(Disclaimer: don't own vhd; b…sigh I wish Urban Vision would create more merchandise… We need Markus Bros. Stuff!!.)
Fear the Fans
Thank you reviewers!
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I'm stupid get over it: I will not get over it, if you reviewed my fic it proves your intelligence. (Preens feathers) Again I'm sorry for the long wait, here is a new chapter for you…review pathetic me! (Heh, if you feel like it.)
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Moving down the corridor with such a large amount of people was terribly strange. Josh was used to taking them in a rush all alone, not moseying casually along in a pack! Every few seconds Josh's line of sight would flicker nervously over to Bengee. The shadow demon had sworn that if ANY chance of escape whatsoever showed itself, that he would be gone in a flash. So far though, everything was tightly locked and secured, all according to plan.
"Why are we going upstairs?" Bengee whined, his already annoying voice reaching a new and even more irritating pitch.
"I told you." Josh sighed, feeling exasperated. "We need to pick up Becca, and the elevator's broken."
"Your cousin?" Bengee asked, sounding disgruntled. "Why can't we just leave her where you stashed her?"
"Because my Aunt told her that I'd take her to the beach, if I don't, she'll tell and then my Aunt and my mom will kill me." Josh growled, glaring at Bengee as the shadow demon curled his lip with a derisive 'as if we'd care about you dying' look on his face. Josh shook his head in disgust before reaching out and grabbing the back of Kyle's suit, in order to prevent the hyper active man from prancing down the wrong hallway.
"Eeaugh!" Kyle yelped, as Josh's precautionary action gave the red head a large, unintended wedgie. He hurriedly yanked down on the trunks to return them to their former state, while Caroline sniggered behind him. The rest of the cast trooped slowly up the staircase, looking grumpy and uncomfortable. With the exception of Bengee and Kyle, all of the men had their towels wrapped around their chests, feeling exceedingly embarrassed by the lack of clothing. Meier had Charlotte wrapped up in her towel like Leila, insisting that she keep 'unwanted eyes' off of her, while Caroline preferred to walk about showing off her one piece. Nolt had his 'dancing banana' towel wrapped around his torso and looked horribly displeased. He had discovered upon leaving the room that the horrendous pattern was printed on both sides, leaving him with no way to hide the disgustingly happy tangoing fruit.
Finally, the cast reached the eighth floor and moved quickly down the corridor to retrieve Josh's monster er- I mean cousin. Josh was slightly taken aback as the employee within thrust Becca out of the room with enough force to send her careening into Mashira, before slamming the door in his face. But he quickly shook off his surprise and led the characters back down the stairs towards their destination.
Becca happily skipped about, swinging her small beach basket back and forth, and reaching up now and then to yank on the towels of unsuspecting cast members. She enjoyed seeing what reactions she would get from which people, and especially loved the awkward squawk of anger she received from Meier as she sent his towel fluttering gently to the floor. "Yay!" She squealed with glee as Meier blushed furiously, perfectly aware of Leila, Caroline, and Charlotte's stares riveted on him (Not that he minded the last one too terribly…it was the first that really had him worried.)
There were only a few other mishaps on the short (but seemingly perilous) journey to the small side door in the back of the building, including Bengee's small escapade with the can of spray paint he nicked off of the janitor's cart. Finally the crew approached a small wooden door with nothing more than a tiny chain latch keeping it shut, a strange salty aroma blew gently through some of the cracks. The cast stared apprehensively as Josh removed the latch, and the door swung open.
"Ooooooooh." The small crowd behind the tech murmured appreciatively. The beach stretched off into the west for about a mile, consisting of fine white sand and sparkling clear blue water, which twinkled appealingly in the rays of the morning sun.
"Aaaaraaahahahahaaa!" Kyle cried, intoning one of his freakish expressions of enjoyment, (and shattering the beauteous serenity…) before racing headlong at the water, shoving two people who were unfortunate enough to be in his way flying, and diving in.
Shaking their heads and feeling riddled with embarrassment, the rest of the cast followed at a more sedate pace, pretending not to know the reckless Markus brother.
Spike lifted his head out the sand slowly, expression unchanged so as to not give away the well of anger burning inside of him. How dare that random idiot knock Spike Spiegel over?!? A lanky violet haired woman, the other victim of Kyle's charge, sat up as well, rubbing the back of her head and spiting sand.
"What the hell was that?" Faye grumbled, glaring out at the three people in the water, and quickly spotting the most 'excitable' of the small group. Her suspicions were confirmed almost instantly as she watched her partner turn towards the same red haired man and glare. "Should we kill him now?" She asked, sounding careless as she rose to her feet, flicking sand from her bikini top. She watched Spike shake his head, and, with a shrug, followed him off to the large group of newcomers.
