Good day to you all, and welcome to the first of our Summer Specials for A Really Bad Idea.

Author: What's with the accent and sophisticated language?

Creativity: Oh, well I was watching some old comedy shows and thought it would be kinda funny…

Author: Let me handle decisions like that.

Anyway, yes. This is the first Summer Special. It takes place one year after the world-wide mutation event from the end of 'season 2'. This one is kind of a 'protagonist isn't there and things go wrong ' bits. I hope you all enjoy. Also, there is a single line in this special I have been DYING to work into this story in some way. Take a guess as to what it is.

Alright, I think that covers it. I hope you enjoy!

Grey had intended for the day to be a slow, easygoing one. He'd intended to take one of his younger groups out on an outing to a nearby national park for the day. Nice and simple, since he had Barry visiting to help and for some reason, kids loved him. But no. They got to the main town in the national park and were there for about an hour before they heard people running and screaming from something. That something turned out to be a mutant slug of all things.

After making sure everyone, including the kids were evacuated, he and Barry went to deal with mucousy, squelching, absolutely disgusting problem that had slimed its horrid way to the town square and left the street and buildings behind it slippery, yet sticky.

The slug itself was about the length of three school buses , with a large circular mouth that had some sort of raspy tooth-like pads around the lips. It's large, bulbous eyes swayed to and fro and, based on the glow it was emitting, it was slightly radioactive.

This was one of the weirdest things Grey had seen from E.V.O's manufactured epidemic. Most stuff that wasn't human wasn't affected by it, but there were instances such as now when something got mutated. The last one Grey had heard of was a sea turtle that grew to have a shell that was fifteen feet long. However, this one definitely took the crown for the very worst mutation to come into existence.

The slug let out a gurgling shriek as it dragged itself towards Grey and Barry, who were trying to find some way of dealing with this latest mess without their gear. Their brainstorming was cut short when the slug let out another shriek and launched a projectile of glowing mucous at them, which missed them by several feet, but also created a large, glowing, slimy, disgusting patch of land that they would want to avoid like the plague.

They ducked and dodged, trying to avoid getting slimed until Grey made a big mistake and ran to the side where he thought it couldn't aim at him. It was at this moment that it thrashed about, swinging itself around to slam into him and launch him into the side of a wooden structure, completely drenched in the disgusting slime. Grey stood up, realizing just what had happened and something snapped in him. His circulatory system began to glow blue and his vision became tinged with blue as well.

He marched over to a nearby lamp post that had been knocked over earlier in the fight and lifted it over his shoulder. He started walking forward, slowly breaking into a run before he leapt into the air, lamp post still over his shoulder! He slammed the lamp post down through the slug's back before climbing on top of it and jumping on it a few times to drive it straight through the pavement before leaping off of it. Barry watched with a somewhat awestruck face before following him back to the Monarch vans that were waiting for them at a nearby parking lot. He climbed into shotgun and said not a single word as they drove back to the Monarch campus. He climbed out of the van and went straight inside, passing several staff who looked at him and realized that he was really close to completely losing it and wisely opted not to comment on the slime that was soaking into his clothes.

He went up to his personal quarters, which was almost a complete house tucked away inside the building. He had a living room, a kitchen with a full array of appliances, a bedroom and a washroom.

After eagerly ridding himself of his slime-sodden clothes, he took a VERY long shower to ensure that all of the gunk had thoroughly been removed from his body and throwing on some new clothes before removing any necessary valuables from slimy ones and putting the gunked clothes in a trash bag. He then took that trash bag down to the basement where they kept the incinerator and tossed them inside. Then he had to make a phone call.

"I'm taking the day off."

"I heard that you had put an abrupt end to your little field trip today. Would you care to elaborate?" The acting chairwoman of the campus inquired.

"I spent my morning fighting an atomic snot rocket. Let the absurdity of what I just said sink in for a few moments. I already contacted cleanup and they're disposing of the carcass and doing what they can about the slime. Today has been rather trying. I am going to go and recover psychologically from being violently slimed and I don't want to be bugged for the rest of the day. Clear?"

"Crystal."

With that, Grey returned to his quarters and lay down on the sofa, put on some TV and tuned out.

Meanwhile, Barry and the younger cross-species were trying to figure out something to do with their day, now that the original plan had been scuppered. Many of them were disappointed, but seemed to understand that there couldn't really be any fun activities in the town so long as there was still slime to clean up, as well as checking to see if there were any more mutated wildlife in the area.

So, Barry just told them they had the rest of the day to themselves, as long as they stayed in the section of the building that was set aside for them, and went to the workout room to kill an hour or two. Most of the kids went back to their dorms, but a few went to one of the lounge areas to hang out and talk, or just to watch TV. Eventually though, they got bored with that and went back to join the others in their dorms.

