In the immortal words of the Script:
They fight.
Oh boy did they fight....
Neo, Trinity, Apoc, Switch, Morpheus, Niobe, Ghost, Agent Elle, Agent Brown, The Twins, Miro, and even Persephone and The Merovingian drew weapons to fight against the insane force of Matriculated nature that was Smith clone No. 57. "It's almost unfair," thought No. 57 to him (it?) self in a voice that recalled Colonel-Agent-Muska at his most unhinged, "They think they can fight back after only seeing a fragment of my powers!" Indeed, not even the Agents knew what they were really up against; though nearly impossible to control even by the so-called Original Smith, no one had ever actually seen No. 57 in action either because he moved with such speed or because he simply was not there at all. It was said amongst the Agents that even Original Smith might have admitted to himself that perhaps it was a mistake infecting that particular program...
For a full twenty seconds the crowd in the disco-lit dining room of Café la Vrai shot or swung out at random directions, hoping by chance to catch No. 57 off guard, but they only managed to hit the walls, the windows, or empty air. At least three times someone had thought they caught a glimpse of the rouge pathogen and lashed out only to discover that it was the Twins or The Merovingian lit by a whirling red light. After giving her husband a black eye (though he was lit by a *yellow* light at the time) Persephone shouted, "This is useless! How can we fight something we cannot see?"
For some reason, this statement caused Morpheus to look about. "Where is Neo?" he shouted to Trinity. "He's right behind--" she glanced behind her and, shockingly, her husband (yeah that's right, they got married) was nowhere to be seen. "He's gone! You don't think that clone got him?" "No," shouted Agent Elle, "One of the reasons we were not too concerned when No. 57 went missing during the Night of Storms was because-" she dodged a few ill-aimed bullets "-he's a kind of mutant! He cannot infect and clone himself into others, though we are not sure why." "Huh, maybe he's like Tigger!" called Switch from somewhere near the demolished DJ booth. "What?!" asked Agent Brown, perplexed. "You know, 'The most wonderful thing about Tiggers is that IIIIIIII'm the only one!'" Switch sang, grinning at the childhood memory of her favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character. The two Agents gave each other a Look. "Humans..." they muttered as they rolled their eyes in perfect unison, and went back to firing at the shadows on the ceiling.
At last they were all out of bullets to fire and pointy objects to throw. Shuriken (ninja stars), knives, forks, shards of glass and even spoons were sticking out of the walls at odd angles and EVERYTHING from the windows to the walls was riddled with bullet holes. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to have gotten No. 57, as he was nowhere to be seen and neither was Neo. They quickly rushed into the hallway, but it was empty. Morpheus glanced at his watch (which was a rather odd concoction of neon green geometric shapes) and to his surprise discovered that it was almost dawn. He then glanced back into the dining room and out a broken window. The sky was tinged a dark gray-green that was gradually getting lighter. After a moment, Morpheus noticed the large hole in the glass, a hole big enough for a man to go through if he were flying out. "Neo...!" he gasped. "Everyone! I think they went outside!" "But we're a hundred floors up!" marveled Miro, "How could...! Oh, right, his Superman thing *Yaaaaaaawn* OW!" As Miro brought her hand up to cover her mouth, one of her dangling earrings had gotten caught the lacy, fingerless glove she was wearing.
She was not the only one who had temporarily forgotten that Neo could fly; almost seven straight hours of fighting can do that to anyone. The motley crew herded themselves into the elevators (One kindly helped Miro disentangle her glove from her earrings) they caught a quick nap on the way to the ground floor. When they finally got outside the sun was nearly up and the street was washed in a gray light. Also, every window for a three- block radius was shattered. "How long do you think they were out here?" asked Trinity as she surveyed the damage. "Hmm..." She knelt on the ground as though tracking a wild animal through a jungle. "Judging by direction of the shrapnel and those booming noises a block away, not long; maybe a few minutes before sunrise, perhaps?" She turned to Morpheus and the other humans. "Well, what do we do now?" Switch winced as a particularly loud boom was followed by an unnervingly high-pitched giggle.
