Part 2: Locked

Writer's Note: Since, to new readers, I did potentially introduce a lot of new characters in the last chapter, I have decided to make a list at the beginning of this one. If you forget who someone is, what their powers are, their real names, or general information on new characters, refer to this.

Canon Hive Members: (Created by DC or by the actual Teen Titans show)

The Troika (my name for the three): Gizmo-Mikron O' Jeanus. Mechanical and electronics genius, many high tech weapons. Jinx-Llarenes Morath (her real name is not canon DC but created by me, but since her show character is so different from her comics character, I feel that's ok). Agile sorceress who fires hex blasts that usually cause destruction in one way or another. Mammoth-Baran Flinders. Superstrength and decent invulnerability.

Shimmer-Selinda Flinders, Mammoth's younger sister. A matter transmuter, she can turn elements and compounds into others, though this change only lasts for three minutes and she can only effect things three feet to her or closer. Joined the Hive only after bothering Mammoth greatly about it: he is very protective of her. Still rather shy and withdrawn, though has some spark in her.

Billy Numerous-Real name unknown, assumingly Billy Something. Can makes hundreds of clones from himself or other clones, some assumed combat skills, possible higher strength then normal human. Hillbilly in speaking manner, has a bit of an ego and can be very annoying.

Seemore- Real name unknown (Seymore, perhaps?). Wears special 'Optimax' helmet weapon system that provides him with various attacks and defenses based on orbs in the shape of eyes. Friendly if a bit lecherous.

Private Hive-Real name unknown (dubbed Leonard by me, if anyone gets the reference I will be amazed). No apparently superpowers, though is trained in combat with a special shield weapon ala Captain America. Speaks and acts like a drill sergeant, assumed he sucks up to Brother Blood (his name IS Private Hive, after all).

The Elementals-Created by the Author Jedi-And, co-writer of this story.

Scorcher-Danielle Foster. Leader of the elementals. Pyrokinetic (can summon and control fire) of a very high degree. Southern girl with a polite manner, though she doesn't take any crap.

Floral-Rose Trent. Can control and command any plants except trees. Tends to be inward and shy, but is also by nature happy and occasionally perky. Scorcher has a maternal relationship with her.

Zippy- Sally 'Sal Marks' Markson. Uses electricity to increase speed, gains electrical properties at higher speeds and actually can become a bolt of lightning at max speed. Hyperactive teenager who doesn't breathe between words or even sentences.

Platinum Blonde- Antoinette Albertine. Composed of organic metal ala Colossus of the X-Men, which allows her super strength and decent invulnerability. Very arrogant and vain due to her great beauty, likes to manipulate men.

Rocko-Lorant Smith. Was once a geokinetic male teenager (hence the name) until an accident destroyed his original body and transferred him into a form made of rock that was inexplicably female. Can control all manners of rocks and has very fine control of his/her (s/he goes by her, as strange as it is) body. Depressed and doesn't speak much, but also hard as nails and doesn't take any crap.

Original Hive Members

Juryrig-Julian Rencercer. Commands a unique telekinesis that allows him to assemble whatever inorganic objects that are lying around (thought they must be relatively free and not say, nailed down) to form shapes that he commands. Natural leader like Scorcher, though a bit too much of a showman and proud of his juryriggings at times.

Rhinoceros Beetle- Wilby Tierney. Commands incredible super strength (he can lift at least 125 tons), but does not have any endurance talents whatsoever. Due to this, he is easy to push around, nervous and insecure by nature, easily spooked, and suffers from asthma under stress.

Flay-Simon Tepes. Whip EXPERT who also has a variety of powerful whip enhancements. The several 'noble' qualities that one would not expect a villain to demonstrate usually come from the fact he is rather naïve.

Progeny-Arturo Nicanor. 'Psychic surgery', can break his body apart and float/move said parts and use them as weapons or defenses. A very handsome and charming bastard otherwise who enjoys seducing and bedding women.

Hermes- Ezhno Aeneas (it's Greek). Speed Force user, maximum speed 1000 miles a second. Unfocussed and prankish (usually), tends to cop feels.

Sabotage- Cord Rayfory. Manipulates probability factors to screw people up in a variety of ways, martial arts expert. A bully and an asshole, and proud of it.

Buzz Bomb- Never revealed real name. Armor that allows flight and increased speed, lasers in gauntlets, expert in explosives. Is either arrogant as hell or needy and clingy, unless he ingests too much caffeine; then he comes paranoid and somewhat wacko.

Flense- 'Oz'. Wears a battle suit that projects metal tentacles that hide a large variety of blade weapons including knives, spears, buzzsaws, and razors. Selfish and unrefined, only concerned with getting ahead, thinks he is blameless about everything he has done.

Nightwalker- Real name unknown. Apparently trained in some kind of gymnastics, quick and agile. Wears 'orb launchers' on both arms that fire small marble like spheres of several different types. Withdrawn and mysterious.

Looker-Melanie Something. She can change her appearance and general shape. I only mention her here for completion; she won't be here very long.

Now that that is done, time to begin…

Oh god not again how not again not again not AGAIN…

Or so were the frantic, rambling thoughts of a certain young man, before the lights came back on and he was forced to slip the mask back on.

"Is everyone all right?" Scorcher asked, summoning a flame to her hand a few seconds before the lights went on, giving her a brief glimpse of the room before it was fully revealed.

And what a mess it was. Whatever the weird energy pulse had been, it had carved a mark on everything. The TV's were all blown, save one (Scorcher found this odd but dismissed it at the moment) and all the other electronics were similarly melted. The junk food table was in ruins, and seemingly every piece of furniture that hadn't been knocked over by the incident had been knocked over by flying or recoiling Hive members. The decorations were scattered willy-nilly, a few of them on fire.

And as for whatever had caused the incident, there was no trace.

That didn't sit well with Scorcher, as she put out the fires she could see as she walked towards the group as they recovered.

"Everyone all right?" Juryrig was asking. "Are there…"

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Sabotage was yelling as he shoved a couch off himself. "WHAT IN TITTYFUCKING HELL IS GOING ON!"

"Cord, calm down, and language!" Scorcher snapped.

