ic Fisticuffs 2: The Opening Credits (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Avenger blinked as the fight went on, taking careful note of everyone's reaction. More out of worry for the girl who was going insane right in front of him, he opted to intervene once it was obvious no one was was moving fast enough. He saw the big girl, Archeville's girlfriend, readying herself, but he was acutely conscious of how much Dead Head had already been hurt. No. No more blood in the water tonight.He got between Wander and Dead Head before she could do any more damage than she already had, risking his own neck in the process as he looked her in the eye and said, "He's dead for real this time! Thank you! You won the fight!You should go home now."

[Electra]

Erin stopped in her tracks, the look on her face going from blank adrenaline-fueled concentration to confused and slightly dazed. "Dead?" she repeated, as though it was a foreign concept. She lifted her hand and ran it through her hair, not seeming to notice or care that it was slimed with the unpleasant byproducts of decomposition. It looked like some part of her was trying to fight through the suggestion, but her mind was nowhere near strong enough. "I should go home now," she muttered. With one last look at the dilapidated pile of Dead Head, she turned and raced for the door, moving far faster than an ordinary human.

[Geez3r]

For once, things started to click in Dynamo's head. Things weren't adding up. Playing a hunch, Dynamo ran after the fleeing Wander, tossing a quick "be right back" to Gossamer, catching up to her after she had left the arena. "So uh yeah hi." said Dynamo running side by side with Wander. "Not sure if you know me, but I'm Dynamo. And I just wanted to make sure you were alright and stuff. Cuz' like that stuff back there was totally weird." Dynamo didn't want to impeed her or get her to stop, A because he saw what she did to Dead Head and B he didn't mind a conversation during a jog. "So if nothing's wrong, ya mind me walking ya home?"

[Electra]

"I have to go home." Wander's voice sounded strange and strained, but not as though the hundred mile an hour run was bothering her in any way. She seemed to be heading for the freeway, or at least towards the edge of town. It didn't seem as though she had any inclination to attack him at the moment. "Back there... it was a zombie. But I killed it. It's dead." She was obviously certain about that, and it was just as obviously very important to her. "If I go home I can check up on things there. Just to make sure it's all okay."

[Dariusprime]

When Dead Head took that next powerful hit, Fulcrum didn't hesitate and zoomed between the two. Fortunately, she was proceeded by a well-dressed man with a serious force of personality. That the berserk woman stopped in her tracks and took off was just short of amazing. A full-scale brawl and hog tie was what Fulcrum was expecting, so that resolution worked out very well. Something about the teenager, or more specifically, her psychosis, made Fulcrum frown.

Fulcrum offered a handshake to Avenger, "Thank you very much, sir. You could talk down Gigantosaur." Studying him a moment, she added, "You look familiar. Have we met before?"

Of course she nearly forgot the revoltin' revenant. Now honestly gore did bother her a bit, but despite that, she knelt down and began piecing the zombie back together barehanded. "You okay, green guy? Still with us?"

[Geez3r]

"I can help you with that." said Dynamo comfortingly. Something ain't right here. After a moment's pause, Dynamo continued. "I can help you get home faster. I can help you make sure everything's alright." expressing genuine concern for her. "Did you know either of those two guys? Or was this just kind of spur of the moment deal? I didn't catch your name either, I bet someone like you has a pretty name." He had seen something like this on one of those CSI shows, bugger all if he knew if he was doing it right, but he had time to kill so he had to give it a shot.

[Electra]

"Erin," she told him, forgetting to use her code name for the moment. "It was a zombie," she repeated. "You have to destroy them. If you don't, they'll come after you. They can smell people, and they're always hungry. I don't know who the man was, but there's a painting of him and Phantom on the wall in her library. He must be a superhero." She paused for a moment at the on-ramp to the freeway, cocking her head to read the signs, then speeding up the eastbound ramp.

[Geez3r]

"Erin's a very pretty name. I think the giant girl called him Dead Head or something." said Dynamo nodding. "But if he's a hero, why would he be after you? Maybe he's a nice zombie? He had to stay still long enough for the painting didn't he?" he asks with a shrug. Okay, she's freaked out by zombies, not exactly the weirdest fear to have. Though people usually run away, rather than attack their fears... "Have you... uh... dealt with any zombies before now?" asks Dynamo tentatively.

[Electra]

"I don't like to talk about it," Erin said shortly, jumping neatly onto the guardrail as the shoulder disappeared over a bridge and running along it as though it were a jogging track. "It wasn't the zombie in the painting, it was the other guy, the one dressed like a mortician. I don't think I've met you either, Dynamo. What are you doing here?" she asked, turning around on the guardrail to run backwards as she as asked.