Trinity looked off into the distance, head in her hand. "Well, I do think that he can take care of himself, though I just don't know..." "Yeah," said Niobe, (who was still trying in vain to rid herself of that vile sweater, which miraculously was still intact) "I mean, that... that *thing* is crazy and nearly as powerful as Neo!"
"The word to remember here is 'nearly!'" said a cheerful voice behind Trinity. Trinity nearly leaped out of her skin. "NEO! Where the fack did you come from!?" Neo, his Goth costume somewhat hidden by the "Shaft-esqe" leather trench coat he had picked up from one of the broken shop windows, smiled as he handed Trinity a slightly burnt, black feather boa. She was amazed at the coil of still smoking feathers in her hand. "This was No. 57's! Does that mean...?" "Yup," said Neo. He dipped his hand into a pocket of the leather coat and brought out a small bottle filled with a dark red metallic liquid, which he handed to Agent Brown. "This is all that's left of Smith No. 57." There was a tinge of sadness to his voice. "Unfortunately, I had to destroy its host program in order to defeat him." "A small price to pay," assured Agent Brown, "He was already quite unstable to begin with." He handed the bottle to Agent Elle, and then turned to The Merovingian. "NOW AS FOR YOU...!!!!!!" "Yeagh, merde!" cried the faux Frenchman as the two tore down the street as the rest of the group snickered after them, with Agent Elle actually guffawing out loud.
Persephone sighed as she wearily handed her gun back to her handmaiden. "That man of mine... the Agent can chase him into next week but he will probably never learn..." "I suppose you are right, Milady," sighed Miro. "So are we really out of the villainy business?" Persephone grinned. "For now, anyway!"
Agent Elle, securely gripping the ensnared metallic essence of No. 57, scanned to code of the Matrix in the warm morning air. "Ahh," she sighed. "At last, it's the present again; the Retro Virus seems to have vanished with the rising sun." Indeed, the others had discovered that as well: Niobe was finally free of her loathsome sweater and had taken a lighter to it while Miro had ripped off most of the extraneous accessories of her costume.
The humans and machines went back up to the Café to celebrate the multiple victories of that night with a grand breakfast. Finally, all was peaceful in the Matrix and things had returned to normal, or at the very least whatever passed for normal in the Matriculated world.
Just as they were about to toast to the newly non-villainous stature of the Merovingian and his gang, Agent Brown and The Merovingian burst into the room. To the surprise of everyone, they had an oddly singed appearance as though they had run through a burning building and, even more shockingly, they appeared to be grinning in a guilty manner. Agent Elle sighed. "What's happened NOW?"
At that moment, a giant reptilian eye peered into the Café, accompanied by an ear-splitting ROOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR! Persephone rounded on her minions. "I THOUGHT I WARNED YOU ABOUT LEAVING THE DVD PLAYER ON!" The Twins and Miro shrugged; they were too tired to be frightened of their mistress' wrath (BIG mistake). "It wasn't us," said One, his arm around a sleepy Miro, who had nearly fallen face first into her scrambled eggs three times already. "Yeah, Milady," chimed in Two, "We were watching 'Babe!'"
As Persephone hollered at Miro and The Twins (who were now fully awake and once more fearful of the fury of Persphone), Niobe calmly swiped a piece of nice, crispy bacon from a nearby platter. "Aren't you worried?" asked a slightly shaken Morpheus to his future fiancée. Niobe observed the enormous eye at the window, which was currently eyeing the buffet. "Giant lizard running amok, terrorizing the populous?" She took a sip of her coffee. "Compared to the 70s and 80s, I think this can wait until after breakfast."
[END!]
-----------------------------------------------------------
Author's notes: Completed, Finished, Yay! I had such a fun time writing this story, and I'm glad for all the reviews I got, mucho thank yous to all you readers!
"Colonel-Agent Muska" is from "Castle in the Sky." Muska is... well, a colonel who also is an agent of sorts. He's also unhinged, voiced by The Joker/Luke Skywalker(!), and bares an uncanny resemblance to Agent Smith, amber eyes, blond hair, and ruffled neckwear aside. As for how Neo defeated No. 57... well, I leave that up to the readers' imaginations where it will undoubtedly be better then any description I can come up with.
Once again, thank you to all who reviewed!
Your humble Authoress, Kitsune-Chan. =^_^=
They fight.
