Part 6: I KICK YOUR FACE!

Some people might have wanted summaries of things I did not provide. Well, I wanted to talk about massacres and wasted life, but SOMEONE turned me into an Explanation Machine needed because she needs someone to tell you where all these obscure things come from, because unlike most reading this work, she has NO LIFE!

And at the moment, neither do you.

…………touché.

Also, there are no guarantees in this chapter that anyone will actually get kicked in the face.

"All right Red, you listen and you listen good!" Freddy snarled to his audience of two: a rather bored looking Alice and an ever-grinning Cheshire Cat. "I was made purely, you get it? I sprang into existence as the stuff nightmares are made of! You know what you are? Some emo punk who's overdosed on Nine Inch Nails taking the masturbation fantasy of an old paedophile and drenching it in gothic nonsense! You want to interfere in my film? I outta gut you like a fresh-killed rabbit." Freddy growled, threatening with his Lord-stolen clawed arm, his robed Lieutenants as ever around him, though even the talking one was silent for now.

"You have no authority over me, and I am more than ready to prove it in battle if you are so inclined." Alice replied. Freddy's eyes blazed.

"BLOW ME! YOU, BLOW HER! UP!" Freddy yelled, and one of the robed Lieutenants (not the speaking one) thrust up an arm.

A powerful missile fired from within his cloaks, streaking at Alice.

Alice brought up her own weapon, a blue-whitish staff, and fired a stream of intense cold from it, freezing the rocket in mid-air. It crashed to the ground, shattering.

Freddy looked balefully at Alice.

"You should not be able to do that. I AM IN CHARGE OF THIS MANIFESTATION! ALL OF IT! YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE OF IT! ONLY BECAUSE OF IT!" Freddy roared.

"Claiming leadership simply because no one else has taken such initiative is unwise…perhaps there is more to this situation than meets even your omniscient eyes." The Cheshire Cat grinned.

"Don't make me puppetmaster you again you mangy babbler, I'll toss you in a Tweety cartoon this time!"

"I'd hardly turn down a meal." The Cheshire Cat said, and once again defied the concept of muscle limits to give a wide, tooth-decayed grin.

"I think we shall take our leave instead. You are wasting my time and the Queen sorely needs to be removed from Wonderland." Alice said. " 'Horrors' such as yourself are only make-believe; I am reality. I am present, in one form or another, in every person's mind. You are just a patron. Go back where you belong and leave me be." Alice said, and turned and strode into the darkness. The Cheshire Cat smiled wickedly and faded once more to a grin, which floated after her.

Freddy glared after them.

"If you only knew the finer points of reality and make-believe, bitch." He growled to himself.

"Is it true, Krueger? Are there aspects out there you cannot control?" The speaking Lieutenant asked.

"I didn't think it was so severe! There are some that have some leeway due to age and…nature…but…no, he's dealt with. Which means I have to deal with my playthings."

"Since you were taking so long, I sent something already to occupy them."

"Oh? What?"

The streets were empty of people and far too quiet…so of course, something utterly nonsensical had to happen.

"Get lost Peregrine. We don't want to ride on your flying motorcycle." Slade said, looking at the doctor who was indeed floating nearby on a flying motorcycle.

"No need to be rude!" Dr. Peregrine said, and flew onward…not noticing the cat on the nearby roof, as it looked down on the villains, watching them rather alertly.

"That would have just led to trouble. I've learned enough from this night's experience to guess that." Slade said, as the villains resumed reloading and re-arming themselves (which had required another enlarge/shrink cycle for the ammo crates and more bitching from the Sorceress) as they took a brief break, there being no apparent threats at the time. But they were waiting for them.

Well, most were.

The doctor known as Westminster pulled out a small bag from one of the many pockets on his combat vest: it wasn't surprising that he had something for most considered situations with all those pockets, pouches and more. He obviously wasn't one for the whole idea of the 90's comics where they had a similar compliment of pouches that held… nothing.

His held assistance. Taking out a bandage from the bag, he started to wrap the arm of young Miss Sine. It wasn't much of a problem, a winging gotten during the final Goliath fight, but she wanted it to be bandaged in case she had to perform some form of crazed acrobatics at a moment's notice, and the last thing she needed there was the wound opening further or becoming infected. Sine watched for a moment as the villain applied firm, yet cautious 'doctoring' to the area.

It was notable, even to her: the newcomer didn't present all the classic signs of villainy, especially the primary one: the self-preservation mentality of first come gets all. He didn't have a snarling tone or a hateful glare. He was calm, collected and considerate. Not really the mindset of the world she currently walked in, for her own reasons and purposes.

One thing seemed to strike her as especially odd: the lack of a big appearance. No splashy debut, no explosive eruption on the scene, he just started off quietly and seemed to…just show up.

"Who are you?" She asked inquisitively.

"Me? Doctor Richard Westminster, MD." Westminster replied.

"Great, knowing my luck that probably stands for Manic Depressive, right?" She joked. Westminster chuckled lightly himself and tied off the uniform bandage. Sine pulled her costume back on, her exposed arm and shoulder once again covered by the armored 'skin'.

"Not quite. I am a legitimate doctor…just a doctor lacking every sort of luck I can imagine, I'm sure." He spoke, placing the gear away again for inevitable usage later. "Why the interest?"

"Probably because she thinks you're an untrustworthy bastard too, Pom." Jack called over from where he sat, lounging in a position that could only be described as a uniquely Jack-like pose, a body language position he would always be in, no matter the situation.

"Go to hell and die, asswipe. You'll burn real good on the way down." Nightwalker retorted. Jack offered little more than a growl before Slade aimed a gun at him.

"Don't bother Jack. It's hard enough to coordinate a group of self-centered individuals, let alone a group of self-assured survivors without them ripping each other apart. Last thing we need is to lose our medic. You, on the other hand, are just another pair of hands."

"Nasty motherfucking hands." Jack said, as he formed various instruments of torture with the red energy that made up the appendages for him now.

"But expendable. Keep that in mind."

"Uh Slade-sama…does that apply to everyone?"

"You have your use as a blaster, Kurai. It would depend on the circumstances on just why you would need to be disposed."

"…right sir." Kurai gulped, as he glanced at Rose, who was fiddling with her gun.

"I'd just like to know a little more. I learn, and then I act. I'm not like most of them who act and forget to think all together." Nightwalker said, glaring at Jack, who flipped her off.

"Not much to tell. I gained my powers, tested them out, became a villain as a necessity, wound up in the bar and got landed in a whole lot of trouble." He said, checking out his pack again, making sure everything was loaded and ready to move.

"Just because you tell it that way doesn't mean there wasn't more to it. It just means you've simplified it to the point of redundancy." Sine responded, smirking.

"Oh for crying out loud, what is this, an After School Special?" Jack snapped.

"I'd prefer it." Slade replied. "Do you think you could switch us to such an atmosphere Control Freak?"

"You kidding? With this dinky thing? Pigs will fly sooner, WITHOUT assistance." Control Freak replied.

"If you had any concept of intelligence, you would have brought a spare remote, or a better power source for the one you did. Then again, your lack of intelligence was somewhat helpful in that video game. I'm torn. No, wait, no I'm not. You're a fool, in video games or whatnot." Slade commented.

"A useful fool!"

"That's debatable."

"Well sorry Slade! Next time we're in a video game I'll just punch in the Konami Code somewhere and see how that helps us fare! Or hell even better I'll just plug in the Doom God code, it's short enough even for you to remember, it's I-D-D-Q-D…" Control Freak yelled.

A bullet exploded on the ground near his foot.

"Your development of an attitude is inimical to our continued survival. Work on recharging your battery. And be warned that next time I won't waste my bullet." Slade said. Control Freak shut up.

"You know, he's the one who wound him up." Sorceress commented to Brick.

"Yes…but…" Brick trailed off.

"What?" Sorceress said, as she stared at Brick's blank face, as he looked dumbly ahead for several seconds before shaking his head.

"Sorry, seemed to have zoned out. Al Capone said you could get further with a kind word and a gun then a kind word alone. The same holds for mean words, I suppose." Brick said.

"Redundant or no, it's not as exciting as being told the other way, which can be somewhat misleading." Westminster stated succinctly. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, uh, the usual. How did you obtain your powers? I mean the ability to grow bone isn't exactly a commonly needed or wanted power."

"Well, someone wanted it. It was a project in the military, trying to make soldiers that could keep going in spite of a broken bone as they could grow a new one, or an exo-skeletal structure, or have a weapon at hand at all times…I don't know what the specific end result was, as the brief changed every day it would seem." He scratched his brow lightly with his thumb, the white mask over his face hardly moving at all like skin would, as the green surgeon's mask continued to move with his speech. "As a 'bone doctor' I was brought in to try and see if the project would be somewhat plausible, which it happened to be, as my unfortunate fate would indicate. They needed a test subject, someone smart enough to be able to know what bone does what and where…and they didn't really have any other candidates."

"It wasn't voluntary?" Sine asked; her mouth slightly open in surprise. There were still parts of the world she did not understand much of.

"It was. Either I would be their test subject, or they would shoot me so full of holes I could have a part time job as a wind chime." He joked, though a slight undertone of bitter rage was quite apparent. "So, at gun point, I got into the mechanism that made me a visual cacophony. On my end, the theory, the mathematics and the biology were all spot on. It was the execution of the procedure, their end, the actual implementation that made it go wrong."

"You mean they did it incorrectly?"

"No, the worrying thing is they did it right. In their eyes, they did the procedure perfectly. It was just a bad procedure. It was like… cutting off a leg when you need to replace an artery… no, a better description would be it was like you asked your friend, a trainee builder, to plaster the walls, and he ended up leaving it a patchy, uneven, cracked mess that would come tumbling down sooner rather then later. And that was when he did the best he could."

"And you're the breaking wall."

"Quite. I stumbled out of the machine and the first thing I did was scream as my spine duplicated itself outside of my body. From there it kind of went downhill. I was in seething agony for most of the time while they continued with their experiments, breaking my arm to see if I could re-grow it, and then doing worse. It wasn't a pleasant experience. Eventually the British military I once belonged to realized that one of their Captain's were missing and went looking, which led to them realizing the American research cell was thus continuing their experiments unlawfully. Heaven forbid." The last comment was dripping with sarcasm and self loathing, a combination that was often reserved for self pity, but perhaps in this case it was more linked to the fact that the man now hated the army that used to provide him with a livelihood, and had hated that he once believed in it. "Anyway they came along to clear the cell out and the head guard snapped my neck in that 'I could shoot you but I will show off' sort of way. The second spine allowed me to snap my neck back into place, which I'm gathering he knew…he just didn't expect me to be so quick about it. I tackled him before he could leave: he tried to shoot me but a strong layer of bone now covered my ribcage, above my heart. The surefire kill shot was not, for me. I was just lucky he was a good shot, an inch left or right and I wouldn't be here." Westminster tapped his chest lightly, a hollow thunk coming from him, as if to show that his powers had started to fully return. They both paused at this before he sighed lightly; so much for having no pain again. What a time to be without any painkillers. Maybe if he was lucky the fiction manifestation would cause Dr. House to stroll by and Westminster could bum some meds off him.

"Then what happened?"

"I got dropped from the service, having needed to be in constant medical care. Eventually that stopped as well, and I decided to come to America to use my powers. I arrived in a place called Rhode Island, a place with plenty of mystics and strange goings on, but hardly any super heroes and villains of any kind, so the need for a superpowered person on a payroll was not needed…"

"I KNEW IT! TRAITOR! YOU'RE A HERO!" Jack shouted. A red dot appeared on his forehead, and he growled and settled back down, glaring at Dr. Westminster. The others also seemed to wonder some about his last statement, but at this point Westminster didn't care: all he knew was that if he didn't tell it now, he'd be killed eventually for sure.

"No, I'm not. I TRIED to be, I admit that. I held my head high and each time I walked in to make a deal for my services they literally laughed me out of their offices. I needed the money, I can't live in my body without the painkillers I take, or I'd end up going insane. And since they continued to send me packing, I decided that the pain was too much and did the next best thing…"

"You robbed a bank. The Rhode Island 'bone robbery.' I read of it." Slade finished, having found it in the paper over a breakfast of grape fruit at one point. Apparently the men and women of the bank were 'staked' to the walls of the bank with bony staffs as the robber went in, raided the place and left with handfuls of money, all of which ended up in the hands of drug dealers who dealt in painkillers and general analgesics. No one died, but there were a lot of stitches to be passed out… and a missing can of cola. According to the dealers once they were caught, a military figure had been the one who bought these loads of hospital strength painkillers, but nothing else. And he knew enough to always came back if the dose was spoiled or corrupted in any way, and would break their legs if he found they dealt to children before taking his drugs and going.

"I'm afraid it was much more out of necessity than anything villainous, however necessity or not I was now labeled a criminal for breaking numerous laws and… well…people." Westminster scratched the back of his head lightly, his thoughts turning once again to his powers. He still felt hair under his mask, which was good…but even that had started to be covered with a bone layer again. Not so good.

"How many laws?" Blackfire asked, with that ultra-irritating tone only bitches seemed to have.

"One for something about improper immigration, several counts of assault and armed robbery, one account of grand theft auto and grand theft, but no murder."

"Hah, you're not even a real villain then! You're not much of anything!" Jack taunted.

"Your opinion on what a villain is would actually mean something if you knew what you were talking about. If we were operating on quality, we'd have dropped Puppet King and Dr. Light a while back, and you'd be right after them for being an unreliable maniac!" Sine snapped.

"You're one to really talk ain't 'cha birdy? You're the same! You ain't got a clue who you are or anythin'. You've got your head so far up Slade's ass you can see daylight! You don't know if you're comin' or goin' and with how you've been recently I ain't gonna be surprised if we drop YOU completely. For bein' unreliable."

"How about I crack your skull and see if you're coming or going?" Sine asked, aiming her orb launcher.

"Try it bitch."

"That's it Jack…" Slade began.

"OHSHITOHSHIT HERE COMES TROUBLE!" The Puppet King screamed. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

And then it enveloped him. The villains all jumped to their feet, as the massive mass of pink goo surged completely out of the shadows.

"…and now we're being attacked by bubble gum." Slade muttered, and opened fire.

"…what is THAT?" Freddy yelled.

"It's the Blob." The Lieutenant replied.

"What the hell is a BLOB going to do?"

"Hopefully kill some of them?"

"Through SUFFOCATION? That's so lame!"

"It doesn't suffocate. It's designed like a giant moving stomach: its body breaks down and digests any organic material. It's also nigh-invulnerable to conventional harm, as you can see." The lieutenant said, as the gunfire and power blasts of the villains were clearly doing nothing.

"That's so STUPID! It's got no personality! No pizzaz! It's just a damn STOMACH. It doesn't even THINK!"

"It's strong, it's swift, it's adaptable, and it's difficult to damage! Your robot emissary didn't have half those traits! What does personality matter, if it thins out the ranks some?"

"Because that's what it's all ABOUT! We're NOT just another lame serial killer or force of nature! We've got class, style, IMAGE! THAT...THING IS A GIANT PINK BLOB! WHAT the FUCK is cool about a BLOB?"

"I still say it will prove effective for eliminating the ones you would consider 'dull'."

"Fucking eighties!" Freddy growled.

"You were yourself created during the eighties."

"That was the ONLY good thing about the eighties!"

It's hard to say that something like the blob can be scary, for it's a blob…

But the villains weren't laughing at the Blob for being a blob. They were not laughing at all.

Not even when, with a scream, it spat Puppet King back out, apparently finding him inedible despite being organic material, as the unlucky bastard flew through the air and crashed into another wall. A moment later tentacles of pink goop sprang from the Blob's body and tore towards the villains.

"DON'T LET IT TOUCH YOU!" Control Freak yelled as he ran away. "IT TOUCHES YOU YOU'RE DEAD!"

For once the villains didn't have a smartass reply, as they scattered away from the grabbing tendrils, still firing uselessly on the Blob. Killjoy even launched a grenade into it: it exploded dully inside the pink mass, doing little more then causing it to bloom out for a moment. Then Killjoy ran.

The villains did likewise, as Blackfire flew up, Jack jumped to the nearest building and climbed up via Grimmer claws, and Kurai grabbed Rose and then put as much energy into firing a blast at the Blob as he could, propelling them back down the street they'd been resting in and away from the Blob. On a side note, his blast did strike the creature, but it barely seemed to feel it.

And Brick tried the old fashioned method of running…but the Blob was a lot faster then it looked, as it shot out its tentacles at Brick.

"BRICK!" Sorceress called, and then with no time cast the first spell she had: a speed spell.

It worked, too well, as Brick's speed suddenly increased 20-fold, but not at his command, and as a result Brick outran the Blob's tentacles with a surprised look before face-planting right into the side of a building, causing the whole structure to shake. On top, the strange cat jumped in surprise, and then decided it had best be elsewhere and ran off: the Blob was known for eating cats as well as humans.

"Brick!" Sorceress called, as Brick stumbled and shook his head.

"He's on his own for now Miss Ithlian!" Slade snapped as he grabbed the Sorceress and threw her over his shoulder as she yelled in surprise, running away from the Blob before it could turn it's attention to them. "I actually saw the original of this film! I know the only thing that harms it is cold! So start whipping something up, FAST!"

"IYEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Dr. Light screamed as the Blob chased him, before Adonis grabbed him and activated rockets in his boots, throwing them into the air and onto a nearby roof. Robbed of it's targets, the Blob quickly changed them and went after the next pair: Nightwalker and Dr. Westminster.

And neither was going to go quietly, as both opened fire on the creature with orb launcher and assault rifle. The Blob surged at them, and they split up, still firing. The Blob, perhaps unsurprisingly, went after Sine.

But she wasn't just going to let it get an easy meal, as she flipped, spun, jumped, spun, landed, rolled, jumped, spun, landed and dove again before reloading her gauntlets. No matter what the Blob tried, Sine was one step ahead.

But when attempting to catch her by arm or by its own body failed to work for the SUV sized blob of disintegrating mass, The Blob also adapted, as it surged off the ground in a wave and slammed down upon the ground where Sine had crouched.

"SHIT!" She yelled, throwing himself backwards without realizing where she was going. The Blob missed her…but she also dove right into an alleyway, greatly narrowing her range of movement.

And the Blob was on her, surging into the alleyway to drag her down and devour her.

"SHIT SHIT SHIT!" Nightwalker cursed as she ran back a few steps, turned, looked around frantically, and spied her escape, as she ran up the side of a wall, leapt off, and jumped up to the emergency escape of a nearby building, where she swung on the emergency ladder to avoid the attack. Sine then propelled herself up the ladder in a quick jump, landing on the bottom floor of the escape.

That didn't stop the Blob, as it surged up to get her even as she tried to get up to the next level.

"HEY!"

Help came from the ground, as the less mobile Doctor Westminster fired off his retrieved M16 as fast as it would allow, the older assault riffle attempting to rip apart the gooey mass of gunk in the hope of dispersing it to some degree. Unfortunately, his wishes were not answered, as Westminster watched in horror that the parts that he did shoot off just flowed back to combine with the main mass.

At least he got its attention, as the Blob turned to the doctor and charged. Kinetic force hadn't worked, so the doctor switched to electric force, as the military man turned on the secondary weapon of his assault riffle, the shock-gun segment under the main barrel. Sparks shot in front of him in an impressive blast as the actual shot of electricity flew forth in one clear 'bullet' of power, one that fried a zombie in its tracks with ease, and one Westminster rather enjoyed.

This was the Blob. It did nothing.

Or to be more specific, it didn't even get a chance to do nothing as the Blob, in mid blast, opened up its body, creating a hole for the discharged energy to fly through, hitting and electrifying the dumpster behind it.

"Oh come on." Westminster complained.

The Blob surged forward, nearly grabbing Westminster as he ran backwards…as the tendrils sprang out and grabbed at him, one seizing him M16 and pulling it away as another finally got ahold of him, grabbing him by the left forearm.

Westminister reacted on instinct, as a forearm blade of bone exploded out of his right arm and the doctor slashed down, just managing to sever the tentacle before it could firm its grip, as Westminister stumbled backwards, ripping off the wrist arm of his jacket in the process as he turned and ran for it.

"Doc!" Sine called, and then she snapped in a clip of acid orbs: the Blob was made of a caustic gel, maybe she could trigger a chemical reaction!

She didn't, and the Blob surged after Westminister, as he fled into a store on the opposite end. A convenience store.

As a new assault erupted on the streets, as Killjoy stepped out and opened fire on the Blob with a FN SCAR-L Mk. 17 machine gun, the new peppering of bullets distracting the Blob away from the store. It was more distracted when Blackfire swooped down and rained Blackbolts down on it. Determined to keep it distracted, Sine snapped in a new clip of napalm orbs and fired them into the Blob, as it flowed away from the store and started for Killjoy.

And the environment then struck, as Rose popped up on the roof above the convenience store. And it had one specific target.

"HAVE MORE BALLS OF BOOM!" Rose yelled, and dropped several grenades down into the Blob.

Explosions erupted from it, doing nothing…but the heat and shrapnel caused a chain reaction as a few near cars blew in turn.

Which made the Blob lash them away.

Which made a piece of metal fly out as a very specific angle and slam into Nightwalker's unarmored forehead.

Normally, she'd have had her helmet up, but at the moment, it was malfunctioning, leaving her cranium nice and exposed for a concussive impact, as Sine lurched to the side and then blackness claimed her, as she fell over the edge of the balcony and into the garbage strewn alleyway below.

The trash cushioned her fall, but she was now a sitting duck for the Blob, as it turned and slithered for the alleyway again, heading for the resting place of the young, promising villainess, a mouth almost forming in itsgoo like substance to devour her…

Before the bag of crushed ice was thrown onto its back, and it recoiled from the sensation…as another bag was hurled on. The Blob jerked and spasmed, withdrawing from Nightwalker's alleyway.

"YEAH THAT'S IT! GET IT! GET IT!" Control Freak yelled as Dr. Westminster hurled another bag of crushed ice, taken from the convenience store. The Blob spasmed anew, as Dr. Westminster began to retreat…

But despite finally being disrupted, it wasn't finished, as the Blob surged around and shot out several tentacle arms, and before Westminster could react it had him, yanking him up with a yell.

"…nice knowing you!" Control Freak said, and ran away, as Westminster screamed and the Blob drew him in…

And stopped as it suddenly flashed, and then it was no longer a pink moving Blob. It was a dull blue frozen in place Blob.

"………………GUH!" Westminster yelped as he broke himself free from the frozen arms, making sure not a single piece stuck to him as he backed up.

"Very nice Miss Ithlian." Slade said as he approached with the Sorceress: the plan had almost been compromised (you think Killjoy and Blackfire had attacked for a nice reason? They'd been given an order by Slade: lure the Blob into an open part of street so the Sorceress could freeze it, before his overenthusiastic daughter had screwed it up, but they'd managed a rebound), but it had worked. "Now get rid of it."

"And good riddance." The Sorceress said, as a dome of energy formed over the Blob, and then the section of the street it was on erupted out of the ground and flew up into the air, as Sorceress managed to use what she'd regained of her powers to toss it into space.

"I never once said it was infallible." The Lieutenant said.

"IT WAS A FUCKING BLOB! How did you expect it to work ANYWAY?"

"Better."

"Next time you have an idea, TRY THINKING ABOUT IT BEFORE YOU USE IT!"

"If that was the norm, most of your sequels would never have been made."

"That was different! I was original! Unique! I had personality, and dammit, I SCARED THE FUCK OUT OF PEOPLE. THAT ABOMINATION WAS NOT SCARY! LET ME SHOW YOU HOW TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO PEOPLE!" Freddy yelled, and began to type.

And Sine, still dazed, experienced a tingle in her spine while unconscious as the world of horror worked its 'magic'…

"So much for the problem of the Blob. It was an annoying one too. " Slade said, unloading his gun of the burden of an empty magazine and replacing it with a full one, followed by a few cocking actions and a holstering move set.

"But it's a Blob!" Control Freak shouted, Slade quickly redrew his side arm. "Ah, of course.. aheh…"

"Are you all right Brick?" Sorceress asked the giant as he walked slowly over to the group.

"Been…better." Brick said, rubbing his head.

"You didn't damage the gatling gun did you Vogel?" Slade asked.

"…No Wilson…I did not break…your precious gun."

"Good. Maybe the next threat will actually allow you to do something besides give yourself a headache. Are we all here?" Slade asked, looking around. The question was rhetorical: had the answer been 'no', he most likely wouldn't have cared. "No casualties? Then we're moving out. Grab your gear. You all have one minute and anyone who complains gets shot."

Perhaps had this been a somewhat more common situation in which Slade had been forced to worth with others he would have been a bit looser. But this was not normal, and his rigid sense of what was real and not had crashed into this quandary, thus forcing him in to a policy that was mostly fight or flight. He wasn't afraid of a fight, but he wasn't going to stupidly wait around for one.

The villains gathered themselves together.

"Where's Nightwalker?" Doctor Westminster asked.

"Ugh…here!" A female voice called from down the alleyway, making a few of the villains who had nothing to pack peer over to have a look.

Sine partly pushed a piece of metal off her, the sheet of corrugated metal sliding off of her form with relative ease, allowing her to sit up and then stand up.

Which was when the watching villains noticed something was off. The sleek black uniform Nightwalker wore seemed to span too much of the darkness cast by the buildings. Her wholesome face seemed too soft at the edges. Killjoy tilted his head in an owl-like manner as Sine walked to the alley entrance, holding her head gently while the other just stared in a rather dumb struck manner.

"…What?" She asked.

Westminster went through his pockets, searching for a particular item for several seconds before he came across it. Pulling out a small handheld mirror, he took a cautious step forward, arm at full reach to avoid any possible wrath.

Sine snatched up the mirror like a staring animal at a meal, staring into it a moment before examining the rest of her.

She stood roughly 5ft 6 inches as she always had, and she still had a wholesome face with freckles across the nose, blonde hair (once red) and jade eyes; nothing had changed that much in such a respect. She was still herself, mentally at least. She liked what she liked and disliked what she didn't, so what could be different?

She looked closer.

Her face was now in a rounder frame, with fuller cheeks and plumped lips. The mild makeup Sine did wear enhanced that further. Her chin was fleshier, with a thicker neck wrapped in the black cloth of her outfit. Slightly broader shoulders sloped down into a fuller figure, hardly contained by the suit of technology and polymers. Larger breasts and a belly very full of girth was now her frame, the tight outfit pulled taunt once again. Sine ran her hand, which was somewhat shaking, down the side of her hips. Wide and large, with thick thighs and what would most likely be a larger rump also. Her cape, fortunately for her, was covering it.

Sine, a genetically gifted and well trained athlete… was fat. One hundred and sixty pounds at least.

"And precisely how is this scary?" The lieutenant asked.

"It's REALITY."

"…all right, I'll give you that one."

At the realization of what her body had changed, Sine seemed to swoon, only to be quickly grabbed by Dr. Westminster.

"Hey! Don't go out on us!" The doctor said, struggling to keep Sine up.

"Good god! Did she eat a few ton of chocolate while we weren't looking?" Kurai said, goggling at Sine's altered form.

"…yes! Maybe I finally have a chance now!" Control Freak cheered, before Brick smacked him across the head. "OW!"

"This is not the time or the right words." Brick growled to the gamer.

"I believe that the term is 'Bloody Hell'." Doctor Westminster said quietly.

"Heh, you can say than again, Pommy." Jack said, looking wickedly amused.

"You be quiet convict."

"Arsehole!"

"Jackarse!"

Slade raised his gun at the arguing pair, whom both quieted down rather rapidly afterwards.

Sine shook the cobwebs out of her head, as the air of surreal disbelief washed over her again. All her hard work, her effort, her training, all the times she had stayed off chocolate, all the times she had walked past bakeries and fought temptation…of all the pitfalls of life, this was one she had wanted to avoid the most. And now…

She managed to stand upright on her own, issuing Westminster away and making sure he stood back to see if she could manage it on her own.

She took a few breaths, first checking to see she could actually breathe in her costume now. She wasn't sure if the outfit had stretched or had been resized to fit her new body but either way it didn't have a lot of give…oh geez, how the hell was she supposed to handle this…

The villains could see the scared look on her face, as for the first time and for the first of all the transformations she didn't know what to do; the proper way to counteract it completely eluded her. When she was enhanced to a figure of someone from Dead or Alive she could counterbalance her weight and thus continue her flips. Her hair had become a bit longer when it turned blonde but she still had managed to tie it back and continue on. When small, all she'd had to do more flips and twists to avoid being stepped on, and she'd survived.
But like this…

"The atmosphere?" Slade said to the Sorceress.

"Seems so." Sorceress replied.

"Hmmmmmm. All right people, we're moving on. Let's go." Slade said. He gave just one look to Sine for a moment, making the girl feel like she wanted to turn in on herself and implode. His cold, staring gaze, not apologizing a whit for the action he planed to take next. Sine looked back, at a man briefly considering and turning around information before deciding how, when and where to act upon what he had accumulated.

Sine saw it, and she knew what it meant.

He was now re-evaluating her worth. And there would be no good from it at all.

"Let's go. We're going to be moving full speed; those who can't keep up will be left behind." He ordered, turning his back to her once again and lifting up his fallen weapons, reloading, reequipping, and re-sheathing anything that needed to be. The others were, for the most part, ready.

Sine started for a moment as the others began to move, Slade once again taking point and jogging off at some speed out between the buildings and ally ways, through the empty streets. He couldn't be serious! Not everyone could keep the pace that the mercenary had set! Control Freak, Brick and even the Sorceress were slower than he was! How could he leave such needed, or unwanted but still needed, personnel behind alongside her? Was it some warped way of helping her?

Unfortunately, that possibility was based on what Nightwalker couldn't possibly have foreseen happening next.

Brick picked up the Sorceress again, whose legs couldn't keep up with the running, and thus took her with him. Sine wondered how he could run so fast, some things considering. Well his legs weren't as slow as his brain once was, not to mention being smarter let him do such things as take long strides and jumping bounds, his footsteps thundering.

And Control Freak…promptly zapped up a device to help him, a jet belt with boosters strapped to it that looked like something out of the 1960's science fiction. Having contributed nothing to the Blob fight besides some cheerleading and tell Doctor Westminster its weakness, his remote had the power to make that device, allowing him to speed off after Slade who made a decent pace.

It struck the young vigilante that she'd actually had to run herself.

Taking off at her usual pace, Sine quickly realized she wouldn't be able to keep it up: her cardiovascular training seemed intact but she simply wasn't used to the weight of her new form. Thinking back to the very start of her training, she decided that perhaps it would be better to keep a constant pace rather than trying to keep up with the fast ones. They might have be fast, but it would be doubtful that they could keep that up for that long, so if she could stay at a constant pace…

….and she was just kidding herself. Slade and Killjoy were highly trained men, as were Slade's apprentices and Dr. Westminster. They all ran at a decent speed despite the fact most of them were laden with equipment and gear. The others kept up via having less gear and the slower ones kept up for the reasons given. At the back, poor, poor Sine struggled, her breath becoming short and her freckled cheeks reddening with effort. She tried to maximize her speed by taking longer strides to allow her to cover more distance with less effort, which provided her a jogging rate at best, her newly hefty frame hugged tightly inside her black suit and slowed such efforts down.

She wanted to call after them, scream out 'Wait!', she wanted to try and slow them down so she wouldn't be left in this nightmare, but she had more dignity than that, she had more self respect than to panic in the face of such adversity. She wanted to, but she couldn't call out, she couldn't bring her voice to bear, she couldn't…break character.

And she knew it wouldn't matter; even if by some miracle Slade had a change of heart, the environment wouldn't let them hear her. It wanted her, separate from the others and vulnerable to kill. You NEVER signed on to appear in a horror movie sequel: unless you were Neve Campbell you would be dead in the first reel.

And just to completely drive that point home, a fog seemed to spring up from nowhere, the streets going from clear to pea-soup in seconds.

As the men and women disappeared into the mist, Sine slowed to a stop, her arms swinging lightly as her ample chest heaved to try and fill her body with the air she needed. A certain type of despair came over her, with a feeling of uneasy acceptance following.

She was not going to survive this.

The plump blonde leaned over, placing her hands on her knees; she felt she could weep for all the time it would take the atmosphere to send one of its monstrous subjects to chew on her. Her only consolation in this state was that it would take them a while to chew through her and she would give them a heart attack. Her nimble, minx like form gone, her pert little breasts and behind now ballooned out in to what she was now. Like Freddy had said, reality could be scarier then anything…

"Come on Nightwalker!"

Out of the fog rushed Westminster, his olive clad form slowing in front of her before grabbing the vigilante's hand and pulling at it. Even with her added girth, Westminster managed to drag her a little before Sine took up the responsibility of running herself, trying to keep up with the ex-military man. He slowed his tempo down to accommodate her, even if it disadvantaged him.

"Guh… Why?" She tried to ask, her once stealthy step turned effortlessly into a thundering footfall by the environmental change.

"I'll answer later!" Westminster replied, as they turned a corner, running as fast as the pair could. Sine tripped a few times but kept up, or rather was forced to; The Doctor had a strong grip.

They turned around another corner and under an archway that had a bridge upon it leading between two buildings, their pace continuing as they passed through the dense fog as they drew closer and closer towards the 'friends' they had just left. They do say that safety is always in numbers, ESPECIALLY in horror films: you were never on your own unless you want a 9.5/10 chance of death, and thus people who were properly genre-savvy stayed together. On their own they were vulnerable; they wanted to get back to their little 'gang'. They NEEDED to get back.

But despite their pace and their will, they had not needed, wanted or anticipated the chained fence, covered in wooden planks and industrial 'roof' coverings to prevent the fence from being damaged. With red spray painted writing saying "No Access" and "No way through" just to drive the point home.

Westminster hit the wall, hands out front in an unwelcome slam, only briefly able to stop himself from hitting it at full speed.

"Damnit!" He yelled, looking up at the monstrous wall, covering the entire street and alleyways either side, going up and up and up seemingly for miles. Sine came to a stop behind him, out of breath and in need of a rest, her red face showing off how much of a target she was. It was a surprise you could see her freckles at all.

Westminster pawed across the wall in the vain hope that there was a place where they could get through. He remembered, he KNEW that it was around here that he had turned back to get the laboring Sine: he recalled the buildings and the archway at the corner of the street. And THIS wasn't here! He would have remembered something like THIS!

