Othergrounds: The IC Edition (Act 8: The Strangest Days have gone By)

"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity, Dragonfly?"

Dragonfly opened one of his eyes to see Henry crouched down next to him, his posture bent forward so his arms were resting on his knees. "You know what, scratch that question. You should know it very well." the man smirked, his head following the lizard as he got back up. Dragonfly hissed. He no longer felt the need to speak to this person, who seemed unable to be attacked. Dragonfly turned on his heel and ran down the sewers, trying to escape this person. As he ran, he looked back over his shoulder to see if the person was following him.

There was nothing.

He turned back around just in time to skid to a halt as the man was now in front of him. "Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, expecting different results." Henry said, sighing, and staring into the yellow eyes of the lizard. Dragonfly's face contorted in frustration and he bound up the walls and attempted to crawl away on the ceiling. But now, this... demon was standing on the ceiling, facing him. "Have you thought any about the answer to my question yet? Or do you not lucid dream like that? My dad once told me that he thought all dreams are conscious and that you have control over them. I know we are dreamers."

Henry was right. He had dreamt.

He dreamt of his life before he had come to the school. He dreamt of two brothers, a loving mother, and a very respectable father. He dreamt of catching lizards in the back yard and playing tag at a normal school. He dreamt of his mother's cooking, and his dad's stern but kind voice when he separated a fight.

But he couldn't remember everything, or who he used to be. Everyone's faces were blurred. His dad's voice was muffled. His mother's food's smell was muddled. Everything seemed to be sub par. But the one things he could remember clearly were the lizards. "So, do you have an answer?" Henry asked, staring hard at Dragonfly. Dragonfly didn't remember exactly when he came to the school. But he did know his transformation to what he was now had been excruciatingly gradual. Taking years before coming to a halt. He began showing signs at a young age. THis man before him was eighteen or so. If they were both the same person, was this what he could've been?

"You find an alternative?"

Henry was silent for a moment, contemplating his answer. "A good response." He finally said after a few seconds. This caused Dragonfly to relax slightly as he believed this confirmed his answer was correct. "But not the right one." Henry gave Dragonfly a toothy grin before looking at his bare wrist. "Oh! Look at the time! Drake, Toby, Sandy, Nicole, Leafnoes, and Bones are probably wondering where you are. Oh, you haven't met Bones yet, have you?"

Dragonfly's expression was that of confusion. Who were those people? He didn't remember any by those names. Henry, who was either oblivious or didn't care about Dragonfly's train of thought (Probably the latter considering how well he somehow knew him), proceeded to walk back down to the ground from the ceiling. Dragonfly, twisting his head to follow the man as he walked. When he noticed Dragonfly wasn't following, he stopped, and turned his head back over his shoulder to look to the lizardman. "Well c'mon, you have a party to get to." he said, before walking off once again and out of Dragonfly's sight as he went deeper into the sewers.

Dragonfly followed, noticing man was now gone.

He dropped down to the ground as he left the sewers, coming out from one of the entree points he had created in the past. His vision flooded white as the light flooded his pupils faster than his iris' could contract. He rubbed his eyes for a moment, trying to help them return to normal.

And he emerged from the sewers a different lizard than he when he was in them. As if one light switch had been turned off, and another on.

He wondered where his friends were. He would have to find them.

Taylor

Taylor was back on her feet once more, walking around the halls of the frist floor rather aimlessly. She had no real purpose here, so she decided to search for her own sister amongst the examination rooms. She darted from door to door, looking in and jumping out when she saw that the person in the room was stark naked and not her sister. Taylor circled the whole floor, and stopped abruptly when she heard a very loud buzzing sound, accompanied by a rumbling stomp. Her face drained of all color, and she began to run down the hallways looking for Sylvia. She darted in as the robot began to treat the wound.

"Um, Sylvia, do you hear that?" she said nervously "Something really big is coming this way. I might need your help to keep the exit shut since Carole was too busy being une chienne to put the panel back. Is he almost done?"

Claire, TJ, and Carole

TJ rolled his eyes, and put his head in his hands, wiping the sweat off his brow as he did so.

"I hope it's a really strong leash." he mused. Carole was staring blankly at the ceiling, absolutely bored.

"As soon as we find where they keep the cell phones I'm getting mine back!" she mumbled childishly "I can't live like this!" TJ made a rather unpleasant face, but stopped himself from insulting Carole, instead leaning his head back agains the wall. What was he going to do with Claire? All she ever did was fight, bitch, and complain about everything, and it grated on his last nerve. Yet, he felt a sense of brotherhood with Claire. He loved her as if she were his sister, and hadn't the nerve to just let her fall. But he was slowly starting to see that maybe it was time to let her mess up once or twice to see what it was like.

Speak of the devil, Claire awoke on a cold metal table to find herself, for the second time that day, naked surrounded by perverted robots that were scanning her body. She was utterly bored, and felt as if she had just run a marathon and then got hit by a double-decker bus full of cinderblocks. She looked over at one of the robots, which was attaching her IV, and giggled, her brain still numb from the anesthesia. She began to giggle and pose for the robots.

"You know you want somma this!" she laughed.

"Ma'am, that will not be necessary. Please refrain from that sort of activity." Claire didn't listen, however, and the robot soon began to ignore her. She suddenly grew angry, and hit one of the eyes with a lightning blast, causing its screen to shatter and it's smoking corpse to fall to the floor. The second eye in the room got the picture, and left the room to herself. She laid there on the bed, half-conscious, half alseep, drugged and useless and naked, and suddenly, everything that happened began to get to her. She tried to keep herself from breaking down, but was having trouble. Only a tear or two escaped, along with some quiet moaning sounds, but inside she was hysterical.

Sylvia

Sylvia gasped when Taylor spontaneously busted in the room. At this point the Eye had just about finished up wrapping her burns after disinfecting it. She was still rather embarrassed since she still was just wearing her bra. "What the living f*ck, Taylor!? You don't just barge into a room like a motherf*cker!" Sylvia had aggressively shouted at Taylor.

Maxx Toron wrote:: "Um, Sylvia, do you hear that?" she said nervously "Something really big is coming this way. I might need your help to keep the exit shut since Carole was too busy being une chienne to put the panel back. Is he almost done?"

"Wait, hold up..." Sylvia said as the room got quiet. She could barely hear the faint amount of buzzing at this distance--- But, she can easily hear the footsteps getting closer. The Eye had just finished wrapping up her wounds. This requires immediate investigation seeing that they're supposed to be guarding the doors. Sylvia immediately grabbed her black T-shirt and hoodie and put them on in order. Before putting her sunglasses back on and floated out the room with speed. "C'mon, Frenchie, let's check it out." As she flew off at extremely high speeds, with Taylor right behind her. Her objective was the main lobby, since that was the only way (so far) to get into the school. The buzzing... it got louder and louder as she got closer to the lobby. At one point it sounded like a trillion bees were all pissed off at once. The stomping fortunately stopped. The time she's arrived in the lobby, something was much different about the room. There were several flies in the room, some flying around, others were resting. The question being where these flies even came from. The second she reached the lobby, she stopped flying and walked inside cautiously, trying to look at everything in here that was out of the ordinary. During her inspection a fly landed on her forehead, shortly followed by an sting as the fly bit off a bit of flesh from her forehead. Sylvia said, "Ouch" Lightly before smacking the fly on her forehead. She wiped the remains off her forehead and brushed it on her shirt. It can be cleaned. Where the f*ck are all these flies coming from...? She thought to herself.

