Part 6: First Time As Tragedy, Second Time As Farce
Raven had come to a conclusion: she was dreaming.
She had to be. Her powers were gone, the Tower was going to hell, and her friends had disappeared and she couldn't raise them on the communicator. That she could have all rationalized.
But finding the body of a figure dressed in black…that was difficult to swallow. And when she had crept around the figure and saw it was wearing an elongated white mask that she recognized from the first of the 90's slasher revival films, she went past being confused and scared and became…offended.
Yes, offended. You see, even half demon sorceresses who had fought devils and gods and aliens and dozens of other things that defied all reality as some people might know it needed boundaries. Even people like Raven needed a line that could not be crossed, a voice that said "This can't be done. It CAN'T." And while Raven could have just thought that it was some nutcase who had extraordinary timing to slip into the Tower and just happened to be wearing a Ghostface costume in honor of the season, despite the extreme amount of coincidences that would require…she could have lived with that.
But what Robin had said was clawing at her mind. Horror films had come to life. This wasn't some lunatic in a Ghostface costume. This WAS Ghostface, straight from the films. Which one was it? She'd seen all three…
And it was that that offended her. For all she had seen, Raven had, NEEDED a limit on what she could accept as real, and a horror movie coming to life…I mean, come on, what kind of corny cliché was THAT?
But here it was.
And it offended her, not like an insult would, or a sexist comment, or a racist comment if she had been black or Asian or Native American. No. This offended her on a deeper level, a level that had told her these things couldn't happen and a level that was now frantically scrambling to reform itself before a crack opened up in her brain that showed her all the other things that she had never even comprehended, a world where triangles had five sides and flowers sang and…
And that, perhaps, was why she found herself reaching for the mask, needing to know. If a stranger's face emerged when it was gone, she could go back to her comfortable reality. But if underneath it she found the face of four certain males or a female…
In the end, Raven was spared the need to assert her sanity.
As Ghostface suddenly reared up with a vicious scream and stabbed his knife at her face.
Savior opened up his eyes and wondered why he wasn't dead.
Which was very strange, because a second ago he had been wondering what kind of sick sense of humor whoever ran the universe had, for after Savior had survived high demon overlords and supercharged angry teenage deities and a myriad of other threats and horrors, what was going to do him in was a toy voiced by Brad Dourif from a 5-Part horror movie series that never really took itself seriously. I mean, he'd seen the DVD Extras of someone filming Brad Dourif, who more casual film watchers might have known better as Vima Wormtongue from the Lord of the Ring film series, doing Chucky's voice and having a grand old time doing it, not taking it seriously in the slightest. I mean, it was a horror movie about a serial killer inhabiting the body of a doll. How serious could you really take something like that?
Certainly not deathly serious, but that was what was going to happen, as Chucky aimed and Savior knew he was dead…
Except he wasn't. He opened his eyes that he had squeezed shut, blinked, and then flicked them to the right side of his head, where there was now a small smoking hole. Had Chucky missed?
"What am I DOING?" Chucky suddenly said, and Savior turned his eyes to the doll as he lowered the gun slightly. "I just realized…I suddenly appear here, wherever here is…and then you show up…which means…you're the first one HERE to know who I really am…" Chucky said to himself, and then that nasty grin spread over his face again.
And Savior felt a deep chill seize his guts as he came to the same conclusion Chucky had.
You see, the main reason Chucky existed was that, back when he was a man (Charles Lee Ray) and a serial killer (The Lake Shore Strangler), he had been taught voodoo. When a cop had cornered him in a toy store and fatally wounded him, Chucky had called upon a voodoo deity called Damballa to transfer his soul into the body of a Good Guy doll in order to keep from dying. That was bad enough…the problem was that Chucky could also transfer his soul OUT of the doll and into another, HUMAN body if he could find the proper one and recite the spell. And the proper one was…the first person he revealed his true self to.
Which was Savior.
"Oh man, this is great! Look at you! You're young and powerful! And to think I was going to settle for a kid! And I love the hair, by the way." Chucky said, and laughed that hyena-manic laugh he had.
Savior grit his teeth.
"Fuck you." He snapped.
