AN: …god I suck, I've had the whole summer to write and this was all I came up with! (Well I do have a new job and a new dog to slightly excuse me) Oh yeah and 100 reviews, HOLY SHIT! Thanks everyone for your contributions, however small, I never thought that this thing would be so popular. (Then again I never pictured that this thing would last for so long.)

Rating: T

Chapter 23

Sturm und Drang

TIME:21:00 UTC+1

LOCATION: Munich, Germany

The rain continued to splash upon the blacktop, beginning to collect in large puddles that one could easily find soaked to the ankle. Such was the situation Marcel was in as he followed his friend onto the footbridge running over one of the park's streams.

He looked down at his soaked foot in disgust, the water soaking all the way through to his socks. "You do realize that if this turns out to be nothing, I'm going to kill you."

"It was this one," Gibson stopped in front of one of the bridges benches, staring down at it.

Marcel looked down at the wooden construct; it looked like any other park bench: four planks of nondescript wood, oak maybe, which had been lacquered against the rain, made up the seat.

"Huh, I always thought it would be a little more… special."

He looked back at his roommate, whose gaze had moved towards the opposite end of the bridge, which was shrouded in darkness. The blonde's posture had suddenly become tense, a sharp contrast to his behavior for the previous hour.

"What is it?"

Gibson stepped in front of his roommate in what the latter swore was a defensive pose. "Someone's here."

At the end of the bridge a previously hidden figure stepped into the light of the lamps. Marcel estimated that they were about 160 centimeters; he couldn't really tell much else about them though, their face was enshrouded by the hood of a black hoodie, itself accompanied by matching black jeans.

Great, just what we need, a mugger.

"Listen buddy," Marcel stepped forwards, "we're not looking for trouble. There are two of us, and one of you; just be smart and leave to mug someone else."

Gibson didn't move from the spot, if anything becoming tenser. "That's not a mugger."

"What?"

The figure removed his hands from the hoodie's large central pocket.

"Oh shit."

The 'hands' looked bestial, long sharp claws protruding out; and Marcel immediately knew what the red substance covering them was.

C'mon guys, hurry up.

Chiro quickly dashed across the grass, trying his best not to slip upon the slick surface. He had finally reached the park, and was now making his way towards where Antauri was, hoping that the silver monkey had finally reached their teammate.

He knew at this rate it would likely only be him and Antauri to be there for Gibson, but he was still hoping that Sprx, Nova, and Otto would be able to catch up with him quickly in case there would be a need to fight.

He figured that he and Antauri would be able to manage though, it was ultimately two against one after all.

"Hello brother."

"Come down from the tree Mandarin and fight me!" Antauri narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

The orange monster cackled. "Why, are you still sore about being killed? Honestly it wasn't my fault you got in the way."

"This is not about such a simple feud and you know that. Ever since you betrayed the team, this has been about the battle of good and evil."

"I never betrayed anyone!" Mandarin snarled. "You all betrayed me!" The snarl slowly shifted into something more sinister. "But that's beside the point, shouldn't you be looking for our blue brother?"

"I will as soon as I defeat you."

"Oh really? Are you sure about that? If you take that long, all you'll find is a corpse."

"What are you talking about?" It was at that instance that Antauri remembered, Mandarin could still summon and control Formless. True it was only a small number of them at a time, but most humans couldn't handle one.

Mandarin jumped down from the tree, grinning like a madman. "You know what? I've changed my mind Antauri; you're right, we should fight."

Antauri glared at his former teammate who only snickered in return. "I wonder how long Gibson will last? Somehow I doubt it will be long enough for you to reach him."

Run. That was all that Marcel's body screamed at him, but he was frozen stiff, afraid what might happen if he so much as flinched under the stare of the… thing.

None of the three had moved an inch in the last minute; all were waiting for the other party to make the first move.

It was apparently Gibson that first ran out of patience with the situation. "Who are you?"

All that could be heard was the patter of the rain at first, but slowly Marcel began to hear something over the rain that was growing louder. Laughter.

Although this alone would have frightened Marcel enough, it was made worse by the fact that it wasn't plain laughter, nor was it even overly sinister. Instead, the figure across the bridge was giggling like a child and this was its favorite game in the world.

All of this in spite of the blood stained claws, which looked ready to stab him through the chest.

This thing is insane. Marcel took a shaky step backwards.

The thing dashed forward.

Marcel stumbled backwards, as he tried to avoid the lunge from the insane monster that decided it wanted his, and his roommate's blood.

He barely got out of the way; he could feel pricks against his skin where the claws had touched his skin, piercing through his clothes. How sharp are those things?

Gibson meanwhile, was trying to grab the things attention, instead of being sensible and running away. Don't play hero, idiot! You'll get yourself killed!

It was at this point that Gibson nearly froze in place, looking at something behind Marcel.

"Gibson!"

Marcel swung his head around to look at the distraction; it was a young boy, about 13 or so, dressed in a bizarre whit outfit and wearing face markings.

Unfortunately, while Marcel and Gibson found the appearance of said boy very distracting, the monster wasn't so distracted.

"AHH!"

Marcel was horrified; the thing had sunk all five blades straight into Gibson's shoulder, who was now struggling with the monster while pinned against the railing.