Meier was breathing heavily, trembling and shaking, he had yet to step onto the sand, and was still huddled up under his beach umbrella in the doorway.
"Meier, darling, come now!" Charlotte wheedled softly, tugging at Meier's arm. "We applied so much of that sunscreen, and you have your umbrella, you'll be perfectly fine." Her soothing tones finally won the aristocratic vampire over, and he timidly headed out into the sunlight, umbrella held tightly over his head. The sand was hot, but to Meier's immense surprise, he didn't burn! Brightening immediately, the vampire gazed around, admiring how different things looked in the sunlight, as he followed Charlotte over to a more secluded portion of the dunes to set up their umbrella.
Caroline had only just spread out her towel to rest on when a shadow fell across her. Glowering, she sat up and received a pail full of salty water in the face as a reward.
"Kyle…" She snarled, standing slowly, having identified the culprit by the smothered sniggering.
Josh ignored the loud screaming behind him as he walked over to the only other beach umbrella and sat down under it. The other two people turned to look at him.
"Oh, hi Josh." Colleen muttered, trying to keep her eyes on the three people from her cast of Kenshin who had been allowed outside. "Did your entire cast get out here?" She turned to watch Josh nod, before stifling a laugh and gesturing to the other umbrella inhabitant. "Jen was only allowed to bring out the Bebop people, the Rayearth cast was acting up again…especially that little green haired dude." The other tech, Jen, had long chestnut brown hair tied into a ponytail…but it looked frazzled and unkempt, her hazel eyes expressed annoyance with her cast members, and her renaissance-esque outfit was practically ruined.
"I'm ready to go back in now." Jen muttered, something like how Josh would expect a half awake zombie to sound.
Colleen placed a comforting arm around her comrade. "Don't worry, I'll watch your morons." She said soothingly. "You can get some sleep." Colleen had hardly finished this sentence when Jen fell over, dead to the world. Josh looked concerned for a moment before Colleen shooed him away by chucking sand in his face.
Staggering back up the beach as he wiped sand from his eyes, Josh nearly collided with two scowling people standing in the shallows. Finally ridding himself of the grit, he gazed up at them, wondering what moron had decided to make all anime people so freakishly tall. One of the aforementioned was obviously the 'Spike' he had met before; the other was a lean, purple haired woman with far too much skin showing. Both were managing to glare angrily and look satisfied all at once. Curious, the tech turned to see what they were staring at, and quickly dashed over to the spot.
All that could be seen of Kyle was his braid, which Caroline had decided not to bury; the rest of him had been shoved unceremoniously into the ground. Josh got down on his knees and began shoveling sand until he had unearthed the other mans head. Kyle gasped air for all of two seconds, before he began yelling every curse word he had ever learned, repeatedly. Josh felt annoyed and, spotting Nolt, dragged him over to finish the job.
"Excuse me?" Charlotte asked pleasantly, glancing up at the handsome dark-haired man standing over her.
"I asked if yeh wanted to go for a walk." Sanosuke repeated as he pushed his fluttering red headband out of his charmingly handsome face, completely entranced with Charlotte's beauty. "You don't have to of c-"
"She most certainly does NOT want to go!!!!" Meier yelled, sitting up suddenly and glaring at the cocky young human.
"Whoa! No need to get offended grandpa!" Sanosuke said quickly holding up his hands. "I'm not a stalker or anythin' I would never hurt your beautiful daughter!"
Meier's mouth fell open and his eye twitched with the rage that was quickly bubbling up inside of him. He was about to explode with offended anger when Sanosuke boldly grabbed Charlotte's wrist and raced off as though he were being chased by demons, Charlotte screaming in his wake.
Borgoff stared in confusion as a shrieking Charlotte was dragged bodily past him, a laughing tall guy had her wrist and seemed intent on not letting go. Unwilling to become a participant, Borgoff shook his head, shrugged the sequence off, and continued down toward the pretty blonde girl with a long black trench coat standing by the waters edge.
Meier was filled with fury; no one had ever so blatantly insulted him in all of his long life! Forgetting all else he started off after Charlotte.
He made it about three steps before bursting into flame.
The shrieks of anger and pain soon had everyone's attention as Meier hurled himself back under the umbrella, rolling frantically back and forth to put out the inferno. Singed and seething, he looked for the closest person to him, and spotted Bengee's physically painful swimwear.
"Bengee!" Meier hissed. "Come here NOW!" Knowing better than to hesitate when the vampire was in this mood, he dropped his boogie board and hurried over.