"Oh, going to be a bother I see. Well buddy, I don't mind having a few holes in my new body. I'VE HAD WORSE!" Chucky yelled, and aimed the gun again.
The laser blast singed a hole where Savior's left leg had been, as he had rolled and dove behind a nearby crate. Chucky just laughed and opened fire on the crate, and Savior ducked and dodged behind it as the laser blasts drilled through it…and knocked the crate open, spilling out a variety of junk the Titans had crated up and forgotten…
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Chucky laughed, and aimed again.
And Savior came up, holding a strange weapon from a wannabe foe the Titans had fought sometime in the past, someone called Goldenglove who was obsessed with boxing and was also a chump. His only real thing of note had been the shoulder cannons on his suit, which fired metal boxing gloves.
And could also function as guns, as Savior pulled the trigger. Chucky screamed, a scream that was cut off with a dull crunch as the metal projectile flew into his face, sending him flying backwards as he hit the wall again.
"YOU FUCKING SHIT!" Chucky screamed, blood running from his nose and his mouth, his plastic teeth now chipped and blood pouring from within. That was a downside of the "transfer souls" spell: whatever Chucky inhabited eventually started to become human. And that meant that it could be hurt, AND killed. Though the latter was amazingly tricky for a doll.
"YOU ASSHOLE! YOU SHITSTAIN!" Chucky bellowed: he had a REALLY foul mouth, as he scrambled off before Savior could shoot him again. Savior dropped the empty gimmick cannon and picked up something simpler: a metal pipe. Reaching over and grabbing Chucky's discarded knife, and then bracing himself, he managed to get to his feet, and began to limp towards where Chucky was. Had he been a bit more aware, Savior might have left the room and gone to look for help…but if Chucky was here, then he could very well run off and pull one of his "Surprise!" moments from his films…and Savior wasn't going to have one of his teammates stumble across a "harmless" doll and pick it up and end up with a jugular cut in twain.
"Come on Chucky! You want my body? Well, you'll have to earn it!" Savior said, limping around, his eyes darting back and forth. "Come on! It has an amazing bonus! It can shoot out energy lines that can do all sorts of things! You like to strangle people, right? I know someone you'll get along great with!"
As Savior slowly turned around, a hand reached up and snatched something from another exhibit across the room.
"You certainly drive a hard sell!"
Savior whirled. Chucky had pulled himself up on the pedestal, grinning through blood-slicked teeth now. And he was holding something. A baton? A stick? A…
Wand.
"Property of the Weather Wizard! Sounds like a fucking douchebag, but still…" Chucky said, looking at the wand. "HURT HIM!"
The wand tip glowed as Chucky aimed it at Savior.
"Ah fuck." Savior said.
His dive barely took him out of the way of the lightning bolt that fired from the wand. Chucky stumbled back a step (there was some kind of recoil, it seemed), but he quickly righted himself and stared in wonderment at his new toy.
"This is AWESOME!" Chucky laughed, and opened fire on Savior, who ran for his life.
Raven screamed as Ghostface reared up and thrust the knife at her, and she had no power she couldn't deflect it she was…
A gunshot rang through the room as a hole suddenly appeared in the middle of Ghostface's forehead mask, and he stopped, hung there for a second, and then fell back, dead for good.
"That always happens." A voice commented, and Raven looked over and up at Terra, who stood holding a smoking gun out. Strangely, she had a katana on her back, and her face and right hand were bandaged.
"Terra…" Raven said.
"Raven, and Raven, you were the horror addict when I arrived. Don't you know that when you kill the monster, never check to see if it's really dead?"
"Don't try to remove its mask either. That will just make it get back up, and this time it's going to be pissed." Beast Boy said as he stepped out from behind Terra. He had his right arm in a sling and bandages wrapped tightly around his chest. In his free arm, he looked to be carrying a small hand axe. "Then again, you always preferred more cerebral fare then us Rae."
"Guys…thanks Terra...but what happened?"
"I had a run in with that…bastard…" Terra said, her voice trailing off. Raven blinked and then looked back.
Ghostface was fading away, his body distorting like a TV picture and then ceasing to exist.
"Good riddance. Go back to sequel hell or wherever you guys go." Terra said, and lowered her gun.
