"Hey!" Matinee shouts. "You know, someday, I might want to have children!"
Network, who had focused his lifeless gaze on Matinee the entire time, turns to Meridian and states, in his usual dull monotone, "It is unlikely that this individual is a robotic entity. His behaviors are too... human."
"Hey, Bolt-head, you say that like it's a bad thing," Christian interrupts.
"Isn't it?" Network responds.
"We don't have time to waste with this, boys," Meridian says, putting special emphasis on the word "boys." Network says nothing, of course, but Christian looks as though he is about to argue the point with her. When Darcey and Marcey giggle to themselves, the look on his face grows even more determined. "There are...."
"Legions of the undead?" Matinee interrupts. "Armies of the shambling deceased?"
Ignoring him, Meridian finishes, "... innocents still in danger."
"She's right," Christian agrees. He quickly adds, "About the innocents still being in danger. Not the "boy" thing, of course."
Meridian rolls her eyes and makes her way to the edge of the building, where she stands for a moment, peering over the edge, into the darkness below. She can see scores of students, captured by the undead fiends, being lightly "gummed" and generally being manhandled... er... zombie-handled. The majority of the embraced coeds seem more disgusted than anything, as they find themselves slowly being covered in slimy, smelly zombie spit.
"They don't appear to be in any real danger," Network says, now standing beside the heroine.
Meridian, weighing Network's words in her mind, scans the scene before her, looking for anyone who seems to be in more than danger of getting their hair messed up. She spies nothing, but then sees a quick flash of reflected light in the distance. Then, as she begins to suspect that she might be seeing things, she sees it again.
"What's that?" Meridian asks, pointing into the darkness.
"I am activating my image enhancement software now," Network states, following the line drawn by Meridian's finger. "It appears to be an image recording device."
"A camera," Meridian whispers.
"Affirmative."
"No zombies," Apex says, scanning the surrounding area.
"Yet," Nexus adds, also eyeing the thick darkness that surrounds the three Minute-Men. "I have a feeling we're...."
"... right on time!" Warbride shouts, pointing into the shadows. The heavy darkness of the night seems to lighten, and slowly, the shadows begin to leak a sickly green mist. The anemic fog thickens, sliding in closer and closer to the heroes, and in the distance, the staggering bodies of the zombies become visible, closing in around them.
The heroes step back, turning their backs to the entrance to the theater, and take defensive, ready stances.
"Don't harm her, Brute... permanently. As I have said, we have uses for her."
"Yes, Tempest," the huge man answers.
"Tempest?" Triage spits, barely able to speak under Brute's powerful grip. "Y... Y... you... you're Tempest?"
"Yes," he answers, the tone in his voice signaling that maybe he is proud that Triage has heard of him. He leans in close to the young Minute-Man's face, and whispers, "You'll be hearing my name quite a bit, from now on."
"Sir?" Slipstream says, turning Tempest's attention away from Triage. Slipstream points in the distance, where a blue man can be seen approaching.
"Typhoon," Tempest hisses. "The rest of the Minute-Men must be here as well. We're not ready to face all of them, Superiors. Leave the girl."
Brute drops Triage, who falls to her knees, choking and coughing, trying to get in a full breath of air.
"We must leave," Tempest states, and suddenly, the air is ripped open by the roar of hurricane force winds that take hold of the villains, and throw them into the air. Rumble from their attack is tossed around by the winds, causing even more shrieks and cries from the people in the school, and then all is silent.
"Are you hurt?" Typhoon asks, holding out his hand to Triage.
She takes his hand, and is pulled to her feet by him, as she answers, "It'd be even better if you hurried a little. What are you doing back, Big Blue?"
"I have made my peace," he answers.
"Peace, huh? I never pegged you as a flower child. Next thing you know, you'll be listening to the Grateful Dead, like Iron-Butt. Oh shoot.... Hannah!" Trish yells.
Mouse groans softly, as she is lightly shaken into consciousness. She opens her eyes and sees the mirrored visor of the hovercraft pilot looking down on her.