[Geez3r]

Oh you are so not pulling the 'I can run backwards as fast as you run forwards' trick on me little lady! PTSD or no PTSD, being the go fast guy was his shtick and he wasn't gonna let anyone horn in on it. Dynamo puts on a burst of speed so that he is running behind Wander, and he gives a small whistle so that she can turn around to face him, and he flashes her a wave/ salute when he does, a smile spreading across his face. "Fair enough." he says as she dodges his first question. "I was doing what you were doing, I came for the fights. I wanted to test myself against the other heroes, see how I measured up and stuff. Plus, it'd probably be entertaining. Why do you want to head home so bad?"

[Electra]

Erin startled when Dynamo popped up behind her, and looked for a moment like she'd take a reflexive swing at him, but apparently he didn't trip whatever trigger had gotten her going so enthusiastically after Dead Head. The question itself brought her up short for a moment. "If there are zombies, I have to make sure my family is all right. They can't protect themselves. The ones here have never seen what it's like, so they won't even know what to look for. You saw the people back there. They weren't even worried." Erin's voice conveyed a world of disgust.

[Geez3r]

The classic "oh crap" looked crossed Dynamo's face as Erin reacted. Sure he was fast, but dodging blows while running backwards at 100 mph was still pretty darn hard. Thankful that she didn't slug him, Dynamo continued. "Maybe there aren't zombies. Maybe its just the one zombie. And that zombie talked. It ain't like any zombie I've seen in no movies before." Erin seemed to be coming out of ait a bit, maybe if he kept her talking, Dynamo could get her to open up. "I mean, the area was meant for a bunch of heroes to get together to brawl. What's more likely, there's a hero zombie knocking about, or a random zombie just so happened to show up? That could b why no one reacted, they knew the guy? Am I making sense here or am I making no sense at all here?"

[Electra]

"You're not making any sense," Erin told him firmly. "Zombies aren't anything, they aren't heroes, they aren't people, they're just bodies that don't know they're dead yet. Hungry bodies. I have to get..." A look of confusion crossed her face as she suddenly slowed and stopped, letting Dynamo instantly get far, far in front of her. She sat down on the concrete divider, looking at the cars speeding past as though she had no idea where she was or what she was doing there.

[Geez3r]

"Duh-wut." Dynamo was confused by Erin's sudden personality flip. So confused in fact that he nearly ran head long into a passing Mack truck. He passed so close by it that he could count the freckles on his face. Circling around the traffic, Dynamo headed back to Eric at a gingerly pace. He stopped next to her, crouching down, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. You alright? Why'd you stop?" This was genuinely getting freaky now. What did suit guy do to her?

[Electra]

Erin shook her head as though trying to clear it. "I don't know. I felt like I had to go home, to where my family lives, anyway, really urgently. But it doesn't make any sense. If there's a zombie threat starting up, I should be here, trying to fix it, not in Seattle. And why would I run to Seattle anyway?" She massaged her forehead with one hand, leaving a few more traces of yick across her face, and muttered a bad word. "I really lost it back there. I was doing pretty well for awhile, but now I'm probably going to be in detention till I graduate. To say nothing of what my shrink is going to say. I guess that guy in the suit probably used some sort of mind control power to stop me from hurting anybody, and that's what got me running out here."

[Dr Archeville]

Dead Head

"Ohhhh, it's a good thing I'm already dead."

The Revoltin' Revenant rolled over onto its back and looked up at the two Jacks. "Man, who was that gal? An' what happened to her? I'm used to folks runnn' in terror, or lashin' out at me in blind panic, but she... " The zombie let out a low whistle, which was distorted somewhat by his dislocated jaw.

The zombie's separated pieces twitched and started crawling towards him; the unidentified bits in Fulcrum's hand quivered and slithered out of her hand and towards him. He winked at her with his one good eye.

"I totally had her, too, y'know. She was tirin' out, I could feel it."

[Gizmo]

"Daaaaamn," Jack drawled after Avenger pulled his mind-whammy of Geckoman's friend. "Goggles, you kids be crazy. Freakin' A," the swordsman added, slapping the younger hero on the shoulder comradely. He gingerly nudged a piece of Dead Head closer to the affable zombie's body with his boot, snorting. "Right, tired of handing you your rotting butt on a silver platter." He pointed a warning finger as he remembered who he was talking to. "Don't even think about acting that out."

[quotemyname]

"And there he is." Lukos had said quietly to himself when Avenger had finally shown himself.

Lukos had stepped backward off the shattered scoreboard, slipping into the shadows behind it. With everyone else so focused on the ongoing fight, they would never notice him prowling through the shadows.