"Hey fuck you bitch!"

"Don't…"

"I agree! What the fuck!" Flense piped up. "What the fuck just happened what the fuck is wrong with this place what in the fucking fuck happened in the…"

The fireball exploded by his feet.

"Anyone else think the solution to this problem is to turn the air blue?" Scorcher said, fire dancing on her hand. "No? Ok then, cool off, let's take a head count…"

"Arrgrhhhhh!" Gizmo was yelling at the lights came back on: he'd pulled a flashlight from somewhere and like Scorcher had gotten a tentative look around before the lights reactivated. Much like the TV room, Gizmo's game and computer setup was complete and utter toast.

"Selinda?" Mammoth said as he emerged from around the computer monitors, as Shimmer sat up from where her chair had been knocked over and looked around in a daze. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine brother…what happened?"

"I'll tell you what's going to cruddin' happen, freakin' heads are gonna roll! This took me a week to mentally envision! And now it's all ruined! Someone is gonna pay, big time!"

"Hold on Gizmo." Flay said, as he finished brushing himself off from where he was standing. "Maybe we should decide what's happening first."

"Isn't it obvious! Someone was inspired by the season and pranked us!"

"Prank?"

"Of course barfhead! If this was some kind of actual emergency, the alarms would have gone…"

The ringing klaxon cut Gizmo off, and his eyes widened.

"Aw crud."

"Warning. Warning. Security breach. Security breach." A computer voice intoned all over the makeshift Hive base. "Security has been compromised by unknown source. Red alert. Lockdown engaging."

In the hallway she was standing in, Melanie Brubaker, aka Looker, looked around with wide eyes as she tried to figure out what was going on. What had just happened? She'd been walking along and then the lights had gone out and then back on (though they seemed rather dim) and now the Hive base was announcing a security breach and…

Lockdown. The word slammed into her mind. No. That couldn't happen. She had plans, and if she were stuck in the Hive those plans would be ruined.

She'd had to travel a long long way to get to the Hive, so she could be trained, but she'd promised her little brother she'd take him trick or treating that night. To make up for the long distance travel and the fact she couldn't afford a plane, she'd made a deal with another Hive student, a long range teleporter named Shiftstate. She was, had been on her way, to meet him when this alarm happened, and for a fee (albeit cheaper then flying, and quicker), he'd warp her home (where due to the time zones it would be two hours earlier and just in time to start going from house to house) and then back.

But Shiftstate was notoriously impatient, and if she didn't show up at the assigned meeting place on the dot, he'd wait at most two minutes and then go to find his own fun.

And she damn sure wouldn't be able to make it if there was a lockdown.

The good news was, she was actually near an exit to the Hive.

The bad news was, the lockdown started immediately, as doors began to slam down.

Melanie gasped, and then as her training kicked in, she noticed that they were closing away from her, rather then towards her. Which meant…

Melanie ran for it, ducking to clear the first door. Her sprint allowed her to clear the second door just before it started coming down, but the third door was quicker and Melanie was forced to duck again. Running while hunched over tended to slow you down, so Melanie just ran full tilt at the forth, closing faster then before door and tried to duck under it at the last minute.

She made it, barely, but the barely cost her, as the edge of the forth, descending door clipped her lower back, which not only sent a shock of pain up her spine but turned her run into a sprawling forward stumble, which didn't have the speed to make it to the fifth door as it started to close and she wasn't going to make it…

Unless she tried.

And she did, as she shifted the momentum at the last second and turned her forward stumble into a leaping lunge, landing on the ground in the way she'd been taught so she slid on the floor.

She stopped halfway under the door, as it came down…

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

THUD.

Melanie gasped where she sat, having barely managed to swing her hips around and out of the way of the descending barrier before she'd been cut in half. But she had no time to rest: one last door remained to take her to the actual outside, and it would lock any second…

Three seconds after she made it through, precisely.

Melanie's elation of having beat the lockdown was dampened a bit by the fact it was pouring outside. Lacking any kind of protection, and quite tired from her little Indiana Jones performance, Melanie was forced to walk through the rain, getting soaked to the skin. Well, she could dry off in her car, which she had parked behind some trees in what had once been the school's playground.

She unlocked her car with the electronic doohickey that did that, opened the door, slid in, and closed it. Inserting her key, she sighed as heat began to warm her. Hopefully it'd be enough to dry her off before Shiftstate took her across the country.

A strange movement behind her.

Melanie arched an eyebrow, and then reached up and adjusted her mirror to look behind her.

…Nothing.

Melanie turned around and examined the back seat. Nothing lurked there.

She shrugged. Must have been a trick of the shadows.

Melanie inserted her key, started her car, and drove off.

Her night was undoubtedly the most peaceful of all the Hive.

While some might not have wanted to hang around to see exactly what the situation that had required the alarm and lockdown was, there were plenty who thought that to do so was their first and foremost duty.

True, virtually all of them had had their brains played with by Brother Blood, but at this time that's just splitting hairs.

You need a fair staff to run a school. When that school doubles as a mercenary and soldier of fortune training center, the staff grows exponentially to handle all the new responsibilities. And while Blood hadn't been able to quarter all of the Hive drones that normally served him at the makeshift base, he'd gotten a fair amount. Most of the teachers, cooks, cleaners, and whatnot also doubled as soldiers, and since Blood had given them the night off, most of them had been relaxing in their own way.

But now the alarm was going, and the aforementioned brainfuckery kicked in, as the men and (few) women sprang up and ran to lockers, opening them as they snapped on bee themed armor and armed various guns and other weapons. Awaiting an order from Blood, and getting none, they went to their first rule in case of an emergency: find it. And since there was no set place for said emergency, the Hive drones and troops began spreading through the base.

Terrible, terrible mistake.

Their names were not important. Only their discoveries.

Like the one at the tail end of his group who suddenly sensed a presence behind him, a terrible, powerful presence, but never got to discern just what it was, as he turned as the blade was swinging.

The thock of it sinking into muscle and tissue echoed surprisingly loud.

Or the three who had seen a glimpse of movement around a corner, and hurried after it…only to find it was a movement it would have been better ignored, as it zipped in…

Or the group scanning the wing of the Hive's chambers, guns at the ready.

