Work Text:
Procroústɛs the Salt Troll hunted fanfic authors to get his daily salt-on.
He craved it. He must have his daily salt.
He commented about being offended by material that was tagged and even noted at the start of the story.
He demanded more/less canon, smut, and everything else not already tagged.
He hypercorrected the actually correct grammar.
He hated the 'ship, and argued that hence the author is clearly a perverted and twisted toxic monster for clearly supporting such an abomination, which triggered him — and that this was also the author's fault.
He was The Gatekeeper.
His barely intelligible comments were written in crayon as he licked the computer screen.
Behind the Salt Troll, unseen, lurked skekSo the Skeksis Emperor.
He could feel the loss and pain of the author coming through in waves across the internet connection. Artax's will faded in increments, each pulse of self-loathing diminishing the succeeding struggle, each wave of doubt and need to run a sweet symphony to the emperor's every nerve as he reached out into the field that connected the three of them.
Waving his hand once across his own field of vision, skekSo urged the Salt Troll on, “Good. I can feel your anger. Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you. Your hate has made you powerful. They are defenseless. Take your weapon! Strike them down with all your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete! It is unavoidable. It is your destiny. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side! You, like your father, are now mine!”
Procroústɛs's fingers lingered delicately over the keyboard, savoring each keystroke as he began his final assault.
“rISagan toy'wI''a' vavlI' 'ej ⹁Hab SoSlI' Quch!”1
He was especially proud of the reversed comma, finding it an elegant — if admittedly non-tlhIngan — touch. It brought a hideous grin to his sphinctered maw, imagining the deadly pain that this insult would bring. It also brought a new Cumsprite into existence a moment later, leaping about and dancing at the Salt Troll's joy.
Even as Artax reached to delete his fanfic account, hundreds of thousands of words built up over years of love and loyalty and compulsive consumption of pop-culture, Bob the Wedgiesaurus's Spider-sense tingled and he flew into action, his sight-beyond-sight lending him sure knowledge that this was a race against time that only the swiftest and boldest of actions could hope to win.
Channeling every ounce of effort, he summoned the Army Of Invisible Pink Plot Bunnies — now with Extra Strength Plot Armor.
Swarming over Artax, they cuddled and nuzzled and wriggled and snuggled and schmoozed with all of their power of cute cuddliness. The muse worked through him, infusing him with new inspiration. The words poured forth at an incredible pace, the ideas becoming manifest before his mind's eye, transferred to the world around him as readers flocked to his live stream unedited prose. A new day dawned as the Salt Troll shrank before this torrent of creativity.
Deep in the bowels of the Earth, a force turned in its sleep, its dreams troubled by this cry for help from its minion. Millions of massive bodies tunneled upward, chewing through magma and granite alike, their bodies soaked in the primal forces of simultaneous creation and destruction, churning with the power and the need to recycle old and new alike.
It couldn't change matters now, but soon.
Soon the world would know the might of The Worm.
O ~~~ O