by Chewy Walrus, Grimm and Captain Sammitch
Kristofer Schanz, also known as Chance, rubbed the stain that had formed on his shirt. Luckily, it wasn't anything that could stain too badly, and the stain itself came right off with just a little bit of water. Chance smiled as he pulled his shirt back over his head and shook the rainwater out of his hair. Looking off to the horizon, he noted the other side of the eye rapidly approaching. They were halfway through, but they weren't out of the woods yet.
Pulling his satchel over his shoulder, Chance heard the cell he'd borrowed from Mick Harrison (or M'xy, since the imp really didn't need to use a phone to communicate) going off in his pocket.
Who the hell? he wondered, pulling out the phone. His brow furrowed as he read his own name and cell number on the display screen.
"Chance," he said answering the phone, preparing for the worst.
"Chance? Thank the Creator!" came the weary voice from Tayden on the other line. "Phil and Priest need you over here ASAP!"
"Where's here exactly, Tayden?" the man asked, running his fingers though his blonde hair. "Back at Otto's?"
"Yeah..." came Tayden's reply. "We've got something here that might require your special... talents."
"All right," Chance answered, already thinking about what could be going on that required his attention. "I'm about ten minutes away by foot. If I can come across an abandoned car, I'll be there in less."
"God bless you, Chance," Tayden said, cutting off the call.
"Indeed," the man said, lowering the phone, and as he did, it rang once more. Rolling his eyes and wondering why he'd ever wanted to be this accessible, Chance checked the screen to read Danny Hearn's name and number.
"Chance," he answered again, starting to make his way toward Otto's cave.
"Chance, this is Danny. We've got a situation here."
"Is it urgent?" the scientist asked, climbing over a small hill to find an abandoned motorbike -- a bit banged up, but still in working order. Lucky, he thought to himself, moving to better examine his find.
"To some extent," came Danny's reply. "We've got Grimm, Grissom, M'xy, and now Ameristar currently buried in the basement of what was once Royal Crown Tower. We have reason to believe that there may be pales down there, too."
"Permission to make a command decision, Danny?" Chance said, pulling up the motorbike and mounting it.
"I try not to stand on ceremony, Chance," Danny responded. "If you have a suggestion, then by all means, make it..."
"I need to be off to help Tayden, Phil, and Priest out by the caves. Apparently, there's a situation out there that I need to check out. In the meantime, start clearing off as much of the rubble as you can. It seems logical that M'xy and Ameristar are incapacitated; however, I trust Grimm and Montag will be able to hold their own down there with those pales. Much as I don't necessarily trust him, Grimm seems like a good fighter, and while Grissom just rubs me the wrong way, he seems to have been around the battle scene for a while. Use their gifts and trust their strengths until you guys can find a way in somehow."
There was a pause on the other line. Then, Danny came back on, saying, "I like it. Thanks, Chance. Keep us posted on what's going on over by the caves."
"Can do," Chance said, revving the engine to the bike. "Chance out."
Shoving the phone into his pocket and tightening his satchel bag, the Swedish scientist rode off in the direction of the caves, praying he would not be too late.
Master Stein leaned back in his chair and frowned. The screams of his former lieutenant had died away, and the pale overlord was now beginning to turn his mind to more important matters. The storm was continuing to move forward over the island. The back end of the storm would hit soon, and they had as yet failed in their objectives.
Things had turned into a mess. This would be the last time Stein let a youngster handle matters best left to old minds and old ways. The Horror Bringer and his metahuman allies had made his troops, and by extension Stein himself, look like fools. It was time to step back, remove what evidence of their existence they could, and hide to plan for another day.
Stein pressed a button on the small box next to his chair. "Bring me Redrum. It is time to move."
Blackwulf continued to dig away at chunks of the building, sending dirt and debris flying over Dirk Bell and Danny. "You sure this was such a good idea?" Danny said, covering his eyes and pulling his shirt up over his mouth.
"You got a better one?" the gunslinger responded, thinking, How many fucking questions can one person ask in a day?
Grissom Montag stood over the fallen bodies of his partners, ready to defend them if Grimm should fall. He wasn't sure what exactly he could do if the undead biker DID fall, but his wits had rarely failed him in the past. His mind turned back toward something Grimm had said back at the apartment complex, something about someone named Turkish Stringfellow and something he had apparently said to Grimm about agents of chaos attacking the island. Montag wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but he was liking the sound of it less and less.
Grimm, for his part, was battling steadily against the parasitic horde that had come upon him and his friends after the collapse of the building. He didn't know how they had come to find them, and he didn't have time to wonder. It was time to fight. Once, he would have said, "Fight or die," but he had already done the latter once, and didn't plan on doing it again for quite some time.
The large metal doors at the end of the hallway slid open, and a short, fat, bald pale walked into the room. He was smiling and nodded his head back and forth.