Oh boy did they fight....
Neo, Trinity, Apoc, Switch, Morpheus, Niobe, Ghost, Agent Elle, Agent Brown, The Twins, Miro, and even Persephone and The Merovingian drew weapons to fight against the insane force of Matriculated nature that was Smith clone No. 57. "It's almost unfair," thought No. 57 to him (it?) self in a voice that recalled Colonel-Agent-Muska at his most unhinged, "They think they can fight back after only seeing a fragment of my powers!" Indeed, not even the Agents knew what they were really up against; though nearly impossible to control even by the so-called Original Smith, no one had ever actually seen No. 57 in action either because he moved with such speed or because he simply was not there at all. It was said amongst the Agents that even Original Smith might have admitted to himself that perhaps it was a mistake infecting that particular program...
For a full twenty seconds the crowd in the disco-lit dining room of Café la Vrai shot or swung out at random directions, hoping by chance to catch No. 57 off guard, but they only managed to hit the walls, the windows, or empty air. At least three times someone had thought they caught a glimpse of the rouge pathogen and lashed out only to discover that it was the Twins or The Merovingian lit by a whirling red light. After giving her husband a black eye (though he was lit by a *yellow* light at the time) Persephone shouted, "This is useless! How can we fight something we cannot see?"
For some reason, this statement caused Morpheus to look about. "Where is Neo?" he shouted to Trinity. "He's right behind--" she glanced behind her and, shockingly, her husband (yeah that's right, they got married) was nowhere to be seen. "He's gone! You don't think that clone got him?" "No," shouted Agent Elle, "One of the reasons we were not too concerned when No. 57 went missing during the Night of Storms was because-" she dodged a few ill-aimed bullets "-he's a kind of mutant! He cannot infect and clone himself into others, though we are not sure why." "Huh, maybe he's like Tigger!" called Switch from somewhere near the demolished DJ booth. "What?!" asked Agent Brown, perplexed. "You know, 'The most wonderful thing about Tiggers is that IIIIIIII'm the only one!'" Switch sang, grinning at the childhood memory of her favorite Winnie-the-Pooh character. The two Agents gave each other a Look. "Humans..." they muttered as they rolled their eyes in perfect unison, and went back to firing at the shadows on the ceiling.
At last they were all out of bullets to fire and pointy objects to throw. Shuriken (ninja stars), knives, forks, shards of glass and even spoons were sticking out of the walls at odd angles and EVERYTHING from the windows to the walls was riddled with bullet holes. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to have gotten No. 57, as he was nowhere to be seen and neither was Neo. They quickly rushed into the hallway, but it was empty. Morpheus glanced at his watch (which was a rather odd concoction of neon green geometric shapes) and to his surprise discovered that it was almost dawn. He then glanced back into the dining room and out a broken window. The sky was tinged a dark gray-green that was gradually getting lighter. After a moment, Morpheus noticed the large hole in the glass, a hole big enough for a man to go through if he were flying out. "Neo...!" he gasped. "Everyone! I think they went outside!" "But we're a hundred floors up!" marveled Miro, "How could...! Oh, right, his Superman thing *Yaaaaaaawn* OW!" As Miro brought her hand up to cover her mouth, one of her dangling earrings had gotten caught the lacy, fingerless glove she was wearing.
She was not the only one who had temporarily forgotten that Neo could fly; almost seven straight hours of fighting can do that to anyone. The motley crew herded themselves into the elevators (One kindly helped Miro disentangle her glove from her earrings) they caught a quick nap on the way to the ground floor. When they finally got outside the sun was nearly up and the street was washed in a gray light. Also, every window for a three- block radius was shattered. "How long do you think they were out here?" asked Trinity as she surveyed the damage. "Hmm..." She knelt on the ground as though tracking a wild animal through a jungle. "Judging by direction of the shrapnel and those booming noises a block away, not long; maybe a few minutes before sunrise, perhaps?" She turned to Morpheus and the other humans. "Well, what do we do now?" Switch winced as a particularly loud boom was followed by an unnervingly high-pitched giggle.