Didn't do them any good at all.

As one screamed, a blade bursting from his chest, stabbed in from behind him, and as the others whirled, as the stabbed one screamed, some of them couldn't help but notice the strange bladed weapon. It wasn't a knife or a sword…it was a pair of cutting shears.

And sadly for them, they turned out to be far more of a match for a gun then any of the drones would have ever given credit.

"Hello? Is anyone there? Hello! Hello!" Scorcher yelled into her communicator. Nothing but static. "Sugar! The whole network is down!"

Juryrig entered the room, having left it briefly.

"The game room's occupants are ok…those who are there. Mammoth and Shimmer just went to follow the men who ran past the room earlier, back them up, they couldn't say why they felt this was necessary. However, there are a couple of us unaccounted for."

"Who?"

"Seemore's not in either room, neither's Looker, I think she said she was doing something else for the evening away from the Hive, so she might have left. Zippy is also AWOL."

A pang of worry filled Scorcher, even as she tried to sooth Floral, who had run over and clamped onto her side almost as soon as she'd called for a head count. But she couldn't let it control her. Besides, Zippy was far from a stranger to danger.

"Ok, listen up everyone! Has anyone been able to raise a signal on their communicators?"

There was a chorus of no's.

"Forget it flaming queen." Gizmo said as he walked into the 'TV room', the people who had been with him during the strange incident following, Rhinoceros Beetle now in his giant form which he was named for as he squeezed through the door. "If I couldn't raise a signal, the odds of any of you snotheads doing it are…HAHAHAHAHA!" Gizmo laughed as he saw Jinx, who was standing off by herself…and due to the explosion of the junk food table was completely covered in cake, chocolate, soda pop, and god knew what else. Jinx had looked increasingly uncomfortable about the situation, but when Gizmo saw her and started laughing it was clearly the last straw.

"That's it! I don't care what's going on, I am taking a shower, NOW!" Jinx yelled, and started walking out.

"Hold it thar Llarenes. That may not be such a good idea." Scorcher said.

"I don't care! I am not staying like this any longer then I have to! And I've been a member of this place longer then you Danielle, so I think I know how to handle myself!"

"You want an escort or two?" Scorcher asked as Jinx headed for the door.

"And give one of these horny buggers a chance at a free show? Forget it!" Jinx said as she walked out. Unnoticed by most, Progeny jokingly snapped his fingers, as if in disappointment.

Inside someone's head, perfectly masked but still there, a brain was in a tizzy. It was happening all over again. He'd seen the movies, melted to sludge from where they'd been left on two different VCR's/DVD players. He watched Jinx walk out, not caring about the possible dangers, just wanting a shower to clean off…

To get naked and vulnerable at the most inopportune time…

His mind spun. What did he do? If the place was locked down, he probably couldn't leave even if he wanted to. And if he was stuck in here…he was stuck in here with THEM.

With a group that didn't have a clue what they were up against.

And a group he couldn't tell, or he'd blow his cover. And if that happened, he might not survive it. The Hive hadn't been happy with Cyborg's infiltration: only bad circumstance had prevented them from trying any retribution. But him in the middle of the group in a locked in building?

He'd have to keep the charade going.

And hope it let him survive.

Hell, he mused, he might be the only one who did.

Or maybe by the laws of sequels he'd be the first to die. If you survive a horror film, never sign on for a sequel. There was only one Sidney Prescott, after all.

And the laws of horror films, once again, were projecting themselves over the reality he knew.

The line from the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre occurred to him…

Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

"Ok people, here's the thing." Scorcher said to the grouped Hive. "We can't raise Blood. But you know him: if we try and act on our own he'll pop up and raise hell. So I'm going to go look for him. Everyone else, stay here. Juryrig, you're in charge. All of you obey him like you would me. Anyone dissents, they'll answer to me. That means YOU Cord."

"Oh fuck off!"

"Maybe later." Scorcher said, as she knelt down to look at a still anxious Floral. "Rose, I have to go. I'll move faster on my own. You'll be safe here. Lorant and Antoinette will keep an eye on you, and I'll make sure Julian does as well. Ok?"

"…Ok." Floral replied, though it was clear she didn't believe a word Scorcher was saying.

"Ok guys, as I said, stay here, don't wander off."

"What about Jinx?" Billy Numerous asked.

"She's on her own, we don't need the group splitting up farther to hunt for her. Stay here." Scorcher said, as she left, heading right down the two-way hallway.

"Well uh…huh." Juryrig said, not sure what to tell the massed Hive students to do. It was a good thing the entertainment center had been converted out of the school's old gym, the room was helpful for holding all the students with lots of space to spare. "Ok, I know it's not fun, but let's clean the room up a bit."

Groans, but about two-thirds of the Hive students started doing just that, to pass the time, though Sabotage continued to defiantly do nothing. Juryrig was worried: Cord was an asshole and a self-absorbed one at that, and he might think there was no better time to grab the reigns of leadership while they were at a loss, just to prove he was better then everyone else. Of course leadership for purely selfish reasons never went anywhere good…Juryrig didn't want to have to start considering who'd side with him and who against him if it came to it.

"Julian…" Floral was suddenly asking. "What happened?"

"…Don't know Rose. Could be a glitch. If we were being attacked, I'm pretty sure there'd have been some kind of racket by now…"

"AAIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The scream was so loud it hadn't lost much power when it hit the room, making everyone start and Floral look like she was about to be ill.

"…That sounded like Selinda." Flay said.

Within moments, virtually the whole Hive was out of the room and running down the hallway the scream had come from, which happened to be the opposite way Scorcher had gone, as they ran past Gizmo's game room and continued on.

And hence none of them saw the lone remaining TV, the only one to survive the destruction, turn itself on.

Though all it showed was static…

Two bits of good news.

One was Shimmer was still alive.

The second was that she had been with her brother when she had seen what she had seen.

Because now she was crushed up against him, her head buried in one of his large pectoral muscles, as he gently kept one arm around her and stroked her head with the other, even as he kept wary eyes searching around for whatever had done what she had seen.

And unable to stop from occasionally looking at the scene in the hallway.