Sylvia shortly got the answer to her question. An incredibly large, green, rotted foot stepped through Jake's illusion. Before the rest of it's body followed.

Spoiler:

The buzzing intensified as the warped human being stepped through the illusion. It was nine feet tall exactly and had an incredibly wide build. It had horrible deformities and growths all over it's body. With many large gashes into it's deformed flesh, each full of maggots that rapidly aged to adulthood and leaked a yellow chemical of sorts everywhere it stepped. It's body was covered and filled with millions, upon millions of flies. Most were of regular size... Others were the size of large breed dogs. It's face was the only thing that appeared to be mutated the least, there was not a simple lump or deformity on it's head. It's eyes were golden colored, and it had a constant face of fear and despair. It's limbs were abnormally long and it's very arms could touch the floor. These arms were extremely muscular and could easily crush a man's skull. Unfortunately, this isn't the biggest threat it posed. It had trillions of mutated flies under it's command, they were nesting inside of him as well as defending him. These flies had the taste of flesh, and would operate like Piranhas, devouring it's prey until bones remained. Some of these flies had grown far beyond it's natural parameters. This man was no longer among humans. As it blurred the line between man and beast, it went on a rampage and killed several students until the staff and valiant students worked together to take it down and place it in Stasis. This... Beast... no longer required to be called by it's original name. Now it's name is The Beast of Pestilence; Lord of the Flies. It had one thing in mind, feeding it's hive with everything it came across--- Nothing is safe. Only the strong will over come this challenge. It stood there, staring directly at Sylvia while slowly raising it's hand towards her.

Sylvia grasped her mouth to try to contain the scream, and dropped on her bottom with a loud thump, causing her sunglasses to fall off. At the moment she couldn't give a rat's ass about people seeing her weird eyes. "Oh.. m-m-my..." She muttered to herself in fear.

Taylor

"Ce que ce putain de diable est cette merde?" Taylor screamed as the massive rotted monster appeared from out of the illusion. She squealed like a little girl, and instantly became nauseous when she saw the demon's rotted flesh, dripping with puss. She fell backwards and landed on her butt and her fight or flight responses triggered, causing her to jump up and quickly land back on her feet. The ball of water surrounding her suddenly expanded into a thin shield of running water that surrounded both herself and Sylvia. This would keep the smaller flies away, though more would be needed to keep the bigger ones away. On instinct (as her mind was still in shock) Taylor grabbed a water bottle that was sitting in a mesh holder on the left side of her backpack and unscrewed the cap. The water came gushing out and thickened the vortex around the two girls.

"Run," she said "We have to run!" She grabbed Sylvia by the wrist and ran away from the monster as fast as she could, the water beating off the flies. She let out a horror-movie style scream as she rounded the corner, the vortex still providing them with limited protection.

Carole and TJ

TJ's ears perked up when the screams echoed through the elevator's air vent. he shuddered, and a single, solitary fly flew out of the vent and landed on his shirt. Carole began to look around as if she had just seen a ghost and stumbled back.

"Was that Taylor?" Carole said, looking over at Jake with a worried expression on her face. TJ winced as the single fly bit him on the cheek. He swatted it away, and studied the bite for a moment with his fingers.

"We need to go get Johnny," he said "Now!"

Sylvia

The shock had started to wear off as Taylor "dragged" Sylvia along (it was instinct alone that made her legs move). In a few seconds her legs stopped moving and she started floating upwards towards the ceiling. Taylor had to let go. In a moment as she started to take in the situation she realized that this was no joke. That was a monster, and monsters kill people. She could see it in it's deformed eyes. There was no time to be sympathizing with the abomination. Fight or flight. Sylvia choose flight. Literally. She picked up speed and immediately left Taylor behind. It's better that one of them gets away than both of them dying. Unfortunately, Sylvia's mind was racing so she wasn't thinking about where to go, only that she wanted to go. The elevator was out of the question, there had to be stairs somewhere. After she finds Johnny he'll think of something.

The Beast of Pestilence

Pestilence stood like a statue with it's arm out even when Taylor and Sylvia had made their escapes. It stared at the water vortex. Before it started it's march towards them, stumbling like a zombie. Making loud thumps with every single step. Every last active fly in it's body started taking flight and in less than a second they filled the room. The buzzing was unbearably loud and could be heard throughout the hospital. The flies stayed present in the room (aside from a few that went astray). Then each and every one of them started flying down every hallway like a cloud of insects. Devouring everything in it's path. Going far ahead of it's living, breathing hive. The flies had ignored the Eyes that were in the hospital as they weren't living, and it would take a thousand of them to take down one.

Johnny, Jake and Lemontea

"Something's horribly wrong." Johnny muttered to Lemontea. He had been focusing to detect the emotional presences on this floor, and had detected at least a trillion smaller presences on the first floor. That was odd seeing that there'd be no reason for that many to be there. Unless a Meta-human had decided to summon them here. Which mean't that there's something worth investigating right now. Especially since he gave Sylvia the explicit instruction of using her dubstep bomb as an alarm the second things go wrong.

"What?" Lemontea asked.

"There's a horde down there..." Johnny looked back, "We're going back. Right now." Johnny had started running towards the elevator fast, with Lemontea in tow. After he got there he started mashing the down button until the elevator door opened. To reveal Jake, Carole and TJ. He wasn't even going to ask why TJ was here in the first place, "What's going on."

Jake had slide his hands into his pockets and was relieved to find that they already had found Johnny and Lemontea, he answered Johnny's question, "Something's wrong--- We someone screaming... I don't know if it's Sylvia, Taylor or anyone else."

"No, this isn't good..." Johnny started stroking his chin and immediately started looking worried, "There's a f*cking loud of them down there."

"Of what?!" Jake immediately stepped out of the elevator.

"Emotional presences... They're really small, so they must be something like insects." Johnny states, "Have any of you noticed anything weird down there? Like, is there anymore bugs than there should be?" Jake immediately shrugged

Lemontea thought about what's going on and inserts, "I don't know what the hell is even going on, but I think heading straight down there in the elevator would be a good way to get killed." She turned her head and shrugged, "Open the door and get eaten by bugs."

