CHAPTER FOUR

Some Answers and More Questions

February 18th, 2057

McClouds' House

BBRRRRIIING!
"DON'T EAT MY FACE, SLENDERMAN! I DON'T HAVE TWENTY BUCKS!"

Marcus shot up of bed in shock thinking that his dream was about to turn into a nightmare, but felt incredibly stupid for overreacting after realizing he had foolishly left his pager right next to his head when he had gone to sleep the previous night.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud. I've told myself a thousand times not do this and I've even had Mom and Dad remind me, yet somehow I still do it!"

He grumbled and pressed a button on it. It levitated in front of him and up popped a hologram of Chase's head.

"Dude, I was sleeping." Marcus mumbled groggily.

"Number one: since when did you start sleeping without a shirt on?"

"What? It was really hot last night!"

"And how did you ever manage to get abs like that?"

"Simple: workout. Go for a jog every morning when you're not feeling too lazy. Eat your green vegetables. What do you want?"

"We need you to come down to the Shack for a minute. I think we might have figured something out about that orb we got from the mech a few days ago."

Chase had taken it from Marcus the second they had landed back on Corneria that day and took it to the Shack (the team's private hangout) for further investigation. Marcus had nearly completely forgotten about it and the telepathic message from Kursed until Chase brought the dreaded feelings of anger and lousiness back to haunt him.

"Alright, I'll be there in a minute."

"Might wanna make it quick. Anna's ragequiting over Slender again."

Marcus shuddered.

"Goddamn, I hate that game."

Soon enough…

"Kinda hard to really take this game seriously when you have it set to $20 Mode." Coyote remarked on Anna's current state. "I mean, really. How scary can a super-tall guy in a suit coming towards you and going 'Gimme twenty dollas, gimme twenty dollas, gimme twenty dollas, no wifin' in the club!' possibly be?"

"Scary enough when he suddenly pops out at AAAAAAGH!"

Up came the static on the screen, automatically zooming into Slenderman's face before the game closed itself.

"That's it! Screw this game!" Anna seethed. "I swear to God, if Slenderman is real and he comes to haunt me, I'm gonna grab him by his scrawny little neck and…"

"Oooookaaay, that's enough of that for now." Coyote said nervously, shutting the laptop. "Hey, Al. How's Duke Nukem Forever treating you?"

"Well, I can definitely see why they would port this game, but I'm surprised Nintendo let it on their system." Damalgo commented, right as he walked into…THAT level. "Oh Lord, ARE THOSE WALL BOOBS?!"

"Dude, that is just sick. Who made that freakin' game, anyway?!" said Chase from across the room.

"Some guys called Gearbox Software…good God, that's just OH MY GOD THOSE GIRLS ARE GETTING…"

Marcus' finger landed on the power switch of the Wii U right as Damalgo saw something even nastier than the wall boobs if that was possible.

"So we're done with that one, too. What've you got for us, Chase…hey, wait a second, where's Pete?"

"You know where he is."

Marcus took a moment to process those words before he smirked when it hit him.

"Susan?"

"Who else?"

"Guess we can do this without him. So what have you got?"

"I'm getting something. Not quite sure what it is yet, but for now I guess you guys can just play some games or whatever."

"Huh…alright, then. Who's up for a few rounds on Ultra Punch-Out?"

Coyote plopped herself down next to him and picked up a controller right as the game booted up. With a quick selection of Aran Ryan for Marcus and Piston Hondo for Coyote, they were off throwing ridiculous and often hilarious attacks at each other.

"Yur gonna love this one, mac!" Marcus laughed right as he pulled off Aran Ryan's headbutt attack and smacked Piston Hondo right in the face.

"Oh, really?" Coyote said mischievously. "….I can't speak Japanese, so here comes the Hondo Rush!"

Out came a flurry of punches, a raised eyebrow, and a quick uppercut. Across the room, Anna was now playing a different game altogether: Amnesia.

"Okay, just walking along, trying to find my way around and OH GOD!" she shrieked when the monster appeared and began chasing her. "You're…so sexy! So sexy, but I gotta go! Can't handle your sexiness, bro! Though I have to admit that Slenderman was sexier because he was wearing a suit, and anyone who wears a suit is a gentleman…or a complete schmuck, whatever you like…wait, what are these? …okay, they're just BARRELS!"

"Hey, Mark?" Coyote spoke up

"What now, Hondo?! What now?!" Marcus said as Aran Ryan whipped out his boxing glove whip and managed to smack Piston Hondo around a few times with it.

"Mark."

"Ye've prob'ly got cheeseburgers in those gloves, have ya, Hondo?!"

"Mark!"

"Me sister hits harder than ya, Hondo…and I haven't got a sister!"

"Marcus James McCloud, I am trying to communicate with you!"

"Yep?"

Coyote rolled her eyes before pausing the game and looking him dead in the eye.

"Do you think maybe we could go on another date soon?"

"Sure thing. When should we have it this time?"

"No, no, I meant do you think we could have that date on my planet we've been talking about."

