BtVS by Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Marvel U by the parent company and its many artists/writers.
Tara spun into action, racing towards the red cloak she'd hung over the back of chair and whipping it around her shoulders.
"I think we prob'bly better table this discussion," Remy said, smoothly mounting the control panel and removing the barrier meant to keep people from falling out of the booth. "Til the crisis is over, no?"
He gave her one last look. She nodded as she pinned the tiara into her hair and headed for the door.
Remy leapt across empty space into the lighting and quickly began swinging towards more stable handholds in the direction of the stage.
"Oh, show off," Spike said, cheekily, as he moved to follow Tara down the stairs. "I could do that if I wanted to, but I'm not going to go out there to save a bunch of kids when there's an audience. I have a reputation to uphold. I'll keep to the backstage portion. 'Sides, it looks like that's where the trouble started. Maybe I can keep it from getting worse."
Tara pushed the Emerald City backdrop she'd painted out of her way, her face stern and focused. "Whatever you say. All I know is that Glinda is going to kick some ass."
In the sound and lighting booth, the director grabbed a heavy binder of stage notes and moved to help his assistant, but the girl was thrashing too much for him to get close.
She was whipping her hair back and forth, in an effort to dislodge the little brown, furry creature, but it just kept hanging on with its hands and feet. Seeming to enjoy the motion, it shoved one of the braids in its mouth and bit through the thick bundle of hair with razor sharp teeth.
The director worked his way behind the girl and swung for where the monkey-shaped demon would be in a second. As the book was swinging a third hand, the black color of the hair the creature had just eaten, emerged from its back and batted the book away. The creature's head rotated completely around to face the director, gave him a grin, continued rotating until it was facing the right way again and started chomping away.
The little creatures had carelessly pelted the audience with helmets and other costume parts they'd thrown away in their quest for food but, when Remy dramatically landed on the stage, one of them flung a dense piece of armor directly at his chest. It hit him dead center. The momentum lifted him off his feet and carried him clear off the stage.
"Oof," Remy grunted, from where he'd landed in a pile of sandbags. He made some odd noises. As he caught his breath, rose to his feet and brushed himself off, they resolved into chuckles. "Mebbe with this performing for a crowd, I let myself get carried away."
He reached into his coat and pulled out something he'd bought at the Magic Box that first night with Giles. "I know I always keep a good stack of these on hand so I don't run out but, still, there ain't nuthin' like unwrapping the cellophane from a fresh pack."
A smooth motion later, so practiced that it was instinctive, and a card was charging in his hand, bathing the surroundings in a purple light.
"You want some," he shouted to the creatures just now emerging from the darkness. "Come and get some!"
##
Tara strode on the stage in a blaze of glory and began blasting away at the monsters with what she held in her hands. A portable fire extinguisher.
The creatures, who had just about defoliated the actors and begun turning their eyes towards the audience, started chittering away, laughing at her, even the ones she hit.
A wave of her hand and a muttered word later, five of the creatures that had been covered the most with foamy lather were encased in solid blocks of ice.
##
The laughter stopped.
The director grabbed his assistant by the shoulders. "Myra," he said, in a calm voice.
She stopped shaking her head and stood completely still. Tears started running down her face.
He stayed silent until she opened her eyes. She closed them again a second later, but he took it as a good sign. "I know this is scary. There's a monster hanging from your head and..." He decided it was better not to mention it was growing larger each time it jabbed hair in its mouth. "It doesn't seem to be doing you any physical harm. Now what I want you do is think back to your fire drills in school. I know you know what to do in a situation like this. Right?"
She nodded.
"Then do it."
In a quick motion, before the monkey-shaped demon could adjust its footing, she flung herself to the ground and started rolling.
The creature saw only darkness for an instant, then it was back in the light. Another moment of darkness and it found itself pinned underneath the book, the director's full weight pressed against it. It tried to hold on tight to the strands of hair still in its hands but, as the girl kept rolling, most of these were yanked from its grasp.
While some hairs were pulled from her head as she struggled to her feet she felt it was well worth the pain.
##
The director had pinned the monkey flat. His eyes were staring into its eyes and its left hand was groping for his right hand. Both of his knees were digging into the blue binder that was squishing the rest of the monkey into the polymer-based carpet.
Myra started pulling a heavy desk over to the director and he was adjusting his weight when the monkey's features lost cohesion. Its black eyes disappeared.
In an instant, the monkey had reweaved itself so its head and free arm had switched positions, which meant the director's hand was in a bad place. An accidental twitch of razor sharp teeth later and the director was missing a fingertip.
He stood up in shock, blood dripping. The monkey threw the binder across the room and started heaving. The woven hair that made up the inside of its chest ballooned out through its mouth and it started thrashing about trying to free itself of the terrible stinging flesh.
The director ran out the door, into the backstage hallway, hoping to reach the fire exit, only to have another monkey drop from the ceiling onto his head.
Screaming, he raced down the hallway only to have a hand come out from behind a curtain and swipe the monkey off his head, to land across the room.
"Pillock," Spike sneered towards the director's retreating back. Myra brushed past Spike in pursuit of the fleeing man, holding a First Aid kit as if she was a quarterback racing for a touchdown.
##
Spike turned to face the monkey again only to be hit by something furry headed directly for the center of his chest at very high speeds. He was flung backwards, through a doorway and very nearly missed hitting his head against a dressing room sink.
"Oh, my God, it's on me." He wildly scratched at his chest. "No, wait, it's not. How the hell did it do that? I know bloody well that it didn't bounce off."