Drake's Group

Drake clapped at Nicole's bird show and shouted, "Niiiice!" To give his moral support, "... You're doing gr---" He was cut off by an incredibly loud scream coming from the opposite end of the lake. In that moment the party just went quiet. Everyone stopped talking as Lily almost immediately turned off the music. Drake knew something was up, and that the screamer had a voice similar to Jia-li. The last thing that he remembered was her swimming in the lake. He did look rather tense. Like he was immediately ready for a fight. "What the hell was that...?" He asked. He started walking over towards the screaming. Followed by Lily who felt like she should attend since she assigned herself as the team leader. True leaders should be where the action is, so that they can lead properly. As Drake got closer he shouted, "Jia-li!? Are you okay?!"

Nicole immediately stopped performing her air show when someone screamed. It was a bloodcurdling sound, and immediately she reacted as though she were in a threatening situation. She flew higher up into the air, and went in the direction of the sound. She wanted to investigate, but if the threat was on the ground, she wasn't going to risk immediate injury. The others also followed cautiously behind, and Nicole could see everything from where she was in the sky. Nervous, her wings quivered ever so slightly in flight, and there was a creeping bit of nausea as well. People didn't just scream at anything random. If whoever it was had been so terrified, then something very bad was happening.

Taylor

Now Taylor was alone. Sylvia abandoned her, and an impending fly apocalypse was now buzzing its way down the hall. The buzzing roar was nearly deafening, yet Taylor stopped moving. her back to the wall, all alone, she turned to face the army of flies. She was shaking with fear, but there was no other option. It was either fight or die, and if the latter came, then she'd die with honor, fighting to save her friend's life. She dropped the black backpack that she wore on the ground, and used ther powers to open their caps. About a gallon of water came flooding out of the backpack, and formed a nice little ball in front of her. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. The water shield thickened slightly, and the water ball exited the vortex. It floated about a quarter of the way down the hall, and the water began to ripple as drops of 150 degree water went flying at the swarm at bullet speec. The ball began to steam slightly, and soon the ceiling was covered in condensation. If she didn't get some help soon, Taylor would run out of water and be fly chow. But that was all that worked. Flies could be easily burned, and the water would drown them.

"Venir me chercher salope!!" she yelled out in French as she let lose with the scalding water.

Claire

Claire awoken from her stupor screaming, the terrible sound of buzzing filling her sensitive ears. She looked around, half expecting to see a fly-bitten carcass on the floor, and figured that she'd better go figure out what the Hell was going on. She rooted through a closet in the examination room until she found her clothes. Obviously, the anesthesia had worn off, and Claire's ears were now in extreme pain. Her face was almost permanently frozen in a wince as she put on her clothes, and she rose to leave the room when she saw a miracle; headphones. She grabbed the headphones from where they were laying on an abandoned chair in the room, and put them on. They were a pair of leather and gold Skullcandy Aviators that someone had left in a hurry. The headphones more or less diminished the sound of the buzzing. She plugged them into her iPhone, and began to play The Final Countdown by Europe on the lowest octave possible. Even this sounded freakishly loud, like she was in the front row of a Rick concert, but it was an improvement. She cautiously began to walk down the hospital stairs carefully, and opened the door to the first floor cautiously to see Taylor de'Leau, surrounded by a vortex of water.

"Brandy?" she said.

"Help!" Taylor yelled. Claire looked down the hall at the impending doom, and yelped "of f*ck!" She ran through the vortex, which extended to let her fit. Taylor looked over at Claire, who was staring at the flues half-amused.

"boyfriend problems?" Claire asked.

"Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me?" Taylor yelled.

"oh yeah, right! I've got an idea!" Claire loudly yelled. "put the vortex down!"

"Oh Hell no!" Taylor yelled, still firing the water bullets.

"Just trust me!" Taylor quivered, and lowered the shield. "Good, now when I say to, make a really big ball of water. Once this part is over out the shield back up". Taylor modded fearfully and Claire's eyes began to glow blue. The adrenaline rush had supercharged her electricity, and she was about to release a lot of it. Her fists crackled blue, and she cocked her right arm back to throw a lightning bolt. She sighed, and looked at Taylor.

"fire!" Taylor shot the water ball, and Claire hit it with lightning. A massive boom filled the hallway, causing Claire to wince, as the electricity superheated the water, causing it to cavitate. The end of the hall lit up like a firework show as the bubbles all cavitated. The compressed gasses caused the water to turn into a super-hot plasma for a fraction of a second, and an explosion took place as the air at the end of tbe hall became hotter than the surface of the sun, frying some of the flies.

"mantis shrimp baby!" Claire yelled out as Taylor raised her shield's again.

"Nice one!" Taylor cried out.

Last edited by New Supplice on Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:55 pm; edited 1 time in total

Drake D. Blackmore, Lily, and...

It took a few minutes for Drake's small investigation party to reach the other side of the lake, standing in the sandy beach. Once they were there they started looking around, Lily called out for Jia-li, "Jia, are you okay?! Where are you?!" While looking around. Where is she? She's not exactly the type of person that'd be easy to miss. Drake then thought about Nicole's great tracking ability. If someone was going to learn where Jia-li went it would be Nicole.

He turned towards her and shouted, "Hey, Nicole! Can you find Jia?"

Immediately after he spoke, a loud crackling filled the air around them. Causing Drake and Lily to tense up and look around for the source of the laughing. It sounded like it was coming from all around them. Then everything went dead silent, before the bushes started rustling and an incredibly tall and slender figure stepped out of the bushes. Holding Jia-li by her neck in his right hand as she tried squirming out of his tight grip. "Why thank ye' little birdie for screamin' fo' me... Got yer' little friends 'ere to come to me. Hahahahahah..." The man spoke in a thick southern accent as he got closer, his features were still ambiguous due to the darkness--- All that could be told about him was that he was insanely tall. He spoke to the group, "Ya'll don't move. I can snap 'er neck faster than ya'll can activate yer' little gifts." He ordered the group as he stepped into the light... Revealing his true shape.

He was an incredibly tall man that stood at least twelve feet, towering over the group like a giant. Most of his height was made up from his incredibly long legs. He looked like he was in his late twenties. The man had several avian-like features to his being. His upper body was incredibly muscular like a body-builder in his prime. Most of his upper body was covered in large, pink, Flamingo-like feathers. Barring his face and hands. The man's hands and feet were exactly like the talons of an Eagle, and had five long and wickedly curved talons for each of his hands and feet. These talons could easily slice through flesh. The man had short, blond hair, which made his feathers much more noticeable. The man was wearing nothing but large, baggy pants. The rest of his mutated body was up for show. "Now, I have a questin'..." The man spoke one more time.

Drake and Lily were terrified by the man. Until Drake's fear turned into anger and determination, "Put her the hell down you b*stard!" He shouted at him.

"Aw, aw, aw, nope. From what I can tell ye'... You ain't in the position of power. I am. Now, you and your little friends will be fine if you follow my instructions..." The man tightened his grip of Jia-li's neck slightly, making her cry out in pain, "Yer' little friend's life depends on it. Now, would ya' be polite enough to tell me ya' names...?"