Flay was the first to get there (usually fliers would be but the hallway was too cramped for them), and at first his eyes were drawn to Mammoth and Shimmer.

"She all right?" Flay said, as he ran up to them.

"Yeah." Mammoth said, in the tone of people who know no physical harm has happened but the situation was already a long away from all right and growing more distant by the second.

Flay was about to ask what had happened, when he took a general step to the side and stepped into it.

He looked down.

He had stepped into a slowly growing red pool.

Blood.

And then the lights, having flickered and dimmed, and hence caused the shadows to hide the sight from Flay's peripheral vision, seemed to fix themselves briefly, displaying the scene.

"…Oh…dear…Christ…" Flay said, putting his hand to his mouth.

"Hey snothead whatdaya looking ATTHHHHHHHHHHH!" Gizmo screamed as he flew up to Flay's side and saw what he was seeing as well.

Those who could actually fit into the corner Mammoth was still standing in all had similar reaction.

There were five of them…maybe. It was rather hard to tell. Once they had been Hive guards, drones.

Now they were meat. They had been butchered so savagely it appeared that not a single one of them was in one piece. Their guns and weapons lay among their bodies, having seemingly proven useless of whatever had caught them. The air stank, horrific organic smells that escaped the body if it was severely damaged, the smell of war and psychosis, the smell of death.

Blood splattered on the walls and pooled on the floor. Organs spilled from opened bodies, some seemingly ground underfoot. The helmets the Hive droves wore mostly hid their expressions, but one drone has lost his, and his visage was stamped in a look of shocking terror that Flay could have done without seeing.

"…Oh god…oh god…" Juryrig said as he looked at the scene, even as someone was sick in the distance (sounded like Platinum Blonde).

"Somehow I doubt this is his handiwork." Mammoth said in a quiet gruff tone. Juryrig was amazed at how well Mammoth was handling this, especially considering he'd been the first to see it. Then again, he was probably being strong for his sister. Mammoth would do anything for Shimmer, including hold a stone face in the wake of atrocity.

"Not right man…not right in any way…" Billy was saying, when Gizmo zipped past Juryrig, flying over the bodies. Now that the initial shock had worn off, Gizmo had put himself in a pure analytical mindset, locking the human feelings of horror and disgust in a box so he could properly examine the scene. Chances were a good dissection (ugh, bad choice of words) of what lay before him would help.

"…Whatever did this was one big ass weapon." Gizmo said, scanning the bodies through programs in his goggles. "…Wounds aren't clean either. This weapon had to be PUSHED in order to fully cut…must have felt pretty unpleasant…there are a couple of smaller wounds which indicate that maybe another weapon was used to disarm or disable before the main weapon was brought into play…I'll check down at the other end."

"Be careful Giz." Mammoth said.

"Got my motion detector on M. I don't see it coming, I deserve to get it." Gizmo replied as he flew past the bodies and into the shadowy corridors (and another thing, Juryrig noted, what the hell was wrong with the lighting?)

"Julian, sir." Private Hive said as he pushed his way through the group. "The troops are getting restless. A word or two may be needed."

"…Right. Ok people, keep calm. This is obviously…" Juryrig began.

And then it hit him. He was going to say what they had seen obviously called for a modification of Scorcher's order…except then he recalled another thing Scorcher had asked him to do: look after Floral.

And she was nowhere to be seen.

"…Rose?" He said. " Hey Rose, are you there? You hiding behind someone? Everyone, where's Rose?"

And as the Hive students quickly realized, Floral wasn't there. A sweat broke on Juryrig's face. Floral was very important to Scorcher. If she ran into…

Then again, she had powers. Surely that would help.

Right?

Indeed, as he asked, none of the Hive students could remember exactly the last time they saw her. She'd slipped away when they'd had their attention diverted by the scene of hallway carnage.

Juryrig was trying to decide what to do when he realized Gizmo was floating next to him again. A glance showed that the midget mechanic had gone pale as a sheet.

"…Julian…you may want to see this." Gizmo said.

Juryrig blinked.

"More bodies?"

"No."

"Can't you tell me then?"

"You better look for yourself."

So Juryrig followed. However, since Gizmo hadn't exactly whispered, a good amount of the Hive had overheard him, and several people followed Juryrig, including Private Hive, Sabotage, and the two Hive newcomers Flense and Nightwalker among one or two others.

And they all immediately saw why Gizmo hadn't used words.

Because words would be damn hard to describe what the hallway down from the bodies turned into, changing from dull steel walls and floor and ceiling into something else entirely.

The ground was a mass of broken, bloodstained tiles and metal sheet work, the steel and plastic sliding and morphing into the other with no care of synchronization of where they lay. But the blood on the tiles wasn't pooling, like the earlier scene: it was dried blood. Old blood. Old blood that was a dark and noxious color, a shade that made people wonder if they were perceiving it right, because it didn't seem like blood could look like that.

Then there were the walls.

Oh god why did they look at the walls.

The only thing that was the same about the old corridors, usually the aforementioned full metal or rotten plaster shored up by the Hive's usual black and yellow style, was that they were still going straight up.

Because they had been replaced with cracked stone pillars, blood slowly dripping from them.

And the blood wasn't coming from bodies.

It was coming from the walls themselves.

The walls were bleeding.

At least, that was the part of the walls that were stonework.

The rest of the walls had become grating and locked doors that in the very dimly lit corridor seemed to stretch on for miles. Rooms that used to house nothing more then cleaning supplies or parts for the still being built base now seemed to harbor new things.

Things that Juryrig could almost swear he heard screaming, noises of a thousand inconceivable indiscretions, each door, each panel now looking like it should belong in some twisted mental asylum Arkham could only wish it could be.

The faint noises that came from the doors, the supposed screams…but when Sabotage stepped forward to have a look, nothing seemed to stir inside.

Or nothing dared to.

Part of the wall had a TV in it, Juryrig could see that now. All it showed was static, though Juryrig thought maybe there was a word or two imbedded in the noise (James? Did it say James?).

That was one side of the room. The other side wasn't any better.

Mannequins stood, or rather hanged there by their necks, as if they were on display to the public, swinging ever so slightly in the slight breeze that was in the hallway…a breeze that caught their blood as they fell.

