Log:Horror Double Feature

2014/07/12 Aoi Martin Yameen Hunter

1

Alien District

The Alien District is long and thin, stretching north and south on either side of StarDancer Boulevard, but of great historical significance: here aliens made first contact with the superhero StarDancer herself. A bronze plaque in the middle of the boulevard, toward the southern end of the district, commemorates this momentous event, while as does a park further north, with a statue of StarDancer and the alien shaking hands.

The architecture and style of many of the businesses here shows profound alien influence, even ones built more recently than the initial alien craze, as if here the fashion never went away. This alien flare manifest in the products too, and if you are lucky you may even see some actual aliens here.

Saturday night. It's movie night! And nestled between the Matrix and the Flying Saucer is one of the popular theaters for students and adults alike. The Alien District is the place to be for kids trying to irresponsibly avoid homework and put it off until Sunday. Yesterday, the new blockbuster action film and a horror film came out, so there's plenty of summer blockbusters to see.

Yushio is just leaving Starguard. Going to high school is something she's happy with. A chance to make friends of her own age and to widen her previously narrow education. But it ties up a lot of hours. So much so that Yushio is finding herself having to be active late into the evening most days dealing with business issues, like the sale of basic powered armor to Starguard for agent use.

Movies are a bit problematic for Martin. You've got the whole issue with 'excuse me, sir, but could you remove your head' combined with having enhanced senses and being in a room with 300 of your closest friends. Then there's also just the fact that you need to sell a kidney to buy a coke, so as a result his is simply in the Alien District unwinding. While there are far fewer aliens wandering around than the name implies he is still better able to blend in here than in the rest of the city.

Ariya enters the district from the CBSU campus, carrying both a briefcase and a portfolio. While primary schools enjoy a summer vacation, the same is not true for the university. Many students and faculty are present the entire year-round. If her attire and accessories are any likely indicator, Ariya is in the latter group.

There's laughter and shouting in the district. Kids hollaring to their friends. Screams. Screams? Aren't kids a bit jaded these days to be screaming at a monster flick?

Several glass doors of the movie theater burst open and movie goes rush out in a panic, trying to escape.

Groans and growls can be heard over the din of panicking people. Some people falls over and start to get trampled by the escaping movie goers.

While he's no hero Martin is able to deal with things such as people being trampled, at least. He begins to deal with it through the sheer expedience of walking against the flow of people and bending down to pick up those who have been knocked over.

Yushio hurriedly issues a mental command and her battlesuit phases into existence around her. For an instant she considers telling the crowd to calm down, but sanity reminds her she's no Anthony Quinn or Lorelei. She's probably be ignored. So she emulates the BIG guy and wades into the crowd lifting fallen people back to their feet.

Ariya initially frowns at the noise and the doors bursting open. She fears that she will be caught in a stampede of raucous youths exuberant over the latest blockbuster. That concern quickly deepends once she makes note of the more genuine screams and sounds of growling. She hastens her pace and moves out of the flow of of the exodus and into an alleyway adjacent to the theatre. This also places her temporarily out of immediate view.

A young blonde woman gets picked up by Martin and squirms. "A-another monster! Ahhhh!! Help! Someone!" There's gratitude for you. But the other civilians ignore her and keep running, a few looking behind them in fear.

Another young man gets scooped up by Aoi. He looks dazed and may have taken a hit to the head. "Thu...thanks." The escaping crowd begins to thin enough that the stampede lessens. Another person manages to get themselves up from trampling and runs. It's thinned enough to allow people to wade in. There's still people trapped inside, and a flurry of movement somewhere on the escalator leading to the second floor. In a rear corner of the lobby, a bunch of teenagers are getting cornered by group of 6 people in tattered clothing. And something big just burst through the doors down the alley of the 1st floor and is making its way to the lobby. It seems all the commotion is heading to the lobby area.

Martin waits until the press of people has thinned enough that she won't be re-trampled before setting the girl back down on the ground. He would say something sarcastic, but honestly, it's just too much effort. Instead he pushes into the lobby and then simply leaps over everyone into the cleared space between people and whatever the large thing is that is pushing through the doors.

Matters of propriety, secrecy, and politics aside, Ariya does not wish to ruin a rather expensive dress suit, nor her most comfortable pair of flats. Therefore, she makes a hasty wardrobe alteration in the alley. Expanding portfolios are not only for course syllabii. Thus it is Yameen who exits the alley, though she attempts to to so unobtrusively. As is her approach to the theatre entrance.

Yushio follows the big guy. Seeing the teenagers getting cornered by a half dozen... zombies? Anyway, it looks bad. Activating a particle beam emitter she blasts a hole through the wall behind the group to give them an escape route.