Drake clenched his fists tightly and tilted his head downward in humiliation. The man is a complete psychopath, and Drake knew that he would kill Jia-li if they didn't play his game. He figured that he would kill her anyway, all he could think of was buying time until they could save her, "...Drake." He hesitantly spoke.

"Lily. C'mon, leave her alone. We didn't do anything to you." Lily inserts, immediately feeling that she was speaking in vain.

"Aw, aw, aw now. I think it'd be polite if I told ya' my name... They call me Zizz. We're going somewhere now: Where is the headmaster, James?" Zizz had started laughing loudly, "Tell me where he is and I'll leave ya' alone to have your little dances."

Drake clenches his fists again, "We don't know who the headmaster even is! We just got here.... No one else is even here!"

Zizz started laughing again, "Isn't that interesting. Guessin' I'll have to take my revenge out on ya' hides... Hmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm." Before he tossed Jia-li at Drake and Lily. Drake instinctively ducked under the attack, using the opportunity to transform into his lightning form. Jia-li unfortunately hit Lily and took both of them to the ground.

Drake stood straight up valiantly, ready for combat. He couldn't resist taunting his opponent, "Dumb ass, you could have killed her right there...." Taking note of throwing Jia-li.

"Hmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm... Ya' don't get it? I'm going to crush ya'... Bring ya' to ya'll knees and before I finish ya'... I'll kill everyone here before ya' eyes. Cuz, there's a great power in ya', killing ya' friends would be no fun when the big fish in front a me, all gussied up and ready for war."

Drake clenched his fists and charged square at Ziz

"Let's dance!" Ziz started taking short strides towards Drake, prancing like a flamingo.

Ziz Battle Song:

Johnny's Group

The buzzing was out of control now, Johnny lead his group (sans TJ and Carole) valiantly through the hallways of the third floor, eventually reaching the second floor. At this point Johnny had transformed into his emotional energy form. Once they were on the stairs of the first floor, they all stopped at the door. "Are we ready for this?" Johnny spoke as he peered through the window of the door. There was little flies in this area (as they were all converging on Taylor and Claire). Except for a small swarm of small ones and three flies the size of small dogs.

Lemontea clenched her crowbar tightly, "Ready as I'll ever be to fight mutant flies...." She inserts sarcastically.

"Yeah. I can give us an illusion as cover." Jake inserts, while his illusions are going to be near useless in terms of offensive ability, he can create barriers that'd keep them out.

"Alright let's move! Keep it moving, I want to go towards that loud crash!" Johnny shouts as he opens the door and immediately Jake snaps his fingers causing a near-invisible barrier to surround them. They all ran at top speed. As hard as the smaller flies tried they could never get in. The larger ones on the other hand, could. They pushed into his shield like it was plastic wrap, Jake responded by strengthening the illusion barrier, but one got in. They kept moving as it started to whirl inside of the bubble.

It went towards Johnny, and Lemontea responded by raising her crowbar in the air towards it. She brought in down with the force to penetrate skulls, and pierced clean through it's head. It was still alive, and Lemontea yanked the crowbar out of it's head and brought it down again, killing it. The group had to stop to allow her to finish it off. A rather awkward silence followed, until she shouted, "Let's go already!" Before they started running again. They had no idea where they were going. Only that they were praying to god that Taylor or Sylvia had survived.

At the end of the hall they noticed Taylor's liquid barrier, and (to Johnny's dismay) Claire. It wasn't important what was going on, just that they needed help. The larger flies apart of Pestilence's swarm were starting to pierce her barrier. Johnny picked up speed and ran outside of the protection of the barrier. The flies immediately started to swarm him. He pointed his hand at the largest flies and made a finger gun, then fired a Devil Kiss at the largest fly. He hit the fly's abdomen and the Kiss went through it's entire being to it's head. Killing it. Johnny ran over to the next fly and grabbed it by it's wings and roughly brought it to the ground. Before stomping his foot on it hard as he could and ripped it's wings off, killing it.

"Taylor, where's Sylvia!?" Johnny shouted. Not even giving a damn about them. Jake and Lemontea had caught up and Jake covered Johnny in his barrier.

Sylvia

Sylvia couldn't think anymore. All she did was act. As she flew through the halls of the hospital, an unstoppable wave of insects shortly followed after her. She quickly put her headphones over her ears and started playing her iPod with the first song that was available (Skrillex). She immediately re-projecting the sounds, causing a large sound explosion which rumbled the entire hospital and could be heard from even outside of the heavily defended hospital. All the flies were pushed back (and killed), and every window in the hallway exploded as the tiles of the hospital cracked. This gave her enough space to get away, unfortunately this attracted Pestilence to her.

Toby arrived behind Drake and bared his teeth, a deep rumble rising in his throat. When he talked, it wasn't as visible, but it was obvious now that he had three rows of very sharp teeth. His growl was less like a dog's, and more like a lion's, absolutely ferocious. He snorted, and continued to snarl as Zizz approached. He dug his nails into the ground and prepared to move at a moment's notice. If this stranger was wrong about anything, it was that he could kill Toby before he activated his powers. Nobody was faster than Toby, and nobody suspected that a big, wrinkly, chubby-looking dog-lion-manatee hybrid would move with such ease. Most people thought he was just slow, and that was always where they made their mistake.

Nicole's eyes narrowed at this stranger, who seemed to resemble an extremely muscular flamingo, save for the fact that he didn't have any wings, and his hands and feet were more like eagle talons. However, this was also an advantage to her, as she studied avian creatures quite often. "Drake! Look out! I don't know if you already knew this, but an eagle can snap your arm with its grip alone! Watch those talons!" Nicole then flew a bit higher up, and positioned herself so that she could enter a stoop dive and attack when the opportunity presented itself. She couldn't risk taking any injury, her bones weren't the strongest, and she needed all of them intact if she wanted to do anything. She couldn't believe this sort of thing was happening. Now she had someone with bird-like features, similar to her, but unfortunately that particular person wasn't friendly.

Sandy's eyes narrowed, and she moved a distance away from everyone else, as she began to produce different pheromones. She was a little bit behind Drake and Toby, but far enough so that they would not be affected. Now, if anyone got too close, their own biology would rebel against them. Whoever tried to approach Leafnose would immediately fall ill, with migraines and nausea. They would also have the overwhelming urge to fall asleep, although it was possible to fight and stay conscious. Regardless, they would be less alert. The issue was trying to keep away from friends during the fight. Sandy didn't want to affect them, only people who posed a threat.

Bones' face betrayed no emotion, and she stood furthest from the action. She put her hands in her hoodie pockets, and waited. Although she knew she should help these people, she was always reluctant to use her powers. They often hurt her more than they hurt her opponent. She wouldn't charge in blindly, for now, she would only use her powers when she herself was threatened. She grabbed something in her right pocket and pulled it out, revealing a brown and grey rock. Although ragged, it appeared to be clean of soil and dirt, as though it had been washed. Then, not caring if anyone saw, Bones placed the rock in her mouth and crunched down on it with her teeth, crushing it with surprising ease. She chewed up the stone, and then swallowed it, not even flinching at the earthy taste. There was no sense in hiding this aspect of her diet, she had already told people that internally she was mutated, why not her stomach and digestive tract? Besides, if this Zizz character tried to attack her, she would need minerals at her disposal.