"Oh this isn't good…." The Englishman stated, a slight panic filling his well-spoken voice as he finished attempting to claw his way through the wall and searching his multiple pockets again. Sine watched with baited breath, or at least it would be if she still weren't trying to regain the oxygen count.

Taking a small black device out of his pocket, Westminster pressed a few buttons on it. It seemed to be a GPS, but like most things in horror films, it refused to work. Nothing you needed ever worked there. It was amazing they had managed the success they'd had with guns.

Bah.

Placing the device back into one of his (many) pockets on the outside of his jacket, Westminster looked around briefly, his hand stroking his masked chin lightly, covered eyes gazing around here, there and everywhere. Sine could see the gears in his head twirling, turning, grinding and changing directions as he pondered and postulated.

He then drew a handgun and filled the wall full of lead.

"Nope, that didn't work." He commented, half surprised and half hopeful that the pitiful nine-millimeter rounds would actually do something against a seemingly immovable wire fence with tarpaulin and wood bolted to it. Taking a moment to lower the gun he turned around and faced Nightwalker. Boy, had she changed due to all of this…

"And you thought it would work…because?"

"Hope? Hunch? Dumb luck? I don't know." He stated, reloading and putting the handgun away with a shrug. Maybe he wanted to see if by some marvelous design flaw would make the fence fall down when it was shot, or maybe the bullets would 'short out' the illusion before them, if it was an illusion.

Maybe he wanted to get some frustration out, who knows, though as I certainly doubt he does.

"Hmm… Seeing as we can't go that way, we'll have to catch up with Slade another way… through…" The doctor paused a moment as he scanned the area, his hand half raised in an attempt to make a decision. He then spied the entrance to a building on his side of the closed fence; the building itself seemed to continue on past said impasse and beyond, so even if all else failed the pair could get around the other side via a window or make a last stand. "…there." His lazily extended finger extended to a full point towards the double doors, illuminated only by the light shining above it. Fog lights, an appliance that lived up to its name at the moment.

"Why should we go after Slade? He left us behind!" Sine snapped, having managed to get enough of her breath back to make a coherent sentence without gasps interrupting it.

"Unfortunately I don't have much of a plan, so I think we should rejoin the group, though it will be unlikely that we can catch them up… Sorry Nightwalker, we may be on our own."

"Why don't we just go back the way we came?" Sine asked, and then realized how dumb a question that was. Westminster answered it anyway.

"We traveled through several other worlds to get here, and I'm afraid I don't see how we can get back there. Every time we shifted to a new place the door would close and disappear behind us."
"But we're back in Jump City now…"

"But where in Jump City?" Westminster asked, looking around for a road sign. And noticed something in his search: the fog was lifting. The street lamps, flickering and on low power, but on nevertheless, had started to become clearer, more useful. The streets could actually be seen more clearly. Sine was able to even see herself more clearly… much to her dismay.

Then a droplet of rain hit Sine's exposed head, causing her to try and reach for it despite the fact that it had already disappeared into her hair. Once again Westminster paused and glanced at his surroundings. Once again, he hesitated in thought, as more rain came from the clouded heavens. There would be no sky this night, I can tell you.

Both parties started to become somewhat wet. Sine's outfit was waterproofed to a point, and Westminster's dried rather quickly, but both of them knew standing out in the rain probably wouldn't help. Especially while the preventative measure started to fail due to being stretched. They would need the curative method, and that couldn't be started until they got inside.

So they headed for it, Sine desperately holding her gloved hands above her head in a rather pathetic attempt to stop the water, though with all the mass she had now it was the equivalent of her with a cocktail umbrella in her old form.

Upon their rushing for the building, they spotted something previously obscured by the masses of fog. It would appear in their previous haste, the pair had not seen a bundle on the ground near the edge of the pavement and the door they were heading too. It was no longer than a small person, about a foot or so deep and not tall at all. By this time rather soaked, the pair slowed down.

"Could be a trap. A…canvass monster…or something. Or a mass of demonic ants. Surely they've had a film made of them, I've read the story of Leininigen."

"Noted." Westminster said, kneeling down by it, flexing his fingers before cautiously undoing the rope attached and wrapped tightly around the bundle. Sine, who had also knelt down, leaned over to get a closer look. Her armor creaked slightly in protest, and she adjusted her position, inadvertently causing her form presses up against the side of the doctor. Some would consider this an invasion of personal space, but Westminster simply put it down to the fact she wasn't used to her size yet, and hence wouldn't know where to stand, sit or kneel so as not to press against people. Not that he minded that much in any rate; women tend not to get close to you when you're a walking mass of calcified matter. The doctor hesitated before pulling back the cloth, the rain in full deluge now.

Inside there were lots of boxes, cases with handles and sleek nondescript black designs; simple labels adorned the outsides, mostly showing codes and scribbles. One particular code caught the eye of the Doctor of the Westminster clan though, on the longest and thickest box held within the confines of the bundle.

M24A2.

To a military man, that basically said "Kill time."

Opening the bundle further (and doing so made Sine realize Slade had run off with her reload case, damn it. She'd fully restocked before the Blob fight but still…) Sine reached over, grabbing a box or two before getting up and rushing towards the double doors. The rain was getting heavier; puddles had started to form at their feet. The kind of rain that soaked you even though you were only out in it for a moment or two, when it would not even be long enough to get wet in any other shower or storm. Westminster's colors darkened as the black cloth on Sine became shiny and slick. They didn't much care about that: what they did care about was that these boxes and their contents would likely be needed to save their life and they could be getting ruined at this very moment.

Westminster went back for the last few cases, bags and boxes while Sine worked on the lock on the door using a tool that Westminster had given her from his pack(He seemed to be a Swiss Army person instead of a regular army person). Taking a moment to try and figure out what the gun-like device did to actually unlock the doors to the building, she decided to throw it away and use more conventional tools of breaking and entering.

After a near record at opening the lock without the need to destroy it, Nightwalker slipped in and dumped what gear was by her feet inside, moving in and out in quick succession to save all they could manage from the downpour.

And for a moment the vigilante sighed out, regaining her last breath as she watched the rain fall: they were up to torrential downpour.

For what was happening, it was surprisingly calm. Regrets and thoughts had wanted to overwhelm her, but for once she had a deep feeling of apathy and callousness towards the world. The idea that even Slade's mind was being warped by the surroundings despite all his efforts to the contrary didn't fill her with the confidence of the ages as he had been, and arguably will be, the most dangerous foe in Jump City.

Except, maybe, the gods. Maybe.

Perhaps.

Her thoughts paused as Westminster barreled in with the last remaining few boxes, his wet form dripping from the head down. Each droplet formed its own little puddle on the hard, marble style floor. A heavy thunk sounded as Westminster dropped the cases and paused, looking around and out the door.

For a moment there was a stillness, watching the outside as more rain started to pour off the roof and pour in through the door. They both sat on the floor and watched it, like the rain was coming to wash the world clean of the sins of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. If only this could have been the case then they could just turn around and start the day afresh.

But neither of the two stragglers had that kind of luck.

If you were surprised to hear it was NOT raining where the remaining villains were, and that they were no longer jogging along but back to a cautious walk, you haven't been paying attention.

"I want some specifics, Wilson." Brick said as he trudged along, lugging his gatling gun and weapon bundles (minus one, and that had been quite purposeful on his part). "Just what are your classifications for 'worth'."

"Anyone who is a hindrance will be left behind. No exceptions." Slade replied.

"What about Dr. Light and the Puppet King?"

"As useless as they are, they can still keep up. We can use them as shields if it comes down to it."

"Light's already had practice." Blackfire cracked. Dr. Light was about to yell a retort, when she looked at him with glowing mad eyes and he shut up.

"Because I really must question…." Brick continued.

"Dr. Vogel, this is not the Marines. We are not trained to act as a unit, and our actions as a unit are only to ensure our survival. If one of us hinders that, then they will be cut loose. No exceptions. Whatsoever."

"And if your daughter goes from silly to borderline retarded?" Brick asked. The villains all stopped at that question.

"….No exceptions." Slade said.

"WHAT! DADDY!" Rose yelled.

"So you'd best hang on to what common sense you have left now Rose, because without it you're worth less than nothing to me." Slade said. Rose gritted her teeth and stomped her feet angrily. "And if you're going to throw a temper tantrum you can just leave right now."

"I'll show you! I'll…run away!" Rose threatened.

"Go right ahead. I'll even give you a count of ten for motivation." Slade said as he cocked and aimed his gun at Rose, who gaped. "No exceptions Rose. Now get in line, or get left…"

As the giant ape swooped down out of the sky and leapt over the villains, grabbing Rose up as she shrieked, and then it was off running and swinging. It happened so suddenly and out of the blue even Slade was struck dumb for a moment.

"…and I believe that was King Kong." Brick commented.

"…AFTER HIM!" Slade roared, as he turned and charged after the ape, firing at it.

"Wasn't he all Darwin and survival and no exceptions before?" Dr. Light asked.

"That was Rose's brain melting: this is an outside force and I suspect it falls under the 'nobody steals from Montgomery Burns' umbrella. And we can't let the atmosphere separate us, AFTER HIM!" Brick yelled, and the villains followed after Slade as he fired at the fleeing monkey, Rose clutched firmly in his grip as she screamed.

Fortunately, there was no Empire State Building.

UNfortunately, there WAS the recently completed Phalle Tower, a towering skyscraper build to house headquarters of two new Jump City businesses and some of the largest ones already present in the city.

And King Kong clearly wasn't picky as he leapt and seized onto the side, climbing his way up as Slade stopped, aimed his gun up after the giant ape, and then cursed and lowered it.

"What happened? Are we giving up master?" Kurai asked as the rest of the villains arrived.

"No, shooting it now will just have it fall off while holding Rose." Slade said, as Kong ascended to the top of the Tower and perched there. Rose's screams drifted down from the building.

"What the devil is that big ape doing here anyway?" Kurai asked, craning his neck up.

"Why wouldn't…he…be…" Brick said, before wincing and holding his head.

"Problem Vogel?" Slade asked.

"Just a mild…pain…headache." Brick said.

"King Kong was a horror movie?" Kurai asked.

"DUH! It was the first monster movie!" Control Freak snapped.

"I always thought it was hilarious."

"Oh no. It wasn't the airplanes. Twas Beauty Killed the Beast."

"……………HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Color me surprised." Control Freak said.

"Just what is the point of this Krueger? Kong's not exactly a savage beast out to destroy everything." The Lieutenant said.

"Maybe not. But he sure proved to be distracting enough for those fuckwits to run right into a potentially intense cloud of our 'atmosphere', with a special Krueger touch. It's not always about the blood, rookie! Sometimes it's for the laughs! And THEN the blood. And I have someone who will combine the two in a most DELICIOUS manner…" Freddy cackled, as he began typing once again.

Indeed, the villains had no idea where they were and what it meant. And that was about to become brutally obvious.

"All right, how are we going to get her down? Head up the stairs? Send Blackfire, if she's willing?" Brick asked.

"None of those. Too obvious." Slade said. "I know a setup when I see one. If we try and take the elevator we'll end up in a submarine, and taking the stairs will put us in a haunted castle or some such nonsense. Same with Miss Blackfire doing the obvious tact. No, I'm not going to fall for it. We'll rescue my daughter, but we'll do so by thinking outside the box."

"So what are we going to do Slade?" Sorceress asked.

"We, Miss Ithlian…are going to flap our arms and fly."

"…Why?" Sine asked, turning slightly towards the British man. No, she was not asking how in the hell could Slade think his idea would work. Even I don't have an answer and I'm writing this thing.

"Ah, return of the delayed echo. I can give you a few answers, but I would have little to no idea if you would even want to hear them." Westminster replied, taking off some of his gear so he, and his clothes, could dry faster before sitting back down for a quick break.

SOME, not all of them, you understand.

Not wanting to keep the silence going (lest it be filled by something unpleasant) Sine slipped to her feet, walked down the corridor, and, keeping her orb launcher armed and aimed at all times, managed to get into a larger area. It seemed to have a few rows of seats, coffee tables with magazines, pin boards with the latest news in particular areas and a tall desk as if it was designed for serving.

"I've been here…"

"Pardon?" Westminster asked, standing up again and wandering over.

"We're in one of the smaller hospitals situated here there and everywhere from when Jump City was much more sprawled out. Recent rebuildings have made things more compact." She said, picking up a magazine and flipping through it a bit while walking before placing it down. "The…Eternal Rest Hospital; I came here for an ingrown toenail."

Indeed, they stood in the reception of said hospital, and despite its eerie name it had a good record of care due to its great doctors. Unfortunately, it was also rather expensive and hence not many people could afford to go there; it was, however, in the olde riche part of town. People had money.
"Well I hardly doubted it was cosmetic surgery." Westminster replied, placing his fedora upon the reception desk, making the water that dripped from it pool on the varnished surface. Sine smiled slightly, somewhat skeptical about the words uttered by her new companion at this moment in time, though it was true; Sine wouldn't consider the need for the "Plastic fantastic" that was modern cosmetic surgery. After all she had tried 'enhancements' earlier that evening, and all they did was get in the way when she turned, flipped, tried to fold her arms, ran… God they hurt when she ran.

"Well either way we are in luck."

"How do you figure?"

"Well a hospital is stocked with supplies, both medical and food. If we can't catch up with Slade we can stay here and 'last it out', if that's even possible, and considering I haven't eaten since yesterday's lunch it seems like a plan. To the kitchen!" He declared, pointing across the room to the cafeteria.

"…" Sine paused. "We'll get the weapons first, how about that? In case we get attacked by the Killer Tomatoes. Or the Killer Refrigerator. Or Night of the Living Bread…"

"Sure, probably for the best anyway." Westminster cut Sine off before she could suggest any more problems awaiting them. The pair walked towards the boxes, still at the entrance. Roughly three boxes were long enough to be guns, with several smaller boxes for ammo.

One of the biggest ones, long and deep, was what Dr Westminster walked over to. It had been the one he had first spied and wished to open. Sine didn't know her gun numbers; she preferred her gauntlets and as such had no need to know what gun did what and which gun would be best for each situation (she hadn't much cared for specifics: all the guns she'd used had been equally worthless against Lil' Slugger and put the same holes in the zombies) . Given the size of the box however, it had seemed to be something big, like a chain gun, or a rocket launcher, or a…

Westminster pulled out the gun.

"A sniper rifle?!" Sine asked incredulously.

An M24A2 Sniper Rifle to be precise.. It was a marine grade rifle, usually used in combat. As Westminster took each part out of the box, Sine realized why the case was so large; there were so many pieces that it needed some assembly. There was a scope, strap, bolt, cleaning equipment, intricate parts, two manuals and the rifle itself.

"Yeah… and?" He asked, somewhat obliviously.

"We could do with something that involves a little less precision." Sine pointed out, pulling over one of the smaller boxes. It was quite deep and tall, but only a foot and a half to two long. Upon opening it she found a gun of a strange design. It was almost triangular in its silhouette. A long front typical for an assault riffle with a cylindrical chamber over it. It was a Calico M950, a weapon as unusual in design as it was useable as a quick firing small arms weapon with a large ammo capacity. The cylindrical ammo case gave it, at least, 50 rounds of 9mm bullets. The box of ammo next to it contained two other chambers.

"Seek and ye shall find, my dear." Westminster commented as he finished the assembly of his M24, calmly loading the first of a handful of magazines. Unfortunately he only got about 5 shots per mag, but he had about six spares, one in the weapon itself.

The now-plump blonde stuck out her tongue lightly and loaded the M950: it would be useful as a first shot weapon. Richard slung his newly acquired gun over his shoulder via the strap that now held it in place before moving over to the next box in his direction.

"It's like Christmas all over again." He stated, slightly gleeful despite the situation. Sine chuckled in spite of herself and agreed heartily. Despite it all, it was good that she got landed with him rather than Jack or Control Freak; at least he had some sense and tried to be a better person, even if he was a villain. Then again, Jack and Control Freak wouldn't have come back for her to begin with.

"Would you like this one or that one?" He asked, holding up the tall silvery container.

"Er… I'll take that one." She stated, pointing towards the last dark gray gun-box. He passed it over to the young woman and started to undo the locks and clasps on the lid on his own present, lifting the lid slowly to reveal lots of foam and a cache of small round objects, each containing a safety mechanism which had a metal strip and a pin.

"Grenades! I think we may have the edge after all." Westminster called over, starting to (carefully) remove each 'pineapple' and attach it to his, still somewhat wet, jacket.

"Provided we don't blow ourselves up." Sine replied before opening her case. "And I got…" She pulled out a fine wooden stock that seemed to be attached to a shotgun. Actually, the shotgun barrel itself seemed customized, and it no longer seemed to be a broad weapon. The barrel seemed smooth at the entrance, though not surprising, as it seemed to be belled outward in a conical shape. "…A blunderbuss."

"Slade must be a fan of the classics." The doctor leaned over. It wasn't actually a blunderbuss like the kind Alice had wielded, it just happened to be a single barrel shotgun with the end of the barrel smoothed out and turned outwards so it had the power and reliability of the newer weapons but the style of the older weapons.

Sine looked around some of the boxes and located the shotgun ammo.