"Ma'am?" he asks, again. "I know you said I shouldn't come back, no matter what, but your last transmission sounded pretty desperate. When I was coming back, I picked up a transmission from some of the unidentified paranormals, ordering them to leave. They were gone when I got here."
He shakes the diminutive shape-shifter again, asking, "Ma'am?"
"Do you have to talk so damn loud?" Mouse snaps, climbing to her feet.
"Ohhhh!" Christian quips. "The camera. Might be a tough battle, Else. If you need help, just holler."
"Just remember who your ride is," Else says, as she grabs Christian and Network, easily carrying the two as she takes to the air.
"You want us to keep an eye on Matinee?" Darcey shouts.
"Yeah, like we could be Junior Minute-Men and stuff," Marcey adds.
Christian, sensing the possible disaster, turns and lets loose with another wave of cold, wrapping even more ice around the chattering Matinee.
"Wow!" Darcey says. "Fire powers *and* ice powers. He is so wild!"
"Yeah, totally wild," Marcey agrees.
"Why didn't they just kill me?" Matinee mutters to himself.
"Bbbbaaa...."
"...raaa...."
"Baaaarrrr...."
Apex is the first to react, swinging a mighty blow at the zombie that has shambled in front of him. He hits the horrible creature, sending a spray of glowing ooze flying, a great deal of it sticking to his arm. When he withdraws his fist from the surprisingly soft beast, bits of the zombie's innards are stuck to his hand, some of them dripping off in sticky, thick clumps.
The smelly spray of zombie... er... fluids... splatters across several of the zombies behind it, covering their faces, sticking to their disheveled hair, sticking together some of their outstretched arms. They react as clumsily as they have reacted to everything else, trying to pull the goo from their bodies with uncooperative, stiff fingers. Some of the zombies manage to get their hands stuck to their faces, the ooze acting like a powerful glue.
"Ewww," escapes from Apex's lips, as he tries to fling the remaining chucks from his hand, unsuccessfully. "That's disgusting."
"But it's working," Warbride interjects, slicing through one of the zombies with a beam of super-focused light. The blazing power of the beam cauterizes what would normally be a gooey mess, but the bubbling of the deep wound, as it burns shut, fills the air with a scent more horrible than any ever experienced by the Minute-Men before.
Nexus, having been moving her hands in strange, arcane gestures, throws both arms up into the air, and a rush of wind slams down on a small group of the undead. The robotic fiends, due to their technological nature, are immune to the powers of the Nexus, but the ground below them is not. The street in front of the theater cracks, then gives way, dropping several zombies into the darkness below. Their cries, pathetic in a way, echo from the deep hole they have been thrown into, silenced only by the zombies that accidentally wander into the hole, falling down onto their comrades.
The fight continues, the heroes slugging and blasting their way through the zombies. Apex, lining up shots like an impromptu billiards game, continues to knock the undead horde into the hole Nexus opened in the street. Warbride, on the other hand, just slices the ghouls in half, where they stand, with beams of super-focused light. Nexus, who is at the biggest disadvantage against the robotic fiends, relies on her hand-to-hand training, knocking the zombies aside and throwing them down.
"We can't keep this up forever," Nexus says, gasping for breath, from the exertion.
"Neither can they," Warbride answers, letting loose with another barrage of searing light.
Apex, rather than say anything, just hums quietly to himself, as he wades into the mob of clutching, moaning, drooling undead.
Suddenly, behind the heroes, the door to the theater swings open, and a young man sticks his head out. He is flabbergasted by the mayhem he sees before him; disgusted by the zombies, amazed by the heroes, he is nearly speechless, until he turns back into the theater and shouts, "There coming for you, Barbara!"
"She wasn't where I left her," Mouse says, as she gently places Hannah on the ground. "Had to use the tracker to find her, and even then, I was having trouble."
Hannah, her eyes squeezed shut from pain, weakly whispers, "I knew that the other paranormals would have scanners too, so I tried to camouflage myself."
"She knew?" the pilot asks. "How'd she know?"
"You're gonna be okay," Triage tells her, again using her powers of flesh and bone manipulation to reduces the young girl's pain. "You're going to be fine."