"That…" Raven said.
"Was Ghostface. From the Scream series. Yeah, I know. I ran into the Fisherman from I Know What You Did Last Summer. By the way, when you get the chance, take Nigel's name off the chore list. The guy, despite barely being able to move, carried me all the way from the lounge to the medical center, sewed me up, and actually managed to do the same for Terra before he completely collapsed. We both owe him BIG time."
"Scalpel…my god, where's Scalpel?"
"Back at the center. It's…"
"What?"
"Scalpel utterly exhausted everything he had to help us. He even broke out the "battle plasma" so we'd be back on our feet and in optimum condition for whatever else decides to come after us." Beast Boy said. The "battle plasma" he was referring to was an alien technique/treatment of blood: Nigel's race had spent CENTURIES warring with one thing or another, and their medics often had to get injured warriors back into the fight ASAP. To help speed this up, his race had developed a way to treat members who had lost a lot of blood get back on their feet much quicker: a chemical that was mixed with clear plasma that "supercharged" it and basically negated the effects of losing a lot of blood, like lethargy. It worked with human blood/plasma as well, but it was hard to make, and the fact that Nigel had used most of the stores to save Gar and Tara's lives spoke a lot of his character. "But…whatever has done this…it hasn't just sealed our powers. It's basically made us all human. And Scalpel…"
"His chest wound." Raven said, realizing it. A long time ago, Savior had made a tactical decision that Nigel had wanted: he had stabbed a Shimmer strand through Scalpel in order to get at the foe Scalpel was holding. It had been a bad decision: not only had it not dealt with the foe, but it had inflicted a serious wound to Scalpel's torso. And while Blacktrinians could handle certain injuries that would have been invariably fatal to humans, the wound Savior had left had been pretty serious, and due to Scalpel's constant physical efforts, it had, even after a few years, never been able to heal properly. As a result, it tended to open up in bad fights and other great exertions. But for a Blacktrinian, that was little more then an inconvenience…
Unless said Blacktrinian had been cursed with the attributes of a human. A wound like THAT in a human…
"We bandaged him as best we could…and since his room is right next to the medical center we helped ourselves to some of his weapons…but he really pushed the hell out of himself helping us…Raven, we need to get to that orb and reverse the effects, or Scalpel WILL bleed to death." Terra said.
"…….Robin said the orb melted through the floor of the Evidence Room. It's on one of the lower floors." Raven said.
"Elevator." Beast Boy said.
"Sounds good to me." Terra replied, sticking the gun in the waist of her shorts and heading off.
"Hang on Nigel. We'll save you." Beast Boy said, thinking of his friend, left lying on the stretcher back in the medical room, so utterly and completely exhausted that even if something came after him he wouldn't be able to defend himself. "I promise."
"No one's here." Cyborg said, as he looked around the lounge.
"But someone was." Robin said, looking at the broken TV and the blood splatters on the floor. He reached down and felt on the ground. "This one's still pretty fresh. Whatever happened here happened pretty recently."
"Oh no…our friends…our friends…" Starfire said, putting one hand to her mouth.
"It's ok Kory. There's blood, but no bodies. They could still be alive." Cyborg said.
"Hate to be a mood killer, but…" Robin said, and then trailed off. "Did anyone hear that?"
"Hear what?" Gauntlet said, and then he heard it…a strange…sloshing noise.
It was coming from the kitchen, and Gauntlet whirled in that direction, aiming his Uzi. He couldn't make out anything in the eating area though: the bright lights that Beast Boy and Terra had enjoyed had faded to almost nothing.
"Cyborg, come on. Cover me." Gauntlet found himself saying, and before his brain could scream at him that going over there with the Gauntlet disabled was the LAST thing he wanted to do, he was already moving. Cyborg ran over to Gauntlet's back as he crept over to the kitchen…and jerked inside, waving his gun.
Nothing.
Well, not exactly. The cabinets below the sink were open, and there was a huge pool of water on the floor in that general area. Gauntlet wrinkled his nose.
"Anything there?" Robin asked.
"Nothing. The sink appears to have sprung a leak though. Maybe that was it." Gauntlet said, and turned and headed back to where Robin and Starfire were.