If you haven't been keeping up with the story from the last one, Coyote was born, raised, and still lived on the planet Fortuna. It wasn't too far from Corneria and was a very lovely planet without many settlements. They had been talking about exploring the planet together for a while now when usually their dates were just them going to a movie or a nice dinner. While that might not have sounded very breathtaking, they still enjoyed. This, however, was going to be THAT date. The one that couples remember for years to come as possibly the one where the question gets popped…but they were only nineteen. They were in no rush to get that done. Hey, Bella! Ya listenin'? You'd best be takin' notes, woman!

"Sure. Can't believe we actually held off on it for this long to be honest."

"You're the one who always dismisses it. I'm beginning to think you're just a little scared of being around my family."

"What's that supposed to mean? Scott's a lot of fun, your mother's like a saint, and your father…well, he's a little scary, but he's still a good man at heart."

"So it's on, then?"

"Like Donkey Kong…but let's finish this up first."

Aran Ryan and Piston Hondo continued to duke it out on the screen before the latter reared back and slammed him with one more uppercut, followed up by…

…the power going out.

"Hey, someone turn on the lights! I can't see shit!" Damalgo cried.

"Wait, I think I've got something here." Coyote said. "Just let me…"

"YEOW! Watch out! That's my tail!" Marcus yelped.

"EEEK!" Anna shrieked. "Something's got me!"

"That was me, I'm sorry!" Chase said quickly.

Marcus stumbled around in the darkness for a moment before finding his way over to the circuit breaker and flicking the switch.
"There we go, problem solved…WHAT IS THAT?!"

Standing behind them was one of the creatures they had seen alongside the mech a few days earlier, albeit much smaller. Its reduced size didn't make it any less of a threat, and it lunged at Marcus as soon as it saw him. Marcus himself was quick to flip over its head and draw his staff. Damalgo had been the only other person smart enough to bring a weapon, dragging a shotgun out from underneath one of the tables and pointing it at the creature.

"Chase, what did you do?!" Anna hollered.

"I don't know!" Chase yelled back. "I pushed a few buttons and the orb just sparked!"

The creature roared at Marcus again.

"'RAAAAARGH' yourself!" the young McCloud shot back before stabbing at the creature with his staff.

The creature blocked it with a blade that suddenly sprouted from its wrist. Just as it was about to bring a second blade down, Coyote jumped onto its head and clenched its neck with her thighs, squeezing as hard as she could in the hopes that she could perhaps snap its neck or strangle it. The creature was about to reach up and throw her off when Marcus kicked it to the ground, culminating with Damalgo shooting it in the head from a point blank range.

The creature let out one final roar as its head literally burst in pieces, scattering all over the place before the every little bit of its body somehow faded away.

"What the hell was that thing?!" Anna panted.

"Well, that just about confirms the theory I had." Chase said conclusively.

"Theory?"

"If my hunch is correct, this orb is some sort of mystical teleportation device. The readings that I got indicated that after I somehow activated it, the orb pulled the creature from…somewhere and put it here. Another guess here, but that might have been the reason that it was in the mech. It needs a powerful being nearby to be able to summon these creatures, though in my case I just hacked through it."

"…and who put it in the mech?" Coyote asked.

Chase was about to answer, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had almost no clue. Unfortunately, Marcus and Coyote did, yet they couldn't work up the nerve to say it.

"Whatever the case," Chase continued. "I ran a scan on the ones we saw before, and I've confirmed that these things are indeed living organisms, but they're of an unidentified species, and none of that explain why that one just faded away after Al blasted its friggin' head off, or why the power went out when I activated it."

"What I wanna know is who would do something like this. Whoever did it can't be much worse than Andross, can they?" Damalgo replied.

"If only he knew…" Marcus thought, raising his hand to run his fingers through his fur again.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's goin' on?!" Anna sputtered.

The orb had suddenly started to glow the moment Marcus' hand came near it. Out of curiosity, he moved his hand away. The glowing stopped. He moved his hand back towards it. The glowing started again. Now he stepped towards it until he was directly in front of it. The orb began glowing so brightly that it forced everyone to shield their eyes.

At last, in a last ditch effort to see just what was going on, Marcus reached out his hand and touched the orb. All of a sudden, his vision was blurred out and he was looking through someone else's eyes. This person was looking in seemingly fear at who else but Kursed, the latter of whom was sickly lying on top of the former with an almost sweet smile.

"How ironic…you're brought down by exactly what you wanted from her…a loving kiss."

Then the person spoke, horribly surprising Marcus when he realized that it was his own voice.

"No…no, don't! Stop!"

"Too late…twenty years too late."

Kursed slowly opened her mouth and leaned down towards him…Marcus wanted to scream…he started thrashing about in her grasp, slowly finding it harder and harder to breathe…

"MARK! WAKE UP!"

Marcus' eyes snapped open and he realized that he was lying on the floor with the other four team members huddled around him.

"Wha…what happened?"

"You passed out as soon as you touched the orb and then you started having a seizure or something!" Damalgo replied in distress. "We thought you were fuckin' dying, man!"

"Not only that, but it looked like the orb got sucked right into your hand!" Coyote said, holding his head up on her lap.