Stein looked on approvingly. "Ah, Redrum. Are you ready for your task?"
Redrum nodded quickly. "Redrum! Redrum!" was all that came out of his mouth.
"Then, go. Do not fail me, Redrum. You know the penalties for failure." Stein motioned with his fingers toward the door that Wes had been taken into earlier.
Redrum stopped and looked warily at the door, before turning eyes upon his master. "R-Redrum...?" he creaked out.
Stein's face remained impassive.
Grimm continued to battle against the supervamps in the underground basement. Montag was certain that the battle would knock the rest of the building down on them if it wasn't finished soon. In fact, he thought he heard a shifting sound off to the right. He continued to glance between the shifting, almost scratching sound and the battle.
The pale who had lost a leg to Grimm earlier had now completely regenerated and jumped upon Grimm's back, attempting to keep the undead biker from decapitating another of the vamps. Meanwhile, the remaining vamps jumped upon Grimm and forced him onto the ground, holding him there.
Grimm punched the vamp on his left right in the jaw, breaking the bones and pushing the lower half of his face almost completely off. The pale staggered back and attempted to regroup himself.
Montag noticed the scratching growing louder, and in fact, large cracks had begun to appear in the wall. Montag cocked his gun with one hand and readied his knife with the other. He was prepared for whatever was come through the wall. Well, almost whatever.
Blackwulf the Everchanging came crashing through the wall with a loud, "AAIIEEGHHH!" quickly followed by Dirk and Danny.
Dirk landed on his feet and drew his weapons, quickly firing at the injured vamp, attempting to take its head off. Danny made his way toward Montag and their injured friends to evacuate them. Wulf quickly jumped upon the vamp on top of Grimm and ripped it off, throwing it casually into the far wall. It slammed into the wall with a loud THUD and slid slowly down to the floor, stunned, leaving a large vamp-shaped hole behind it.
The beach was starting to resemble the surface of some alien planet, pockmarked with craters left not by a bombardment from the void but by the mad rampage of the now very confused -- and enraged -- Beast that had emerged from the depths of the earth for no apparent reason other than to establish that yes, he was a bad ass. Phil Smith's telepathic trickery was holding off the Beast for the moment, but Priest wasn't sure how much longer that would last. Phil's entire body was twitching, and a small trickle of blood ran from his nose and one ear.
The Beast was now trying to crush five different images of Priest that were running around in small circles. It clambered up a rocky outcropping and launched itself into the air, only to come crashing to earth on top of... nothing. Well, nothing except for a thin layer of sand over some very unforgiving rocks.
The Beast was motionless.
Phil exhaled deeply and toppled to the ground. Priest ran over to assess the situation. Phil was still breathing, but his face was drained of color, his breathing was ragged, and he wasn't responding to anything Priest did. This was bad.
Priest heard a familiar growl and turned to see the Beast coming to its feet, bigger, stronger, hungrier. I definitely sense a pattern forming here, he thought.
The Beast took a step toward Priest and the unconscious Phil. Priest was fresh out of ideas, and Phil sure wasn't offering much in the way of creative input. Priest heard something. Is that a motorcycle?
An old motorbike was flying up the beach, piloted by none other than Kristofer Schanz. He drove right between the Beast's legs, just missing being waylaid by the Beast's tail by a characteristic stroke of astronomically good luck. He skidded to a halt between the Beast and Priest and Phil, just in the nick of time.
"What's all this?" Chance asked Priest.
"An unfair fight," Priest answered. "Now that you're here, anyway."
Chance's eyes widened. He got off the motorbike and walked it over to Priest, ignoring the Beast, which swung its tail toward Chance and was promptly knocked back about twenty feet. "What are you talking about?" the Swedish scientist asked.
Priest watched the Beast stagger to its feet and make its way toward Chance a second time. "You might have noticed that we're kind of out of options here," he said, gesturing in the direction of Phil's unconscious form. "I need you to take care of this thing."
Chance almost laughed. "Are you nuts? I can't do anything to that creature!" As if on cue, the Beast launched itself at Chance from behind and somehow missed both Chance and Priest completely, flying over both men's heads, skidding across the beach, and smashing into a cliff, and again going completely unnoticed by Chance.
Priest noticed that and raised an eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt that." He started to walk toward Phil.
"What do I do, then?" Chance asked.
Priest walked back to him. "First," he said, putting a hand on the motorbike's handlebars, "you give me this."
Chance's jaw dropped. "Where are you going?"
Priest scooped Phil up and started toward the cave entrance. "I'm making a deposit. Then I'm making a withdrawal -- of Mr. Blackwulf. Maybe he can help us."
Chance watched him go. "So... I'll just stay here then."
The Beast leaped at him and missed, burying itself in the sand behind the Swede, who finally saw a pattern happening. "Right..."