They bled too, like the walls. You could swear they were actual corpses until you saw the plastic lines on their limbs. Even then Juryrig didn't think they seemed like dolls…they were too…realistically arranged…even with their faces obscured with bags, as blood continued to flow from their necks, soaking the ground and pouring through grates.

The ceiling had what might have been hooks hanging from it. Except they didn't look like hooks you could hang something on.

Not unless you shoved it…really hard…

All in all, it looked like someone had given the Cenobites carte blache on how to decorate the corridor.

Jury could fell his own skin turning pale, as he remembered Mammoth's words.

God's hand certainly wasn't here.

But his opposite seemed to have found a place to expand, directly into their home.

"Ok." Juryrig said to the very antsy group a few seconds later back in the TV room. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to look…"

"LOOK? FUCKING LOOK?" Sabotage yelled. "Hell no Julian. What we're going to do is find the nearest exit and get the hell out of this shithole."

"The base is SEALED Cord."

"Then we find a flaw in the seal and smash it. I'm not hanging around. If there's something vicious enough to cause that slaughter and quiet enough to do it without getting our attention, not to mention that…CORRIDOR…I sure as hell am not hanging around in THIS place to fight it. I'm leaving. I suggest anyone who has a brain do likewise." Sabotage yelled.

"He's right. Fuck this place." Flense said, as he snapped his metallic coils out.

"Wait no people, we can't split up, we have to…!" Juryrig yelled, but others were already agreeing with Sabotage.

"Sorry Julian. If I was alone I'd stay. But you know why I can't." Mammoth said, as he walked past her, Shimmer firmly by his side.

"I know what lurks in the dark. This is too much for me." Nightwalker also said, as he pulled clips of ammo out of his belt and slammed them into his orb gauntlets, readying himself for whatever might have come next.

"Sir, I'd follow you to hell sir, but that's worse." Private Hive said.

Everyone had an excuse, and before Juryrig knew it nearly everyone was leaving the room.

Even, to his surprise, Rocko.

"Lorant?" Juryrig said in confusion. Rocko's blank face betrayed nothing.

"They're going my way Julian." Rocko said, as he joined the group. Juryrig stared…and then he got it.

Rocko was going with the group to search for Floral. They just happened to be going in the direction s/he had picked.

Which meant she was asking Juryrig to go in the other direction. Past the bodies, through the hell corridor, and whatever lay beyond. While Floral hadn't gone that way (he'd have seen her), the design of the school meant she could take another route and end up there.

And besides, Scorcher had asked him. It wasn't like he could refuse.

In the end, Juryrig was left with just Platinum Blonde and Rhinoceros Beetle, who both wanted to look for Floral. Well, he supposed, if he was just going to have two allies he could do worse.

"All right. We're going the other way. Past the bodies and…well I don't know what's past there. But I suggest that we make a pit stop at the nearest storage room. I need to make an army of one." Juryrig said, as he headed out of the room, his lone companions following.

As for the TV…it had gone unnoticed. There were more important things to do and look for.

Pity…for them.

It shouldn't have been.

Floral, somewhere in the back of her mind, was scared. Whatever was happening wasn't supposed to BE happening, and she knew it.

It couldn't be real, it shouldn't be happening…

Yet it was real… It was happening.

Had Floral known of the events that had plagued the Titans a year ago, she probably would have used the same term they had: slippage. The world as they knew it was slipping away…

Though not far away enough where certain horrors of life still existed.

Like death.

She had fled when she had seen the bodies…only to find as she ran that this was not an isolated incident. The corridors seemed to be filled with corpses, or what she could see of the corridors at any rate, as the lights had failed, and the emergency generators seemed to be working at less than optimal efficiency, if all the flickering and shadows were any indication. It was eerie to say the least, and it filled the young plant controller with a sense of dread she couldn't quite put her finger on. The best metaphor she could muster was that she had been placed on to the road to hell, though she didn't see any good intentions there, only the bodies of soldiers who tried to do their job because it was what they were trained and paid to do.

Hadn't saved them…

But this didn't have anything to do with them anymore. They were dead, and she couldn't change that. This was about her. She was lost, alone and afraid. Scorcher had gone to find Blood and told everyone else to stay put, telling her fellow Elementals and Juryrig to look after her, but when they'd all heard the noise and gone running to investigate, and seen what had horrified Shimmer so…well, the choice to flee wasn't a hard one to make.

She wanted her mum, and ever since she had been small the only person who had acted like her mother was Danielle. The only one who had cared enough about her to risk everything they had, to risk their own life for her, was Scorcher. When she called her 'Mum' by accident at her old home in Beach Shine City in California because something had scared her or she had had a bad dream, the one person to answer was Scorcher saying "Momma's here."

Well, there was no doubt this was a bad dream, worse still because it was real, and she wanted Momma, so she went to go find her.

And so she clambered forward, in the dark, heading slowly towards…well, anywhere but here. She wanted out; out of this place, out of the scary things, maybe even out of the Hive entirely, even with the fact Scorcher needed Blood's information, the knowledge that was the only reason she stayed and aided him. Well, at least they could leave the Hive this evening. Maybe Scorcher would take her and the other Elementals to a café.

A quiet night with her 'mother'…

Then a shock filled her system, as she realized once again that while she called Scorcher Mum, she herself was a mother, so to speak. She realised that Sash, her dear little plant, had been left on its own in her room. Her room, when the average person was looking at it, was just one huge mass of vines and plant life. Everything, with the exception of her metal desk and chair (with foam cushions) was plant. They had a special frame set up that the wall climbers clambered over and pipes lined the top of the room to provide artificial rain. Though on such a wet night, the plants would be outside enjoying the air and the water (Floral's manipulations had produced fauna considerably more aware of itself then the average plant). But while the other plants would have crept out of the room, Sash was a young plant, and unfortunately still in her pot and hence, stationary. If she were going to leave the HIVE tonight with the others, she would have to take Sash with her.

And so young Floral decided to go and rectify that problem and rushed off in another direction, tripping a few times to grab her prized possession…well not even that. Her surrogate child.
She didn't like what she found when she got to the dormitory wing however.