Looking up, he saw three monkeys peering in at him, so he swung himself to his feet. A quick glance behind him showed what was in the sink.
"Alright, Spike. Electric razor or some of those blond tufts. Carrot or stick. Make up your mind." Sighing, he grabbed a large handful of the loose hair and turned. "Look, I know you guys like to eat this, I could see that all the way from the balcony. Can't we make a deal?"
The creatures snarled and backed away slightly.
He waved it closer to them and they hissed, fluffing themselves up like cats. They leaned in, their teeth snapping, so he pulled his hand back out of reach.
Frowning, he pulled some of the fluff apart and blew it towards them in a small cloud. Where it hit, it singed, sending up little streams of smoke.
Gibbering in fear, the little creatures ran out of sight.
"Oh. So they don't like it loose?" Spike turned to survey the area. "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense." He held the electric razor up to his face, smirked, and tossed it over his shoulder before pushing the hair already in the sink into a pile. "Can't exactly corner these guys on my own. Guess I'll help Glinda and Toto wipe out their group. Although, maybe when I head out on that stage, I can do it cleverly..."
Wary of the fire extinguisher, the monkeys fell back as Tara approached, but stayed around the edges of the stage. When she reached the actors she laid down a fine spray of foam in an arc behind her, before kneeling down to comfort the scared teenagers. Her defensive measure was a bluff as the covered floor wouldn't actually hurt any monkeys sneaking up on her, but she didn't expect them to call her on it.
One of the football players who'd been playing a Winkie soldier took the opportunity to grab the lightest person next to him and make a run for it. He charged up on the ring of monkeys carrying his surprised friend, hoping they'd break and let them through.
As the teens neared the border a few of the monkeys formed a small pyramid by standing on each other's shoulders, only to have the base swept out from under them from behind by Remy's bo staff.
Remy stept aside to let the actors pass, the first to escape the stage since the attack began. He did a double-take, realizing the monkeys were using the distraction to launch a counterattack against his sister. "Behind you," he cried as he broke into a run.
##
Out in the audience, Warren and Jonathan were staring, mouths agape, at the three monkeys hanging in mid-air behind Tara.
"Oh, my God," Warren said. "They can fly without wings?"
"Yeah, I mean they're magic anyway," Jonathan said. "But that is so cool!"
As one, the two men rose to their feet and yelled "Go, Andrew!"
They then made one of the geekiest cheering noises possible.
They were far enough back and the murmur of the audience was so loud that no-one on stage heard them.
That was enough for Warren, but Jonathan simply wasn't able to restrain himself. "It's your birthday!"
That cheer was loud enough to reach the stage and everyone, even the monkeys who weren't being beat up by Remy and Tara, turned to look in his direction incredulously.
"Uh, yeah." Warren face-palmed in embarrassment. "We better go."
They joined the trickle of people exiting the auditorium, many of whom were leaving simply because the production had drifted so far from the book.
##
"Those teeth are sharp," Remy said. "I'm not gonna risk gettin' close enough to charge 'em. How about you?"
"I grabbed a spare fire extinguisher, but I left it offstage." Tara helped the last bald actress to her feet. "Couldn't use one and carry two. They're not letting me get close to them anymore, maybe if we walked far enough that way, you could grab it and use it. I'm not sure how long I can cast this spell without a break, though."
"Have no fear," someone shouted in a horrendously bad Texan superhero accent. "The Wicked Witch is here." Spike strode onstage in full costume, face painted green, black hat at a jaunty angle and a huge black cape billowing behind him. The putty under the makeup looked slightly lumpy, but he'd done a decent job of becoming unrecognizable.
The scattered monkey horde charged toward him, but he was able to give a solid enough blow to one of them with his long handled-broom that the creature caught fire. Screaming, it burned down into a small pile of ash as its companions fled in terror.
"You see," Spike said in his loud 'acting' voice as he walked towards his friends. "I have treated my broom with Special Ingredient Hair. Oh, yes, here's a baggie of it for you and one for you."
"Hey," shouted a smart aleck in the audience. The man stood on his chair to yell better. "If he's the Witch, who's the guy with the red eyes?"
Remy snorted faintly, as he pulled out a card to charge in his hand. The purple glow started to faintly outshine the spotlights. "I'm de Wizard," he said, flicking the card towards a huddle of monkeys where it exploded, blowing them apart. "Do you have a problem with that?"
Speechless, the heckler sat down.
##
A couple of the braver actors who'd made it offstage started sniping with the spare fire extinguisher at the monkeys around the edges of the stage, so Tara went to help them.
"So, seriously," Spike said in a softer voice, as the monkeys that had been rendered into loose piles of hair started to reform. "Does that blurring thing happen to everything you carry? I noticed some of it, mainly the smaller bills, were alright."
"No, thank God," Remy said. "Now, really, is this the time to talk?"
"It's a crisis, so you're stuck here. Don't pretend you wouldn't rather avoid this conversation, maybe by not being nearby to ask?"
Remy nodded slightly, acknowledging the point. "I'd rather not say what is really going on, because more than likely it would go into de play review and make us look even more stupid."
"Fine, then whisper it. I have really good hearing."
"One word hint," Remy said. Very faintly, he whispered 'Sliders.'
"What, those little meat things? What do they have to do with anything?" Confused for a moment, Spike's eyes widened as he recognized the name of the TV show about dimensional travel. "Oh."