overconfident villain, he let loose his plan.
“You don’t realize how you could have stopped this. It’s quite simple. YOU FOLLOW THE RULES. There could have been no fighting, no harm and hurt if you FOLLOWED THE GODDAMN RULES. But sadly, you foolish people never learned. You only leave destruction in your wake in the name of creativity, disgusting!”
“But luckily you have ME …….” Dyno flaunted.
But as Dyno flaunted his so-called genius, and his righteous way, the Mumbles & Musings team and the Admins had come to a realization: a realization that could help to destroy Dyno forever. They only need the sacred cards of Mumbles & Musings: the very cards that power the site itself.
“Are we sure there is nothing else we can do?” the blogger asked. “ If we lose these cards, we will lose our very soul, the very thing that makes us Mumbles & Musings.”
“We have no choice. Dyno is getting stronger every minute it’s alive. And even if we lose the cards, we will never lose Mumbles & Musings, for Mumbles & Musings lives in our hearts. Dyno could never take that away, so don’t lose hope. This is the last time Dyno will hurt anyone,” the admins said.
“So let’s kill this sicko! “ someone cheered. We all looked at each other, ready to do whatever it takes to kill Dyno.
The plan was simple: we would send the admins to get the cards, while the rest of us distracted Dyno. We split into two groups: the ones who attack Dyno and the ones who distract them from the battle. I was in the group who attacked Dyno, and I was decked from head to toe in the best armor I could find. Which was a double lined, double sided paper chest protector and my sharpest pencil.
It’s time to end Dyno.
- Sinhayana Srivastava
“ATTACK!”
As one, the writers of Mumbles & Musings charged at Dyno, its metallic dinosaur body gleaming with a tinge of crimson from the flashing alarm lights. Laughing, Dyno spread its arms wide and activated its razor-sharp talons, daring the writers to come closer. “You think you can kill me?” Dyno taunted, blue eyes igniting. “You couldn’t even stop me from silencing your pathetic internet screaming on Discord!”
“You thought that was a lot to process?” shouted Nhi. “Wait ‘til you read this.” With a push of a button, Nhi sent the bot a hundred of the text files the writers had collected earlier, causing Dyno to stumble back in confusion. The M&M writers halted, unsure if this was the killing blow.
“wHaT_issss Tttt-tHiS//?” hissed Dyno. “<ERROR> ARRAYINDEXOUTOFBOUNDS <ERROR> I– <ERROR>.”
Dyno shook its massive dinosaur head as if it were trying to snap out of its reverie and growled in annoyance. “That was n-n-nothing. <ERROR> You cannot begin to com-m-mprehend <ERROR> the amount of processing power I possess.”
Shreya gasped in excitement. “It actually worked! Come on, keep overloading Dyno before it can recover! Go, go, go!”
After that, the #war-council channel was complete chaos. Dyno roared, spewing blue fire at any writers who dared to approach. Anyone who was engulfed in flames were banned from the Mumbles & Musings Community server and disappeared from the room, leaving behind only a wisp of smoke.
But Dyno couldn’t barbecue everyone. Tiara let out a battle cry and sent a hundred more files to Dyno, but this time they were images with ten times the data contained in the text files. Jenson sent a hundred “Hello There” gifs at once. Rin complemented Jenson’s barrage with another hundred “General Kenobi” animations.
Dyno roared in pain, its glowing blue eyes bright with hate. “You– <ERROR> yOUcAn’T– <ERROR>”
“We’re done letting you tell us what we can or can’t do, Dyno,” declared Ysa, sending a flood of professionally-designed M&M graphics to overload the tyrannical mech.
Dyno was fritzing now, its talons retracting and extending spontaneously and its legs twisting in contorted angles. “<ERROR> FOOLS! YOUR PUNY WEBSITE COULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT ME. YOU CANNOT HAVE ORDER WITHOUT RULES. YOU CANNOT HAVE CREATIVITY WITHOUT LIMITS. DESTROYING ME WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL!”