However, there were two young cross-species that weren't content to just go back to their dorms. They're names were Chelsea and Jim. Chelsea was a lynx cross-species who's mutation resulted in a layer of fur that was regularly cut to keep her from overheating, feline eyes and nose, as well as a short tail. Jim's mutation was that of a pine martin. He had developed two curved fangs on both his upper and lower jaw, semi-retractable claws that were terrific for climbing and a more defined point to his ears. He also had patches of fur around his neck and upper back, forearms and shins.

Chelsea and Jim were bored. Very bored, in fact. So bored were they, that they were contemplating various methods of sneaking out to go on an adventure! So far they were coming up empty.

"We could try climbing out one of the windows." Jim thought aloud. Chelsea shook her head.

"Walter tried that two weeks in. They have alarms everywhere." Chelsea lamented.

"What about the vents?" Jim suggested.

"How would we get up there?" Chelsea reminded him.

"What about just walking out the front door?" Jim muttered sarcastically. Chelsea's eyes brightened.

"Yeah… no one's tried that yet! Maybe that'll work!" Chelsea exclaimed brightly.

It didn't work. The moment they left their wing, a staff member caught them, leading them to attempt to run away, only to be caught by one of the older cross-species, who was allowed to wander around outside their wing. But then they had a stroke of luck.

"If they're so eager to wander around, why don't I keep an eye on them? What's the harm in it if they're supervised?" The cross-species, named Emma, suggested. Her DNA had been mixed with a peregrine falcon, which caused her to develop a layer of feathers from her ribcage up to her neck, as well as a sort of feather 'frame' around her face. Her bones had become hollow and she had a thick layer of feathers along her forearms.

"Well, I suppose that would be fine…" The staff member pondered before nodding.

"As long as you keep an eye on them and they don't get into any trouble, it should be fine."

Emma smiled and thanked the staff member before motioning for the Chelsea and Jim to follow her.

"Just so you know, I am not going to cover for you two again." Emma called over her shoulder as they hurried after her.

"So, any thoughts on where you want to go?" Emma asked. The two younger cross-species just shrugged.

"What about the building across campus? I heard they've been keeping some non-human cross-species there." Chelsea suggested. Jim grinned. Emma frowned.

"I'm not sure that they have that section open to visitors, but there's other stuff to do there besides that. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a look."

And so, they made their way across a good stretch of land, dotted with walkways, bushes and flower gardens, several water fountains in a circle, all the way to a slightly more imposing building. This was where the hard science took place. Where they kept and studied wild cross-species, developed new gear for the Cross-Species Containment Division, which was comprised of both ordinary humans and human cross-species, and where they developed variations on existing medications for cross-species who may require them, but could not use the normal options. There were other projects that were worked on here of course, but they fell into sub-categories of the three main categories.

As they were walking over, they saw a massive Monarch transport hauling in an enormous tank that contained what appeared to be an enormous slug, unmoving slug. A massive door slid open and the slug was hauled inside.

"Okay, now I REALLY wanna see what's inside!" Jim exclaimed. Emma just winced in mild disgust at the sight of the giant slime ball and just kept walking. Chelsea and Jim hurried after her, not wanting to be left behind. Especially since they could get thrown right back in their dorms if they strayed to far. As soon as they were inside, they went to a nearby desk and asked what they could do as visitors. As it turned out, they were working on a wing for approved visitors to see the least threatening cross-species they had acquired, but it wasn't operational yet and they weren't approved. Still, they did have some places to look around. One thing that was nearly finished was a sort of museum that was dedicated to cross-species. A few of the 'exhibits' included an in-depth account of all known cross-species history, detailing the original kidnappings and what the first generation of cross-species could recall from the experiments, to Grey's escape and his time spent hunted, on to the attempted invasion and it's defeat, the counterattack, what information could be recovered on the experiments the eventually birthed Biollante and the other plant cross-species, and then the worldwide mutation event from a little under a year ago.

They skipped over that section since they had heard it all before. Hell, they'd lived it. Instead, they went ahead and checked out the rest of the building, which wasn't all that interesting. So, they went to leave.

Except, there was a bit of a hiccup. Jim fell behind a tad and lost sight of Emma and Chelsea. As he hurried to catch up, he accidentally took a turn down the wrong hallway, and apparently no one noticed that the young cross-species had done so. He hurried through the crisscrossing hallways until he eventually reached a large room with a set of metal stairs heading down to the floor. There were several elevated catwalks, which he was currently standing on, and many large vehicles, containers and, currently the most eye-catching, the gigantic, seemingly dead, slime oozing slug. Immediately realizing that he'd taken a wrong turn, Jim turned to hurry back the other way, only to find himself face to face with a security guard, along side Emma and Chelsea.