"Yeah, and forgetful." Sine said, as she held up the box in her gloved hands, it only contained a handful of shells rather than the 20 as you might expect in a box. Obviously it had been used, or another weapon of the same gauge had been used and Slade had yet to refill the ammo supply.

Just her luck.

Taking up some of the extras in the case, she loaded a belt from the pack with her shotgun shells. There happened to be about… 6 in total. Even though it wasn't much, it would be enough. A shotgun in the close confines of a hospital would be perfect if anything attacked them, or rather anything else attacked them. She took the belt and placed in the empty segments the spare clips that came for her gauntlets, before lifting the belt up and wrapping it around her newly expansive middle.

She tugged the two ends together, but they refused to meet. She tugged a few more times, but it continued to disagree with her. Taking it off, she looked at the belt. And hated that it would have fit her previous form.

With some room to spare.

Luckily, the belt HAD been designed as an all-purpose, one size fits all belt rather than a fashion belt that only came in a few sizes that would fit the average person and no one else. The belt she had was designed to fit six foot ten bodybuilding marines. Adjusting it enough, in her mind, to fit, she wrapped it around herself. It resisted a little, but drawing in her breath and holding it she managed to get the clips on each side of the belt together with a quiet, somewhat muffled, snap.

Breathing out a sigh and returning to her full size, she fund the belt cut uncomfortably across her, but she would have to cope. Loading and placing the blunderbuss shotgun upon her belt line she took up the M950, also loaded and ready.

Westminster was ready as well, rifle on his back, grenades on his jacket and his handgun in his palm.

"Lets get lunch."

"You know master, we'll probably have to kill everyone here once this is done, or you'll never live this down?" Kurai said, as the villains actually stood around flapping their arms…well, except Killjoy, Blackfire, Sorceress: Sorceress had refused, Blackfire was excluded, and Killjoy has just stood and waited, keeping an eye out for threats. Apparently he felt staying with the group was a better survival option and that they hadn't actually all gone insane.

"This isn't working Slade!" Jack snapped.

"I'm just doing this to keep my arms loose." Brick commented.

"…blast, I was hoping the sheer inanity and cartoon nature of the nonsense forced on us would work to our benefit. Apparently not." Slade said. "Plan B."

"What is it this time?" Blackfire asked.

"We're going to go via balloon."

Despite Sine's concerns, the pair did not encounter any homicidal foodstuffs or appliances walking into the empty cafeteria. Instead they were just confronted with the creepy atmosphere of the chairs and tables sitting as if in mid use, like people should have been there eating and they weren't. Dinners in mid 'munch', stone cold coffees and empty juice jugs. Sine almost swore she'd find a lunch tray with "Croatoa" carved into it.

The two wandered over to the kitchen. Most of the food in the serving trays had been removed or was now stale and hence rather unedible. The two slipped past the serving area and made their way to the kitchen behind, which the larder and the fridge were quite plentiful.

"Well then, what would you like?" Westminster asked, placing the pistol down on its side before opening up the fridge.

"No thanks." Sine replied, somewhat deadpan. "I'm on a diet."

Westminster sighed at this exasperated response.

"It's not your fault you are this size. Starving yourself now thinking it will help immediately isn't going to work. We both know that neither of us have eaten in a while, and besides, what will happen next time you're away from somewhere with food and start to get hungry?"

Despite her reluctance due to her size, her stomach growled in protest. The exertion of the day alongside her new mass didn't offer much in the way of energy conservation. She grudgingly nodded and sat down at one of the tables and waited.

Westminster wasn't a great chef or anything, but he was quite capable of making a decent meal and it wasn't long before they had polished off what was on their plates. West wiped his mouth lightly as he pulled down his white under mask, the surgeon's mask lost it would seem in the scuffles with the Blob. He would have to remember to buy another few dozen. If he lived through it. No, think positive, think positive.

Sine also finished, wiping her mouth with a napkin also. Her mindset had shifted, becoming more and more self-conscious to the minute. Nothing in her power could make her change what had happened. She was now larger and softer than she would ever care to be and no amount of hope, or wishing, or money would reverse this situation within the allotted time of her probable life expectancy.

"…I think I preferred it when I just had huge tits and bimbo hair." She said quietly.

"It could be worse, my dear." Westminster replied plaintively. His mind wasn't on the task at hand at the moment, but more on her plight. Let's face it, there was a difference between being larger up top (and she still was, even if it wasn't to that degree) and being huge everywhere else as well. He was surprised the costume of hers was still holding together; all the nicks and cuts in it probably allowed for some give, though the majority of it must have been tight as hell even with some of her, now rather generous, stomach exposed due to the earlier fight in the bar. She might be looking at a costume change in the future as well.

"How? How could it be worse?" She almost snapped back. It was the kind of retort in which you knew you shouldn't be angry because it's beyond your control, but you were anyway due to being human.

The doctor just looked at her as if to say: Do you really want to shout at the last person by your side?

Upon the realization of this, she pushed herself sharply to her feet and stormed off in the general direction of the kitchen. Throwing down his napkin, Westminster followed, and upon entering the food prep area, he saw that Nightwalker had decided to see if she could suffocate herself…On chocolate cake.

Wrenching her hands down from her mouth, allowing the ruined remains of the 'Death by Chocolate' cake fall to the counter and the floor in front of her, which considering she'd only just started was quite a lot, Westminster turned her towards him with a puzzled look in his manner, the mask he wore shifting lightly as if to show surprise.

"What on earth are you doing?" Westminster asked, unable to find any other words for the moment.

"Eating cake." She mumbled, finishing off the last few chews in her mouth before swallowing. "Chocolate produces a euphoric feeling because of the increased…"

"I know what it does! I do have a PhD you know, but all the same don't you see what they're trying to do to you?" He snapped; she tilted her head lightly towards him in a questioning mannerism. The flakes of chocolate on her cheek combined with her freckles and her general cute nature of her face made her look absolutely adorable, though at this point in time those had to be thoughts that he must shake out of his mind. "They're trying to make you depressed and suicidal! They couldn't paint an archetype bull's eye on you, and they couldn't get you crushed under foot, so this is their next big attempt to kill you off! If the monsters don't get you for your own mistakes, you'll hand yourself to them due to a suicidal nature given through depression."

"………..Yeah… Makes sense…" Sine replied.

She then reached for the cake again.

"No, no, no. " Westminster once again pulled her hands away from the temptation. "Bad Sine, bad. Don't make me get a rolled up newspaper now." He said, taking her hand and leading her out of the kitchen and back to the table that was now covered in dirty plates and ordnance. He lead her back to the seat which she'd previously occupied and sat her down, making sure she would sit and not get back up to eat more cake.

He pondered on where to start on this. He wasn't much for motivational speeches; he was the follower and not the leader, so he never really knew what was happening or how to deal with it until it happened. He acted off the cuff, off the bat and dealing with it one day at a time.

"You still haven't told me why." Nightwalker said.

Echo.

"Echo." He stated simply, then paused wondering if he said that out loud for a moment. He shrugged it off, stumbling over why. It wasn't love, it wasn't some form of sexual attraction even though she looked… well you know how she describes herself most of the time; Like the type of girl boys would love to take to the barn. Hey, West was only human but even so it wasn't that and not because of her size, she still looked great. "Well…hm…"

"What? Come on! Tell!"

"Well…"

"Westminster!"

"Okay fine, you're a good person!" He blurted. "I wouldn't be a villain if I had the choice! But no, I don't have the choice so I decided to adhere to the old tradition of 'Honor amongst thieves' and come back for you! You're a good person, and a far better person than most of the people we left the bar with. Skills and abilities not counting, you have a better heart than them! You're in this because you don't know what to do with yourself, I'm here because I wish I was in your position and I want you to live so you can have your day of choice!"

Sitting on the edge of the table, he looked off to the side and folded his arms in what could only be described as a state of mock brooding. Sine paused lightly, and then smiled to herself.

"That's good enough for me." She replied minimally, a smile still on her lips. "So, you still going to stick by me? Even after all that?"

"Well I have to, someone has to stop you from doing silly things." He chuckled and put an end to his stylized sulking. "…Though you have to understand, as with your breasts, hair and shrinking you may get worse before you get better. You started off this little event at, what? 160 lbs?" He asked, translating the weight he knew into weight they could understand.

"Something like that."

"Well you now look twenty or twenty-five pounds closer to 200lbs, so if you're getting bigger we have to be careful, though of course you did just have a meal and tried to inhale a cake." He smiled as she blushed to herself. How could she have even considered such an action? It was so…against her. Then again the whole environment was trying for a repeat performance of last year. Including her death, and make it stick this time.

Not if he had any say. Westminster held out a hand to her, ushering her to take his hand so they could begin their trek to freedom.

"You know Slade, when you said by balloon, I was thinking, perhaps, you meant the larger types." Brick said, as he and other villains (minus the usual suspects) stood around blowing up party balloons.

"Indeed Dr. Vogel, the 90 percent of my brain I can use at once says this won't work. The other ten percent agrees." Slade said. "But in this situation…"

Dr. Light blew up a balloon and watched it float to the ground. He studied it for a moment, and then a spark of inspiration shone in his eye, and he produced a bigger balloon and filled it too with air.

It too floated to the ground, and Dr. Light looked at it a bit more, got the same look, and then produced a HUGE balloon. Much huffing and puffing filled it all the way…

And then an errant grip caused the air to all rush out of the balloon and back into Dr. Light, who inflated in turn and floated away.

"Reality's on a holiday." Slade finished.

"Even so, I'm certain we need some lighter then air gasses."

"If you insist…"

Meanwhile, the pair walked through the hospital, though to their surprise they found most of the doors locked. And from the previous experience with the wall outside, it would be very unlikely that they could blast their way through. If they did, more obstacles would be placed in their way, and given their limited ammo it wouldn't be long before they were stranded.

Sine poked her head around a corner and paused for a moment. Just for a moment, quietly contemplating her situation in the grand scheme of things.

"Clear." She called behind her as Westminster moved around her into the corridor. It wasn't disturbing they had been left to die, and it wasn't disturbing that they only had a limited amount of ammunition, but what was disturbing was the fact that it was so… clear.

They had not seen any villains, any monsters, anything for a good while since the Blob incident.

But all the same they had to be careful: these things loved appearing out of nowhere. Sine felt she had to be extra careful; she was unsure about her reflexes and ability to use her launchers or adopted sword, and she was not that skilled in firearms. It's understandable that she felt more on edge then her companion: her entire world and sense of self had been turned upside down in order to try and ensure her demise, and that had dragged her sole companion in and given him an similar target albeit without the limitations.

Damn her shoulders were starting to hurt with the extra weight and the ordinance she had to carry…

Next corner, nothing. The pair continued on and walked casually, their pace slow and steady rather than fast and military. Why move fast at this point, they had definitely lost Slade, and as such they'd decided to take things nice and slow and easy-going.

Sine reached out carefully and tried the handle on the latest door.

"Most of the doors are locked…where would the keys be kept?" She asked over her shoulder, even if she paused to really wonder if the ponderous behind was hers. For the 14th time, she reminded herself that it was.

"Someone might have the keys, or they should be in a security office given the size of the hospital. According to the last map we passed, the security office is just down the corridor from where we are now." Westminster replied. He suspected the office, as the other option meant there was actually someone else in the hospital. It wouldn't be surprising if the entire place was abandoned.

"How come there are no patients?" Westminster thought out loud.

"The helpless are no fun to kill, so in fiction they're spared. What separates films and such from reality. In true horrors… they're viable, easy targets."

She paused, and Westminster waited for a moment and slowly walked back, his gun lowered.
"Sine?" No reply. "Sine?"

Still no reply, so he did the next best thing he KNEW would grab her attention.

Sine jumped as his gloved hand slapped her fleshy rump, a look of surprise and disbelief covering her features. The nerve, the gall to do such a thing! She spun quickly and gave him a firm slap to the face, and while not enough to really jar him it was enough to accentuate her particular feelings.

A silence hung in the air like her hand, having remained in mid air waiting for the command to come down. She realized in that moment she'd slapped the only man who had decided to stay behind with her. Bravo.

Well, he DID just place his hand on her in a way that most men wouldn't dare, a fact that most men would realize after their hands were not connected on to their wrists afterwards. Duality struck in her mind.

Westminster flexed his jaw cautiously before rubbing the side of his, now sore, cheek.

"Feel better?" He questioned.

"….Yeah, actually."

"Focused?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Let us, now that we are focused, carry on."

The good news was the villains had somehow found some helium.

The bad news was Slade had somehow inhaled some.

"Welcome to the high voice crew! You can have a high voice too! If you've got a high voice, you don't have a choice, your voice is high all the timmmeee…" Slade said as his voice went back to normal with the last word.

The villains stared dumbly.

"…looks like you've gotten booted out of the crew, mate." Jack smirked.

Slade drew his handgun and shot Jack in the balls. He wore an armored cup. This prevented him from being castrated. He didn't much feel grateful for that as he fell to the ground with a scream.

"At least I have a choice about being in it, eunuch." Slade replied.

It also conveniently kept the villains from asking why Slade said that in the first place.

Sine and Westminster weren't having an easy time either: they'd made it to the security office in question, only to find it like all its brother doors: Locked.

Westminster tried again, but it was firmly locked and barred: nothing but nothing would have gotten that door open that day short of breaking it down.

The pair shrugged to one another, unsure of the total outcome of the mass amounts of nothing they had encountered, and then they decided on a course of action.

Westminster nodded towards the door, to which Sine replied with another nod of more of the vertical kind. Westminster took a step or two back then paused, to which his black clad companion made an open gesture of confusion. West indicated the door with a sweeping motion of his arms and a nod, as if to say ladies first. This was quickly counteracted with a fierce shake of the head and another bow out by Sine to insist that Westminster could go first, and the doctor promptly broke down the door.

All this had been done by instruction that had involved no words. Not bad for a pair who hadn't known of the other's existence four or so hours ago.

The doctor realigned himself and stalked his way in, making sure that there was nothing in there to interrupt them or to try and maul them with teeth, or razors, or teeth that were like razors…

The office was what you would expect from an abandoned hospital; a smallish room with a desk that took up half of it. Throughout the room were monitors, looking over all of the hospital.

"Someone didn't design this place very well. Looks like the basement's flooding. Or the bottom floor, whatever that is specifically." Nightwalker commented, looking at a few of the monitors.

Westminster only partially took what Sine was saying in, as he'd spied it: behind the desk was a box attached to the wall. West jogged around the desk as Sine leaned over it, using it to support herself and the armory she wore.

"That them?"

"Definitely." Westminster opened up the cabinet and took out several keys, each one gleaming in the dim light of the office. "Now, we want to get out of here, so what do we need?" He searched through the labels.

"Fire exit?" Sine offered.

"They don't have keys. Perhaps a master so…" Westminster's hands rummaged through the collection of the keys that lined the box, but the Master key wasn't in there. Of course the key that would allow them to open any and all doors in this hospital was missing. Westminster searched the keys that he had in reach of his gloved fingers just to be sure

And then there was a flicker of lights, the illumination of the office shutting off for a moment, just the briefest of seconds before his hand grasped at the object he sought.

When the lights flickered back on however, all but one key had gone.

Westminster's hands shot forward in surprise and felt around the back of the small security cupboard for the other keys, to see if perhaps there was a secret passageway or something, perhaps on some form of spinning axel? Or maybe the back was a portal to a hidden dimension of key thieves?

"No!"

Apparently not.

"What? What happened?" Sine asked, angling her head in order to see what was what.

"The keys, they disappeared!" West replied, a slight panic filling his voice with an unmistakable dread. Finally, after all of this, the fact the world wanted to mess with him in every way possible way finally fully sunk in. He plucked the last key from the rack and looked at it. It was a rather sturdy key but somewhat overly ornate in its appearance, with a large key fob at the end of it. "Just one left…"

"Wouldn't happen to be the morgue Key, would it?" Sine asked as she picked up a chart from the table nailed to the back of a clipboard. Westminster paused and looked at her with some surprise before turning the fob over in his hands. Indeed it said "The Morgue".

"How did you…"

"It's on the register here, apparently a pathologist logged out the master key. Knowing what little I managed to grasp from the other little trips we had, I suspect this means that this hospital is now working under the videogame rules of conduct." She said, resting a hand on her fleshy chin.

"Oh the whole A to B via C route?" He said, pocketing the key and closing the door to its previous home. "So…Ah, I get it. The Morgue key had to be the only one left because the master key, the one we want, is in the morgue. We have to go to the Morgue to get the key to somewhere else we may want to go." He paused. "Right?"

"Right." Sine smiled to him, the kind of smile that indicated anything but mirth. "And along the way we'll probably have to face a legion of horrors that desire our hideously unpleasant deaths. Except we don't get continues."

Sine spied a jacket and grabbed it up, trying to get it to fit over her frame to cover up the pale mass that sat in the rip across her middle. But not only would the jacket not fit around her, she couldn't even fit into the shoulders.

"And apparently I don't get extra outfits." She snapped, as she threw the jacket down with an angry grunt and stormed off. Westminster followed, as Sine took a brief detour into a nearby nurse's station to pull its map off the wall, and then the two continued on.

"…I think it would have started by now." Control Freak said as Slade stood with a mass of helium balloons above his head, his hand clutching their strings.

Slade said nothing, as a few balloons popped over him.

"…Vogel, perhaps you were correct in said traditional methods." Slade finally said.