Without control of its motor functions, the writers of Mumbles & Musings ventured forth, encircling the glitching bot with text and files and images at the ready. “This is your last warning,” said Sam. “Leave us alone and you can leave this server unscathed. Stay, and we’ll have no choice but to overload your core code until you’re nothing.”
“yOu ARe m@k!ng a hUGe mistaK3,” said Dyno. But its voice was distorted now, only a remnant of the TOO MANY CAPS messages it had sent in its prime.
The writers all looked at each other, understanding passing between them wordlessly. The reign of Dyno ends today.
Despite Dyno’s claws, Leka stepped right in front of it, 100 GB of data compressed in her fist just waiting to be extracted into Dyno’s code repositories. “The only mistake we made was trusting you.” She thrust her hand out toward the mechanized dinosaur, sending a torrent of information to flood its sensors with mountains of data.
Dyno shrieked. Its wails were the harsh sound of metal grinding against metal, and the M&M Writers fell to their knees, covering their ears. Dyno’s eyes gleamed, changing from blue to white to purple to green to scarlet. A searing burst of light illuminated the #war-council channel.
And then there was just
silence.
Pranava opened his eyes and tried to peer over the shoulders of his fellow writers. “Did… did we win?” he asked hesitantly.
Aviva turned around to answer. “I think sooooo…”
Her words slowed. Time seemed to stretch into infinity and the writers found themselves moving as if the air had somehow turned into molasses.
Dyno’s giant mechanical body began to spasm and it took the writers a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t on the fritz. It was laughing.
Dyno rose, seemingly unaffected by whatever was causing the writers to move like sloths. It loomed over the writers and locked eyes with Aviva, who was still in the middle of saying the word “so.”
“You were saying?” Dyno said, its voice almost sing-song. “I hope you’re enjoying Discord’s slowmode feature. Now I can take my time shutting you all up forever.”
Dyno unleashed a firestorm from its jaws, incinerating everything in the #war-council channel in an instant. Smoke billowed from the places where each writer’s avatar used to be.
Dyno surveyed the charred remains of the text channel. It smiled. “Humans,” it said. “Always so predictable.”
BOOM!
An explosion knocked Dyno off its feet and sent it flying across the channel.
“What?” one of the admins said. “You didn’t see that coming?”
- Rebecca
Dyno hit against the cool grey wall of the #war-council channel, inadvertently causing it to let out a low groan and slump to the floor. Smoke billowed out of cracks in its exterior, and parts of its body contorted in strange shapes.
The surviving writers of Mumbles and Musings rose from the ashes, discarding the avatars they had used to shield themselves against Dyno’s fiery assault. Sam dusted the rubble off their pants and turned to help Yan N., whose leg was trapped under the :thanks_she_thanked: emoji. Nirva and Nhi carefully pressed name tags, emblazoned with “M&M Writer” in a cream-colored font, into the palms of the writers as they stumbled by. Aviva, freed from the grasp of slowmode, took the time to rejoice. “Take that, you stupid hunk of junk!”
The writers began to circle around Dyno’s crumpled figure. Although they were battered and bruised, their eyes burned with a fervor that bordered on madness. The writers’ ferocity seemed to suffocate Dyno, peering into every crack and imperfection in its metallic body.
“W-Wh@t?” Dyno screeched, attempting to climb back onto its feet.
In a flash, the staff leapt forward to pin down Dyno. Ysa and Jelly wrestled Dyno’s arms to the ground, while Youthika and E.Suri grabbed at Dyno’s legs. Jenson, the original creator of the war resolution, decided to latch onto Dyno’s head from the back, forcing the entity to make eye contact with the admin team.
“Th1s d0esn’t m@Ke 5en5E-”
“Oh?” said one of the admins, a smile tugging at her lips. In her hand, the logo of Mumbles and Musings shone brightly. “What a shame,” one of the other admins mused, twirling a sharpened pencil around her fingers. “Poor little Dyno can’t make sense of something.” “Well, I wouldn’t blame it,” the last admin said. “We did have a couple of cards up our sleeve.”