Too bad he didn't stay in the kitchen. If he had, he might have noticed the huge pool of water was moving. That may not have seemed all that strange…except it was moving UP.
"I'm going to try the communicator again." Robin said, as he pulled the round device out. "Any Titans who read, come in! This is Robin! Over!"
Nothing but static.
"Titans! Come in! Please!" Robin said.
Static. Starfire was now muttering to herself on her native tongue, offering prayers to gods she no longer really believed in to take as much joy and prosperity in her life as they wanted as long as her friends stayed all right.
"Titans! Come in! Come in! Titans!" Robin said. But the static didn't change, and with a heavy heart Robin closed the communicator and tucked it away.
"It's ok Fearless. We'll find them." Cyborg said.
"I hope so…" Robin said, and sighed, looking around at the group that was loosely clustered around him. "Man, I used to think they were fools, but I'm beginning to see the wisdom in those who, went stressed, want a drink." Robin said.
"You want a drink?" Starfire asked, confused.
"Yeah. Hell, I need a drink." Robin said.
"And all drinks need ice!"
And then it was fired at the group, coming on the heels of the nasty voice that had just spoken. Robin reacted on instinct, throwing himself away. The projectile fired over his head, a hair from slicing into his cheek. If he hadn't moved it would have probably impaled itself in his eye…
And Robin couldn't believe his eyes from the brief glimpse he had gotten of the missile as it had flown over him.
Was that an…ICICLE?
Robin rolled backwards and flipped back to his feet, aiming his gun at the figure that had appeared in the kitchen. Robin couldn't make out much due to the lack of light, but the figure seemed to be…white. Yes, he could make out a white blur…a white roundish blur…what the hell…
"Another one!" Starfire said.
"Yeah well, he'll get a nice welcome!" Cyborg said, as he armed his gun. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!"
The figure laughed.
"Oh, I'm someone all right!" It said. "I'm not Jack In The Box, or Jack of All Trades. I'm Not Jack O'Lantern, or Jack Djinn. No!"
And then the figure stepped, or more accurately slid forward, revealing itself.
"I'm…JACK FROST!"
And the Titans stared at the newly arrived horror movie villain, a terrible, evil…
Snowman.
Gauntlet broke down into hysterical laughter a second later. The other three were a bit more restrained, but it was clear they were fighting back their own laughter. Even Starfire seemed amused.
"My god…Gar, did you get that one? Oh man! What's going on in the horror movie industry? I mean…HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gauntlet howled. Jack Frost certainly didn't seem amused: his twig eyebrows curled down ever his coal eyes, giving him a pretty accurate expression of anger.
"You laugh now, but you won't once I put you on ice!" Jack Frost yelled, and raised one of his stubby arms. And you really can't blame Gauntlet for not taking him seriously: would you take what looked like a bad polystyrene snowman costume seriously? It didn't even look like it was made of snow…
The icicles that fired from Jack's arm were certainly made of ice though, and razor sharp. And without the Gauntlet shield, the only thing Gauntlet had standing in between them and something in his body that wouldn't do well to be skewered was flesh and blood…and as that has been demonstrated, that's not really a lot of protection.
Too bad for Mr. Frost when Robin whipped out a Birdarang and threw it right through the icicles, smashing them to pieces before they hit Gauntlet.
"Thanks Robin." Gauntlet said, as Jack Frost's twig eyebows went up in surprise.
"Don't mention it." Robin said, as he reached down and brought the barrel of his gun up. "Shall we?"
"Let's." Cyborg said, doing likewise.
"You can't stop me!" Jack Frost said, and ran (well, slid on his rounded bottom) forward.
"Yeah. We can." Gauntlet said.
And all four opened fire. Jack Frost was instantly riddled, filled with holes and then blown apart, his snow body scattering all over the floor, his twig eyebrows, coal eyes, carrot nose, and red scarf falling down in the mess.
The guns shut off as the Titans started firing.
"I'll give them a point for originality but minus ten points for execution." Gauntlet said, lowering his gun.
"Right. Come on guys, let's…"
"FUCKERS!!!!!!!!!"
And then the snow flowed up and reformed into Jack Frost, not a hair (er, ice crystal?) out of place. "No one gives ME the snow job! I'll rip you open and write my name on your organs!"