"Good to have you agree Slade."

"Or maybe I'll just do it!" Jack snarled as he marched up holding some spray cans. "I'll use these spray cans as booster rockets and fly up to save your birdie! And drop her for the ball shot! SO LONG SUCKERS!" Jack yelled, and knelt down as he pressed on the tops of the cans.

And much like a certain Simpson, all he did was paint the ground and his boots. Blue, in this case.

"…I meant to do that." Jack said sheepishly.

Slade took advantage of Jack's range and saved himself a bullet by kicking him in the face instead. Oh, guess the nonsense chapter title had merit after all.

A hum sounded overhead, and Slade looked up to see Doctor Peregrine on his flying motorcycle.

"About that free ride…" He began.

"In your face! GA-HOY!" Peregrine whooped as he flew off.

"Balloon?" Brick asked.

"Balloon."

After a moment of aligning where they were on the map and where they had to go, the pair had finally come across their destination. They had to go down to the basement which was straight toward, turn left, left again, right, right, right, no left, GAH! Lost! No wait… Go back a few turns and keep going forward. Aha!

In other words, they had to get t the stairwells that led downstairs. They HAD come across a few elevators, or in England "Lifts", but none of them seemed to work. The only one that did wouldn't take them down to the Morgue level. It in fact wouldn't go anywhere. The button would work; the doors would close but then open again. Nothing happened besides that, so they gave up on that idea pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the hospital, being a hospital, was rather difficult to navigate and hence they kept circumnavigating it.

Going around, and around, and around in circles until they got tired and saw more abandoned stretchers, empty rooms, and oxygen tanks then they could care for in a lifetime…

BUT, eventually, on the map, they came across the stairwell they were looking for. On the map. As in it was supposed to be there and turned out that it…wasn't.

"This is the right place!" Westminster yelled, pointing at the map that Sine had so 'gracefully' liberated from the wall back in the nurse's station. Apparently it resented that fact.

"Then I have to assume either we took another wrong turn or that the door has been replaced by…that." Sine stated, pointing towards where they should have been heading. Instead of a double, or even a single, door, was now a complete wall with one minor exception. In that wall was a hole, of a size that a person of a slim, videogame-esque stature would have little trouble fitting through. Around its edge, scrawled in what they could only assume to be blood, was writing of a runic style, etched in to the wall. It looked like something out of a Silent Hill game. Considering they'd already been there, and Sine had gotten another taste of it in her previous chaos manifestation with the HIVE, she really didn't fancy another go-around.

They could see through to the other side of the portal; it was there more as an inconvenience rather than anything else, it seemed.. Sine groused, rolling her eyes.

"So what now?" she asked, her eyes flicking over to her medical companion, who seemed to pause and rub his chin. "Guess we turn back?"

"We can't." He replied, lowering his hand. "We have to go forward and solve this problem." He walked up to the hole and looked through it. "If we don't get the master key then we're stuck, really."

"Why bother though? I mean we'll have lost Slade and his little gang long before we find it. Why not go in the other direction?"

"If all else fails, we use the key to allow us to stay in the hospital without any problems. We have beds, food, supplies. I mean, surely those Titans aren't just sitting around watching their city go in the shitter. They must be doing SOMETHING. I mean, all of this can't last forever at the very worst case scenario." He lied; the worst case was them both dying in a rather cruel and inhuman manner, but if he wanted cooperation then he was going to have to bend the facts a little. "So, as they say, Ladies First."

Sine looked at the hole that Westminster had requested her to fit in to with a dubious air.

You have to understand, Sine not only disliked being larger, she had a very subtle dislike for larger people. When confronted by the news of the plus size heroine Morgue running, or in her mind wheezing, around the city, it didn't fill her with the greatest of confidence. Moreover, it made the bile in her own 'wonderful' stomach rise a little at the thought. A woman, larger than she was now, running around in a tight black suit and a cape instantly thinking it made her a heroine. It took something special to be a heroine (or a villainess, or someone morally gray in the strange superhuman field she walked) rather than a tight costume. It took years and years of training, training she had gone through and wasn't anywhere near DONE going through. Training she had forced herself into. People should look after their bodies, they should look after who they are and as such that includes exercising and eating 'right'. It didn't make sense to her why people would want to be like this. It was the worst kept secret in the hero community that under the mask that Morgue wore was the significant other of long suffering Jump City hero Scalpel – Sophie Eloise Mathews. Everyone "knew", no one just wished to 'find out'. If anyone comes to harm or try to threaten Sophie, Scalpel would be at their throats in record time. While she was classed as a minor player, Scalpel had earned a bit of a reputation in the community, so she has an 'umbrella'. From the several occurrences where Morgue was seen in full, not hidden by the shadow of the night and not rushing away from or in mid action, she seemed to match the basic description of Sophie. Though Morgue had a larger bust and a smaller waist, though this was put down to the costume 'shifting' weight and the use of an XXL corset.

(And in actual fact Sine was somewhat in denial: she was now as big if not a touch bigger than the plus size heroine.)

In spite of her high morals, Sine did still seem to have that human trait of being judgmental, even if it was a smaller one than most. On the whole, people wouldn't blame her; larger girls were considered somewhat or outright disgusting, being all fleshy and flabby and not like the idealistic visions of health and beauty that are thrown at us every few seconds on the television or other media.

To be honest that's what some considered being wrong with this world. What, the story? Oh yeah.

Sine reached forward and measured the hole with her hands, bringing them back to her body. It would be doubtful if she could get her shoulders through that, let alone her stomach and the voluptuous 'bookends' that made up her bust and bum. But then again, it wasn't as if she had a choice, if Westminster became wracked with pain down there alone (the hospital had produced a maddening ZERO painkillers, something Sine had chalked up to the atmosphere again) he would die, and she would have to go down there herself anyway.

"How do you plan to get me back up?" She asked, incredulously.

"There should be stairs on the other side of this gap, just clamber back up them and crawl through this hole. If not we can find another way around." He replied, holding out his hands in an expectant manner. Grudgingly, she handed over her hard earned weapons, with the exception of the orb launchers and her sword.

Sine poked her fleshy arms through the hole to start with, dropping the sword and her ammo belt onto the other side before grabbing the edge of the hole and shifting forward with a sharp thrust as if it would get her through in one motion.

Sufficed to say, it didn't.

She squirmed for a moment or two, unable to make much in the way of headway before letting out a breath; this was going to be more complex than she thought. She started pondering for a moment: what had caught her up?

Backing out of the hole she started to 'disrobe', removing armor plates and capes before she was left in nothing but a black, nondescript uniform, a gash across her encompassing middle and nicks here, there and everywhere.

She tried again. Now that the thicker breast armor had been removed from her substantially increased 'talents', she managed to squirm through…a bit further, before she got stuck.

What followed was a comedy of errors of epic proportions (literally) as Sine furiously struggled to get her cursed body through the hole and Westminster tried to help her. But the fates seemed determined to make this as difficult as possible, as she got stuck, trapped, and blocked again and again. Pooh stuck in Rabbit's hole hadn't had half the grief she went through, and she let Westminster know it, as he wondered if his thoughts that she was cute made up for the fact that she, to paraphrase something he'd heard once, 'moaned at an Olympic level.'

Finally, with one last charging push from Westminster, Sine popped out the other end of the hole and fell to the floor with a crash.

Stage one of Get The Key was well underway. Sine rubbed her lower back and let out a noise that could only be described as reluctant pain. A few more comical curses blued the air as she straightened out and stood up from having landed in such an undignified manner on the floor.

"I don't think we'll be able to get you back the same way." Westminster said, calling through the hole that surprisingly had just been the entryway for the rather large Miss Sine.

"Ya think?" She snapped, having to bend over to look back through the proportionally small gap that had once occupied her. Both were actually, though West had the added ability to kneel.

"Sorry, sorry. You know how it gets after a while." She said, sighing heavily. She could really go for a hug right about now…

Except she had no real friends as she had a bad habit of burning her bridges and being a perfectionist, as well as no boyfriend or girlfriend. All she had at this point in time was on the other side of a wall and she'd just spent the last who knows how long calling him every nasty name in the book. Why did he stay?

"Yes, I know. All we have to do is go downstairs, see what we can gather. GET the keys, turn ON the power and we'll get out of here in one piece." Westminster said. "While we're down there we'll gather ammo, a map, torch, anything…and a change of clothing, maybe there will be a maternity dress around."

Sine stuck out her tongue at him in utter disgust.

"Okay my dear, ready?" He asked, reaching a hand through. Her raspberry turned to a smirk as she took it.

"Ready!"

With that she was about to pull him through…

Before the unholy noise started to come from the walls, causing her to let go in shock, the noise followed by a creaking, moaning sound that caused both would-be villains to look about them in surprise.

As they turned to look at each other through the hole they found out why; it was collapsing. Well perhaps not collapsing as such, but certainly it was filling in the gap. A rough plaster material of some kind poured out of the top and bottom of the gap, blocking their only connection

"SINE!" Westminster shouted. He knew he couldn't get through; he'd be caught in the wall, and that was not considering he would have had to remove all the weapons, his jacket, everything before attempting to climb past.

Only one option now: in a quick motion he managed to throw her the gun that she had managed to find, the Calico M950, followed by the two ammunition magazines, the second one barely beating the plaster before it completely sealed the gap.

They were officially separated.

"This is even more fun then I thought!" Freddy cackled. "Make her fat! Mix her up with some semi decent guy! Rip them apart! And the best is yet to come! How very sweet! And now…for something completely different."

"I commend you on making the balloon so fast, Slade-sama." Kurai said, looking at the makeshift hot air balloon.

"It wasn't difficult. A little magic from the Sorceress and some contributions from some friends."

"YOU STOLE MY CLOTHES!" Blackfire snarled, now wearing a barrel.

"Send me the bill." Slade said. "You've completed your task Kurai?"

"Hai!"

"Then this should work well, provided the wind is with us…" Slade said as he produced a long lighter to light the torch.

"Should be simple with the Sorceress sir! The hard part was finding enough methane!"

"Wait, you use WHA-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!

"….we should be dead." A black as coal Slade said, standing by the ruins of the balloon.

"Apparently someone like us. Or wishes our suffering to continue. Or both. I have given up making sense of anything occurring here." An equally blackened Kurai said.

"Screw this! I can fly! I'll fly!" Blackfire yelled, and flew.

Not realizing that if you do so while wearing a barrel, it is likely to fall off. Which it did.

"FOR THE WANT OF A CAMERA!" Control Freak lamented, while blood exploded from Kurai's nose and he passed out.

"…Plan C." Slade groused.

Westminster hadn't decided to take his failure lying down either, as he bashed at the freshly dry and very solid plaster and stone that had filled the hole in the wall, using the stock of the double barreled shotgun to try and chip away at it. On the other side Sine was doing the same, the orb launcher clicking dry as she fired several acid shots into the wallwork, shots that would usually damage tanks and heavily armored super defensive meta-humans. Last year the barrage had managed to slow down even the unstoppable Nemesis of Resident Evil fame (and wasn't she glad he hadn't made a repeat billing appearance).

To the wall, it didn't even make a mark. The acid ran down the side like it was as caustic as the rainwater outside.

Her breath slowed, anger and adrenaline subsiding to calm and rational realization. There was nothing that seemed to work on this wall, and she finally managed to understand the reasoning that had happened outside with Westminster, a 9mm handgun and the unfeasibly large wire fencing. If all else failed, it was certainly worth a try, and even now, as the banging stopped on his side of the wall, Sine only had to wonder what other options there were…

KER-WHAMMO! There was a god-awful boom on the other side of the wall, and Sine's eyes went wide as thoughts of Westminster being surrounded and having to use the grenades at close range in the hope that it would take them out with him filled her head…NO! She couldn't handle that thought! He had come back for her when all others left! It wasn't fair!

"RICHARD!" She shouted. She was a woman in genetics only, her mind was distinctly masculine and therefore she couldn't scream, she wouldn't scream. Screaming was for hopeless heroines in horror movies, not black clad vigilantes. If you screamed you would have lost all dignity. "RICHARD!"

"…Okay, that didn't work either." A voice came from the other side. Sine let out a deep breath of relief. He was fine. Just experimenting.

"It's the Rocket Launcher wooden fence rule! How cheap!" He yelled from the other side.

"The what wooden lawn chair what?"

"It means that it doesn't matter if you have a rocket launcher, you can't blast down a wooden gate." He explained, lamely. "It's from when videogames didn't have interactive backgrounds."

"Oh…" She replied. "So what should we do now?"

"You keep going, I'll try and find another way down to you…" He called, his voice muffled due to the wall. "Sine…try and remain safe."

"You too." She replied as she placed an ear to the wall. She heard him run off, his foot falls becoming less and less as the echoes dissipated. Soon there was nothing. She was once again alone.

She stepped back from the wall, somewhat shakily at first due to the added weight…the ever growing added weight: she felt as if she was carrying a watermelon in a soft bag, throwing her already disrupted balance further out the window. And she knew then why this had happened this way also. The more it altered her mass, the less she could handle any traps or dangers thrown her way. And now she didn't even have Westminster to help.

Goddamn it all, but she'd already had her pity party. Checking her gun and orb launchers, she moved on.

Sine found the stairs, descending them cautiously at first, her steps somewhat to the side rather than forward to control her speed and balance, as well as that being the way that allowed her to actually see where she was going. She had a distinct feeling that if she was ever tired of the game and what this sort of life threw at her and settled down, this is what it would be like to be pregnant; taking each step carefully sideways so as not to miss one.

She might as WELL be pregnant-no, bad thought process. She didn't want to give Freddy ideas. Move on.

Though there wasn't much in the way of options in that regard: the rumbling that had triggered the wall filling in had apparently also caused a cave in: the area above the door she'd entered the stairs by was a mass of rubble that groaned ominously. Not wanted to be buried, she had headed across the next floor she could access due to locked doors (two floors down) the other staircase...only to find the same 'earthquake' had filled the staircase on the other side of the hospital entirely with debris, or at least as far as she could see on the floor she'd tried to transfer onto it. Her only course of action was down.

From what she had learned, the keys to some of the rooms, the roof and their planned escape route all lay on one man, if he was still in the hospital. The name, according to the list, was a Dr. Column, a mortician.

Morgues were kept in basements to keep them cool.

Down we go, down we go, down we go…

"We need a volunteer for something very stupid." Slade said to the grouped villains, save Killjoy, who was cleaning his guns, and Blackfire and Control Freak, the former threatening immense bodily harm on the latter if he didn't remote-make her some new clothes.

"Ohhhhh! Ohhhhhh!" Adonis said, waving his hand.

"Someone smaller."

"Ohhhhh! Ohhhhhh!" Puppet King said, doing likewise.

"Someone not as dense, in more then one sense." Slade said, and Puppet King went back to silently sulking. "We're going to tie someone to THIS…" Slade said, producing a giant kite. "And float them up there."

"Forget it." Sorceress said.

"Not even if you paid me." Jack snapped.

"I'll do it!" Dr. Light volunteered. "I just had some experience floating, and I'm the best!"

If you were wondering what an atmosphere that induced intense, strangely patterned stupidity did to someone who was already rather stupid, well, there's your answer.

"…what, Arthur?" Slade said.

"I'll do it, because I did it just before and I'm the best!"

"LIAR! ATLAS IS THE BEST!" The golden robot boomed as he popped up.

"…didn't Kurai blow you up three chapters ago?" Control Freak said.

"I'M BACK, BECAUSE I'M THE BE-"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!

"I used both hands that time. He's gone." Kurai said.

While Sine descended into the basement, Westminster, on the other hand, had decided to go search the upper floors to if he could get at anything obtain that would make things a little easier for her. Like a tank.

He ran through the hospital, his feet having trouble gripping the marble-esque floor with wet shoes. While they had mostly dried from the walking, the smooth floor did little in sapping their remaining moisture, and hence he had a tendency to slip and slide when he skidded around a corner. It was hilarious for anyone who ever thought about including him in a remake of an old Tom and Jerry cartoon. Which was…two people it seemed.

He managed to get to a straight corridor and sprinted down it as fast as his legs would allow, and considering he was armed with a sniper rifle, a shotgun, lots of grenades, a pistol and body armor (inside of his army jacket) he was making pretty damn good time. He wasn't as trained as Slade, but that was all a moot point. Slade seemed to have recently gained the rough intellect of mashed sweet potatoes. Well smart potatoes wouldn't be mashed for Sunday roast now would they?

…Yeah……..

His speed and obvious clanking almost got him a free ticket to miss the next elevator, but the bing and sliding of the doors caught the good (or maybe not so good) doctor's attention, forcing him to try and stop. After he managed to pick himself up off the floor due to skidding and sliding related crashing, the doctor wandered back over to the elevator as it ichimed its general greetings.

First Floor, Doors open.

The doctor pondered for a moment, raising a hand to his chin as he rubbed it in a manner that only he had perfected. Most did it as an expression, some just held their chins but he was the MASTER at rubbing his chin and looking befuddled. It hadn't chimed out before, so maybe it was working now? Or maybe it was a trap?

He offered a shrug and went in. The doors sharply closed behind him, nearly nipping him in the sniper rifle and dinging as an afterthought

Doors Closing.