Outside her room were more bodies, four in all. They had been slashed to ribbons, as if the hard plastic compound armor they wore had proven to be no more effective then paper. Nausea swirled in Floral's guts as she realized that if the ravaged bodies were all around her door, she'd have to walk through the mess.

But what was on the other side was worth more then her fear, so she swallowed and did so, holding her nose and ignoring the squelching sounds. She hoped that whatever had killed the poor bastards had moved on.

Opening the door to her room, she had found it to be as expected, aka devoid of plants. The walls were barren and cold. It gave off a lifeless chill as all the room's previous humidity left with the plants. This only left, as mentioned, a system of pipes with a ceiling made of glass below shutters that a ladder in a different room led up to so that they could be closed if needed for some reason. Unshuttered and in the sun, the glass ceiling gave a wonderful glow, but on a stormy night it didn't offer much in the way of warmth.

She traced her eyes along the room to see if all the plants had left, and indeed they had. Her eyes continued downward towards her desk where she hoped to see her pride and joy.

Floral's eyes widened. Sash was indeed there, the young rose cross sitting on the table.

As mulch.

The plant girl rushed forward in pure desperation. She couldn't believe it. What had happened? What on her green earth had happened? Someone… Someone had killed Sash. Someone had killed the creature she had been trying to raise for years. Someone had taken a blade or a pair of scissors to her young creation, cutting it apart like it was the most common of weeds.

Tears streamed down her face as she picked up what was left of Sash in her hands, her knees giving way slightly under the burden. She couldn't stand it. Sash had been more than a pet, she couldn't explain it but she had just been… more.

And whoever did it, she was going to kill them.

At least that was her train of thought until the ceiling shattered.

A man-shaped form burst through the glass rooftop, sending shards of glass everywhere and startling the poor girl into an upright position.

The righteous rage fired higher. Floral didn't need any information to know who this was. The killer of Sash, the man who had murdered her…daughter, and he was going to pay…

Then she saw him.

The rage died abruptly, replaced by sheer horror.

It was not a simple killer.

It was barely a man at all.

With a face that would be burned in to her memory, as it was literally burned into his. A face that was no longer even remotely human, its flesh burned to the point where it looked half melted, pinkish scar tissue distorting the mouth and nose and half covering the blankly white right eye, the right ear melted into a patchwork of burns that crossed all around the completely bald head. It looked less like a face then like the after product of a child's plaything that had been melted for their own amusement. Ironically enough, this wasn't too far from the truth.

The 'man' straightened, his burned and melted flesh being made even more horrendous by the rain that now poured in through the glass opening, the water and the shadows making it look like his face was continuing to dissolve. His black, patchwork clothing soaked up more of the weather as he raised a pair of seemingly innocent pair garden shears. It was generally thought that a weapon is something one buys from a gunsmith, or a sword foundry, but this isn't so. If we can imagine a way to use an item, then it can become a weapon. With this in mind, and as such the idea that anything can be a weapon, a pair of garden shears in the wrong hands became as much a tool for destruction as say, the guns of well armed guards.

And somehow…Floral knew who he was.

His name was Cropsy, and he had been a horror villain in a film called The Burning. Not exactly up there with Freddy Kruger, or even Chucky, but he was still somewhat known by the people who watched those kind of films. He had been a gardener who was burned half to death by a group of kids at a summer camp as part of a prank, so he did the logical thing and got revenge several years later by trying to slaughter them all.

Floral knew who he was, as she had apparently seen a snippet or two of the film in a situation now long forgotten and had a nightmare about him coming after her some years ago.

And now the nightmare was coming true and no one was there to hold her hand or to take her up to say 'It was just a dream'.

Though a tiny part of her logical brain was piping up, saying this made no sense. Cropsy, as scary as he was, was fiction. He had been played by an actor (guy by the name of Lou David, though Floral didn't know that). His hideous burns had been makeup, the deaths he had dealt out had been special effects, the victims getting up when the cameras had turned off and going on with their lives. He was, for lack of a better term, fake.

And yet here he was, before her. Real.

How?

The insanity of such a thing was made, but the care of it was beyond Floral now, as well was fear. The righteous rage was back, one usually reserved for tree hugging hippies. She may have been the quiet sort, but she was smarter than she let on, and she didn't need to be a genius to know that while shears could be an effective killing tool, their original design was to cut plants, and hence she had found Sash's murderer.

She called the plants to her, so she could rip this bastard apart to show him what happens when you DARE try and mess with Mother Nature…

And came to the sudden horrific realization that the room was empty. Her allies were not at her immediate beck and call, and since her plants always took longer to get into the base than they were to get out of it…

With this realization came another: she had to run…

One that came too late, as the monster in front of her proved to be far faster then she could have anticipated.

And so did the way everything went black.

In the movies, when a person's throat is cut, the victim usually went about choking or rolling around on the floor, but this is only true if you cut the jugular vein leading away from the brain. This is the vein that carries the blood down from the head, and a cut to it can lead the victim to die of blood loss.

But cut the artery that leads TO the brain, and the pressure drops immediately and you can die almost instantly, nearly painlessly.

And Cropsy had obviously killed enough people to know the instantly part, as he dashed forward and clamped the shears down on Floral's throat.

And so poor Floral was the first of our victims. The young, shy Rose Trent, plant girl extraordinaire, hit the floor, her blood, which actually was a green colour, pouring all over her outfit, though because that was a dark green it didn't really show up too well in the dim light.

Crospy stood there for a moment or two, perhaps a bit off put by the strangeness of his victim. However, that strangeness only seemed to fuel his psychotic rage, as he reached down with his shears and started to defile the corpse, cutting it, destroying it. Still warm blood spewed on his legs, as he continued cutting away at it like it was foliage needed to be trimmed, trying to do to Rose what he had done to Sash.

"Rose! Rose are you there?" A southern voice came from behind the closed door and caused Cropsy to turn in surprise.