And Jack thrust out his arms and icicles emerged from all parts of him, and as the Titans gaped at the corny as hell but even deadlier mutant snowman monster, they fired out, lancing at the four.
Savior dove behind another crate, and a second later it exploded into flame as Chucky fired a lightning bolt into it. Savior threw his arm in front of his face to protect himself from flaming splinters.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Chucky laughed. "DON'T FUCK WITH THE CHUCK!"
Savior ran for it again, diving under another lightning bolt and rolling behind another crate. He'd had enough, as he stood up and prepare to throw the knife at Chucky.
Too late, he realized the second crate was made of metal. And his hand was on it.
Chucky zapped the crate and the electrical charge flowed through and sent Savior flying with a scream. He came crashing down on another crate, its contents scattering around him as he moaned.
"Whoops. Can't be stopping your heart now." Chucky said, and tossed the wand aside. He looked around and spotted something interesting: an open crate with what looked like a mechanical arm on the top. He hopped down and scampered over.
Smoking, his right arm spasming and his pipe gone, Savior tried to get up and unscramble his brains, as Chucky clambered up onto the crate, grabbed the arm, and pulled it up, surprised to find that it was rather light. He checked the tag on it.
"Raw's Battle Arm. Well then, let's see what you can do!" Chucky said, as he began fiddling with it. He found a panel of about a dozen buttons as Savior got up.
He pressed one.
The wrist snapped open and four razor sharp metal discs fired from within. Savior saw them coming and tried to dodge, but one sliced open his right arm and another grazed his forehead. As he stumbled back, blood running into his eyes, Chucky looked in awe at the arm.
"I love you!" he said, and actually kissed the limb, leaving a small bloody lip print. Then he aimed at Savior and pressed another button.
A small launcher popped out and fired a small metal spear. Savior ducked under it and then rolled out of the way as Chucky began hammering on the button and firing more and more spears at Savior. Savior came up near another broken crate and spied something.
Chucky grew bored of the spears and pressed another button, as Savior grabbed what looked like a nail gun. It wasn't a nail gun, but as the knuckles on the fingers of Raw's arm opened up, what fired out certainly looked like nails, aimed right at Savior.
Savior pressed his button first, and blue energy flowed out from the strange construct and formed into a large oval energy shield. The nails struck the shield and bounced off with a hiss.
Chucky yelled in anger and pressed the button again, but the four small followup darts fared as badly as their brothers.
"FUCKER!" Chucky yelled.
And he wiped the entire button array with the palm of his hand.
The arm nearly split apart, as a whole bunch of weapons emerged, armed, and fired, as discs, darts, spears, whirling stars, knives, spikes, and even a bladed bolo came shooting out. All of them crashed into the shield, nearly knocking Savior on his rear and shorting the construct out, causing Savior to drop it with a hiss.
"Make like a porcupine!" Chucky said, and wiped the panel again.
The arm jerked, but nothing came out. Then the whole limb started shaking, and Chucky cursed and tried to get it under control, but it just wasn't happening, and finally he had to drop the appendage. It fell to the floor, spasmed a few more times, and then lay still.
"Fucking piece of shit!" He cursed, and turned back to Savior.
As he reared back his arm and hurled one of the spears that had been fired at him and bounced off the shield at Chucky. The bladed projectile took Chucky in the stomach, and he screamed in pain.
"It's not the weapon, it's he who wields it." Savior said, as Chucky staggered back and fell off the crate, disappearing from view. Savior picked up one of the blades that had been fired at him and limped over to where Chucky was, turning around the crate.
Chucky was gone. All there was was a bloody spear and a few tiny scraps of overall material.
Savior looked around, checking behind him, back in front, and then slowly turning around. He had a feeling that Chucky would still be coming at him with all he had. The main reason, after all, that Chucky wanted to get back into a human body was that if he stayed in the doll body for too long, he would become stuck in it. And since the longer Chucky stayed in the body the more human it became, eventually his body became a strange fusion of humanity and doll, blood, flesh, and nerves mixed with wires and plastic.