He looked at the buttons to the side and shook his fingers around, getting them ready to push a button. 3rd floor, 2nd floor, 1st floor (where he was), ground floor, Basement 1, Maintenance and Carpark happened to be the choices. He tried Car Park, just to see what would happen, but nothing did. The lift didn't move, it didn't chime, and it didn't even make a groan. Nothing.

He tried Basement and Maintenance, which is where Sine might be but again nothing happened. He grumbled in annoyance; looked like he'd have to find his way back down from the first floor. He went to press another button to open the lift doors…

…when the button for ground floor came alight. He hadn't pressed it. In fact he'd been careful to avoid that button.

But still, it came alive and the lift started to creak.

"Fudge."

The whole box on a string, which was the essence of an elevator, shot down a floor as if it had been dropped instead of lowered. Westminster spread his stance so he wouldn't fall over, but he couldn't help it. The abrupt stop a few moments later from the intense drop caused him to go arse over tit, as the British say, and land on his back with a thud. He groaned.

"This isn't a good selling point to be a villain." He said, trying not to concentrate on the pain that was shooting through his back from the fall, and the realization that his backup spine was well on its way to coming back to normal. That was one of the few things that he could always remember about being in pain, the spare spine. It was immensely useful. So many times had his foes tried to kill him by breaking his neck or throwing him off something, not quite grasping that he now had an identical redundancy spine. The experiment may have been a farce, but it was a successful farce…

As the doors open, and creatures moved in to claim him.

Sine took a few cautious steps down in to the bowls of the hospital, very cautious about what was going to happen. The last thing she wanted was to be caught out in such a state; she wasn't going to take any chances.

She took a few more steps continuing forward, the shards of the damaged stairs poking out at her as if the building itself was trying to grab at her. She seemed to have been descending these stairs forever; her eyes tried to squint into the oncoming darkness, wishing her helmet was working

The dark continued to encroach on her as she continued; was it her or was the corridor getting redder? Might be a trick of the light, everyone knew there was a plethora of red lights in hospital; X-ray signs, operating theatre signs, bulbs on optometrist tests, all sorts could be found. There was probably a very dim one about somewhere that lit up the walls too faintly for the false dark, dark created by people out to kill her, to really be bothered by it.

And if you believed that, she had a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

As Sine took another step her foot kicked something, causing it to clatter down a few stairs before coming to a halt. Her eyes jerked downward to take a look: was it friend? Foe? Animal? Vegetable? Mineral?

The dark obscured most of it, but she could tell enough to know that it was a military style flash light, an inverted L shape device with the small part on it the actual bulb enclosed in a tough, ribbed green plastic. She picked it up, looked it over, and then bashed it against the palm of her hand a few times to check for damage.

Nothing seemed to damaged, as she checked for batteries. Both present and accounted for, so all in all it seemed she had found a working torch. Not as useful as her helmet but…considering she had to continue to go down these stairs…

First step: turn it on. So she did.

And the moment she did she found out why on earth the room seemed to be getting redder. It was no trick of the light; it was no fancy ass light bulbs that seemed to want to mess with her head. It was, in fact, the walls just getting REDDER.

Due to veins that seemed to cross them, marching across the surfaces as if to try and capture every bit of white. And though even as she looked at them in shock, the blood continued to flow in them, blood that didn't drip on to her, blood that never even tried to come close. It were there to try and catch her off guard, so she could see the hospital warping and corrupting around her, as if to say "I know where you are. I know YOU.".

She had seen this before. She had seen this sort of thing before. This poisoning of normality. Last year. Last year she'd traversed hell and now it had returned.

She had run through it on her way here.

WELCOME TO SILENT HILL, SIN.

That was what happened to be scrawled on the wall in a blood stain that may as well have been pointing at the now softer Sine. It remembered her; it knew who she was and it knew that she was going to play. The missing of the E in her name? It was playing, simple as that. Words can be a powerful thing, and it was playing with them.

"………OH FUCK OFF!" She screamed. She had no time for this. Her experiences last year had caused her to do some research on the particulars the chaos magic had manifested, in case it happened again, and she'd learned Silent Hill absolutely loved hospitals. Her heart had raced beyond ALL understanding when she wound up there the first time, the brief time before the villains had fled it. Even though she would never admit it, the fact that she had managed to escape was better than the fact she had ended up small and nearly gotten stepped on.

But it wasn't done. No brief appearance for it. And she would much rather be small than be in Silent Hill.

Welcome home…

She took off at a full sprint down the stairs. This wouldn't beat her. She knew that, as scary as the idea of Silent Hill was, most of it was illusions. The monster could be run around and the background ignored. She just had to be able to do so. She had to be mentally aware enough to do so. Astute enough. So far the staircase was just full of blood and rust, an apt description of the hell town perhaps, but it was just creepy walls. They were just walls. They spoke no horrible truths, they spoke of no sins…

But that meant THEY were just warming up, so her one thought above all others was that she would have to get out of there as soon as possible. The more she delayed, the more it would have to work with, the longer it would be able to probe her mind for things to torment her with, and so she bolted down the stairs at a speed unlike what people would expect…

Manifestations dark within a person's heart just chuckled to themselves as more of the world decayed to suit her mindscape. If it had a voice, the dark intentions would say one thing and one thing alone.

Welcome back Sine.

And speaking of crazy worlds…

"I can't believe they actually managed to get him up. What happened to the laws of physics?" Control Freak said.

"Says the guy with the reality altering remote." Jack commented.

"Point well taken."

"All right Arthur, once you get up there, blind Kong, and he should release Rose on the roof, and she'll be able to take care of herself once she's free and we'll pull you down." Slade said into a radio, as Brick plied the kite string and Dr. Light floated up the side of the building.

"Roger." Dr. Light replied: amazingly he didn't seem afraid of his precarious predicament. Which probably proves the stupidity theory.

"Ohhhhhh…I'm just a little black rain cloud…"

Okay, he's singing Winnie the Pooh, the theory is now confirmed.

"Hovering under the honey tree…I'm just a little black rain cloud…uh…something something, dee dee…" Dr. Light sang, really getting into it. "….something, more, about a rain cloud…Dah dah, dah dee, dah dah dip! I'm just floating around, over, the ground, wondering where I will…drip…"

Dr. Light trailed off as he realized he'd gotten too into his singing and not only had he floated up near Kong, he was now right next to Kong.

And both he and Rose were glaring at him.

"It's not THAT BAD!"

Kong showed that he indeed did think it was, as he grabbed Dr. Light and ate him.

"EVERYONE'S A CRITIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCC……!!!!!!!!!!!"

King Kong chewed a few times, and then looked disgusted and spat Dr. Light out, as he fell screaming back to the ground…and landed in a dumpster next to Slade and Brick. Despite what some would say about acceleration and all, apparently it was filled with the same kind of very soft and kinetic-absorbing garbage Nightwalker had landed in earlier.

"Nice job channeling Pooh there." Slade commented darkly.

"Apparently enough to taste like it." Brick added.

"Well, look on the bright side! At least you didn't get hit by lightning!" Control Freak said.

KRA-KOOM!

"…this…shouldn't…be physically possible." Brick groaned, blackened and holding the burned ash of what had once been a string.

As Westminster's assailant loomed over him…

Well, I said claim him, but it more just fell over. And didn't get up. Someone had propped the corpse of one of the previous doctors against the doors, and the body had decided to pay Westminster a visit that his lungs, and nearly his bowels, would never forget.

"…..arseholes." Westminster muttered to no one in particular. Returning to his feet, he managed to get himself presentable and took a look at the floor before him. Unlike the previous one above it, it was not a welcoming sight. The above floor had been simple, just a little dusty and misty, as if someone had walked into a recently abandoned ghost town.

This floor looked like it had been the site of a no holds barred royal rumble between thirty men fighting over the title of "Big Dave". The walls had stripped and cracked plaster, the floor had dents and marks, and bare wires hung from the walls as lights flickered on and off in that way only a light can when it's next to the brink. There were shadows just about everywhere he looked, and he didn't like his chances that all of them happened to be empty.

And so, as he walked, he cocked the shotgun open, loading the two vertical barrels one at a time with caution before snapping it shut. The dog may be man's best friend, but the shotgun was the mate you called when you had some trouble and wanted someone big to sort it, and Westminster was intimately familiar with the shotgun; it was the only gun that was legal to get in England at any time, let alone for fun. Everything else was for military, armed response, Anti Terrorist Operations or just plain ol' illegally bought/made and he…

Might just need it, as there was a scuffling sound behind him, as if someone had dragged their foot along a surface, making sure to use the side of their foot for maximum effect and noise.

He turned sharply, before looking around him from side to side. How did he miss it? How did he allow himself to be caught in the middle of a room with no exit plan? How could he let himself be surrounded? And by what?

"Westttttttttttttttt…" The creatures hissed.

It seemed that in life the advancing figures were nurses, though it was unsure if the things had ever had any form of life whatsoever. Their bodies were limp and shambling in their movement, and their form was plumped and full figured, unlike the zombies he had shot down in the precinct, and unlike Sine, whom had been too full (he didn't mind that but this was not a good point to be thinking of it). A distinct cleavage sat in the V of their nurse like mini-dress. One would almost find it alluring, if it wasn't for the grotesque bulbous melted faces the creatures had, their features nondescript as if they had been sucked away by a flesh eating parasite or a giant squid's tentacles.

"Wessttttttttttttt…" The bubble headed nurses dragged steel pipes forward, along with rusted and serrated scalpels that would be more at home on a 1900's operating table than a 2000 era tool. Some just carried a simple revolver, black with rust and blood.

Despite the decaying state of the weapons, there was murder in the air.

His fingers coiled around the upper barrel's trigger as one went to take a swing.

Her bloated head exploded as Westminster blew it off, but another was already stabbing at him. He whirled and kicked her in the back, knocking her into one of her companions. But another was already aiming their rotting gun at him, drawing a bead…

Westminster blew off their hand and a good chunk of their side…and then stumbled as a pipe thudded into his back. It hurt, but he had a lot more protection there then the average person, as he turned around in mid-step, breaking his shotgun open as he walked backwards, as he quickly slotted two new shells in (down to four now the two in the gun).

He snapped it shut as another nurse swung at him: he blocked and yanked her aside, sending her into the battered wall. The remaining hand of the creature he'd previously knocked down grabbed at his ankle, but Westminster yanked his foot away, and even as he did he aimed at the nurse on the wall and fired. Her head exploded as well, and Westminster went for a hat trick as he raised his foot, altering the bone density within it, and then stomped it down on the fallen nurse, splattering her head as well.

As the nurse he really should have been paying attention to shot him in the chest.

Westminster was hurled backwards, slamming against the wall: his armor both military and bone took the hit but it rendered him vulnerable, as the monsters closed in.

He fired into their ranks, briefly scattering them, but that used up his second shell: his handgun was against his back, he couldn't waste time fumbling, as he snapped the shotgun open and yanked out the two shells, frantically trying to insert them…

The nurse lunged, its scalpel heading for his eye.

As Westminster blew it away at point blank range at the last half second.

Too little, too late, as its body's momentum kept it going forward instead of flying backwards, as it collapsed…right on top of the shotgun, knocking it down before Westminster could use his last shot.

And once again, the creatures came, as they swarmed on him. And as Westminster screamed, it was very clear they planned to stake a claim.

Downstairs, Sine traversed the gantry with all the grace as one might expect of any person who is trying not to make any noise at all. Her footfalls were gentled by the training she had received, their heavy weightiness that was in her run beforehand not coming in to play with the "Heel roll to toe" method of walking. The quiet allowed each and every moment she spent walking across the metallic grating to occupy her thoughts with other topics.

The hall she was in was where the morgue was, or rather should have been. She was currently in a room filled with gratings with large square holes cut in the middle. Each one seemed to leave flakes of rust on her boots and cause more to fall to the black abyss below. The walls were wooden panels with blood seeping from the joints and nail holes as if each one was personally used in the crucifixion of some poor bastard some two thousand years ago.

No, not him. Jesus wasn't the only one who was nailed to a cross until he died. It was a popular pastime for Romans.

Sine continued to step through the nightmare, her own nightmare. She was being taunted and tormented at most every step. Walls showing murals of her being slaughtered and cooked as the fat cow she was, as if she was some sort of sacrifice. Murals depicting the most debase and craven of human nature. Pictures of her running away, from who she was born to be, who she was groomed to be in her life. Nothing was really what it seemed for her. The only people she seemed to be around who wanted to be around her were morally bankrupt people or people who wanted somewhere to keep their hands warm for a night while commenting on how cute her freckles were…

….the morgue. She was here.

And as she reached the end of the corridor, something changed about her, her mind no longer focused on all the terrible sights around her, but upon the doctor that stood before her, or rather was laying before her. There was a table, slightly tilted up to allow the blood to run out of it and onto the gratings below, through them and into whatever was down beyond that.

She winced at the mess. Of course this was a morgue, so they also did exploratories here, and one of them happened to be the doctor.

Then her eyes widened as the REAL bad thing became apparent. The worrying thing of his insides were outside was much less of a concern as he actually GOT UP.

Sine recoiled away: how the hell was he still alive?!

Eyes glanced around the room as it tried to speak, the mouth making only a faint murmuring sound in the hopes that it's gargling mess was understood. The viscera slopped out of the walking corpse, blood pooling at its feet…

And for a brief moment, Sine saw a flash of light within the mess. The key. The key was in the doctor.

And he was coming for her, groaning in dark agony, as the whispers sounded around her, whispers that promised atrocity and torment, indignity and agony, the greatest debasement one could conceive of, all for her…

Sine watched the doctor approach.

And then her eyes narrowed.

"If you're going to build it up so far with so much Borsh gobbledegook, make sure the end result of all this threatening is bigger then a SLOW MOVING ZOMBIE." Sine snarled, and raised her gun and fired off a quick burst that blew the doctor's head up in a fountaining spray of gore. He hit the ground and did not get back up.

"Game over." Sine snapped. Then she blinked and glanced around to make sure a creepy doll hadn't popped up. Finding none, she headed over to the body.

The atmosphere had pushed too hard. One could only hold a state of dread and fear for so long before the flight transmogrified into fight, and Sine was through being pushed around.

The body lay on the ground before her.

She drew the Lightscourge and chopped its arms off, and then pinned the body to the floor through the chest.

"Don't fence me in." Nightwalker said, as she stuck her hand into the mess of the doctor's chest and pulled the key free. Tucking it into her ammo belt, she yanked her sword free and sheathed it.

She stood for a moment, gathering herself. She could do this. If the place threw more zombies at her, she'd shoot them or dismember them. She wasn't some lost girl seeking penance, she was HERSELF, and she could take care of it.

And the place new, as Sine sensed movement and turned to find that somehow, without arms or most of a head, the doctor had gotten back up and started stumbling towards her again. Her eyes narrowed.

"All right Black Knight, I'll show you a flesh…"

And then the floor exploded behind the zombie, and Sine screamed and stumbled backwards, her flashlight flying from her hand and shattering against a wall as the massive surging mass burst forth from below. With a second it had seized the doctor zombie and pulled it from the ground, dragging it into its maw as Sine stared at it with wide eyes.

The body was swallowed within two seconds, and the thing…the mouth turned to her, a massive worm-like form that ended in a series of crushing pincer-esque mandibles that folded outward as a secondary set of crushing teeth opened up and shrieked at Sine.

"Oh shit was this in the game?"

The worm-like creature dove at her, moving at insane speed.

Sine was faster, as she brought her gun up and opened fire, as the creature recoiled, thrashing at the bullets tore through its head and body, as Sine stumbled and got to her feet, and as the creature agonized she ran for it, slamming the door behind her.

"SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!" Sine yelled as she slung the gun around her and went to her belt: she needed heavy firepower and she needed it now as she pulled the clips currently in her orb launcher out and dropped them as she tried to slam in new ones, all trying to deal with her new mass…

The door exploded off its hinges as the mandible-worm tore through it…with another one along side it, the two sliding up the corridor at insane speed as they lunged at Sine.

As she whirled and sprayed her gun, the creatures again stopped by the bullets as they agonized, as Sine lowered her gun and aimed her orb launcher, launching an explosive orb into their midst and blowing them apart, as Sine started running backwards…

As more worms tore past the still thrashing remains of the first two and snapped at Sine, and she screamed again and once more opened fire, spraying them with bullets as she ran…

And tripped.

And crashed through the floor, falling through the grating with a wail as she disappeared.

"Why don't we just use an airplane?" Blackfire suggested, once again dressed to a few male's disappointment.

"Does anyone here know how to fly a plane? Or how to make one?" Slade asked.

"Control Freak could use his remote."

"Whoa whoa whoa! I can't just zap up an F-15 here!"

"Then what CAN you make?" Slade asked.

"Well…"

Meanwhile…

"SCREWWWWWWARR!" Godzilla bellowed as he walked over to the giant building where Kong sat on top off. How the other villains kept from seeing or hearing the gigantic radioactive monster…well, they were REALLY absorbed in their conversation about airplanes, okay?

What did Godzilla say again? I'll translate.

""SCREWWWWWWARR!" (Hey bud, how's it hanging?)

"Ohh ohh OOOK!" Kong replied. (Pretty good. Though those are some real dipshits down there.)

"RAUUUUUGGGGGGHHH!" (I swear, it's like the people WANT us to kill them!)

"Okkk grr ookk groah!" (I don't like to kill people, just climb buildings.)