"We'll need to get her back to G.H.O.S.T.," Typhoon says. "And, back to her mother."
"This is awesome!" the camera whispers to the sound engineer. "Matinee is gonna love this stuff, when he sees it!"
"Even better than our rehearsals," the engineer answers. "These college kids are perfect too... every bit as stupid and stereotypical as we hoped."
"Uhh ohh."
"What?"
"Look!" the cameraman says.
The shot framed in his camera changes, the pale, creepy light suddenly growing brighter and brighter, glistening with specks of golden light that dance and jump like unearthly fireflies. Then, a figure appears within the shot, a stern look spread over her face, her fists clenched in anger, she gets closer and closer.
"We better get out of here!" the sound engineer says, tapping the cameraman on his shoulder.
"I think you're right."
The two of them turn and start to make a break for it, but are stopped dead by a glowing wall of solidified extra-dimensional energy.
"Not so fast!" Meridian announces, swooping down on them.
"Err... would you believe we're in the AV club?" the cameraman stammers.
"Yeah," the sound engineer agrees. "Finals are coming up for the summer semester and... umm...."
"Pull!" Christian shouts.
Network grabs one of the zombies, and in one fluid motion, rips it free of one of the students and tosses it into the air. Flailing, the zombie flies through the dark sky, only to be incinerated by a blast of white-hot energy, produced by Christian.
"This is great!" he says, trying not to laugh. "Pull!"
Again, Network walks up to one of the zombies, and tosses it into the air with his cybernetically enhanced strength. The undead hordes, having found their various, scantily-clad victims, do not even seem to notice the Minute-Man that moves between them, indiscriminately throwing them into the air.
"I estimate we shall finish with these robotic entities within three minutes, fifty-five seconds," Network announces.
"Get it off me, next, man!" one of the students says.
"Dude, I think this one farted," another student announces.
"I totally have a date, and now I have to do my hair over again. So, if you could please hurry it up," another one of the students asks.
"What are you doing?" Nexus asks him.
"My son loves horror movies," Apex answers. "I thought this would make a pretty good present. You know, kind of show him what his dad does at "work." You know?"
"That's disgusting," Nexus states, dryly, then she giggles.
Warbride, standing amidst piles of freshly trashed zombie robots, activates the comm-unit built into her suit and broadcasts a transmission on the team's frequency: "This is Warbride. Meridian, Christian, Network... do you read?"
"No, I usually wait for the movie," crackles back over the communications array, the voice easily recognizable as Christian's.
"What's your situation?" Warbride asks, ignoring Christian's wisecrack.
"I told you, we're all in the AV club," one of them protests.
"You're still under arrest," Meridian replies, maintaining the cage that she fashioned out of the glimmering extra-dimensional forces she commands.
In the distance she can hear the tell-tale sounds of approaching hovercraft units. Soon, she'll be able to hand over the camera crews to the squads of approaching G.H.O.S.T. agents, and she'll be free to search for more zombies or technicians.
Network steps onto the roof, letting the door to the stairs shut behind him. He walks passed Christian, towards the chattering Matinee, who is surrounded by Darcey and Marcey.
"We watched him for you!" Darcey says, practically singing with pride and excitement.
"We sure did," Marcey agrees. "We totally watched him."
"Totally."
"Why the only two non-flyers in the team get stuck with baby-sitting the wannabe Hitchcock, I'll never know," Christian announces, slowly following Network. "Geez, those stairs can be killer."
"Your zombies have been immobilized," Network states, his voice in its usual monotone.
"Already?" Matinee asks, his lips already a deep shade of blue. "I knew you'd win, but I didn't think it'd be this fast. I guess I underestimated you guys. The truth is, I didn't think you, or Conrad's boy, had it in you. I knew Meridian and Warbride would put up a good fight, and when I heard Apex was joining, I figured I'd need more robots, but...."
"It's pretty obvious you're not a robot," Christian says, interrupting Matinee, and poking him in the chest with his finger. "And it's pretty obvious you're not getting away. So, I guess tomorrow night is off, huh?"
"Postponed," Matinee says, a twinkle in his eye. "Admit it, you had fun."
(End?)
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