Which had the nasty side effect of, though it hurt him as much as it would a human, letting him survive and keep going at full tilt despite suffering injuries that would be fatal to a human. Hell, in Child's Play 2 he had yanked off his own hand, replaced it with a knife, had his legs melted off by a machine and been covered with molten plastic, and he STILL had enough moxie to keep going after the protagonists until the female lead had shoved a pump into his mouth and made his head do its best impression of an over inflated balloon. That had finally put Chucky down…until the next sequel of course…
He heard the pitter-patter behind him, and he whirled and stabbed. But there was nothing there (and even if there had been, he probably would have missed…)
Savior took a step, turned around, closed his eyes, and listened…waiting…
Behind him!
Savior turned.
And Chucky swung out the hammer, the special construct the Titans had taken from a robot riding a metal horse, a joke from a genius inventor who had call the creation Polo. The main weapon of Polo had been, of course, a hammer, specially designed for combat of course, and Chucky made it live up to its design as he smashed it up and across Savior's face. It had the effect of a wrecking ball, sending Savior flying across the entire room before hitting the floor and sliding for a few more feet before he stopped. He did not move.
"Finally." Chucky hissed, and threw down the hammer. He reached behind him and withdrew the cocoon gun, and he aimed and fired it at Savior. Savior didn't even blink, and with that his body was stuck to the ground with a glob of sticky glue.
Smiling, Chucky hopped down and moved over to Savior, placing his hand on his forehead as he refreshed his memory.
"Finally, no more getting dragged up stairs, no more getting thrown around like a rag doll, no more pain and suffering. I can finally get back to BUSINESS." Chucky said, and with a maniacal gleam in his eye, he began to chant.
The icicle barrage fired out and all the Titans dove for cover. Starfire got the best of it as she dove behind the couch. The others didn't fare so well: Robin's chest armor protected him from some of the daggers, but they still sliced up his legs and left arm. Gauntlet got sliced up as well, grazed by several of the projectiles and taking one into the meat of his upper thigh, the hardened ice driving in two inches and making him stumble over a chair with a screaming curse. And Cyborg, slowest of them all, pretty much got hit everywhere…fortunately, the ice just broke on him.
"HEY!" Jack yelled.
"Is for horses!" Cyborg yelled back, as he rolled and came up on one knee as he aimed his gun and opened fire again. Bullets ripped through Jack's body, but he just laughed and slid forward. Cyborg got up and began backing away, still going full auto until his gun ran dry.
"FUCK!" Cyborg cursed, throwing the empty weapon away. "How the HELL do you kill SNOW?"
"You DON'T! SNOW KILLS YOU!" Jack yelled back, and then suddenly his features vanished and his body elongated, forming into a hand that reached out and grabbed Cyborg before he knew what was happening.
And he realized the catch. In movies, horror films often had budgets that bordered on the ridiculous. You didn't see anyone offering $100 million to make a slasher film. Hell, sometimes the makers didn't have a HUNDRED dollars, let along a hundred million. So you had terrible special effects, FX so cheesy it drew all the mice in a ten-mile radius, and CGI so poorly made you almost wish there were wires to see. Such was the case for Jack Frost and his two films. The filmmakers were stuck with a clearly fake costume, and they didn't complain, instead making the most of what they could do with what they had. And in theory, a monster made out of snow could do quite a bit…they just didn't have the budget to realistically show it.
But that didn't apply here. Jack Frost may have still had his ridiculous polystyrene appearance, but he also came equipped with all his powers, and here, budgets didn't matter. It was all about what one could DO.
And Jack Front could do quite a lot, as he slammed Cyborg into a wall, and then his snow body-hand turned and threw the teen across the room, yelling and screaming as he slammed into the wall and went right through it. Jack's snow body flowed back and reformed, and he grinned, fangs of ice flashing within his mouth.
An explosive disc flew, striking Jack in his face and detonating. Jack shuddered, and then turned and looked at Robin, a huge hole where most of his head had been. But snow quickly flowed out and restored it, much like the scene near the end of T2 when Sarah Conner had introduced Robert Patrick's immortal villain to her shotgun.