Taylor, TJ, Carole, and Claire

"Oh, well LOOK who finally decided to SHOW UP!" Claire yelled.

"Shut the Hell up Claire!" Taylor said, turning around. Claire made a hissing noise and began to blast bolts of lightning at the army of flies.

"Johnny! I don't know! She ran away and left me here!" she yelled " We could use a little help S'il cous plait!" Claire hissed as Carole began to run down the hallway. She looked down at Johnny and Jake; those bastards were not going to help her, and Taylor was inviting them over. She looked at Taylor sternly, and stepped out of the vortex shield.

"Sorry, sweet cheeks," she said" I work alone!" Claire took several steps towards the fly horde, and took a deep breath.

"Claire!" Taylor yelled "What the Hell are you doing?" Claire was shaking slightly. She looked down at the oncoming flies with fear in her eyes, but she had to do this.

"This is what I've gotta do Brandy." she said "I'm not working with that sunofabitch Johnny. Her eyes began to glow blue, and she shot an electric current into her phone to change the song to Prayer of the Refugees by Rise Against. She rose her hands, and an arc of blue electricity became suspended between them, crackling wildly and giving off insane amounts of heat. She brought both hands above her head, and screamed and she stepped forward with her right foot and threw a massive lightning bolt, stronger than Taylor had ever seen her throw. The corridor lit up and Claire was tortured with a mighty crack of deafening thunder. Several large flies flew into the lightning bolt, however, and sacrificed themselves to stop the lightning from penetrating the swarm.

"Well F*ck me!" she yelled as she hurled a much less powerful lightning blast at a dog-sized fly. It fell backwards, cooked and steaming, stone dead. A whirlwind of smaller flies swarmed at Claire, and she released a blue pulse of energy frying the flies.

"Human bug zapper!" She muttered, which sounded like a scream. Carole reached Taylor's side and began to create a wall between the group in the flies. A large, dog-sized fly flew at her, angrily buzzing. Taylor hit it with a blast of boiling water just as it got to Carole, and it slammed into the wall. The beast was still alive, though, and it jumped off the wall, landing on Carole's chest and hissing loudly. She screamed, and fell backwards, trying to avoid getting bitten. She grabbed the fly by the head, and shoved its proboscis away from her.

Claire, meanwhile, was suddenly taken up by an extreme hatred of flies at that moment. Her entire body began to glow blue and crackle with electricity, and she slowly began to walk towards the army of flies. Several tiny flies all buzzed at her to only be fried by her electric field. She manually blasted several massive mutant flies as she walked through the Hell, slaying flies with her unstoppable electric current. She got past the swarm, and faced the Pestilence in all its ugly glory, her body still glowing.

"Well hello there bitch!" she yelled, throwing a lightning bolt at it.

Johnny's Group

Johnny's team immediately went through the water shield, and Jake strengthened it with his illusions. "What the hell are you doing?! Get back here before..." Johnny pleaded to Claire before stopping himself. If the girl wanted to be an absolute idiot and go out in that hell then he was more than content with letting her die alone. All because she was too much of an idiot to realize that all he wanted was this common enemy destroyed. With or without her help the. Right now he needed to worry about what was going on. The rumbling of Sylvia's dubstep bomb had alerted Johnny that she was indeed, alive. Which was good, since she was tough. That was good. "Everyone..." He stopped for a moment to "breathe" in the moment, looked at everyone. The desperation of Jake's barrier, the hopelessness in Taylor's eyes, the will to live in Lemontea's heart, Carole's fear. He knew all of it. Before he started acting, he pointed his fingers at the fly on Carole and fired a devil kiss at it that went clean through it's head. Getting it's insect blood all over Carole.

In that moment... The flies relented. They just stopped trying to attack them and retreated and flew off inwards the hospital. Which was good for them. Jake kept his barrier up, "... Are they gone...?" He nervously asks.

"I don't know..." Johnny inserts, unsure of what just happened. He stopped to focus, the flies were heading towards another emotional presence. All of them. Which means that they can escape, "Everyone giddy up! We're going up a floor." Before he started running towards the same stairs that they all came from. Sylvia would have gotten away by now, hopefully. The rest of the group had followed Johnny. All he had in mind for a plan was finding a good spot to defend themselves and escape if necessary. Possibly the entrance to the next flight of stairs, as far as Johnny was concerned they can't open doors. They all made it up the stairs and they waited for a moment.

Floating causally towards the group was Sylvia, who had heard them coming, "Johnny! Thank god you're here!" She floated towards the group. Showing a large amount of emotion and fear. "Sorry for leaving you there, Taylor..."

Hunter and Gabe

The pair were heading down the floors of the hospital to investigate Sylvia's dubstep bomb and that infernal buzzing. They both were completely focused on heading down there. If it's out to kill them then they have to think of something. For all they know they're trapped in here with no way out. They were on the third floor of the hospital, closing in on the stairs to the next floor.

Pestilence

The beast had shielded itself with it's deformed and colossal arm after Claire had zapped it. It caused some damage to it, and killed plenty of maggots that were nesting in it's flesh. The first thing that Pestilence did was call back it's horde of flies to defend it. Every single fly in the hospital converged on Pestilence, with the orders to kill Claire. The buzzing in the area got more and more intense as they all closed in. The next thing Pestilence did was swipe one of it's arms at Claire in a slapping motion with incredible force. If it hit her then she would be knocked back a few feet.

Drake's Group and Zizz

Drake immediately stopped when Nicole warned him of Zizz's possible threat, "Don't get close to it. Got it." He wasn't going to do anything dumb right now. All he has to do is kick the monster's ass and then figure out what to do next. He can do just that without getting to him. An electrical current traveled from Drake's head to his right arm, which started to glow brighter and brighter. Suddenly he pointed his electric hand at Zizz and shot him with a bolt of lightning in the chest. The area around him flashed with bright light. Zizz was hit with the first strike of the battle square in his chest. Zizz felt immense pain all other his being, he shook before dropping to his knees. Drake took this opportunity to get closer and pummel him with his super-charged fists.

"Now that ain't fair." Zizz suddenly says in a creepy and excited tone. Before the air around him turned partly visible forming a bubble around him. Zizz blew a power blast of air out in all directions. Sending out a cloud of sand that obscured the vision of everyone in the area. Drake wouldn't let the man get away, he started randomly blasting weaker bolts of lightning in what previously was Zizz's location. Hoping to get a hit or two in. Even though he can't see a thing and he could have hit one of his allies.

"Get back here, you b*stard!" Drake shouted, "Finish what you've started!"