The young woman just stares at Martin after he sets her down, confused and still frightened. She comes to her senses quickly and runs away.

The teens cornered by the zombies duck as the blast hits the wall behind them. Parts of the concrete support wall crumble, but it's not enough to punch through. A guy and a girl in the group are wielding signs like they were clubs, trying to use the heavier set bottoms of the sign stands to keep the tattered people at bay. Hunter pokes one of the zombies to try and make it take a step back. "I am -so- not going out like this! What the flip!" The girl, his friend Ann, grumbles. "If I don't make it out of here alive, it's all your fault. Just thought you should know.

A giant muscle-bound creature with stitches and graying skin is storming towards Martin, roaring this a mouth that hangs down like his jaw is slack.

From the second story balcony, an animalistic growl threatens Aoi as a giant wolfen creature perches on the railing and prepares to pounce.

Martin sniffs the air. He doesn't smell anything from this guy. Any of these guys. He can smell the buttery popcorn, old gum, the cheese from the nacho dispenser, people. Sweat. Tears. Fear. But nothing from these things.

Martin isn't what anyone would term a tactical genius. He looks at the roaring creature and responds very, very simple. He roars back and then takes a swipe at it.

The stitched monster stops his rampage and stares at Martin, tilting his head like a dog after hearing a high pitched noise. He stops his own roaring and looks confused and a little frightened, taking a step back before Martin attacks.

Smack! Martin lands a big, meaty mitt on the confused Frankenstein monster, though he fails to drive it back.

The wolfman looks more wolf than man, with a long muzzle, torn clothing, covered in dark brown fur. His hands are giant paws with opposable thumbs. As he balances on the rail, he bunches his body up and launches himself at Aoi, his arms spread up and his slavering jaws open.

The wolfman latches onto Aoi, his claws hooking onto her armor as he wraps his arms around her. The wolfman starts to squeezes Aoi into a bearhug, jaws snapping at her.

Aoi is glad her armor is naturally blue. If it was a paint job she's have to repaint it. She's also glad she made her armor as tough as she did. It's holding off the wolfman's jaws. Just.

Aoi berates herself, "Idiot! Public building. Fire codes. Of course the walls are going to be resistant to energy effects." she says to herself. Lifting off the ground and diverting power to her exoskeleton muscles she chuckles a little. She had intended to do this. Now she has a wolfman to help cushion the impact when she flies at the wall to break it down. "Hunter! We keep meeting in the most interesting of circumstances." she says on recognising Hunter in the group, "Get them clear." she tells him as she slams into the wall and then reverses course to interpose herself between the teens and the zombies.

Aoi flies into, and through the wall, opening up a escape route for the teens. Then she reverses her flight and returns to interpose herself between the teens and the zombies. "I'm no expert," she calls out, "but the monsters might be transformed kids. Let's not go breaking any of them if we can avoid it, okay."

Yameen enters the lobby and evaluates the situation. The two large individuals are matched, and the powered armor becomes a personal projectile to drive the lycanthrope into the wall. This leaves the movie-goers and their surrounding ...undead? She prioritizes the last group and moves quickly towards.

The wolfman snarls and shakes his head as bits of pulverized concrete rain from his fur. He's still got his paws dug into Aoi's armor. The cement wall now has a large hole in it, leading to the alleyway next to the theater. The kids are still shocked but are getting ready to move through the hole. Hunter holds his breath as Aoi calls him out. Ann smirks. "Hunter, being helpful? As if!" She grunts as she thrusts her sign into the jaw of a zombie and starts backing up to cover the other kid's escape.

Stitches cowers and covers his head as Martin roars at him and smacks him. He hesistates before swinging a backhand at Martin. "Luh-eaaveee-uh." he groans.

Martin gets hit by the stitch covered monster and goes flying, bounding across the ground as he goes before slamming into a wall.

The kids finally manage to scramble through the werewolf sized hole. Ann and Hunter stay to guard their retreat and are the last ones to scoot through.

The zombies groan and mill about. They all try to shuffle after the meaty, brainy the teenagers and walk around Aoi. One tries to futility bite Aoi as it draws near.

Aoi turns a little and offers a wolfman to a snambling zombie bite but the hapless creature can't even get it's teeth into the leathery hide of the wolfie.

Martin bounces back to his feet with a snarl. "Can't be kids," he growls in a voice that sounds a bit like a talking rockslide. "Got no scent". He charges back at the stitch covered monster an attempts to slam into him full force.

"Wuuhaaooowwww!" The bloated stitch monster bellows as he gets smashed back through the doors he came in through. Martin and the monster go tumbling down the aisle and land near the front row of the screen.