"Get off of him!" Marcel charged forward, slamming against the monster.

This caused the claws to tear out of Gibson's shoulder; blood flew and began to spew out of the wound at an alarming rate.

As the boy somehow fought the monster more effectively than either of them had managed, Gibson tumbled backwards, over the railing and into the stream

"Gibson!" Marcel sprung to his feet, dashed to the railing, and quickly swung over the railing, after his injured roommate.

He plunged into the cool stream feet first, hitting the bottom before the water was even up to his chest. The brunet stumbled; fairly certain he had sprained his ankle, having expected the stream to be deeper. But there was no time to worry about that, he had to find his roommate.

"Gibson!" There was no response as he looked about for the blonde, finding it nearly impossible to make anything out in the dark waters with the rain churning it. After a few seconds of searching he spotted something sticking out of the water.

He waded over to the patch of lower reflectivity, cursing as his ankle sent out shots of pain with every step. As he got close he saw that it was Gibson's shoe, figuring that this was the best place to start he plunged his arms under the water, trying to grasp for anything that might be his roommate.

Under the dark water he caught a glimpse of something and reached for it, before quickly rising back up to the surface.

It was Gibson, unconscious in his arms, and now he was going to have to drag him to the shore, with a sprained ankle, with a monster on bridge right above them.

Fuuuuuuccccckkkk.

Under, strafe left, jump back…

So far Chiro hadn't been doing very much besides dodging; knowing that if the sharp blade got him he would probably be done for.

What the heck? Formless aren't normally this fast!

Chiro noticed that it was disguised as a human, probably because Mandarin didn't want to draw attention before they got here.

But why hasn't it changed back? Is this formless special or something?

He knew that it was formless; it had to be, the blade it was swinging around looked exactly like all the others he had faced, aside from the blood from when it attacked Gibson.

I guess I should be glad his friend's here.

Right, back, unde- The formless froze mid strike.

What the…?

And suddenly it ran, sprinting away.

Chiro gave chase for a moment, before realizing that he should really be more concerned about Gibson.

He spun back around; looking back once more as he ran towards where his friend fell over, You won't get away next time.

"Antauri what happened?"

The silver monkey allowed himself to relax slightly before turning to answer his green brother, "Mandarin. He ran off when he saw you three coming."

"Aw man, you mean he followed us all the way here?" Otto slumped in disappointment.

"Coward." Nova muttered, clenching her fists in anger.

Sprx glanced at Nova, "Yeah, well; Mandarin's a lot of things, but he's not dumb enough to think he could take all four of us at the same time without help."

"Mandarin does have help though, we need to hurry." Antauri said, quickly making his way out of the grove, the others following in confusion.

"Help, whaddya mean help?" Sprx said as he struggled to keep up.

"Mandarin said he had sent one of his formless after Gibson. Chiro went to save him, but now Mandarin might be going after him."

"What?" Sprx grunted, "Of course, Mandarin would do something that cowardly; should've known better."

"We must hurry team!"

"Ugh." Marcel lowered Gibson onto the shore of the stream, trying his best to ignore the pain.

As he caught his breath, Marcel began to look over his friend, trying to find the exact spot of his wound again.

Sure enough, despite the water washing away the previous blood, some new blood was already coming to the surface.

Shit this is bad, at this rate he'll bleed out. What should I do?

Marcel went over what little first aid knowledge he had accumulated over the years, Tourniquet, I need to make him a tourniquet.

Lacking anything else, Marcel removed his soaked shirt and tied it about his roommate's shoulder as tight as he could. Right, now I should… I should… put pressure on it! Right, pressure.

Marcel pressed as hard as he could on the wound, trying to stem the blood flow. As he did, he noticed something.

Shit! He's not breathing!

He put his hand in front of Gibson's mouth and felt nothing.

Oh Christ! Does that mean I should do CPR?

He quickly adjusted his position so that he was over his chest. Okay um, I should check for a heartbeat- I think. Fuck, why didn't I pay attention in health?

He held his ear to the blonde's chest, thankfully hearing a beat, a faint one albeit.

Okay! He's got a beat! That just means um… mouth to mouth.

He stared at his roommate's mouth.

…let's just get this over with Marcel.

Chiro scanned the stream from atop the bridge, looking for any sign of his teammate, finding it difficult despite the fact that the rain was beginning to settle down.

After about half a minute though, he was able to vaguely make out something on the shore, just a bit of a ways down the stream. He quickly made it to the end of the bridge, and was about to make his way down the shore when he was interrupted.

"Chiro!"

He whipped his head around, "Guys! Am I glad you're here, Gibson's hurt."

Otto gasped, "Where is he?"

"I'm pretty sure he's this way, c'mon!"

The five began off in the direction Chiro indicated.

Antauri looked over at Chiro as they ran, "I take it that it was the formless that injured Gibson?"

"Yeah, only the weird thing was, the formless was disguised as like a human, and it never dropped the disguise, even when fighting me."

"Strange." Antauri muttered.

"Yeah, yeah. We can discuss it later, I think I see someone." Said Sprx.

About five seconds later the team came to two young men, one of whom was coughing up water on the ground, while the other watched over him.

"Umm…"

The boy looking over the coughing one looked up, eyes widening in shock as he registered what was in front of him. "What the fuck!"