And the Rest is History

44

Revenant

"What is it with everyone lassoing me?" Hooter said in some distress, sitting on the passenger seat as Steelbeak drove his Viper Quack.
"Eh, you like westerns, don't ya? Come on." Steelbeak replied watching the road.
"Rather than me being presumptuous, may I ask 'why' you're bothering with me?"
"What? I owe you a favour."

Hooter looked at Steelbeak again; his white jacket was dirty and slightly tattered.

"My goodness, nobody can survive that fall!"
"You don't say?" Steelbeak careened around a corner, righted the wheels and continued along.
Hooter struggled to sit back in his seat. "If you're going to do that a seat belt would be nice."
"Nah." Steelbeak disagreed, "Seat belts are for the living."

Hooter swallowed, noticing Steelbeak wasn't wearing a seat belt either.

"Nice car. All that's missing is the Shangri-Las in the back. They had other plans, huh?" Steelbeak laughed at his own joke.
Hooter looked away from Steelbeak. "For what it's worth, I'd just like to mention it was you who began that fight with someone less than half your size."

Steelbeak drove normally and didn't answer.

"So what did you really get demoted for, anyway?"
"I suppose what it really came down to was my taking matters into my own hands."
"Shoowee!" Steelbeak whistled. "Dirty."
"It was, to say, the thing I couldn't refute."

Steelbeak chuckled, "And to think him busting in and taking over as 'Acting Assistant Director'. Almost like he's the one 'taking matters in his own hands'."
"Fair point." Hooter considered. "Do you know what my duplicate's up to?"
"The plan didn't go off right," Steelbeak said in a slightly miffed tone. "So what do 'you' reckon he's doing?"

Hooter looked away from him. "I can't possibly imagine how his interference with the S.H.U.S.H. in this universe will help your vampire with the demons at the carnival in yours."
Steelbeak started laughing.
"It's extremely convoluted."
Steelbeak kept laughing.
"Unless your vampire is after more than Larkis Dovesworth and carnival demons combined."

Steelbeak quietened.

"I have seen what a small amount of power does to my partner. It's doubtful a vampire version of himself would stop at demons."

Hooter braced himself again as Steelbeak aggressively parked the car in a quiet back street.

Steelbeak pulled Hooter out from the passenger seat. "Let's take a walk."
Hooter's feet landing on the cement. "How long have you been a revenant?"
"Long enough to have learnt how to like it." Steelbeak tugged the rope and they started walking. "That's what you wanna know, right? That I've sold out for the feeling of real power running through my veins."

They headed around to the next street.
"The F.O.W.L. installation." Hooter eyed the construction site up ahead.
"Hey!" Steelbeak chuckled, strolling forwards. "So you been here before. Let's go play with their stuff."
Hooter quietly followed. It sounded as much of a helter-skelter ride as the previous half hour had been.

"Any idea what they're up to these days?" Steelbeak asked in a cheery tone.
"Erm, smart artillery machines. AI tanks and robots," Hooter obliged.
"Sounds like a bunch of toys to me."
"Indeed; that is what you called them."

Hooter frowned at being pulled into scope of the overhead snipers. "I see you're able to 'simply stroll' in here."

Steelbeak chuckled, "Heh, yeah, that's me alright. Stroll right into any joint this side of the law and instantly own the place."

Hooter marvelled at the smooth slight Steelbeak eased through the complex.

Once they arrived at the central test chamber, Steelbeak took a right down a narrow corridor. They stepped past a push-bucket and a mop standing by a yellow wet and slippery warning sandwich board. The cleaning items were particularly crowding up the narrow passage.

Hooter's curiosity silenced him for a good long while. This was exciting. His run with Drake the other night had taken them in the opposite direction.
"Do you know what we're heading towards?"

Steelbeak shrugged. "F.O.W.L.'s F.O.W.L.." He responded in non-answer.

It was a while and a couple more levels before the machinery and deep underground ambiance began taking a meaningful shape in his mind.

"They're excavating." Hooter remarked.
"So they've stuck themselves down, so they need toys to protect themselves. S'a real page turner." Steelbeak didn't sound surprised.
"Have they done this in your universe?"

Steelbeak shook his head, "Not on my watch." He said in an oddly dark tone.

They came on a conspicuous looking double door. "Eh, looks like the end of the line."

They went through and were on a metal ledge leading out to a large miner's platform. Four industrial sized chains attached to the cemented walls above were pinched together over the top of the automated control mechanism in the middle before being fed back out to the corners of the platform in an hourglass fashion. In comical notation, the floor was painted in helpful red diagonal strips for where to stand which was essentially 'not anywhere' on this platform.