Yameen's primary concern are the formerly trapped teens. The voiced concern that the undead-resembling creatures could be transmogrified patrons is a possibility, but can be resolved afterwards. She closes upon the midst of the shamblers and brings a foot up to strike at the bridge of one's nose while knuckles target the same area on another. Her goal is to impair rather than destroy.

There's a horror moving still going on in the background, casting some light on the theater. The stitch golem groans. The stitching along his right shoulder are coming undone and his arm is starting to peel away from his body. The theater's empty, except for one kid who's sleeping near the back row with a bag of popcorn next to him.

Yameen need not inflict permanent damage to aid the movie-goers' egress. The three shambling creature in reach are struck by knuckle and heel between the eyes. This forces eyes to clench and water, limiting their vision.

The wolfman snaps at her ineffectually and squeezes her tightly, trying to wrench her about.

Aoi simply ignores the slavering wolfman clinging to her for the moment, Heading back out through the hole she switches from strength argumentative to neutrino pulse beam and sprays a burst of energy pulses at the zombies.

Pale luminious blue beams dart through the air at the zombies outside in the alley from Aoi's outstretched hand. Four find there marks and four zombies drop as if hit by poleaxes.

The stitched up horror struggles to stand up after falling besides Martin. He raise a huge, club-like fist and tries to smash Martin's head. "Uuurraaaah!" he exerts.

Martin bounces back to his feet once more, reaching out to grab the Frankenstitch monster so he can throw him at the movie screen.

The stitch golem hollars with vocal chords approximating speech, without the mental capacity of language, as he gets grabbed by Martin. "Awwoooo??" He gets hefted off his feet by the beast boy and sent smashing through the movie screen and flattens against the wall. The meaty hulk slides down to the ground with a grunt. The movie keeps playing with a man-sized tear in the screen.

Yameen now witnesses only a single possibly threat to the children who recently exited. She returns through the impromptu doorway to face that threat. Once more, she aims for disability rather than direct violence. Whether living nor truly undead, it is still humanoid. Limbs skill function in the same manner, mechanically. Thus, she targets the nearest arm, stepping as she grabs for it. Her movement follows through as she rotates the forearm to lock the elbow, and then applies her momentum and weight to leverage against the joint in a fashion it cannot bend.

Even zombies require elbows. When it cannot bend, it is twisted to the limit of tendon and ligament. After which, the body must twist to follow. This forces the creature to the ground, while also causing enough pain from the hyper-extension as well as shock from pinched nerves and blood vessels. The creature does not appear willing to stand afterwards.

The wolfman can't taste or feel any tasty meat on Aoi. But there's fresh meat nearby, whimpering and running away. And rotten meat. And strong meat. Fresh young meat wins. The werewolf releases Aoi and drops to all fours, running forward and leaping towards the group of kids with his maw open wide.

Yameen's focus was always the innocents. The other metahumns could survive on their own for a time, at the least. When the beast leaps for the children, she leaps to intercept. The youth possess but one opportunity to grow, learn, and live. She has already had many such chances. This could make her sacrifice less selfless, in retrospect. However, as the beast's jaws clamp down upon her to rend flesh and spatter blood... it still hurts like hell.

Aoi is relieved that Yameen got in the way of the wolfman before he could bite one of the teens but her shoulders slump as she realises it's all her fault. She brought the wolfman out into the alley where the teens were. She's going to hang up the suit and give up on being a hero after this. She just isn't, clearly, cut out for it.

Being in the theater, Martin has no idea what is going on outside and so continues to press the attack on Stitch. He had hoped that throwing to monster into the screen would bring about some sort of magical resolution to the fight but that clearly isn't the case so he simply charges once more into the downed creature, hitting him with close to four hundred pounds of animal savagery.

"Wooarrrgghhh!!" The stitch beast gets slammed into the concrete wall behind the screen again. Anyone nearby can feel the shaking from the impact. "Wuh...ohhhh....." he groans, his stitches frayed in places as he collapses, unconscious.

The lobby zombie starts to shamble out into the alleyway and makes an awful gurgling sound that is -like- breathing. It moves towards Aoi and Yameen. Aoi, being the closer of the two, gets ineffectually swiped at.

With his opponent down Martin gives another one of those ear shattering roars, this time bellowing out in triumph. He moves back up the aisle to the sleeping boy, grabbing him up in order to evacuate him from the building.

Ann, for all her courage, finally screams as Yameen takes the bite meant for her and sees the spray of blood.

"A-Ann, get back! We...we can't help her!" Hunter cries out, conflicted as he tries to put an arm around her and pull her back from the werewolf and the bleeding woman who saved his friend.