"SCRRRRRAAAAAAUGGGGGHHH!" (You've changed, you sellout! That movie you did with Peter Jackson SUCKED!)

"Grooh ookk okkk!" (Well at least MY remake made back all of its money, unlike SOME bombs I could mention!)

"FRAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" (YOU PROMISED YOU'D NEVER BRING UP THE HOLLYWOOD GODZILLA MOVIE!)

"Hey, I liked it." Rose said. Yes, she could apparently speak Kaiju. I'm as surprised as you.

"Okk ohh graugh uggh oak!" (And you promised you'd stop drinking. I can smell it from here.)

Godzilla belched a huge flame."RAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" (Am not.)

"Grunt grokk ohhh ook ook grokh." (Look, I'm busy climbing and holding a hot chick in my hand. Can we talk later?)

"SREKRRRRRRRRAAUGHHHHHHH!" (Sure man. We cool?)

"Okk okkk." (We cool. You remember my cell number, right?")

"SCRAAAAAUGGHH!" (Naw, I'll just scream the next time I wanna talk to you. Sure, it'll deafen people for a hundred miles, but eh, stupid apes have it coming.)

And down on the ground…

"No worries Kurai. This helicopter was designed by Leonardo Da Vinci himself." Slade said, as Kurai started going down the ramp in the device that Control Freak had made with his power, along with the ramp.

"…wait, didn't Da Vinci live before engineering designs had be TESSSSSST-EEEEEDDDDDDDDDDD!"

CRASH!

"SKREARUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!" (History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men…)

"Grunt ook." (True dat.)

The room was dark, the remaining lights not providing much illumination, what remained flickering over the deep pool of water that had settled over the floor. The rainstorm had leaked into this, the bottom floor of Eternal Rest, covering it in dark liquid…

That Sine lunged up from underneath, spitting water out as she gasped, having plunged through the roof and landing in the water moments before. She blinked and then recoiled, throwing her arms around, looking for threats. God she wished she had her helmet. She'd give anything…

Her gun. Her gun! She threw herself down and pawed for it frantically underwater, locating it after several agonizing seconds and pulling it up. How much ammo did she have left? Who knew, probably not enough, as she snapped off the box magazine and fumbled to detach and…

And it came from the water, the mandibled head ripping out from beneath and lunging at Sine.

Sine blew it apart with an explosion orb and then with another desperate cry ripped the mag from her belt and snapped it in, as she brought the gun up and aimed.

Another worm head erupted from the water, and she tore into it with a gun blast, ripping its head apart as it fell back into the water. Another surged up, and she blew its head off with one quick sweeping burst. Sensing movement, she yanked the gun down and fired into the water around her in a circle. It was amazing she didn't blow her own foot off.

It was quiet then, as she jerked her gun around, breathing from effort and fear. Too quiet. She had to get out of…

Three heads tore from the water and surged at her, so fast, so deadly…

Sine shot two explosive orbs into them, blowing them apart, and then she turned and started running, as slow and ponderous as it was from the water and her added weight. Another erupted from her left, and she fired a spray of bullets into it, the riddled creature disappearing back into the water with a wail, and then another, as Sine aimed and blew it to messy pieces. She was almost out of orbs, how could she take the time to reload and…these things were coming out of the water, why wasn't she dead already, they could just grab her and yank her…

Down…

A deep rumbling shook through Sine's body.

Something was coming.

Now, as the floor suddenly exploded upward and Sine went flying with another cry, as the whole bottom floor of the hospital ripped up and then collapsed into itself, a deep guttural roar filling the air as the massive mottled pink-gray creature surged up from beneath, the water pouring into the hole as the massive head and body emerged, rising up on a thrashing and writhing mass of tentacles…

And as Sine looked from where she lay in the water, she realized she wasn't being confronted by killer giant worms. She was being attacked by ARMS.

As the monster shifted itself and its head came fully into view, a grotesque giant mass with a massive maw of terrible teeth and blank gray-black eyes the size of beachballs, as Sine pulled herself to her feet: the water was lowering and she had to go NOW…

As an arm tore at her, and she blew it away, but that just drew the attention of another, as she frantically fired at it as she tried to retreat…

As the third arm came in from the side and struck, knocking Sine back down with a cry, as the Lord's sword flew out of its sheath and clattered into the water, and before Sine could blink she found the spiny, crushing arm wrapped around her, pinning her arms to the side and causing her gun to fall away from her as she was raised up, screaming as the mouth on the arm snapped on her head. But it didn't get to eat her, no, the main head did, as it pulled her up as she screamed and thrashed, but she was held tight…

And this is where Dr. Westminster comes to her rescue, right? WRONG! So hold out hope, vore fans!

(Why don't you tell the readers what it IS, if you're going to interrupt the action)

Fine. This is the monster from a film called 'Deep Rising', and according to film exposition it's supposed to be an obscure member of the 'Archaea Ottoia family', the Ottoia family being a breed of deep sea worms, mutated to gigantic size by living at incredible depth, but the character giving this exposition had just seen the worm-arms, which are attached to the main creature, which seems to be some kind of mutated octopus…I'm sorry this is just TERRIBLE. This is worse then the usual Hollywood science! Why would a deep sea creature have traditional eyes? Why would it be able to ROAR? Why did coming up the surface not kill it? Why does it need a separate head mouth if…forget it! This is more jarring then the constant switches between ridiculous and serious in this chapter!

(Knew you weren't going to be able to resist lampshading that...)

Sine continued to scream as she was drawn in, the monster turning its hideous head towards her as it bellowed once more, the horrendous roar rattling through her body as she kept thrashing…

As beneath the water, a certain blade began to vibrate.

Sine tried to reach her belt and trigger one of her explosive charges: better to take this thing with her then be gobbled up, but she was held too tight, and it was about to…

And then from the water the Lightscourge flew up, impaling itself to the hilt in the creature's arm and causing the monster to bellow again, as the grip of the tentacle loosened, just somewhat, and Sine, unable to take time to goggle at this completely unexpected event, yanked her right arm free and aimed it at the creature's head, as its gigantic eye filled with misty black liquid glared back at her.

"What are YOU looking at?" She snarled, and fired, her last explosive orb piercing deep into the eye before it exploded.

The creature shrieked, and Sine found herself falling as its grip was lost entirely, the vigilante grabbing her sword and letting her weight pull it free as she fell, as she bounced off the bottom of the creature's body and rolled away, sprawling roughly on the ground instead of a graceful landing, but she was free.

And she planned to stay that way, as another mouth came for her and she slashed out, slicing its head in half and sending it recoiling away as she ran for it, snatching up her gun as she made for the nearest door. Which was unfortunately a bit around the creature, but an exit was an exit, as Nightwalker ran for her life.

Another arm lashed out at her, but the creature was still in clear pain and it missed, burying itself in the wall by the elevator Sine had just run by, as she sprinted for her exit, her weight temporarily forgotten as she ran for it, making it to the hallway and sprinting down its watery length.

"If I'd known you did that before, I would have been nicer." Nightwalker said as she sheathed the Lightscourge and whirled around.

An arm flew down the hallway at her: she used the last of her bullets to blow it away and then took off down the hallway again, snatching one of her personal explosives off her belt and pinning it to the wall as she ran. More arms ran after her…and were blown away as the proximity alarm of the personal charge blew, nearly knocking Nightwalker down as she rounded the corner.

She worked as fast as she could on the run, as she snapped in new clips and then furiously tried to put her last ammo mag into her gun…

Another arm tore around the corner, and Sine blew it away with another explosive orb (she couldn't have many of those left, had to ration…) as she finished snapping the last ammo magazine in and ran, huffing and puffing but refusing to slow down.

An arm ripped through the wall in front of her: Sine fed it some bullets and ducked under its thrashing as she ran past and around another corner…

Stairs. The same stairs she'd used to reach the morgue above her before she'd fallen into this belly of the beast, as she ran for it, pulling out the key in the process.

She got it into the lock in one try, and as she opened the door another mass of arms ripped down the hallway. Sine reached out and fired her gun, not even questioning how she could fire it one handed without problem, as she shifted her form into the door and then put another explosion orb into the mass to give it something to grow on, before she ran for the stairs.

Her legs were beginning to ache, and her lungs whooshed as it tried to gain enough air: she still had her conditioning but not a body type it was used to, as she ran up the stairs…

The arm came smashing out of the wall, Sine nearly falling back down the stairs as it barely missed her, as she fed it another blast of ammo and then grabbed the Lightscourge and slashed it out, cutting its head off. The mouth fell down into the lower floors, as Sine saw more movement above her and decided another way was best, as she ran up what was left of the stairs and crashed through the door.

And crashed into it.

"SINE! YOW!" Dr. Westminster yelped as the charging girl nearly knocked him over. "You're alive! Thank god! I just had…"

"RUN WEST!" Sine yelled as she grabbed him and pulled him along for a bit before letting go to focus on her own sprint.

"Run? What are there zom…"

The door exploded off its hinges as more arms tore through from the stairs.

"HOLY SHIT THOSE AREN'T ZOMBIES!" Dr. Westminster yelped as he broke into a full sprint after Sine.

"TELL ME ABOUT IT! RUN!!!!!!!" Sine yelled redundantly, as the arms tore after them, their mandible mouths snapping at their rears.

"All right, after much thought, I have finally found another plan. With Control Freak and Sorceress' 'help', we have turned the ramp into this." Slade said, pointing to a catapult. "We are going to pick someone as a projectile and launch them up there. I volunteer Brick."

"Though I understand why, as I'm most likely to survive a miss, I still must protest. The odds of this working are quite small." Brick said.

"I liked you better when you were dumb." Slade commented.

"WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP SAYING THAT?" Brick complained.

When all was said and done, Brick was placed on the flat launcher panel, as Slade got the trigger cord ready and stood in front of the catapault, as the villains gathered around to watch.

"All right Brick, get ready to launch, and…LAUNCH!" Slade yelled, pulling the string.

And launch Brick did…unfortunately he had been improperly placed on the flat hand, and instead of hurling him the momentum of the arm kept him pressed against the hand, as the arm snapped over and slammed Brick into the ground right on top of Slade.

"………….nobody…says……ANYTHING." Slade snarled from beneath the giant.

"How many of these damn things ARE THERE!" Dr. Westminster yelled as he crashed through a door, Sine following, as the arms continued their furious pursuit. In straightaway the arms moved too quickly, but Westminster and Sine had managed to slow them down a bit by twisting and turning. But they just kept coming…

"STAIRS!" Dr. Westminster yelled as they exited into the same hallway they'd fled down a moment before: an empty, worm free door gave him confidence that no surprises currently lurked in there (otherwise they would have just run into worm body when they came back into the hallway). Sine dashed past him, trusting him entirely, somehow still going despite her mass, and he followed…

Spying the tank of oxygen as he ran past it…

The arms surged around the corner, charging after the pair, as Westminster drew his handgun and whirled around.

"You better be full!" Westminster snarled as he shot at the tank.

It was.

Too full, as Westminster was almost blown up himself, as he was hurled backwards into Sine and both crashed through the stairway door.

"…next time warn me." She grumbled.

"Will do. Up the stairs! We've got it briefly clear…!" Westminster yelled as the two resumed sprinting up the stairs…

As the mouths tore down from the stairway above…

"NOT CLEAR ENOUGH!" Sine yelled, as she grabbed Dr. Westminster even as she stabbed out with a key and unlocked the door they'd nearly run by, yanking it open and shoving West through it. She followed, and the chase was on again.

"All right, second attempt is ready, prepare yourself Vogel." Slade said, now standing behind the catapult.

"I'm ready."

"Very well then, and …LAUNCH!" Slade yelled, and pulled the cord again.

And the arm snapped up…and Brick this time has been placed too high on it, and so his center of gravity caused him to instead be flipped over the hand's edge and land with a thud on Slade again.

"…………..I…….am……….NOT……….AMUSED."

"Where are we going?" Dr. Westminster yelled as Sine pulled him along, the latest mouths lying in ruins behind them after some handgun and machinegun fire (West had the other two guns strapped to his back and had no time to pull them out, and he only had one shell left in his shotgun anyway…), but she knew more would be along within seconds.

"Hopefully not into a dead end!" Sine rasped, her body's exhaustion barely being outpaced by her adrenaline. Goddamn fat curse, goddamn worm things, goddamn horror stories, WHY COULDN'T THE AUTHOR HAVE JUST LEFT THIS AS DEADFIC?

CRASH! The fourth wall came tumbling down onto another worm, stopping it dead, as the pair paused and blinked.

"Wanna question it?" Westminster asked.

"No." Sine replied, and resumed running, as she ran around the next corner and found what she was looking for: the opposite stairway. When she'd tried to use it before, it had been blocked with debris, but maybe, just maybe…

"COVER ME! AND MAKE SURE WE HAVE AN EXIT!" Sine yelled as she tossed Westminster her M950 and pulled out the key to open the door. Westminster turned around…as another mass of worm-arms came tearing around in the usual bat out of hell style.

Westminster opened fire, but there were so many and not enough bullets, as the arms advanced up the corridor…

And squealed as they burst into flame.

"Napalm, burn's not as good as boom but c'mon!" Sine yelled as she dragged Westminster through the door. She'd been right. The debris stopped on the floor below them: they had a clear route. Which was good, as the other stairway would have been blocked anyway if they'd kept going up…

"FUUUUCCKKKKKKK!" Sine screamed as the worms ripped through the stairway above them and surged down, and once again she and West managed to only make it up a floor before they had to flee onto it.

"Quick, back to the other one!" Westminster gasped as they ran.

"No other one! Blocked!" Sine replied.

"What? Then what do we do?"

"We…" Sine yelled as she turned and blew apart another worm with an explosive orb…and stopped as she realized it. There were two stairways, but one was blocked by debris by now and the other was surely blocked by worms.

They were trapped.

"Third time is the charm. Ready Brick?" Slade said, now standing to the right of the catapult.

"As ever."

"And…LAUNCH!"

And this time, Brick did fly through the air.

But the positioning was wrong again, and instead Brick was just thrown up into the air instead of out…and slightly to the right.

And what goes up, must come down.

On Slade.

"Mental note: find a city no one likes. Shoot everyone in it to relieve stress." Slade snarled.

"How much ammo you have left?" Nightwalker asked as she used a lull to reload.

"Not much! Why?"

"We're stuck! Both stairways are cut…."

Three arms ripped through entrances and the walls around them, and the three of them blew them away with gun and orb fire.

"And I don't think we can outlast this." Sine said.

And then…a chime sounded, and a nearby elevator opened.

"………………no. Can't be." Sine said, as she ran over. Without bothering to check it, she ran in and hammered on the upper floor buttons.

But nothing happened. The door didn't even close, as Sine shrieked in frustration.

"YOU FUCKS! DO YOU REALLY HAVE TO TAUNT US…!" Nightwalker screamed.

More worms tore down the hallway at them. Sine blew one apart with one of her rapidly depleting explosive orbs, and Westminster manage to down the other with a quick spray of handgun and machinegun fire. He popped a new clip into the handgun afterward.

Another arm. Sine switched to her normal orbs and joined with Westminster to take it apart.

"You want me to save the last few bullets for us?" He said grimly.

"No I'd prefer if you use it on the next fucking thing that tries to eat us!" Nightwalker said, and blew apart another attacking arm. "If you have to, use your grenades and blow us…up…" Nightwalker trailed off.

As she saw the oxygen tanks nearby.

And the elevator that didn't work but had worked enough to come up there to taunt them.

And the word 'up'.

"West, you're a genius and I'll kiss you afterward. Quick, cover me while I get these into the elevator!" Nightwalker said, as she ran and grabbed an oxygen tank, dragging it behind her.

"What are you doing?"

"There is no spoon." Nightwalker grinned, as she dragged the canister in, stood up, and drew the Lightscourge, as she slashed the sword above her and ripped into the elevator roof. "Thank you loads of cutting charms."

"All right Brick, THIS time for sure." Slade said, once again standing behind the catapult, but not so close Brick could fall on him, and if he were tossed the wrong way again Slade would have time to move.

"If you say so Slade."

"And…LAUNCH!"

Slade yanked the cord.

And Brick remained in the same place, as instead the entire CATAPULT moved instead, the momentum of the arm caused the entire construct to flip over backwards and smash down on top of Slade.

"WHEN THIS IS OVER I AM GOING TO MURDER CHUCK JONES' ENTIRE REMAINING FAMILY!"

"I'M ON MY LAST ROUNDS HERE!" Westminster yelled as Sine dragged a fifth oxygen tank into the elevator and placed it against the others.

"Shit. Here!" Nightwalker yelled as she came out of the elevator, yanking off her gauntlets and snapping them together before making a quick twist and adjustment. "Got about four shots left of explosive ammo, use them well!" Sine said as she handed the makeshift gun to Westminster, as she went over and grabbed another oxygen tank, dragging it in.

"Where's the trigger-SHIT!" Westminster yelled as another arm ripped through the floor at his feet. A few handgun shots chased it back, and as another tore around the corner West found said trigger on the orb gun and blew it to pieces.

"We're good! West! Your grenades!" Nightwalker yelled.

"What?"

"COME IN HERE!" Nightwalker yelled, as she yanked him in and grabbed at his chest, pulling the explosives free.

"What are you doing?"

