Fear the living dead.
Roughly a week has passed since the heroes last mission. So far everyone was getting along well enough to tolerate each other, though many were growing restless, and needed something to do. Sitting around and doing nothing was always a pain for those who wanted to act. And with so many evil people to take care of, it made the waiting even worse. I hope of helping their new friends to relieve some of their tension, Steve and Tony decided to send out small group on smaller missions, that shouldn't be to difficult, but still be enough to make them a little more satisfied.
So a team of 4 was sent out. A team made out of Lucina, who really needed something to do, since sitting around doing nothing while the villains never rest, was something she could not stand. As for her team.
One of them were Jubilee: A long-time member of the X-Men and serves as a teacher to Generation X, a group of teenage mutants living at the Xavier Institute. She previously lost her mutant powers and then was turned into a vampire, adopting a baby boy named Shogo and working alongside the X-Men. In time, she re-gained her pyrotechnic abilities and was turned back into a mutant when someone named Quentin Quire sacrificed his Phoenix shard to save her life and revert her powers back.
Her second teammate was Moon Knight: Marc Spector, Steven Grant and Jake Lockley. Four different aspects of the same man who was resurrected by Khonshu, the Egyptian Lunar-God of Vengeance and Justice to serve as his avatar, after being fatally wounded and left to die in the desert. Those unjust mortals who prey upon the innocents who travel at night, with powers that come from the moon, beware the Vengeance of the Moon Knight.
The last member of the team was Richter Belmont. Like his ancestor Simon Belmont, Richter is a renowned vampire hunter, to the point that he has earned the moniker of the greatest of all Belmont Warriors.
Their mission was to check out a strange temple that Tony's spy drones had managed to locate. There was some strange magic surrounding it, preventing the drones from entering without the magic screwing with their programming. The team was sent since all of them were at least somewhat familiar with the super natural. Lucina having faced plenty of demonic beasts in her life, Moo Knight being an avatar of a moon god, Jubilee having once been an vampire and Ritcher being an experienced slayer of unholy creatures.
They arrived at the entrance of the temple, stopping by the stairs to look at it for a while. It was deathly quiet, the only sound being the wind that echoed through the dark staircase. Ritcher narrowed his eyes, he could feel something was very wrong about this place.
"Well... this place sure smells bad" Jubilee commented.
"Smells like death. I am to familiar with that smell" Ritcher said.
"Well that don't sound creepy at all" Jubilee said sarcastically.
Lucina shook her head "Regardless, we still have a mission. We need to investigate this place, something we can't do from the outside".
"She is right. Let's get this over with" Moon Knight said as he began walking down, the others following close behind. Once they were down there, they saw multiple path ways.
"Looks like we need to split up" Lucina said.
"No way! I've read enough horror stories to know that splitting up is always a bad idea" Jubilee said, knowing full well what happens to the people in horror stories that are stupid enough to split from their group.
"She's right, if we split up, we should not be on our own. Jubilee, stick with Ritcher. Me and Lucina will take the other path" Moon Knight said.
Jubilee looked at the vampire hunter "You ok with that?".
"I see no problems with it" Ritcher answered.
"Then it's settled. We search the temple and meet back here in one hour" Moon Knight ordered, and with a nod from the rest, they went on their separate paths.
Little did they know about the horrors they were about to encounter down in that horrible place.
Back in the heroes base, Zelda was walking through the halls to speak to Tony and Steve. While there has been many incarnations of Zelda through multiple time lines, most share the same status as the crown princess of Hyrule, and she has magical abilities and the Triforce of Wisdom, which embodies the essence of the Goddess of Wisdom, Nayru, the author of law. It imparts divine wisdom upon its holder, and grants the holder untold mystical abilities.
Zelda entered the room where Steven and Tony were talking "Excuse me, gentlemen".
Both looked up with Steve speaking "Princess Zelda? Something we can do for you?".
"I heard you sent some of our allies to look at an old temple. I had a strange feeling about it, and I wanted to know what kind of temple it is" Zelda explained.
"Well, we can show you this much" Tony said as he showed a hologram image of the temple their friends were sent to.
Zelda got a worried look which Steven noticed "Something wrong?".
Zelda looked at them "I'm afraid... that you have no idea of the horror you've just sent our friends in to".
Tony and Steve looked concerned at that. Maybe the mission would be so simple after all.
Back in the temple, Moon Knight and Lucina were walking through the hallways. To say the place was creepy wold be a massive understatement. It was hard to see and it was coffins everywhere. Lucina stopped to look at one of them. There was no name on it, something that saddened her a little, since it was like whoever were buried here were not important enough to be remembered. She shook her head as she noticed Moon Knight was still walking and she was about to hurry and catch up with him. But stopped when she heard a creaking sound.
Lucina looked behind her and to her shock, the coffin was open... but it was empty, she turned back to tell Moon Knight, only to notice he was gone "Moon Knight? Moon Knight!" She called out as looked around "Moon Knight, where are you?".
She got no answer, but she could suddenly hear moaning... it sounded like someone was in pain, but the tone made it sound a lot darker than that. Lucina slowly pulled out her sword as she tried to pin point where the sound was coming from, but the echoing sounds of the hallway made it hard to trace the sound back to it's source. Lucina suddenly felt something was behind her... But before she could turn around, and ear piercing scream sounded behind her.