Jack had been right. Everything about Avenger was wrong. Especially the smell. It was worse than Dead Head. Not in an "offensive to your nostrils" sense, but in the sense that somehow "Avenger's existence was an even worse crime against nature than the zombie" sense.

That feeling made Lukos want to gnaw on a couch.

After the commotion was over, and everyone was once again standing around talking, Lukos melted out of the shadows once more. He placed himself on the opposite end of the arena behind Avenger and leaned up against a support beam. The axe strapped to his back clinked against the concrete, making his presence known.

"Avenger!" He called out, his voice muffled slightly because of the gas mask. "I would like to have a few words with you. Jack form the West End sent me. He specifically mentioned that I should tell you that."

[Geez3r]

Dynamo sat down next to Wander, nodding whenever she finished a sentence. "So maybe suit guy is a friend of zombie guy? And then he didn't like you totally pounding his buddy into the ground? Besides if you had kept it up you would've killed him like even more deader than he was already. And even heroes don't kill people. And I think that's what it was, a person in like zombie form. He like actually talked and junk. So like, you're a hero, so you like to protect people, so maybe suit guy said that so you should protect your family, it'd be something yuo're more inclined to do right? Not really sure, that whole mind control shtick is like leagues above my level." Dynamo mimicked Erin and massaged his own head. "I assume y'all got your reasons for slipping out on a zombie, so I ain't gonna press the matter; that's something between you, the Lord and your shrink. But now I got 2 questions that are all important like. One, do you think you're up to heading back, now that you know what's coming? And two, why the heck are you worried about detention? You got a secret identity doncha?"

[Electra]

Erin let most of what he was saying wash over her head, sunk in the gloom of foreseeable extended sessions with Dr. Marquez. Things had finally been going well, and once Geckoman and Rycon got back to school, she'd probably be back up to six visits a week again. That is, if Summers didn't know already. He had a talent for that sort of thing. She roused enough to hear Dynamo's important-like questions. "Having a secret identity doesn't matter much when the principal and the other students all know it already. And I guess I could handle it, but I don't think I probably should. Everyone there probably thinks I'm crazy, whether or not I was right."

[Geez3r]

Dynamo made a mental note to search up some hero schools, it sounded like a sweet gig. Having friends you could trust with your secret ID wasn't a luxury he could afford. "Hey, everyone in their is either a super hero or a friend right? You said so yourself. But both of those types of people know that weird stuff happens from time to time right? And each and every time they ride it out. They didn't see a crazy person, they saw a person they could help." Dynamo stood up and dusted himself off. "Now, what you got to ask yourself is if you're willing to be helped. No one can force ya to, it's something you got to do by yourself. When you fall down, you can either get back up yourself, or you can accept a helping hand, but you got to get back up again. You're a hero, you can't lie down and give up. Now, which will it be?"

[Electra]

"Now you sound like my shrink," Erin muttered, staring at the cars that rushed past in blurs of yellow light. As annoying as she found the spouting of aphorisms, he was right about one thing, she had to pick herself up and at least see what kind of damage she'd caused. If that really had been a human in a zombie suit, and she'd managed to seriously harm him, she might as well go back to Seattle. But she wouldn't know unless she went back and saw the reactions. "Fine, let's go back," she said reluctantly. "I can keep it together." Probably.

[Dr Archeville]

Dead Head

"Soo... think she's gonna be back?" Dead Head asked Jack of All Blades as he stood.

The Revoltin' Revenant then turned to (and leaned back/tilted up to fully see) Fulcrum, "I 'ppreciate th' assist, ma'am, but I weren't in no real danger. Yer... yer Fulcrum right? Pleasure t'meetcha!"

He extended a hand to her, then quickly withdrew it when he saw it was attached backwards. After a twist and a loud SNAP, he extended it again, and it was in its proper position.

[Gizmo]

Jack stifled a chuckle at Dead Head's macabre slapstick humour. The undead hero's disturbing appearance took some getting used to, but once you did, he was practically a living cartoon character. "Man, you better hope Captain Broodmeister's mind whammy holds, 'Head. That chica was messing you up."

The swordsman glanced over at Avenger in time to see the gasmask wearing individual approach the vampire unceremoniously and catch his muffled introduction. "Wait, I said what now?"

[quotemyname]

"Not you, Jack of all Blades." Shot Lukos at the sudden interruption. "Jack Spencer, the Alpha Werewolf of Freedom City's pack, would like to know more of what Jack Faretti, Freedom's Vampire Lord is up to. He sent me to investigate. I see no reason in beating around the bush here." Lukos folded his arms, waiting for a response from the brooding undead creature before him.

Little to his knowledge, Jack Faretti was a much more dangerous creature than he realized. His own Alpha wolf had sent him headlong into a trap, as he would soon discover.