"Oh, big boy, I will.... but, first..." Zizz's voice came from the cloud of dust, out of the way of the lightning. A second later a large oval shaped blast of air came out of the cloud and flew at high speeds towards Nicole. It would knock her out of the sky into the lake if she didn't think fast.

Drake responded by firing his weak barrage of lightning towards the source of the blast in anger. Some of the bolts had hit Zizz. It hurt, but he was tough as nails. Zizz had flown towards Drake at high speeds through the barrage and rammed him with his shoulder, hitting Drake directly in the stomach and causing blood to shoot out of his mouth. "Ow..." Drake moaned as he rested sand first.

Meanwhile, Jia-li and Lily had gotten up from the sand and started using the cloud of sand as cover for their escape. After clearing their exit, they stopped a few yards away from the chaos. "What... the... f*ck?!" Lily shouted at the top of her lungs. This day went from partying in the beach to her new friends fighting a psychopath. She couldn't believe this was happening.

"He's powerful." Jia-li states blankly.

"No sh*t. Now let's go!" Lily hectically responded and tried to drag Jia-li away, only for her to resist.

"We have to stop him. His darkness exceeds the boy we met earlier! He could kill all of us, I know." Jia-li started elaborating.

"What the hell can we do?!" Lily screamed.

"Fight." Jia-li responded as smokey darkness enshrouded her being. Then she touched the ground and the darkness traveled towards Drake and started covering the sands around him until it formed a barrier around him. Covering him until he got up.

Victoria was running fast as she could (due to her rotund size she couldn't go that fast). She absolutely had to help Drake and the others--- But, she was powerless and needed to copy a power from an ally. The last thing she's worrying about is revealing the secret behind their powers.

Nicole had already been poised in the air to move, and it only took a fraction of a second for her to enter a stoop dive and dodge the compressed air. She closed her eyes, aware that they were useless with all the dust, and tuned her powerful ears and sense of smell to compensate. You can't blind me, she thought, anger rising. Don't underestimate me because I'm up here. I'm going to strike you where it hurts the most, and then you'll wish you never messed with me, or my friends. Nicole didn't exactly know how she was going to beat this guy, but he had attacked her, and now she was mad. Nobody messed with a swan unless they wanted a nice clout to the skull, or their eyes pecked out. Since she didn't have a beak, though, and couldn't fly and deliver blows with her wings at the same time, though, she felt a bit useless. She hated that she couldn't just do something to really hurt this guy. She wasn't going to randomly dive into the fray, though, she wasn't that reckless.

Toby started running around the dust cloud in a frenzy, changing direction every few seconds so that Zizz couldn't hit him with whatever those attacks were...compressed air? Air wasn't normally dangerous, but changes in pressure were. He didn't need to be a scientist to know that. He had no clue what course of action he should take. Bones didn't seem to know, either, she was just standing still, scanning the dust clouds. Toby didn't know what her power was, and Sandy couldn't fight in a major battle without getting badly hurt. She could only stand a distance away, giving off pheromones that would weaken whatever got too close.

Claire

the hulking beast's massive arm swung across at Claire and hit her in the left arm. She braced herself for the hit, and delivered a powerful electric shock the moment the creature swatted her. She flew through a veil of flies, her shield frying them all, and landed on her back atop one of the dog-sized flies, which squealed like a small dog as the shield slowly deep-fried it. This beast was just as strong as it looked, and these flies weren't going to give up.

One of the giant flies landed on her back and bit her just below the neck, somehow managing to survive the electric shock. She grabbed it by the antenna and threw the beast down, frying it with several gigawatts of electricity. The flies began to swarm all around her in a maelstrom of carnivorous wrath as they flew at her shield en masse. One or two were able to land a bite and she screamed as a mutant landed on her face and bit her forehead. She threw the giant mutant off, and stumbled backwards, landing against the wall, covered in flies. Just before her shield was going to give out, though, killing her, she was struck with a sudden burst of energy. Her eyes began to glow red, as did her shield, and a vociferous rumbling overtook the room. The large fluorescent lights hanging above began to spark, and then the hallway and lobby was filled with a massive electrical scream as lightning bolts began to drop from the ceiling. They rained down like the fires of Hell, incinerating flies and blasting away at anything and everything.

Everyone else
TJ watched Claire disappear behind the swarm, and began to run after her. Carole was able to get up, ready to puke from getting sprayed with fly blood.

"You all go ahead!" he yelled "Let me go! I can't let her do this!"

"TJ!" Carole yelled, grabbing him by the shoulder "Don't! She made her choice!"

"She doesn't know what she's doing! This is suicide! She's gonna f*cking kill herself and I can't let that happen!"

"Johnny, a little help here?" Carole yelled behind her. TJ threw her hand off and began to run down the hall in an attempt to save his best friend. Taylor meanwhile lowered her water shield, and began to run up the steps, not stopping until she threw the door open on the third floor.

"Let's go! Rapide! Rapide!" she said, waving everyone in.

Drake, Jia-li, Victoria and Zizz

Get up, dammit. You can't let him win this soon... Drake had thought to himself as he laid in the sand, useless. He hadn't noticed Jia-li's darkness around until he tried getting up. The darkness around him quickly turned into replica's of Jia-li's hands and helped him up on to his feet. "Get up..." Drake says to himself, the second he was on his feet he noted that pain he was feeling from Zizz's charge. He would have to ignore the pain that he was feeling in order to win. At this point the dust started to settle and revealed the towering man, Zizz. Standing with a smug look on his face and crouched like a bird. Even crouched he was much taller than everyone else here. Both of their eyes had met and kept constant contact with each other. An electric charge had started to travel from his head all the way to his hand. Drake smirked and decided to strike first. He pointed his uncharged hand at Zizz and shot a minor blast of electricity a second later. Zizz had moved out of the way of the blast since he predicted that Drake was going to attack. Only for Drake to hit him with the full blast straight to Zizz's chest, knocking him back a few feet. Zizz had felt the electricity surge throughout his body. He won't be able to take anymore strong hits like that. He had barely scratched Drake nor the rest of them. The battle was initially wasn't going too well for Zizz. He could easily snap the boy's neck if he wasn't made of so much electricity. The battle proved to be on their favor, since they had so many of them.

However, Zizz wasn't one to fight fairly.

"Das' a good one." Zizz sarcastically states. Before he leaps high up into the air and shoots a large blasts of compressed air toward Jia-li and Lily. Who were watching the fight in horror. The blast came so quick that they could barely even respond before they were launched backwards several feet and it felt like they were both hit by a car. They were effectively incapacitated. "Hmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm!" The Zizz laughs. The plan was to get Drake angry and reckless. Because from what he's seen Drake has been rather collected and calm.

And Zizz got exactly what he wanted: Drake was pissed that Zizz hit people watching, "You... son of a b*tch..." The electricity that enshrouded Drake glowed much brighter as he got angry. "You..." He mutters.