It was so horrifying that it felt like her very soul was cowering from it, all but freezing her in place. Lucina then felt a hard hand grab her sword arm, while another hand grabbed her face, it's rotting nails digging in to her skin, causing her to hiss in pain. But then she noticed whatever was grabbing her leaned in to bite her neck. Using her free hand, Lucina punched it repeatedly in the face, feeling like she was hitting wood. But she did managed to break free, allowing her to run forward a bit and turn around to see what was attacking her.
Lucina got wide eyes at what she saw. She saw a brown creature that looked a lot like a human corpse that had almost rotted away to it's bones, wearing a brown wooden mask, revealing it's yellowy and disgusting looking human teeth. It was one of the most horrific creatures Lucina had ever laid eyes on.
Regardless, Lucina readied her blade to fight it. Only for the creature to scream again, and once again Lucina's body refused to move as terror jolted through her body, allowing the corpse looking monster to slowly make it's way closer to her. Lucina struggled for a bit but managed to force her body to move, allowing her to back away. This creature could keep her from moving just by screaming. She had a feeling trying to attack it head on was not the best option.
So Lucina decided it was better to just fall back for now, and try to locate the others.
While all that was going on, Moon Knight also noticed he was alone "Lucina? Hey! Where did you go kid?".
Moon Knight got a very bad feeling about this place... then he suddenly heard a scream nearby. He worried that Lucina could be in trouble and rushed in the direction of the scream. Only for another one of the creatures to jump out of the shadows and land on him. Caught of guard, Moon Knight fell on the ground, with the monster on top of him, it tried to bite him, but Moon Knight punched it before kicking it of him.
Jumping back on his feet, Moon Knight was ready to fight the monster, only to cover his ears and the monster screamed. The scream even made Moon Knight go down on a knee, but not really out of fear, but out of pain. He growls before throwing several Crescent Darts, small moon shaped blades. They all hit the monster and got stuck in it's body, but all ti did was make the monster let out another horrific scream.
"Would you shut up already!?" Moon Knight growled out. That scream was getting annoying, and he needed a way to prevent it from screaming.
As it moved closer, Moon Knight dashed forward and forced something in to it's mouth, stopping it from screaming, and allowing him to gain several free hits on it with his fists. But the monster's body felt like he was punching a muddy wall. The monster grabbed him by his neck, trying to choke him out. But he jumped and kicked it in the chest, making it fall on it's back. Moon Knight then hurried to pull out his sword and cut of the monster's head. Finally, it stopped moving.
"What the hell was that?" He wondered to himself.
Then he heard a voice "Moon Knight!".
"Lucina?" He turned around and saw his missing ally and put a hand on her shoulder "Are you alright? Your face is bleeding".
"I think so... but there are some kind of creature down here" Lucina explained.
"I know, I ran it to one too" Moon Knight said before both were brought to their knees by several more screams, as horde of the undead looking monsters showed up "Damn it! We need to find the others and get out of here!".
Lucina nodded in agreement as they fought through the paralysis and ran from the monsters, and they slowly gave chase.
Meanwhile, Jubilee and Ritcher were continuing their own exploration of the temple. Jubilee used her powers to give them some light. This place was scary indeed, and so far there wasn't anything worthwhile to find. Jubilee looks at some of the carvings in the stone walls, but couldn't make out what it was.
"Hey Ritcher? Can you read any of that text?" She asked her companion.
Ritcher looked at the carvings "No, I can't. But from what I can tell, they are ancient... and it almost feels like they are trying to warn us of something".
"Warn us of what?" Jubilee asked.
"Something dark... something horrible" Ritcher answered.
Jubilee didn't like the sound of that. But as she shed some light down another hallway, a mask covered face appeared right in front of her, and screamed at her. Jubilee let out a scream of her own and fell on her butt. Ritcher heard everything and turned around to see a dead looking creature trying to grab Jubilee. He quickly pulled out his whip and struck the monster in the chest, causing visible damage. So holly weapons worked on it, good to know. She sent his whip forward again, sending it clean through the monster's chest, killing it on the spot.
"What the hell was that!?" Jubilee asked as Ritcher helped her up.
"Some un-holly abomination. But I've never seen it before" Ritcher answered before covering his ears as more screams ran out "More of them are coming! Can you fight?".
"I will do my best!" Jubilee answered as she blasted the monsters with her powers, and it did manage to damage them enough to slow them down even more.
Ritcher used his whip again to strike down several more of the monsters. But many more were coming, each of them letting out the horrifying scream that made it nearly impossible for the two heroes to remain standing. How could a scream be so powerful?
"Jubilee, Ritcher! Over here!" They looked behind them to see Moon Knight "Hurry! We need to get out of here! NOW!".
Not needing to be told twice, Jubilee and Ritcher hurried to follow Moon Knight and Lucina as they hurried to get away from the hordes of monsters that were following them. The screams grew louder and louder as the monsters were following them. But they finally managed to spot the light of the outside and rushed out.
"Jubilee! Seal the exit!" Moon Knight ordered.
"On it!" Jubilee said as she charged up more of her power and damaged the sealing, causing the entrance of the temple to collapse. Trapping the monsters inside.
Everyone took a moment to catch the breath, before Lucina spoke "What... were those things?".
"I don't know... but one thing is for sure... whatever treasure is down there. It's not worth fighting those things" Moon Knight said before straightening up "Come on... let's head back".
Everyone nods and they head back to the ship they used to travel here. Leaving the temple and the monsters behind. They did not know what those creatures were. But they did know that they never wanted to encounter them ever again.
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Tell me what you think.