"What?" The shadow demon asked nervously. "I didn't do anything I swea-"
"I know you didn't!" Meier snarled. "That- that boy! Stole Charlotte!"
Bengee looked nonplussed.
"I want you to go get her back!" The vampire growled. "Kill him if you have to." Bengee brightened at once, killing was fun! Grinning he sank into the shadows and vanished.
Nolt had finally finished digging his younger brother out of the sand. Shaking his head ruefully at his still cursing sibling, Nolt slung the sand coated red head over his shoulder and headed down to the waters edge to wash the grit off. After tossing Kyle into the waves Nolt turned to the pair behind him, Mashira and Grove, who were happily working on the moat of a beautiful sandcastle together. Grove waved cheerily as the wolfish Barboroi continued tunneling under the castle to create a secret entrance. Ed sat off to the side watching the two dig energetically, she had asked them to build it in the first place, occasionally performing slow motion versions of an odd break dance while clutching a corgi tightly to her chest with glee.
D sat in a beach chair in the shade of a sand dune, he felt relaxed for the first time in ages, so naturally a catastrophe of minor constitutions was necessary to spoil everything. A high pitched squeal rang out to his immediate left…D felt his good mood dissipate rapidly as a pretty black haired girl charged over the hill toward him, a shorter red haired man in tow.
"Look Kenshin!!! There he is!" Kaoru cried joyfully, pointing to the sunbathing Dunpeal. The ebony haired girl raced over to D, dragging the unfortunate Kenshin face first through the sand behind her.
"Oroooo!" The swordsman cried in terror, directly before his head struck a stone of ill fortune protruding from the sand, which knocked him cold…Kaoru didn't seem to notice.
Sighing exasperatedly, Colleen shrugged the sleeping Jen onto the beach blanket, before trudging off down the dunes to rescue Kenshin from the ill fortuned rock.
"Hi beautiful, what's your name?"
The tall blonde in the black trench coat and midnight blue bikini, stood slowly and gracefully before turning and smiling at Borgoff, who was trying his absolute hardest to look dashing. (Oblivious to the fact that it was not possible for him to be so…) Before she raised her sunglasses from her dazzlingly beautiful eyes and set them on top of her shining mane of hair.
She gazed through him for a moment before focusing on his face and smiling that dazzlingly pretty smile once again.
"I'm Julia." She murmured with a small good-natured laugh.
"Who are you?"
Spike's head jerked up abruptly. His 'someone's-going-near-Julia-and-I-automatically-must-seek-out-and-destroy-them-this-instant' radar had just gone wild! With complete disregard for anyone around him he snapped upright and pounded off to the left, heedless of the fact that he mowed down Grove and half of the sandcastle in the process.
"No! No! Noooooo!" Ed squealed with anguish, racing over to the half decimated construction and prancing about unhappily. "Ed's wonder palace go blam! Bad Spike-person nono!!"
Mashira gasped for air as he succeeded in pulling himself out from the collapsed tunnel. Shaking hard to dislodge most of the sand he looked about for the others, spotting Ed and Ein, he began scanning for Grove. He didn't have to look long, the youngest Markus was clutching his bleeding nose and sobbing just behind a fallen turret.
"You gonna live?" Mashira asked, gazing concernedly about his sandcastle-building buddy. When Grove continued to cry unabashedly, the wolfish Barboroi stood and carried him over to Nolt and Kyle, at a complete loss as to what else he could do.
Sanosuke had finally stopped running, tossing Charlotte into the small alcove he had located on an obscure section of the beach; he sat down for a breather, careful to block the entrance so that his charge couldn't escape.
"How ya doin' brown eye?" He called to the disgruntled woman. "Y'ok sweetie?" He was answered with a snarl or rage and a flung shoe. Rubbing his jaw where he had been struck Sanosuke gave a rueful smile. "Feisty? Rawr!" Just as he began moving forward he halted, a strange look on his face as something tugged at the back of his head; baffled he turned to look behind him.
There was nothing.
Raising his eyebrow in confusion the brown haired man looked awkwardly around his immediate area. Before giving a shocked "Uuughgh!" and collapsing onto his side in the sand, curled up in a ball and gasping as his hands instinctively covered his groin to protect it from further attack.
Charlotte smiled happily as Bengee stepped out of the shadows and began beating the man on the ground playfully; like a cat toying with a small mouse.
"That's enough now." Charlottes said, grabbing Bengee's hand to forestall any further injury on her captor. "Can you take me back to Meier?"
The shadow demon looked as though he was seriously considering this statement for a moment before turning away from the aristocratic woman and continuing to gleefully torment Sanosuke.