" 'You' what? I'm fightin' all of ya'..." He started laughing insanely to rub in the wounds, "Dis' is war, kid. Haven't ya' heard of fightin' dirty?"

At this point Drake had charged a blast of electricity that would have killed anyone else. He pointed both hands at Zizz and fired a blast so strong that the area had flashed brightly with electricity. Blinding Drake and everyone else in the area. He had thought that the bolt would have killed Zizz since he already took damage from the previous attacks. However, this was revealed to be much different after the flash had faded; there was no trace of Zizz. Drake's attack had left a blast on a tree directly across from him. Zizz had predicted where Drake was going to shoot and dodged in response. He took the flash and deafening boom as cover to slip into the bushes not very far from them. His speed allowed him to go awfully fast.

Drake looked around frantically trying to look for him, "Where did he go?!" Before he had heard a loud boom come from his side. It was a blast of compressed air coming straight out of the bushes towards Drake. By the time he realized what it was, it was too late The blast launched him towards the lake. He had no idea what would happen if his electric form touched a large body of water. He didn't even want to find out. Instinctively he reverted back into his human form. He was getting hurt, every attack Zizz had hit him with made him hurt more and more. Aside from the jolt of pain, he knew that he was going have to keep fighting. He got back to his feet--- Only to lock eyes with Zizz again, this time he was pointing his hand at Drake with an orb of compressed air ready...

Change of songs:

Zizz had decided that the fight ends here and now. He fired several small blasts of compressed air at Drake, knocking him off his feet again at him. After Zizz knew he was down. He started firing the larger blasts of air into the water. Until there was no signs of Drake. For all they knew, Zizz had killed him. Everyone looked on with horror, Lily covered her mouth and small amounts of tears ran down her eyes, Jia-li's eyes opened in shock as she gasped. Victoria screamed, "Drake!" Before dropping to her knees, running towards the water to go find Drake. Tears ran down her pudgy face as she used every bit of her energy to get into the water to find Drake.

Zizz started laughing maniacally "Your turns!" He screamed. Ready to murder the rest of them. He stood high, as he had taken down what appeared to have been the biggest threat among their group.

Meanwhile, Drake had survived the attack, except he was unconscious and now powerless. He was floating across the lake close to the other side.

Pestilence

The Beast of Pestilence was horribly shocked by the bolts of lightning raining down on top of him and the swarms of flies he had command over. Enormous burns formed on his flesh as a bolt of lightning hit it in the shoulder. Immediate, the creature dropped down on the ground, with a loud thump. The hordes of flies it commanded were all being incinerated in the groves. The creature didn't know proper tactics, so it continued calling flies back over to it. They were killed promptly too. Almost all of it's swarm was killed in Claire's attack, leaving merely a few thousand left. Compared to the trillions it had before. All lost in a minute. It was getting desperate. The beast of Pestilence wasn't human anymore: It was nothing more than a rotting zombie with control over the flies. It didn't have a mind or intelligence; it had power. All it wanted in life was to survive. Nothing would stop it from doing just that: surviving. While lying on the ground, it's body felt... Different. Stronger. It got up from the barrage of electricity--- As twelve deep gashes spontaneously appeared all over it's back. It quickly got up, ignoring the pain from the electricity and let out a beastial roar as more slashes appeared on his body. It rushed Claire like a an ox made out of rotted flesh, hoping to ram her into the wall, which would injure her if it connected.

Johnny's Group

Johnny and all his friends on the second floor heard all the chaos and shaking on the floor below them. There was no discussion about it. They just all ran from where they were on the second floor to the stairs and to the third floor. Johnny kicked the door open with a loud boom and ran through the door. Before Sylvia flew through, followed by Lemontea and Jake was last through. He closed the door with all his strength and lazily threw a chair in front of it hoping to block it. Once again they were separated from Taylor and Carole--- But, that was the least of their concerns. This was all going to hell. There was nothing else to it. This whole Hospital raid was turning out to be one big problem that needed to end. The first Johnny could think of was find a way out. He'll have to ask TJ how he--- Crap, he just remembered that he went after Claire.

That girl was an enormous pain in his ass. She was starting to bring down the actually useful people now. Johnny shook his head, "F*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck... This is all gone to sh*tsville and back to take a vacation..."

"We have to go!" Sylvia nervously shouts, "That thing down there...!" She's started to mess up her speech pattern, "It's... big scary and smiley! It'll kill all of us!"

Jake was mostly saddened that Gabe probably wasn't in this building, or worse dead. Tears started running down his face as he sat in the fetal position against the door they entered. The thought of losing his twin sister was one of the worst things imaginable to him. Especially after all they've been through as a family. Good times, bad times (most of which were brought on by Johnny). Above all else; they spent time together. He would have to get over her death. He stayed quiet and unnoticeable with his crying. He was unsure of if he should even be crying right now. Especially with the insect apocalypse slowly encroaching on them.

Johnny shouted looking for Taylor and Carole, "Taylor! Carole! Where ya'll at!? We need to find a way out right now!" Showing no empathy that his sister maybe dead. No, it was required to be cold and calculated. Ironically, emotions will only slow him down right now.

Carole and Taylor

"In here, mon cher!" Taylor shoved open the door of an examination room. Carole was attempting to wipe the fly guts from off of her clothing. and muttering something in Portuguese. Taylor was limping slightly, a large red welt on her right heel from being bitten by a fly.

"What happened to TJ?" she asked.

"He ran after Claire!" Carole yelled, wiping fly blood off of her hand "Oh, my dress is ruined! Those goddamn flies!" Carole shuddered, and walked over to the door that Johnny had put the chair on. She concentrated, and the chair broke itself apart, forming steel bars which attached themselves to the door frame, sealing the door tight. She looked around cautiously to see if any flies were around, and then stepped over to the elevator, the doors of which she molded shut so that nothing could come up the stairs. TJ and claire were Sh*t out of luck.

TJ and Claire

Now it was just where she wanted. Claire smiled evilly and began to charge an electric shock when all of a sudden, her power faded. The blue shield of energy diminished, and Claire was hit with a wave of vertigo just as the massive plague zombie was bearing down on her. She closed her eyes, and looked down at the floor. It was over. She knew that the beast was going to trample her, and her heroic stand would end here with her body being fly food. She wasn't upset, however; this was how she wanted to be remembered; the girl who faced the mighty beast and fell while performing above and beyond the call of duty. She thought back through her last few days on Earth. She had been such a jerk to everyone; TJ, Sylvia, Johnny, Jake; all her friends now couldn't stand her. She had been a total bitch, and she just now realized it. It was too bad that she could never apologize to those people, and the guilt boiled inside her as the beast came closer. This was the end.

Suddenly, Claire felt a falling sensation. She thought that she was passing out, but she was wrong; she was falling through the floor. Across the room, she flew out of the wall, skidding to a halt halfway across the lobby from where she had started. TJ was standing at the other end of the room opposite Pestilence, next to the portal that just saved Claire's life. He closed both portals, and loudly cracked his neck.