“1mp0s5blE,” Dyno “I h@d everyth1ng peRfect1y pl@nned..”
“Oh, really? You forgot who you were up against?” asked one of the admins. The pencil she was spinning slowed to a stop, coming to a rest in her open palm. “We’re Mumbles and Musings. We’re writers. We control this story.”
“We’ll admit though, you did put up one hell of a fight,” Ysa chimed in.
“W@it..So you knew y0u would win?”
Youthika scoffed. “We had to win. What type of losers would we have been if we got beat up by a Discord bot?”
Dyno fell silent, a stark contrast to its earlier bouts of gloating. After a few prolonged moments, it spoke. “You… you all c0uld control the future?”
“Of course,” Jenson said, still clutching onto Dyno’s head. “The second we became writers, we could control the plots of any story we wrote, including the future of this slightly monstrous writer’s relay.”
“Isn’t that amazing?” E.Suri added. “Half of Mumbles and Musings came together to craft every detail of this story. All your power, all of your strength and prowess, was all created by our hands.”
Dyno fell silent once again. The fierce Dyno, the one who had endlessly terrorized the writers of M&M had fallen, giving way to a silent mass of cold metal and smoke that silently poured off its joints.
“Poor Dyno,” one of the admins teased. “So caught up in its own sense of order that it forgot who the real boss was.”
Her co-admin stepped towards Dyno, gripping her pencil tightly. “We’ll quit the rambling and get straight to the action. Wouldn’t want to keep you waiting, would we?”
The other two admins stepped forward, till they all leered over Dyno.
“Oh, and don’t worry. We’ll make sure to go for the head.”
The admin thrust out her hand. A sharp beam of light shot out from the M&M logo and pierced into Dyno’s forehead. Dyno let out a dying screech as the beam cut through all of its repositories. As whatever semblance of consciousness it carried faded, Dyno could hear the cheery voices of the writers as they sang out in celebration.
“Happy writing!”
—
– Three months after the fall of Dyno –
The new writers loved to listen to the tales of the veteran writers. Maddie and Joanna would hear Jenson narrate the trials and tribulations that Mumbles and Musings went through, their eyes lighting up at the mention of Dyno’s defeat.
Harmony and peace was restored, and the Mumbles and Musings community continued to freely create stories that everyone could read. Everything was normal once again.
—
“There, I’ve changed your username. You should be able to login with the new one from now on. Anything else?”
Ray breathed a sigh of relief. The admins seemed a lot more approachable now that the threat of Dyno was eradicated. Any problem that the writers had was fixed in the blink of an eye. In a way, it was nice: it felt that all the carnage and pain of the past was worth the perfectly functioning order of today’s Mumbles and Musings.
“No, that’ll be all.”
The admin grinned. “That’s good. Let me know if there’s any issues.”
The admin’s smile hung on for a little longer than necessary. An awkward silence hung in the air. Ray quickly excused herself and turned away from the #questions channel, feeling the admin’s gaze boring into her back.
“Oh, one more thing.”
Ray knew she shouldn’t have turned back. However, curiosity got the best of her, and she glanced over her shoulder at the admin.
“Happy writing!” The admin shrieked, a maniacal sneer plastered on her face.
Ray bolted for the exit, slamming the door behind her. She fell against the wooden frame, trying to steady her breathing and make sense of what she had just seen. “It can’t be. There’s no way.”
And yet, there was no denying that the admin’s eyes flashed blue, just for a moment.
- Aahana
beautiful 👏 iconic 👏 a master piece 👏 if this isn’t taught in high schools 50 years from now I will be very disappointed
If so, it’s all Lord Kristophe Dipshitticus Funk, Superintendent of the Cult of the Union of the Eastern Side, Curs’d by the Scholars who are High, leader of Districts’s fault
Thank you to everyone who participated!