"Sweetie? I thought I heard a crash in this direction. Is that you? Are you in your room?" Scorcher said outside the door. "Rose, something's really wrong here. We need to get out if you're in there. Are you there hun...?" Scorcher said as she opened the door and stepped in…

And stopped as dead as the corpses around the door she had opened, wide eyed in horror.
Cropsy just stared at her, transfixed by the fire on her head, almost scared of the flames that made up her hair. The red dancing flame, which almost seemed to fade a bit as just what Scorcher was seeing sunk in…

A monster standing over Floral's sliced up form…

Danielle Foster was generally known for being a kind soul; she helped where she could and was a generous teacher and leader. She looked after her people, and a lot of the HIVE came to talk to her when they needed some advice, as lord knows they couldn't go to Blood.

But this was not one of those times, as her eyes traced between Rose's ravaged body to the blood covered shears, following them up to his fire-distorted face, a face that offered no emotions from being so scarred.

But Scorcher had enough shown emotion for both of enough, as her hair changed colour.

Just about everyone in the United States had heard of Sizzle or rather Flammadea. She had been a pyromaniac who had burned down an entire city, a ghost who had despised men.

Unfortunately, that is where most people's knowledge of fire users stopped; they didn't even know what pyrokinesis was, let alone some of the top pyrokinetics of the world. It had been Sizzle/Flammadea's actions that had left their mark, rather then her methods.

And if they'd done their homework, then they would have found that Scorcher was a very powerful flame user. If tests had been done, they would have shown she had near Flammadea level power. In other words, she could have beaten Sizzle in a contest of fire. And that was becoming rapidly apparent as her hair, composed of fire itself, changed to white, the flames growing bigger.

Scorcher may have been overlooked and under-appreciated when it came to power, but that didn't matter to her now. Someone had just killed the person who was probably closer to her than her late fiancée, and she wanted revenge.

Her hair flared blue.

Cropsy let out a squealing yell as his fear of fire overcame what little reason he had left, and he charged, lifting up his sheers.

Scorcher screamed.

The walls melted from the heat she gave off.

Then… Boom.

The 'poor bastard' (emphasis on bastard) didn't know what hit him. With the amount of hate, anger and anguish Scorcher seemed to have dumped into that blast, the resulting attack sent the entire temperature of the makeshift Hive base up by a few degrees, even for people on the other side of the building. Those nearer got a blast of hot air screeching past them. And had anyone been close enough they would have seen a pillar of blue flame erupt from Floral's 'Pipe room', the surface of the walls evaporating into nothingness as metal melted and bricks exploded in the intense heat before breaking into their component atoms. Windows cracked from side to side due to the extreme temperature change. The upward blast of the pillar (since fire by its nature goes up) cooked the clouds above. A pillar charged with such raw disgust and vile venom that the supposed fire goddess who had called herself Flammadea would have gone "Well fuck me sideways from Sunday."

And then it died down, revealing the entire corridor and the surrounding rooms dissolved beyond repair, the ground flat and burnt and the bodies of Cropsy's previous victims reduced to so much ash. A scathe of melted metal formed an archway in the old corridor, as if someone had taken a circular cutter and cut a chunk out of the base like it was just some dough instead of reinforced metal and stone. All was left was Scorcher, standing there, her hair now having returned to its original red colour stopping the rain from coming close to her, her breath deep and painful.

Cropsy, on the other hand, wasn't there. He was now officially a puddle. An ever so light pinkish/red area in front of Scorcher was what was left of him.

Bastard.

Perhaps we were a bit hasty though: there was one other person. The remains of Floral, lying there, peacefully screaming at Scorcher in her misery of being cut down before her prime.

The Pyro-master staggered over and then collapsed to her knees at the sight. Strange sounds came from her mouth.

It appeared this was it. One too many deaths of extremely close loved ones for young Miss Foster had happened, more then she could handle. Such a brutal way to die, for such an innocent person…it wasn't fair. First they had taken her husband to be, then her 'big brother', and now they had taken another member of her makeshift family.

And since we can do nothing, we leave Scorcher now, as she lifted the remains of Floral up and cried, wondering why everyone had done this to her.

Why?

Why?

…. Why?

Jinx was unaware of Scorcher's anguish, of the horrors her fellow Hive mates had seen, of the danger that was rapidly closing in around her. She had seen no bodies, no blood, no strangeness, and since there were two separate dorm wings and hers was far from Floral's, she only felt a slight heat increase she barely noticed. Indeed, at the moment her only concern was that she was utterly covered in guck, and she wanted it off. And she didn't feel like half-assing it. She wanted a shower.

Poor Jinx. She had no idea what was doing on. What had been unleashed on the place she lived in. The only person who truly knew was nowhere near her, and even if he had been he had to hold his tongue.

Otherwise he could have explained the subtle parts of what was going on. It wasn't just the creatures from films that had come to life. It was their whole damn world, the system they lived by. In other words, the clichés that allowed them to rack up victims. These clichés might have seemed stupid to a viewer, but to the actual people in the film, they never saw anything wrong. They thought it would be a marvellous idea to head off alone. Or go screw around in the creepy haunted building. Or not notice anything strange.

Or get naked.

And those rules were in effect now, with only one mind being aware of them. And that didn't help Jinx: she wanted to get clean.

As she took off her large boots and placed them to the side, where they stood up on their own as she walked into the bathroom and started to undress herself.

Now Jinx, despite her name, was actually quite a lucky individual, as ironic as it seemed. For a start she was young, and despite her lifestyle, healthy. Well, she looked it, but in actual fact she probably was quite unfit in comparison to the others in her line of work. Jinx, regardless of the constant training regime of Blood, had a very bad habit. She lived off snacks. What she didn't eat during the day she made up for in junk food in the evening. She stayed up late, drank beer when she could sneak it, and ate ice cream like the world was in danger of running out, and on top of that slept in. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Which lead into step two of her luck, as in spite of this far from ideal diet her waist always remained pretty trim, though she wasn't a stick.

You see, when we first saw Jinx she was about 15, give or take. Now, Jinx was what was known as a 'late boomer', and for a good chunk of her teenaged life, she had been a lean, tomboyish character, with thin hips and no great bust line. This was until one day Puberty, though being late, attacked with a vengeance, forcing her from a tiny, petite thing into a wasp like, extreme hourglass figure, armed with a new pair of slightly broader shoulders, larger breasts and a huge pair of hips and thighs that were still shapely, but very large all the same. For young Miss Morath, things had changed, dramatically. With such a fast transformation, she didn't really know what to do with herself, as she had assumed she had already 'matured', but obviously not.