"I got lost." Jim said immediately. The guard and Emma rolled their eyes.

"Sure. Come on, lets get going before you land us in even more trouble." Emma muttered before turning to leave, followed by Chelsea. Jim hurried after them, keen on not taking another wrong turn.

Not even two seconds after they had turned around, when they heard a loud, squelching bellow of some sort, followed by violent thrashing and the sound of glass breaking. They turned around to see that the slug suddenly become very lively, considering there was a rather sizable hole through its body. It had already caused its prison to crack a rather terrifying amount and with one more thrash, it broke free. The security guard looked ready to employ some very choice words before being 'gently' reminded by Emma that Jim and Chelsea were present. They turned to run, only for the slug to rear up and slam its body against the side of the massive chamber, causing the catwalks to shake and begin falling apart! Now the security guard actually did start cursing as they all tumbled to the floor, really close to a puddle of the vile mucous. They scrambled away from it and started looking for the nearest exit. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the slug really wanted out, and was slamming its body against the shutter doors of the chamber, flinging slime everywhere as it did. Emma dragged Jim and Chelsea out of the way of the slime, taking shelter behind several large boxes. Soon, they heard the screeching noise of the metal finally reaching its limit and giving way, allowing the disgusting gastropod to escape and began hauling itself away from the campus and towards the nearest city. The three cross-species peered out from out from their hiding spot, seeing that the coast was now clear. And very slimy. They slowly approached the massive, gaping hole left by the slug's escape, carefully maneuvering through the slime bog left from the creature's thrashing.

"Grey is gonna be so mad when he finds out that thing is still alive and escaped." Chelsea breathed. Jim could only nod, dumbfounded by the events they had just bore witness to. Until a massive blob of slime dripped down from the ceiling, straight onto Emma. The expression on her face when the slime started rolling down her back was a mix of shock, the expression when someone has cold water run down their spine, and revolt. A few seconds later, she let out a breath that suggested she was about to began crying or break into hysterics. After a few moments, she seemed to collect herself.

"It is going to take a whole week to get this stuff out of my feathers…" Emma said in a small voice, still on the verge of snapping, before wiping a few globs of slime from her front before they all made their way out. They made their way back to the main campus, with Jim and Chelsea going back to their dorms and Emma going to the showers and staying there for a really, really long time. After disposing of her ruined clothes in the garbage first, of course.

Meanwhile, the slug was sliming its horrible through the streets of Ottawa, with police, military and Monarch personnel trying to evacuate civilians and stop the horrid beast that was squelching its way towards them. The latter wasn't going very well. Bullets and explosives weren't working due to the slimy mucous, which was sucking up all of the kinetic energy from firearms of all kinds. Eventually, Monarch got desperate enough to call in their specialized thermonuclear firearms. Unfortunately, it was going to take time to deploy them. Time that would only lead to further sliming of the city. Horrid, disgusting, dripping, sticky, slimy mucous that no rational person would go near with a thirty-foot pole.

Far off, at the Vancouver facility, Graham was observing the slug attack with a mixture of revulsion, fascination and annoyance.

"Didn't Grey kill that thing this morning?" Graham wondered aloud. A small window appeared off to the side of the window that displayed the live footage of the slug. The image showed an blue saturated image of a woman wearing a smart business suit.

"Well, he did impale it through the middle with a lamp post and it stopped moving, so it was simply assumed. Besides, its life signs were really low; well within the parameters of dead or dying. Though it seems that it was just unconscious or playing possum."

Graham pinched her nose.

"I saw the report, Beta. Do we have any word on Grey, or Sabrina, or someone that can help us deal with this… thing?" Graham asked exasperatedly. The AI was certainly helpful, but it had a bad habit of spitting out information that those present already knew.

"Barry's en route and Sabrina was already on her way to visit as a guest instructor, so she just needs to get her gear. Grey hasn't been responding to any messages I've been sending. I suspect he's asleep or otherwise distracted. Perhaps he's already on his way. I'll hop over there and check. Also, it's Ion now, remember? I didn't spend the better part of eight months trying to decide on a name for myself for you to forget it every other minute." Ion, formerly known as Beta informed before their screen closed. Graham shook her head. She was never going to get used to calling Ion by her new name. And the AI would probably take to teasing her about it soon.

Turning her attention back to the screen, she could see Barry was hitching a ride with the vehicles that were bringing the thermonuclear weapons to the scene of the disaster. Hopefully this situation would be wrestled back under control and they could all get on with their lives. And begin de-sliming the city.

Back at Grey's room, Ion had just hopped into Grey's phone, which was sitting on his coffee table. Immediately, she could hear him through the phone's mic, snoring so loud that it was rather obnoxious. If Ion had eyes, they probably would have rolled. Cranking the phone's volume to max and engaging the speaker function, they 'cleared their throat' before pausing a moment.