Steelbeak pulled Hooter out onto it. The solid metal railing went up to just under Hooter's beak. Hooter looked over to the black chasm beneath them.

"I see what you're doing here." He swallowed, looking back at Steelbeak.
Steelbeak smiled at him, "I ain't big on keeping debts too long."

"Maybe you wanna think on liquidating your assets then." Steelbeak's voice came from the entrance. Local Steelbeak leveled a gun at the roughed up one, stepping out onto the platform with them.

"Oh, dear is me." Roughed up Steelbeak mocked in fake tone, backing up to the corner. "I am unarmed, what will I do? Oh, I know, how about a 'chain'?!" He suddenly grabbed the chain support on the corner beside him and pulled. The entire thing ripped from the wall and the platform jerked in an unsteady squeal of metal. He jumped the jerking of the platform beneath their feet and hit the other over the hand, knocking the gun out of his grip and sending it over the edge.

Roughed up Steelbeak grabbed his duplicate's arm, pulling him backwards towards Hooter.

"Argh!" There was a nasty crack of bone and local Steelbeak crumpled to the floor. He clutched his arm.
Hooter breathed, watching the strain on the other three chains ease.

"Let's go for a ride." Roughed up Steelbeak moved for the controls.
"What, are you crazy?" Local Steelbeak countered from his kneeling position, a trace of pain in his voice, "The support's compromised. The thing can go any minute."
"Yeah, think how funny it'll be when the archaeologists in thirty thousand years find our bones mixed up in the Jurassic period." He chuckled heartily. "Well, yours, at any rate. Right, Hooter?"

"I am the terror that flaps in the night."

"Right on cue." Roughed up Steelbeak stated soberly and reached for the controls again. From above, Drake landed on him, knocking him to the floor. The platform shook.
In terror of the fight that was starting, Hooter knelt down, looking to the bolts above, the cement already showing stress cracks. He looked at the other Steelbeak near his position. "Those last three chains aren't-."

"Eh, you serious?" Roughed up Steelbeak stepped back from the centre, "Where're the rest of your lines?"

"Only if I can get them in."

Punch, kick, dodge, block.

Roughed up Steelbeak stepped back, "Didn't I leave you cozying up to your splendida signora?"
"Yeah, very inconsiderate." Drake responded lightly.
Roughed up Steelbeak laughed.

Dodge, punch, block.

"I get you guys wanna fight," Local Steelbeak interrupted from the floor near Hooter, "But you mind if we leave?"

Block, jump back.

The platform rocked wildly.

"Yow; there's a nasty move." Steelbeak commended, "Is that Shinqua?"
"You sound surprised?" Drake replied.
"Yeah."

Punch, block.

"You don't really need 'us' here, do ya?" Local Steelbeak tried again.

Dodge, dive, jump aside.

"You need a real level head for Shinqua." As roughed up Steelbeak spoke, there was a sound of rock crumbling. He grabbed the rope and pulled Hooter back safely onto the docked platform.

Drake pulled local Steelbeak back using his grapple for extra security just as the thing tipped sideways with the heavy rattle of giant chains falling. The last chain's support ripped from the wall as they turned.

They watched the miner's platform and the giant chains fall into the terrible black depths below.

The distant crash echoed up to them.

It was a very. Deep hole.

"Always count on F.O.W.L. for the latest in idiotically dumb ideas." Roughed up Steelbeak chortled, interrupting the heart pounding moment.

He turned to look at Drake. "I been there," Steelbeak stated, "you feel so hopeless it makes you wanna gag. We didn't spend our whole lives building ourselves up just to be smacked flat down again," he gestured to the empty space before them. "So do what you gotta do. Get mad, get up and get going again. Same as you been doing the rest your life." He headed out through the door.

Drake untied Hooter.

Agent Hooter looked at local Steelbeak, still clutching his arm. "It is a trifle stupid." He agreed, addressing Steelbeak, "What can you possibly be thinking?"
Steelbeak half smiled, "That I'm doing my job, and it'd be heck funny if it worked." He considered his arm, "Man, he just grabbed me and clean broke my arm. Nobody mess with him; How'd he get so strong?"
"He's a revenant." Drake answered, "He's strongest when he's.." Drake flinched, "when he's..." He stopped again. "When they agree."

Steelbeak eyed him, "I know you, you're the guy who nicked those circuit boards. What you gonna do with a few bits of electronics?"
Drake shrugged, "Same thing as you. Try to take over the world; just from a different angle."