"I am back." He announced in a horrible Austrian accent, and went after Robin. Robin opened fire with his own gun, and it was about as effective as Cyborg's. Jack held out one of his lumpy arms, and it suddenly elongated as spikes of ice sprouted from it. Robin dropped the gun and ran, running for and up the wall and leaping off it as Jack swung out his arm, the limb extending even more and smashing everything in its way to the side as Jack tried to smash Robin.
Robin landed and hurled off twin Birdarangs. They thudded in Jack's chest and stuck there.
Jack arched one twig eyebrow.
"Ah bugger." Robin said.
The Birdarangs were fired back out at Robin at high velocity. In a blur of movement Robin whipped out his staff and spun it, knocking them both out of the air in a quick one-two motion…and then Jack's arms slammed into him, shoving him back and pinning him to the wall.
Within a second Jack had slid up to Robin, and the two were now face to face, or face to fang, as Jack Frost opened his mouth impossibly wide, long curved daggers of ice lining the inside, as he prepared to snack on Robin's countenance.
"Where are the others?" Beast Boy asked Raven, as the three hurried along the hallway, heading for the elevator.
"I left Noel back in the Evidence Room. He seemed all right, or enough to tell Robin about what happened to the Orb. Now…I don't know…but he can handle himself. We need to get our powers back, unless we want to follow the plot of these damn movies and just end up with one or two survivors." Raven said.
"Right, especially considering that I'll probably be the survivor." Terra said.
The two other Titans stopped and looked at her.
"Well, uh…I'm a natural blonde at least! Blondes with roots showing are the food of choice for nine out of ten aliens, it seems." Terra said.
"Tara, the only surefire way I know you would survive is if you were the daughter of a crusty scientist who was the world's leading expert on things with scales, Latin names, or way too many legs." Raven said.
"Right, and your chances would be even greater if you followed in his footsteps and became the world's second leading expert on things with scales, Latin names, or way too many legs. But you're not." Beast Boy said, as he reached the elevator and pressed the button.
"Well…at least I'm still a virgin!" Terra blurted.
Silence.
"No you're NOT!" Raven replied.
"Well I know YOU'RE not!" Terra shot back.
"You try staying out of bed after years of repressing all your emotions." Raven blurted back. When Beast Boy and Terra stared wide-eyed at that comment, she blushed furiously. "Er, that came out bad."
"Can we stop this? None of us really fit the archetypes that fit the definite template of survival, so I say we defy the model and make our own." Beast Boy said, as the elevator completed its trip down. "And I say we start by getting our powers back and…"
And the doors opened, and the zombies came pouring out.
Scalpel groaned slightly, as the light fixture he had been staring at suddenly had a twin. Then they were quadruplets, before the light fixture became a lone child again.
He was sprawled on the comfortable stretcher, but its softness was negated by how much his muscles ached. And below that was a disturbing feeling of his blood slowly leaking under the bandages. He had barely been able to move before, but now outside out tiny jerks of his neck, he couldn't move at all. Terra and Beast Boy hadn't wanted to leave him, but he had insisted: if they all stayed in one place they were ALL sitting ducks. Beast Boy had left Scalpel's glaive on a table next to him, for all the good it did him: even if he'd been completely fresh he wouldn't have been able to lift the weapon now. He wished that he'd had more human weapons in his room: Beast Boy and Terra had taken the only ones they could wield well.
He hoped they'd be back soon…
A sound.
Footsteps.
Scalpel did not speak. He did not want to draw any attention if it was the wrong sort.
It didn't matter though. The figures who had started to stagger around the corner of the hallway didn't have to see him. They could smell him.
Scalpel heard them then. Low moans.
He knew the sound.
"Ohrtyiula ihuygv." He said, as the zombies began making their way to the medical room, and the exotic meal that awaited them there.
The zombies that had come out of the elevator didn't have much in the way of qualms: they may have been getting the more "common" food, but they didn't much care.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Beast Boy screamed, scrambling back and away from the clawing arms. He made about six huge steps before he tripped and fell, even as Raven gasped in horror and Terra yelped, before pulling out her gun and opening fire. Shoots rang out, thudding into the chest, arms, and legs of a few of the zombies in the lead…
And then the gun ran dry. Terra looked at it and gulped as the masses advanced.
"I think I'm going to need more bullets."