Trinity looked off into the distance, head in her hand. "Well, I do think that he can take care of himself, though I just don't know..." "Yeah," said Niobe, (who was still trying in vain to rid herself of that vile sweater, which miraculously was still intact) "I mean, that... that *thing* is crazy and nearly as powerful as Neo!"
"The word to remember here is 'nearly!'" said a cheerful voice behind Trinity. Trinity nearly leaped out of her skin. "NEO! Where the fack did you come from!?" Neo, his Goth costume somewhat hidden by the "Shaft-esqe" leather trench coat he had picked up from one of the broken shop windows, smiled as he handed Trinity a slightly burnt, black feather boa. She was amazed at the coil of still smoking feathers in her hand. "This was No. 57's! Does that mean...?" "Yup," said Neo. He dipped his hand into a pocket of the leather coat and brought out a small bottle filled with a dark red metallic liquid, which he handed to Agent Brown. "This is all that's left of Smith No. 57." There was a tinge of sadness to his voice. "Unfortunately, I had to destroy its host program in order to defeat him." "A small price to pay," assured Agent Brown, "He was already quite unstable to begin with." He handed the bottle to Agent Elle, and then turned to The Merovingian. "NOW AS FOR YOU...!!!!!!" "Yeagh, merde!" cried the faux Frenchman as the two tore down the street as the rest of the group snickered after them, with Agent Elle actually guffawing out loud.
Persephone sighed as she wearily handed her gun back to her handmaiden. "That man of mine... the Agent can chase him into next week but he will probably never learn..." "I suppose you are right, Milady," sighed Miro. "So are we really out of the villainy business?" Persephone grinned. "For now, anyway!"
Agent Elle, securely gripping the ensnared metallic essence of No. 57, scanned to code of the Matrix in the warm morning air. "Ahh," she sighed. "At last, it's the present again; the Retro Virus seems to have vanished with the rising sun." Indeed, the others had discovered that as well: Niobe was finally free of her loathsome sweater and had taken a lighter to it while Miro had ripped off most of the extraneous accessories of her costume.
The humans and machines went back up to the Café to celebrate the multiple victories of that night with a grand breakfast. Finally, all was peaceful in the Matrix and things had returned to normal, or at the very least whatever passed for normal in the Matriculated world.
Just as they were about to toast to the newly non-villainous stature of the Merovingian and his gang, Agent Brown and The Merovingian burst into the room. To the surprise of everyone, they had an oddly singed appearance as though they had run through a burning building and, even more shockingly, they appeared to be grinning in a guilty manner. Agent Elle sighed. "What's happened NOW?"
At that moment, a giant reptilian eye peered into the Café, accompanied by an ear-splitting ROOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR! Persephone rounded on her minions. "I THOUGHT I WARNED YOU ABOUT LEAVING THE DVD PLAYER ON!" The Twins and Miro shrugged; they were too tired to be frightened of their mistress' wrath (BIG mistake). "It wasn't us," said One, his arm around a sleepy Miro, who had nearly fallen face first into her scrambled eggs three times already. "Yeah, Milady," chimed in Two, "We were watching 'Babe!'"
As Persephone hollered at Miro and The Twins (who were now fully awake and once more fearful of the fury of Persphone), Niobe calmly swiped a piece of nice, crispy bacon from a nearby platter. "Aren't you worried?" asked a slightly shaken Morpheus to his future fiancée. Niobe observed the enormous eye at the window, which was currently eyeing the buffet. "Giant lizard running amok, terrorizing the populous?" She took a sip of her coffee. "Compared to the 70s and 80s, I think this can wait until after breakfast."
[END!]
-----------------------------------------------------------
Author's notes: Completed, Finished, Yay! I had such a fun time writing this story, and I'm glad for all the reviews I got, mucho thank yous to all you readers!
"Colonel-Agent Muska" is from "Castle in the Sky." Muska is... well, a colonel who also is an agent of sorts. He's also unhinged, voiced by The Joker/Luke Skywalker(!), and bares an uncanny resemblance to Agent Smith, amber eyes, blond hair, and ruffled neckwear aside. As for how Neo defeated No. 57... well, I leave that up to the readers' imaginations where it will undoubtedly be better then any description I can come up with.
Once again, thank you to all who reviewed!
Your humble Authoress, Kitsune-Chan. =^_^=