And while the change seemed purely cosmetic, it had an effect on her performance. She had been so used to her body before that she lost a lot of her balance as her center of gravity changed abruptly. Aerial acrobatics were now something that were somewhat harder, seeing as after Jinx had finished maturing, she often fell flat on her face during practice, either overcompensating or under compensating for things like flips and spins. And since Blood spent more time shouting and screaming than actually trying to help her, she had never quite got her edge back. She had asked Scorcher for help, but she found the Elementals were not as acrobatic as she had been, as they tended to rely more on their powers.

But this was getting off the point. Sufficed to say Jinx was a very attractive young woman as she finished undressing, dropped her hair bands and stepped into the shower/bathtub. Why, yes, the last several paragraphs were written by Jedi-And, the male part of this writing duo: however did you guess?

It was a cold shower at first, but it soon warmed up into a warm, luxuriating experience. Steam rose up and around the glass door to fill the room, causing the mirror to quickly fog over and preventing anyone from seeing anything on it, though if you were in that room, and was a man who preferred the fairer sex, you would probably be more interested in looking at Jinx rather than a mirror.

With the power still screwy, the backup lights were not great, so Jinx was forced to turn on the spare light so she could see what she was doing, the spare light being almost next to her in the shower. Fortunately, Gizmo had built it so it was waterproofed. She hoped.

This unfortunately had the side effect of causing the light to backdrop her, causing her figure to silhouette on the semi-transparent curtain. Which meant if anyone wandered if, she'd be showing off all her curves against her will. But it was worth it. If there was one thing the HIVE boys knew how to build, it was a bloody good shower.

And to celebrate such a fact, she decided to start humming, which quickly built on itself. With her roommate Shimmer with the group, there was no one going to enter her room any time soon, so she started to sing.

Now, despite what is known, one thing that wasn't common knowledge was that Jinx enjoyed singing. She found it an amusing and relaxing pastime, but one thing that was made apparent when she did start to sing. While her voice had become softer in maturity, she couldn't really sing that well.

Actually, Jinx was a bit off. There was someone in the room at the moment: Mittens, Shimmer's cat, which was sitting on Shimmer's bed like he owned it and absentmindedly cleaning behind his ears.

Then Mittens wasn't alone in the room any more.

Mittens clearly didn't like this fact, as his fur arched up and he loudly hissed.

The weapon swung down at him, faster then the eye could see.

But not faster then a cat could react, as Mittens bounded off the bed and exited the room, seeking safer places.

The wielder of the weapon was already forgetting the small cat. He had a better target.

"Noooo Blood, no stain! All you need is-One world one vision!" Jinx hummed. While she had managed to get the generally right sort of sound, it was still a little grating as she got the occasional note off. Then again, when it came to Queen songs, almost everyone got the notes wrong anyway, which is what made them such fun in karaoke sessions.

Or maybe torture. Your decision.

Jinx, thinking to herself, decided as this could be her last time in such a wonderful shower, that she would use her fancy stuff. Periodically people get free samples of shampoo (because they couldn't find any real poo! Rimshot Ahh, the old ones never die-I did not write this, he did, blame him. LM.) from expensive companies who wished to lure in new customers. Jinx never really bought the uber-expensive stuff, even though the toiletries she bought weren't exactly cheap either, but she did have a few of those samples. And so she opened them up and lathered them onto her now wet hair. She looked strange with her hair down, it almost seemed... unnatural for her. Her hair, even without the hair bands, almost always stayed upright in a pair of twin, horn like objects that protruded from her head, though now it was soaked with water it nearly came down to her waist.

Llarenes let the shampoo soak in for a little bit while she lathered up her body, trying to make sure not to miss any part of her, but she wasn't scrubbing, she was almost… caressing her body with the sponge. (Get your minds out of the gutter! LM.) She wasn't a man who scrubbed and cleaned, she was a lady, a woman who slowly stroked and cleansed her body, a daily ritual that took a little while but made all the difference (OUT! OUT! LM). Her skin wasn't harsh and coarse like a man's would be because of this fact: it was soft, smooth and flowed with her lines, or rather curves. After her late puberty, young Miss Morath didn't seem to posses any more straight lines. Even her neck was a long, curved slope into her shoulders as they curved around and down into her shapely arms.
As was said, she was a very attractive woman now, rather than a cuteish little minx.

But striking woman are often thought of badly, because they tended to draw men away from the women who had to rely on more than looks to grab a man. Take Platinum Blonde. One of her pastimes was to seduce men, to draw them in, to make them hers, and she felt invincible for it. Though this wasn't only the female sex. Progeny was also very well known for seducing and bedding woman, though he had yet to score Jinx, despite her… enhancements. He was well known outside the Hive as well, and had made moves on many of the women in the villain circles, though there was a few 'Out of bound' creatures to his affections. But I digress.

But it isn't just women who dislike the more beautiful creatures…

It was also some men who had been taught to think of them as tarts, sluts, whores…

…and Sinners.

If Jinx hadn't been in such a rush to get into the shower, she might have remembered to lock the door behind her when she closed it.

Because someone had decided to walk in, and regrettably because of the finale of her caterwauling, she didn't hear a thing.

The person saw her, nearly in all her glory, as he approached the shower. He saw her form, and while most men would probably need to take a cold shower themselves after walking in…this man was not one of them.

He was special.

Jinx's lone pick of luck was her sudden sense of awareness, her hairs standing up on her arms, as she grabbed the curtain and yanked it aside.

She did not see Norman Bates, if that was what you were guessing.

Instead she saw a younger man, a rather good-looking man…if not for the strange look of mixed intensity, rage, and blankness on his face…and the fact that he was wearing a Santa suit. Boots, pants, coat, gloves, everything except the hat and beard.

That, and he had an axe.

No, not Norman Bates.

But a horror all the same.

Billy Caldwell.

From Silent Night Deadly Night.

Jinx screamed, as Billy swung back his axe.

"PUNISH!"