The sleeping boy jumps up with a start, flailing about and knocking over his drink and popcorn. "Wha! I'm awake, I'm a....where is everyone? Is the movie over..." he starts coming to his senses and suddenly notices the very real monster that's grabbing him.

Outside, the werewolf sinks its teeth deep into the flesh where Yameen's neck meets her shoulder, almost managing to get them into her throat, which would've resulted in a quicker end.

There's a shattering, triumphant roar that rattles the front windows of the movie theater and the glass candy displays. And then suddenly, the zombie bodies and the werewolf suddenly vanish as if they were never there. Yameen could've sworn she felt a very real weight and bite, and is still bleeding, but the monster bearing down on her is gone. Inside, the stitched up monstrosity also disappears.

All around him, Martin can hear Stitches again. "Wuaaarrgghhh!" But this time it's from the surround sound in the theater. On the screen of the movie still playing is the very monster he was fighting.

Martin grabs hold of the boy who probably isn't a whole lot younger than he is if he's here himself. He hoists him up and heads for the lobby since he's not aware that all the other monsters are gone yet.

Aoi catches her balance and goes over to Yameen. But she is no medic. She hasn't got a clue what to do. As usual it seems to her. "I'm sorry." she says helplessly. Then she flying away, ashamed at her ineptitude and despondent.

Hunter pants as he bars Ann from harm, staring in shock as the monsters disappear. Ann runs off with the other kids a few paces back, running into another boy's arms. Hunter reaches his hand towards Yameen nervously. "Oh god, you're bleeding a lot...are you...?" He doesn't know what to do. He looks up as Aoi shoots away. "Aoi, wait!" he tries to wave her down for help.

The brown haired kid that Martin grabs looks like a freshman at best. He grabs at Martin's meaty hands and squirms. "H-hey!"

Aoi flies at just below supersonic flight speed to the hospital to tell them of the incident and request medical aid is sent. It's a reminder once again that she never managed to make a radio work inside her suit. The material of the armor blocking radio transmissions. Then she returns to her home and dismissing the battlesuit, flops down onto her bed in despair.

"Not safe," Martin says in his gravely voice as he hauls the kid out into the lobby where he looks around and realizes that the other monsters have disappeared as well.

Once the sharp teeth and large claws vanish, and the other threats gone, Yameen can now turn attention to other matters. Such as retaining her blood supply. Ironically, her medical training is also minimal. She simply places her opposing hand on her ruined shoulder and presses hard. Speech is difficult, though she does state in gurgled, hoarse syllables, "Will live."

Hunter is familiar with killing, not saving. But he knows enough to tell when someone's potentially dying, and that pressure is all he can really do for her. He steps forward nervously. "Yeah. Yeah, you will," he tries to encourage her and make her think positively. He reaches out a hesitant hand to offer to help apply pressure.

With all the monsters gone and no one looking to be in mortal danger Martin lets go of the kid and decides to beat a hasty retreat. Yameen is suffering from a large animal bite, so Martin can only guess who they are going to blame that on. Never mind the fact that he actually did knock the doors to the theater off their hinges, tear a monster sized hole in their screen, and inflict significant damage to the back wall.

The boy lands on his feet with a stumble, then runs off to look for his friends. What a weird night! And crazy dreams. Sirens are starting to sound the approach.

The woman Martin saved from the stampede steps out of the crowd as he starts to leave and waves. "Hey, uh. Thank you. For helping me earlier. I'm sorry I freaked out."

Yameen shakes her head, which is painful if her expression is any indication. She then slowly lifts the arm on the damaged side upwards and holds out her hand. The gesture suggests she desires assistance upward rather than downward.

Hunter thinks. o O (I totally need a free hand to text Yushio and call the paramedics AND stop the bleeding. Come on, radioactive spider bite! I'm waiting!)

Hunter blinks and takes her hand, helping Yameen gently to her feet. "I don't know that you should be moving too much..."

Martin just blinks at the woman for a moment, not really use to people saying thanks. "Sure," he says, "no problem." Then he jumps nearly half way up the side of the building, claws scrabbling as he finds hand holds and toe holds in the brickwork, and scrambles up and out of sight.

Yameen looks to Hunter pointedly. One eye, which is nearly half of her visible face, winks. She then gives his aiding hand a weak squeeze and a light shake before releasing it. Still applying pressure, she walks stiffly for the exit. Hospitals ask too many questions. Blood would hand them DNA, and there is already far too much at the scene.

Hunter blinks and rubs the back of his head curiously as Yameen just...walks off like it's nothing. That's some serious respect. He fishes his phone out of his pocket and texts Aoi to check if she's okay, turning and heading back out to the crowd. <>