"I…I saw something…I saw…"

Marcus sat up and slammed his fist on the ground.

"Chase, tell me what you know about a woman named Kursed."

"Uh…Kursed?"

"Do you know anything about her at all?"

"…gimme a sec."

Chase opened up his laptop and typed the name into the military files. Sure enough, up came what seemed to a criminal record.

"Had to really scrounge around to find this one. Seems the military had it deleted." he remarked. "It says here that this chick is a bounty hunter turned terrorist, and that she's been missing for over twenty years. Average height, blue fur but violet hair, age estimated to be about twenty-two."

Chase turned the laptop around and showed them the mug shot.

"Yep. That's her." Marcus confirmed.

"What about her?"

"…Al, Anne, Chase. I need to tell you something that you're probably not going to believe at first, but if you know me, you'll know I'm not lying."

One horrific story later…

"My God…" Anna gasped once Marcus had finished. "Krystal was a…no…I don't believe that for one second."

"Good, because you shouldn't. My mother wasn't responsible for all those things that happened, and Peppy had that file deleted out of sympathy with her. This woman, who is in a way also my mother, is trying to essentially eat my soul. I don't know why, and I don't think I want to know why, but that's the truth and nothing less."

Chase pressed a hand to his head like his brain was starting to hurt.

"That's gotta be the biggest shocker I've heard in the past year. So you think she has something to do with the orb that the mech puked up?"
"Just a hunch. Everything is when she's involved."

That was when the team noticed Anna looking at the floor and stroking her chin, appearing to be in very deep thought.

"No…that can't be…" she mumbled to herself.
"What do you think, Anne?" Coyote asked.

"…I'm not sure yet, but I've got a really bad feeling that we're going to see more of these."

"More of them?!"
"Yeah…pray that the hunch I've got is at least 80% wrong."

"That's a little exact, but okay."

Every single one of them jumped and yelped in fright when Marcus' pager went off. Marcus himself scowled down at it.

"I'm starting to hate this thing even more than Slenderman." he sighed before checking it.

The call was from someone who wasn't entered in Marcus' database, and since the team had just had a very unnerving conversation about Kursed, he dreaded who was going to answer when he brought it up to his ear and said…

"Hello?"

"Hey, Marcus! Haven't heard from you in a while."

"Haven't heard…who is this?!"

"Aw, c'mon. It hasn't been THAT long since we last saw each other."

"Wait…Samus?!"

"Nailed it."

Samus Aran was indeed someone Marcus hadn't expected to hear from. She was usually viewed as someone who kept to herself, but it looked like things had changed.

Marcus smiled and started up a decent conversation.

"Didn't expect to hear from you ever again. How are you?"

"Not bad. Can't complain, but I figured I'd let you know that I'm on my way back to Corneria right now."

"You are? For what? Is there someone you're hunting down."
"Yeah: you."

"….huh?"

"I'm hunting you down for a rematch."

"…oh, that! I don't know, though. The weather's been getting pretty bad around here recently."

"Since when has that ever stopped people like us?"

"…huh. Good point."

Marcus walked off, talking to Samus with pager still pressed to his ear since he had yet to add her to his database. While he was gone, out came the questions from Chase's mouth.

"Anna, you don't think…that these things are from 'the place', do you?"

"Like I said, hope that I'm at least 80% wrong."

"You ever see The Dark Knight? When the Joker said 'Why so serious?'? Here's my question: why so specific?"

"Every little bit counts. The more wrong I am, the better."

Coyote meanwhile sat down with a very depressed look on her face. It hurt enough that she had once idolized Kursed, but seeing how upset it made Marcus just made her feel even worse.
"Damn her…I wish I'd get a chance to meet her. Then I could send her a greeting from Mark."

She jumped slightly when Damalgo laid a hand on her shoulder.

"You alright?" he asked.

"…I'm just worried. I've got this horrible feeling that everything's gonna go wrong in one quick instant, and…what if Mark gets killed? That's all she wants, isn't it? Just to murder him right in front of his friends and family?"

Damalgo smiled.

"Chin up, okay? He's a tough kid. Besides, he's got us, right? I think you'd rather die yourself than let anything bad happen to him."

"Yes…I would…but I don't want it to come to that."

"Don't worry. It won't."

"How do you know?"

"I just know, okay? Don't question it and don't worry about it."

Coyote lightly smiled, though the nervous feelings were still there. It couldn't be helped. Marcus was her boyfriend of three years and she loved him with all her heart. How could she NOT be worried about him?

Finally, Marcus came back into the room after a quick "Alright. See you then" and switched off his pager.

"So what was that all about?" Chase asked. "What's Samus Aran coming here for?"

Marcus smiled and cracked his knuckles.

"Time to dig the Crystal Vixen out again."

And if you read the last story, I think you know what that means. Well, this one didn't take long to write up, did it? Probably because there wasn't really any action, but whatever.

Anyhow, Happy Halloween if you celebrate it! Go out and get some free candy or go scare some kids or go to church if you're one of those religious fanatics that still thinks Halloween is the time of the Devil...which makes me question why you're reading something like this. I'll see you guys later.