"We need to leave." Hooter mentioned.
"Do we need to knock you out?" Drake asked Steelbeak. "Or will tying you up do?"
"Nah, think the broken arm's enough, thanks." Steelbeak chuckled, turning to look back up at the walls of the shaft, "Who does a revenant have to 'agree with' to get strong enough he can rip foot long bolts clear outta cement?"
"The vampire that bit him." Drake answered soberly.
"You not so keen on being bit?"
Drake stiffened. "There's a question and a half."
"Someone as smart as 'you' lets yourself get bit?"

Drake sighed, "Blood is blood, Steelbeak. I'm no different than the people who were robbing that store and he wasn't interested in biting 'them'. But by the time I went to talk to him he was a completely different vampire."
Steelbeak raised an amused eyebrow, "What I'm hearing is: 'he seduced you'."
"I guess..." Drake sounded uncertain.

"I don't know. It just... happened. Something... 'normal'. Till after it happened... and he had... 'Done... something... to me'." He put his hand to his chest, "A revenant is essentially one down from a vampire but they could really be anything: a ghoul, sleeper, pet zombie. It's all in the bite."
"And that's controlled by the vampire along with the bone-breaking strength."

Drake nodded.

"So you're one of the ones that if you stake him, you'd go back to normal?"
Drake hesitated, "For a given value of normal."
Steelbeak chuckled, "You geek."

"Let's go." Hooter interrupted before Drake could answer and moved to the door.

At Drake's side, F.O.W.L. security was a routine game of dodge.

They managed their way back to Hooter's car without much difficulty.

Hooter turned on the ignition, suddenly noticing the blue car opposite them. "Whose car is that?"
"That's the one Steelbeak used to get to my place. Unfortunately my phone isn't big enough to fit a police scanner."
"I can't imagine it is with that hacking program." Hooter checked their seat belts. "I'll let them know where to find it. Are you up for a trip to the office?" He started driving.

Drake sighed lightly, "Sure, but so you know, I'm completely back seat right now."

Agent Hooter led Drake back to the cafeteria. His duplicate wasn't there. They went up into the agency area. J Gander sat, staring fixedly at the screen.

"Those are S.H.U.S.H. files." Drake stated, looking at J Gander's screen.
"Yes; I'm helping your director with a problem." J Gander slowly looked up at him.
"That's how it looks." Agent Hooter corrected bitterly. "Really he's just fixing up the chess pieces so they don't block the vampire's path again."
"Explain to me why that isn't a laudable goal." J Gander countered, gesturing to Drake.

"J Gander." Drake pulled across a chair and sat down. "Why did he sell Mallard Manor?"
"He'd finished school and he had other places to be."
"What about his parents?"
"His mother had already been gone a year by then."
Drake straightened. "What about his father?"
J Gander shook his head, "He had a traumatic childhood. It's ill-advised to dig it up."

"How about you? What did you do to get bitten?"
"He was the first vampire that I and S.H.U.S.H. met in our universe. It was only when I met my second vampire that I realised how easy 'he' was to talk to." He shrugged uncomfortably, "My second vampire was a positive blood drinker. I did not handle the situation well, and I woke up the next day feeling rather pale and with a voice in my head urging me to sign death warrants instead of arrest forms."

Agent Hooter shuddered.
"But that wasn't this vampire." Drake checked. "He's into scaring things into jail."
"Typically." J Gander shook his head. "Failing that, the asylum." He turned away. " I really must continue working; I've only got to the end of today."

Drake stood and walked away. Agent Hooter followed.

"What?" He asked in trepidation, getting back into the car.

They were well away from S.H.U.S.H. before Drake finally answered.

"This vampire has a weakness." Drake answered in a dark tone, "When I find it, I'm gonna nail him straight into the coffin he belongs in." Drake added grimly, "Before he gets to Larkis Dovesworth or so help me I am going to be 'very' upset."

"You think he'd hurt him." Hooter stated, more than questioned.
"You've seen what he's done to me; it was the same thing with Steelbeak or there's no way he would've gone to all that trouble to help me. If that monster sinks his teeth into Dovesworth he'll rip through him like tissue paper," Drake answered. "Hopefully Morgana's got that portal working. She should be able to calibrate based on the venom in my blood."

"Yes..." Hooter frowned stiffly. "Unfortunately I must point out that the minute he discovers what you're up to, your ability to continue may well give out entirely. He's turned a top agent for F.O.W.L. and a S.H.U.S.H. Director into his..." He hesitated, "to his will. They both work for him; It's only a matter of time before he turns you too."

"I need you to come with me to the other universe."
"Of course."