"What happened?" Nolt asked worriedly as Mashira handed him his sobbing sibling. Mashira pointed unhelpfully at the vanishing dust cloud that was Spike, before walking back to the sandcastle with Ed in tow to attempt repairs.
"For the last time Meier!" Josh pleaded, "Just tell me what happened, ok? Where's Charlotte?" The tech watched as the vampire seethed visibly, far too angry for words. Caroline was gazing at her former employer while slurping on a soda, wondering how much longer it would take for the vampire to explode.
"My name's Borgoff, Borgoff Markus."
Julia smiled again. "That's a nice name." She murmured, smiling winningly, laying a hand on his shoulder, and just all around playing the vixen, wondering how long it would take for Spike to turn up. "I don't think I've ever heard it before."
The oldest Markus blushed crimson, not knowing how to respond. Women normally ran from him, either screaming in terror/disgust, or laughing uproariously at the fact that he had bothered to try and hit on them. Why was this woman being so friendly?
He wasn't forced to puzzle over the situation for long.
Spike cannoned into Borgoff with an insane roar of fury, and pulled a gun out of his hair all in one swift movement.
Colleen randomly chose this moment to unintentionally spare the allured his life.
"So THAT'S where you've been hiding things?!?" Colleen shrieked, appearing out of nowhere and yanking Spike up by his fluffy green hair with an awesome show of inhuman strength. "In your HAIR?!?"
Julia looked scandalized and sidled off without anyone noticing. Borgoff just lay on the sand, wondering if he was really still alive or not. Spike twisted and writhed in increasingly mad attempts to break free of the tech's strong grip on his hair.
"Leggo a my hair woman!!" The cowboy screamed, half in agony, half in blind rage.
"Hell no!" Colleen responded, sounding diabolically gleeful. "I'm gonna convince Jen to let me shave your head!" Spike's look of shocked disbelief was priceless to anyone who didn't favor him too terribly highly, therefore Faye, who had just caught up, collapsed to her knees; guffawing.
Borgoff trudged over to his brothers, feeling absolutely humiliated. Kyle leapt on the expected bandwagon at once.
"Aww! Poor Borgoff can't get a woman!" The red head cried gleefully, prancing around his older brother and yelling obscenities. Nolt shook his head pityingly and turned back to Grove, who seemed much better and was ready to go back to the sandcastle to help with repairs.
Jen had been awakened rudely by Colleen and Spike exchanging vehement insults.
"Meh?" She asked in a small, confused tone as Spike was hurled down onto the beach blanket and unceremoniously sat upon.
Her confusion continued to increase as Colleen began to laugh maniacally.
"What do you want?" D muttered exasperatedly. He didn't like it when women came this close to him; they normally started crying and begging him to save someone or other.
"AAAUUGGHH!" Kaoru said simply, before flinging her arms around the hunters' neck and sending both of them toppling to the sand.
Leila shivered, the water was absolutely freezing! How on earth were Mashira, Bengee, and Charlotte having any fun? The other woman and the shadow demon had arrived about half an hour ago, just in time to stop Meier from inadvertently slaughtering Josh. After she had calmed her pale lover down a bit Charlotte had decided to go for a swim, though Meier continued to watch her closely to make sure that the moron from before didn't return. Mashira had taken a break from castle building for the time being and was enjoying riding the waves and paddling around in the salty water. They were all having fun but her! It just wasn't fair. Why was this beach place so absolutely miserable?
A large wave crept up behind Leila during her musings and dunked her soundly.
Becca sighed heavily with boredom. After a highly frustrating twenty minutes of attempting to annoy Edward and just having her own jokes thrown back on her along with a corgi, Josh's cousin was beginning to feel dispirited, it was too hard to annoy people here.
The big waves scared her, so she couldn't go in the water, that stupid bratty orange haired girl kept throwing that revolting little dog on her every time she went near the sandcastle, and funny frilly vampire looked like he was asleep! How could she possibly have any fun here? Becca dug into her beach basket, looking for a coloring book and crayons when her hand closed around something metallic and cool, grinning devilishly, Becca pulled the magnifying glass out of her bag and snuck off quickly into the dunes.
D jumped up as though he had just had something slimy and smelly flung into his face. Expression turned down into disgust, he shoved the violet haired girl to the ground and turned to walk away, only to find that she had attached herself to his ankles.
"Aww, look D." Left hand muttered with a grin, as his host scowled above him, desperately trying to kick the girl off of his left leg. "Doris reincarnated."
This seemed to hit a nerve, Meier watched in puzzlement as D tried to kick a girl off of one leg while repeatedly smashing his left palm onto a sharp rock.
Becca slunk around the sand dune until she was directly behind the funny frilly vampire…this was going to be sweet!