"Cutting off the head of the snake." Nightwalker said as she put all the grenades on the oxygen tanks, and Westminster used up the last of the M950 ammo to blow away two more arms…as five replaced them. Explosions ripped through the hallways as he blew them away, using two more explosion orbs.

Sine was finishing dumping every single clip of ammo she had that could start or aid an explosion and slapped her remaining remote device on top of it all.

"Okay Westminster! Climb in! HURRY!" Sine yelled as she yanked the Lightscourge out and ran around the doctor to slash at an attacking arm, the enchanted sword providing a defense no normal sword could, as Westminster looked up to the sliced open elevator roof and realized what she was planning. A quick jump off the oxygen tanks and a pull up, and he was standing on what was left of the roof.

"Now you! Hurry Sine!" Westminster called, as he tossed her orb gun back down. Sine grabbed it and blew up two more arms before sticking it in her belt and trying to scramble up the oxygen tanks…

And the fact she was fat came roaring back with a vengeance: after all her successful running and effort she found she could barely pull herself up, nearly falling off the oxygen tanks with a cry.

"SINE! COME ON!" Westminster yelled as he leaned down and extended an arm. Sine grabbed it, and Westminster strained as he tried to pull her mass up…

As an arm torn through the door, and Sine screamed as she found the deadly mandibled mouth snapping at her legs, as she shrieked and kicked, unable to get at her sword, feeling herself losing her grip as the arm tried to seize one itself and drag it into itself…

"NO!"

And a blade of bone erupted down into the elevator and impaled through the arm, pinning it to the ground as it shrieked in agony.

"AHHHHHHHHHH FUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!" Westminster shrieked in turn, feeling like he'd ripped his whole arm OFF doing that so fast, but even as he screamed he yanked with all his strength, pulling Sine up through the bigger hole and onto the roof, as it groaned from the strain…

"Come on soldier on your feet!" Nightwalker said as she pulled Westminster up, as the arm ripped itself free and retreated instead of resuming its attack. "Grab the cable! And hold on, we're going for a ride!"

"I'd rather be on a Ferris wheel." Westminster replied in a somewhat dazed manner. Sine slapped him.

"GRAB THE CABLE!" Nightwalker yelled, as she did so herself and pulled a small electronic device from her belt and attached it to her chest. "You wanna eat something? Chew on this."

And Nightwalker slashed at the cable's base, and the enchanted sword cut right through, yanking Westminster and Nightwalker skyward and up.

They didn't go far: the hospital only had four aboveground floors, as they came to an abrupt stop.

"GET THE DOOR OPEN!" Nightwalker yelled as she stabbed out with the Lightscourge and tried to pry the doors apart…

As the elevator tore down towards the bottom basement…

And the creature bellowed in its depths…

And the elevator hit ground floor, as the proximity sensor Sine had clutched to her chest activated.

And a gigantic explosion blew outward through the elevator door and wall as a massive wave of destructive, purifying flame surged out and consumed the monster, blowing it to hell and gone as the explosion consumed the entire bottom floor, even as the fire blasted upward through the elevator shaft and blew out every single door as it pursued Sine and West as viciously as the worms had…

As the two leapt through the open door as the shockwave blew them out into the room beyond, as they crashed and rolled across the floor, both coming to a stop as the fire died back down.

For a few moments, they lay there.

"…by the way." Westminster finally said. "I got you some new clothes."

"And get ready to launch." Slade said, now standing with the other villains and holding Control Freak at gunpoint to pull the cord.

"You sure…" Control Freak asked.

"LAUNCH HIM!"

"YIKES!" Control Freak yelped as he pulled the cord and then cowered.

As Brick was sent flying up and through the air, in a picture-perfect arc.

"………you'd better hope that if someone was involved in my not so successful attempt's failures, I never find out." Slade said, as he glared balefully at the villains.

"He made it master!" Kurai said, and Slade looked back up to see that Brick had indeed landed on the roof.

"Let's get closer. Just in case." Slade said, as the villains approached the base of the building.

Brick, on the other hand, found the giant ape glaring at him on the skyscraper roof.

"I don't blame you, I'd probably be glaring at me too. But do we have to fight? I'm not strong enough to really do much and you'd risk dropping your guest. Maybe there's another way we can work out our differences. It would show just how much you're like us, which was the whole point of your movie…" Brick intoned, as Kong stared at him in dull confusion.

AN IN-DETERMINED BUT SEEMINGLY EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG AMOUNT OF TIME LATER.

"What is he DOING up there?" Jack complained.

"Too much, and not enough." Slade replied.

"Anyone hear a low thumping?" Control Freak commented.

"…the manners of a host." Brick said. "Now, other interactions require a different kind of charm…"

"Kill me. Just drop me off the building. Anything but more of this. ANYTHING….!" Rose whined. Kong barely looked at her, his eyes blinking sleepily.

"Does anyone have the time?" Dr. Light asked.

"Uh yeah, it's…the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man." Control Freak said.

"It's WHAT time?"

"No, it's the STAY-PUFT MARSHMALLOW MAN!" Control Freak yelled, and pointed.

As the white giant of sugar and rage rounded the corner. Control Freak had indeed heard a low thumping of impact tremors, and it hadn't been a T-Rex.

"….my complaints are many. But no time for that. How do we kill it?" Slade asked as the giant made its way towards them.

"Uh, we cross the streams!"

"What streams?"

"…oh right, we don't have any streams to cross." Control Freak said.

"Then we make do! Sorceress, get some kind of fire or electrical attack going, you've sat around long enough for that! The rest of you, OPEN FIRE!" Slade yelled, and the villains cut loose on the giant.

The Marshmallow roared as his soft body was punctured by bullets and set alight by Blackbolts, Kurai-bolts, and the Sorceress' electrical attack, not to mention Killjoy's launched grenades. But his sheer mass made the damage mostly cosmetic, and oh yeah, it also made him mad as hell, as he started running towards the villains as fast as he could.

"…now, those are just laws of etiquette in Britain. In France there are certain…" Brick said.

And Kong fell off the roof, having quite literally been put to sleep.

"…oh poppycock." Brick said.

"We're not slowing him down!" Kurai yelled, as the Marshmallow Man closed in, roaring its anger and pain. And Slade came to the abrupt realization that maybe running would have been a good idea.

When the giant wasn't so close.

"Oh dear." Slade said, as it loomed over them.

And then Kong came crashing down on the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and the giant let out one last scream as it was smashed: while they hadn't done enough damage to its body to stop it themselves, the villains had weakened it enough so that something stronger could do it in.

Something like, say, a giant ape falling on it.

Unfortunately, all that marshmallow mass had to go somewhere.

"…….NO." Slade said.

And then he and the villains were buried in liquid sugar goop, as it splattered and sprayed the length of the entire city block.

Some time later, Brick emerged from the building's main doors and took in the sight.

"Ithlian? Are you all right?"

"So to speak." The Sorceress said, still trying to get marshmallow out of her hair via some spells. "What did you do?"

"Well, I attempted to make peace with it, and it somehow seagued into a lengthy speech on good manners…which he ultimately found less then thrilling as he fell asleep and fell off."

"…Twas Boredom that killed the Beast?"

"……….pretty much." Brick groused. "What about Rose?"

"The impact with the entity broke her fall. She's alive. Though at the moment I doubt her father cares." Sorceress said, pointing to a still rather cross and covered with marshmallow Slade. King Kong lay on the ground…snoring: the Marshmallow Man had proven to break his fall too.

"…we are never to speak of this series of events again." Slade told the grouped villains.

"What series of events?" The Handyman said as he strolled up.

"…you are supposed to be dead." Slade said, looking at the 'villain'.

"You'd think so, but you wouldn't believe what happened! What a story! And man, what a mess." The Handyman said, looking around. "Trying to rescue your daughter eh? Why didn't you just go up the stairs?"

Slade drew his gun and blew Handyman away with a scream.

"Like I said. You're supposed to be dead." Slade said, and turned away. "Sorceress, get some cleaning spells ready, and the rest of you, start forgetting. For YOUR sakes."

"Heh. Daddy's funny." A marshmallow-covered Rose giggled.

"Yeah…but not in the 'ha ha' sense." Kurai replied, as the villains moved on, leaving a sleeping Kong behind.

"I do not think that went precisely as it was supposed to. On both counts." The Lieutenant said.

"What the hell do I have to do, drop anvils on them? They're worse then cockroaches!" Freddy groused.

"Well, they ARE men and women with their own abilities that, unlike the children the first time, were too great collectively to fully seal. And more then a few have advanced combat training. Not that that would help them with me, but…"

"Shut up! You!" Freddy said, as it pointed to a shadowy figure nearby. "Change of plans! Head to the other two! And…you!" Freddy said, pointing to one of his robed Lieutenants. "As the kids on the intraweb would say these days, I've had enough 'lulz'! Time for blood! TEAR THEM APART!"

The lieutenant roared, and then whirled and stomped into the shadows, its feet loud and thundering as it disappeared.

"They know their way around some peashooters? Well then, I'll give them something to shoot at. Soon we'll be knee-deep in THEIR dead! And as for the other two…time for the classics! AHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!"

"You know, the world isn't built for the larger person and quite frankly it's disgusting." Westminster thought out loud. The beast that chased them was now gone. There were no ifs about it, but there was a but; but it had taken most of the hospital, most of their ammo, most of their clothing and most of their strength with it. There was another but though: but at least with it gone, it had seemingly taken the rest of the horror manifestation with it, Silent Hill, everything. The fourth floor looked like a normal albeit abandoned hospital floor.

"Huh?" Nightwalker said, as she struggled some with the new outfit Westminster had given her. She DID have a spare outfit, supercompressed with some fancy tech she'd won by batting her eyes as some nerd tech genius, but with her size that was a moot point: Westminster's clothing worked better. Even if seemed to be a white nurses uniform, of the style you might expect in a sex shop with it's short skirt and plunging neckline, thought it was doubtful it had been intended that way as it was cloth and not shiny PVC. It was more likely part of a more complete uniform but to what end was unsure. It did its purpose of covering up her rather damaged and depleted costume.

"They are treated as lazy and worthless just because they have a high number around their waist than the others do, and to be honest it shouldn't be that way. I can assume you're starting to understand?"

"That being big is useless in this world? Or that I was right about being fat?"

"The former, only due to thinking of the latter. Everyone can't be the same, many don't want to be the same."

"Oh don't I know that." Nightwalker said: having finished with her outfit she was now re-equipping her gauntlets, as Westminster rested on the floor. She noticed that somewhere in it all the bottom half of Westminster's mask had finally been ripped away, showing that the bone that plagued the doctor was coming back, returning in full force to retake his face as a piece of its land.

"Are you okay?" He asked as he stood up.

"A little tired from all that…but yeah. I'm fine…but what about you?" Sine asked as she raised a hand to his face and lightly touched the bone that was trying to annex his features. Poor bastard. Soon he would be wracked with pain and probably wishing for death. Sine hoped he had managed to pick something up within the confines of the hospital before all the shit hit the many fans.

"I'll be alright. It even proved useful. Nothing like suddenly becoming a porcupine to dissuade a bunch of dead nurses from their own brand of patient care…but that unpleasantness aside, I'm just glad we managed to get out of there." He smiled. It wasn't a perfect smile, more of the top row showed than the bottom in terms of teeth, but it had a sort of charm to it.

Unpleasantness, Sine mused. She'd heard him scream when he'd done that bone lance. Last ditch defense for yourself was one thing, but he'd done that for HER.

"I owe you." She stated, candidly. "Even through all of this shit, you stuck by me. You didn't have to, but you did, and even though you did you didn't do it for some cheap game of grabass."
"Most men who were in it just for the ass would have dumped you the moment this trouble started. I'm here because sometimes we just need someone in our corner. You needed someone to be there for you, and that someone was me." He continued, looking in to her green eyes. "Though who could you blame me if I were? You are a beautiful woman." He said, causing her to look away.
"No I'm not. I'm flawed, I'm ugly and fat." She stated, playing with her fingers.

"You don't get it yet do you?" He asked, taking her shoulders and pulling her body parallel to his own. "You are a beautiful woman, you always have been, but it's not just shape or size that determines beauty. Big people are beautiful, just as small women. They just have a different beauty. No man I have ever talked to ever wanted one of those stick thin super models, no man I have ever talked to has ever wanted anything like the skeletal bimbos on the TV or in the Magazines, but some for the reason that they prefer substance. Others, however, do it because they want a woman with strength." He stated, his words wafting over her with sincerity and honesty. He wasn't trying to trick her, he was just telling the truth as he saw it. "They want a woman who is confident, no matter how they look. They want a woman who has the inner strength to basically put two fingers up to the world and tell them to fuck off." He stated. Sine wondered about the whole two fingers thing; must be a British trait.

"And you're getting to what point?"

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that sort of thing. What is truly important is that YOU have the strength to say what YOU want and to have your morals. They can not be corrupted by anyone, ANYTHING. No matter who you are, no matter what size, what shape, you MUST keep true to your sense of self."

"And what do you think?" She asked, looking at him. "Your eye beholds me, what's the verdict?" She asked, clutching a fist to her chest in a manner most anime women do at some point.

"This." He simply said before leaning down and kissing her in a passionate and familiar way. His hands and arms wrapped around her body to softly being her close to him as she gently rested her fleshy arms across his shoulders around his back. They kissed like lovers; they kissed as if they didn't want it to end. It was all about the passion of the moment, and as long as that moment lasted they were safe.

It didn't seem quite right…

All Freddy could do was smirk and cackle like some form of deranged hyena.

"Gotcha."

And now you know why.

"You know, you're lucky. Takes a LOT for a man to impress me." Nightwalker said as she and Westminster headed up the stairway to the roof, in the hopes of getting around that almost-forgotten barrier and maybe seeing Slade's group: with the high ground, perhaps they could catch up.

"Oh what else do I have to do! Rub your feet? Make you breakfast? Rub your feet with your breakfast?" Westminster mock-bitched. Sine chuckled.

"I'll let you know. When it's done I'll make a list. And all that." Sine said, as she opened the roof door with the key and stepped aside, orb gauntlet at the ready.

The roof was large, wide, and empty, and strangely did not look over a Jump City in flames and chaos.

She knew it was there though. Below the surface.

"…where the FUCK IS THE BARRIER?" She snarled, as she realized she couldn't spot the damn thing that had blocked them, the damn thing that had seemed to go into the sky and beyond, in full 360 vision. "All that shit and it just up and vanishes?"

"Maybe we should have just asked nicely." Westminster joked as he went to the edge of the roof. "Hey Sine, got any binoculars or something?"

"In my helmet. Which won't work, the son of a…" Nightwalker trailed off.

As she saw the familiar fog drift in from behind her, and as she turned she found the whole rooftop manifesting it.

"….NOW WHAT?" She snarled, drawing her sword.

And she was answered…by a horse's whinny.

"…oh this is new." Westminster said, as he drew his handgun.

As the black figure strode out of the fog, a midnight black horse and a midnight black rider.

Who was missing a rather…crucial part of his anatomy.

"…I'm gonna kill Tim Burton." Nightwalker snarled.

As the Headless Horseman reared up, his equine snorting fire from its nostrils as it drew a massive broadsword, and then it's hooves thudded down to the roof and it charged.

Heads were gonna roll.

And the Sugarman stood…on the street, looking cross through his mask.

"There's never a taxi around when you need one!

Next Time, In Boogeymen III!

"I'm TELLING you there's a spy! And it has to be…PUPPET KING!" Jack snarled as he grabbed Puppet King and pulled his head off.

"OW! MY NECK!"

"…or maybe not."

"Why don't you stop it, lunatic, before you get us all killed." Kurai said.

"You call me insane Jap? You're not the one who knows our deep, dark secret, mate!"

"What secret?"

"You don't get it, do you Kurai?" Jack chuckled, dressed now in black armor. "I AM YOUR HALF-BROTHER! And uh…shrimp on the Barbie?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…wait, when was the last time an Australian actually said that?"

"Crocodile Dundee 4: The Revenge of the Demon Sharks?"

"Yeah, sounds about right."

8888

"Quick Doc, give me the flashlight!" Nightwalker screamed.

"We don't have one!" Dr. Westminster replied as he dug frantically through their bag.

"WHAT?"

"Our items are gone! Our weapons! Our health packs! EVERYTHING! OH NO!" Dr. Westminster screamed as the door broke down and armies of monsters poured through. "ARGHHHHHHHHHH!"

(WHITE FLASH)

"This…isn't really…happening!"

FIGHT THE ETERNAL DARKNESS. Coming soon.

8888

"Deadpool! It's your baby!" Sorceress said.

The Merc With a Mouth stared.

"…What a twist!"

8888

"We have no choice!" Robin yelled. "RELEASE THE RANCOR!"

"RIDE 'EM COWBOY!" Gauntlet whooped as he charged out on the giant beast.

8888

"YOU CANNOT DESTROY ME! I AM ATLAS! I DEMAND CONTEST" The robot boomed.

"Here, take this." Slade said, and handed Atlas a cup and ball.

"THIS IS ALL YOU CAN OFFER? THIS SEEMS PITIFULLY EASY!" Atlas boomed, and tried. And failed. And tried. And failed. And tried. And failed…

SEVENTY YEARS LATER.

"YES! ONE! ATLAS IS THE GREATEST!"

"What a loser." Terry McGinnis commented.