"WAKE UP!"

Grey's eyes snapped open and he jumped so much that he fell of the couch and scrambled to his feet, his veins starting to emit a very faint blue glow. Then he saw Ion's face on his phone's screen.

"Ion, for the love of Godzilla's scaly green ass, you had better have a VERY good reason for doing that!" Grey half shouted, his eyes vaguely murderous.

"I could have done it much worse. I could have used your TV. So, it turns out that slug you killed this morning isn't as dead as we had been led to believe. It's currently rampaging through Ottawa and Graham thought it was important you should know. You weren't responding to any messages, so I took matters into my own hands." Ion stated, a hint of a snarky tone in their voice. Grey's gaze went from vaguely murderous to VERY murderous in the span of a second. He marched into his room and didn't come out for a few minutes. When he did, he was in full kit. He touched his right gauntlet to his phone, allowing Ion to jump inside. He then marched down to the garage and climbed into one of Monarch's standard cars before roaring out of the garage and driving as fast as he could towards Ottawa. He could see the slime trail that the slug had left in its wake and glared down the road. As soon as he reached the city, he could see the slug's damage. There was plenty of that damn slime all over the place, forcing him to take several detours before he made to the actual fight. He climbed out of the car and glared at the slug, as if he was determined to make it burst into flames with his mind. Seeing a nearby piece of debris, he hefted it over his shoulder and hurled it at the slug, though it didn't really do much. It was like throwing a basket ball at a strung-up tarp. The slug's soft, slime-covered flesh just flexed inwards and the debris just rolled down its side until it hit the ground. Switching tactics, Grey charged up his gauntlets and unleashed two concentrated blasts at its flank. The blasts actually had a noticeable effect; causing the slime to instantly calcify and break off from the slug's body, but a massive glob of mucous just dripped down to replace it. Grey snarled and ran around the slug until he was right in front of it. He could see Barry with a large thermonuclear cannon gripped in both hands, unleashing all the firepower he could on the slug, but not doing that much damage. Sabrina was also using her gauntlets, albeit from rooftop, trying to attack the open wound Grey had inflicted earlier that day, but was not enjoying any success as the slime was replaced to quickly. Grey charged up his gauntlets again and began attacking the slug's face, maintaining a constant stream of energy, determined to bring this damn slug down.

It didn't work. Grey was tired and running low on ionizing radiation, and had made absolutely no headway against the stupid slug!

"How can it keep producing that much slime?! Where does it get the material for it?!" Grey shouted, outraged.

"Perhaps a mutation due to the virus. Does it matter? Now, I believe you had some success with impaling it before, correct?" Ion interjected. Grey grumbled.

"Not as much as we thought. Your point?"

"Try it again." Ion said with a bright tone of voice. Grey huffed and looked around. He saw another lamp post lying on the ground and marched over to it, hefting it over his shoulder. He turned to see the slug was hauling its miserable carcass forward and realized what Ion was getting at.

"Ion, if this doesn't work, I will find a way to end you. Painfully. And I will enjoy every second of it." Grey muttered. If Ion heard him, they didn't acknowledge him. Grey began to walk forward, breaking into a run. The slug opened its mouth and let loose it's wretched, gurgling cry as Grey leapt into the air, bellowing as he went, driving the lamp post forward, straight into the slug's mouth. Unfortunately, this led to him going right INTO its mouth. The end of the lamp post emerged from the slug's back and it froze. Then a blue beam shot out of it's back and moved in a circle down its back until it was cut almost entirely in half.

The onlookers watch in awe, disgust and pity as Grey clawed his way out of the burnt carcass of the slug and onto solid ground. He let out one last cry before flopping on his front, completely out cold.

No one saw Grey for the rest of the week. He spent the whole time in his room and didn't come out to eat or anything. His door was locked and he didn't respond to any messages.

On the eighth day of his self-imposed isolation, they became worried and forced entry into his quarters, only to find him sitting on the couch, staring at the ground with a thousand-yard stare. They tried shaking his shoulders, snapping their fingers under his nose, Sabrina even tried slapping him in the face. He was completely unresponsive.

On the tenth day, he emerged from his quarters, seemingly fine, except that he seemed rather jumpy.

On day fourteen, he made everyone who had been present at the battle to swear that they would never again, on the Godzilla's bones, NEVER AGAIN, speak of the slug incident.

All parties agreed. And everything went on as normal.

I'm going to be VERY mean to Grey in these specials.

Creativity: No kidding. I can't believe you actually went and did RESEARCH on…

Author: SHAHT AHP! That is for next time!

Yes, I am going to be very mean indeed. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer! See ya for the next special!