"TJ!" Claire yelled out, jumping up off the floor "I can't use my powers! They just stopped!" she was extremely lightheaded, and had to lean on the back of a chair for support.

"I think you just performed a burst of some sort." TJ said "I remember one of my teachers talking about it one day; it's when you activate parts of your power not normally attainable, but it severely weakens you. Whatever that was, it was freaking awesome! Did you see the look on his face!"

"Can we joke around about it after we finish killing this ugly bitch?" she yelled.

"Oh, yes! That's right!" TJ threw a portal above the creature's head, and began to drop scattered about chairs in, in an attempt to wound the beast. He could tell it wasn't the most intelligent thing, and so it would have trouble finding where the source of the chair rain was coming from. "Can you help me?" Claire also began to throw things into the portal, and soon a rain of household objects came careening down from the ceiling.

Alejandro

Just as the might Ziz dealt its death blow upon Drake, the sun cross the horizon. Alejandro had watched the creature for quite a time, but was unable to help. He watched the sun set as Drake went flying into the lake, and he began to chuckle darkly as white light enveloped his body. He began to shrink, acquiring a much smaller build. His heavy stone wings turned black and bat-like, and his grey stone skin shrank to his body and became a dark lavender color. His eyes began to glow in a red, catlike way, and his pupils became feline-shaped. His hands became large and bony, and grew sharp black claws on the end, as did his feet. Alejandro ran a hand through his newly-morphed black hair, and put his white fedora on his head. With that, Alejandro jumped off of the tower and dove towards the ground. Just before reaching the bottom, he pulled up, and flew straight at the Ziz, his claws extended and ready to strike.

Nicole heard Drake land in the water, and glanced at where he was. Nobody else would notice him there, except her, and she seriously doubted she should share his location with everyone while Zizz was present. Even if he hadn't been finished by the blast, he was unconscious, and couldn't defend if he was attacked a second time. She turned around and entered a stoop dive, flying at Zizz to attack him. Although the hands on her wings were weak, her toes were tipped with razor-sharp talons. She held her feet forwards as she dove, not even noticing that Zizz had already been picked as an attack target by someone else.

Dragonfly was scared.

As he had followed the sounds and his sense of smell, he came to the lake. As he gazed across he saw the battle going on, and what looked like Drake had been thrown into the water. He hadn't come back up. There wasn't much he could do at this point as the others seemed preoccupied with whatever it was they were fighting. It was as tall as he was long, and looked like Nicole in a way that it reminded him of a bird. namely a Flamingo.

Dragonfly twisted his body to be horizontal and began running around the side of the lake, reaching his maximum speed in record time to get to his friend before he drowned. As he approached, he jumped into the water to get the maximum amount of distance in to reach Drake. As he did so he brought his limbs close to his body to streamline himself as he dove in, and used his powerful tail for propulsion.

Zues seemed to be more human that god at this point. But he did say to give him assistance if he was on the brink of death.

Because he could absorb oxygen through his skin, Dragonfly had no trouble staying underwater and keeping a quick pace when reaching Drake. As he approached, he opened his reptilian hands to grab Drake around the arm and pull him up. His claws cutting through his jacket as his hands, like an Eagle's claws, were extremely strong. He realized this and cut as much pressure as he could while still maintaining a firm grip. But his claws, for all he knew, had broken the skin. He brought Drake closer to him, wrapping his other arm around the metahuman before kicking off the bottom of the lake and using his tail and momentum to propel them both to the surface.

"Drake! C'mon wake up buddy! I dont remember CPR!" he said to the meta who he had grabbed, resting the man on his torso as to use it like a backboard as he propelled them to the shoreline with his tail.

Zizz, Jia-li, and Lily

Jia-li was just about done with standing by and letting Drake do the fighting now. For all they knew, he was dead. There was no doubt about it. No last minute rescues. Jia-li wasn't going to stand by and let everyone else do the fighting. She choose to help. Because she knew just as well as Drake did that this was a Do-or-Die situation. Jia-li pressed her hand against the sand, palms open. A smoky black darkness spread across the sand and around Zizz.

Zizz had noticed what was going on because he was preparing to fire a blast of air at Victoria who was rushing towards Drake. The darkness quickly spread under his feet and thick tentacles wrapped around his legs. Then a tentacle quickly wrapped around his hand and moved it aside. Zizz had inadvertently (and instinctively) fired the blast. The blast missed Victoria by a long shot. The darkness quickly tightened around his arms and legs, Jia-li was attempting to restrain him enough for everyone to get a few shots in and finish him off. Zizz started to resist by shaking violently and the darkness wouldn't be able to restrain him for long.

Jia-li shouted, "Everyone hit him now!" Trying her best to keep focus and wrap him in even more of her darkness. As he resisted by throwing it off of him and resisting.

"Is dat so..." Ziz started laughing as he started slashing through the darkness with his incredibly sharp talons. Slicing clean through them, until he managed to get an arm free. While he was in the middle of this he hadn't noticed the combined attacks of both Nicole and Alejandro. By the time he was close to free from the clutches of Jia-li's darkness--- His shoulder sliced by Nicole's dive attack. Several deep gashes were made into the flesh from Nicole's cut. He immediately stopped his attempts of breaking free of the attacks and trying to react by lightly slashing at Nicole. He looked around and noticed his next opponent, Alejandro. Zizz managed to see him coming. Everyone was around him, if he didn't think fast then he'll be overwhelmed by the group. The first course that came to mind was preparing one big explosion of air. A large, near invisible bubble of air shortly surrounded him. It promptly exploded, launching everyone in a thirty foot radius back. It sent sand up into the air, blinding everyone again. It sent out a large wave. Those that were close to him would get the worst the blast.

In the mean time, Lily was still injured by the attack by Zizz. She had gotten up. The only thing on her mind was leaving this place. Drake was out of sight, launched into the water by Zizz's attack. He wasn't getting up or out of it. The only thing that came to mind was that he was knocked unconscious and drowned in the lake. That was all the reason she needed to leave. This man was murderous, and there's nothing they could do to stop that but fight him. Lily wasn't a warrior, she was just some girl who wanted to learn about her powers. She did not sign up for this. All she could do was run. Of course they would think she's a coward, but that didn't matter.

When Zizz's air blast hit her she was knocked forward a few feet on to her face. This wasn't going to make her stop, she crawled to her feet and left.

Drake

It was good that Dragonfly came when he did, Drake was starting to sink into the lake and would have drowned. Drake hadn't known that he was being pulled away by Dragonfly. Everything was getting so dark... He knew that he was dead now. I've done all I can... Now it's up to you... Drake thinks his last message to his friends. Hopefully they'll defeat Zizz and live, remembering his sacrifice. When Dragonfly had pierced his leather jacket with his claws, they graced each other for a split second. All he needed to transform. A faint blue light appeared at the spot of impact for a second before it disappeared as his transformation trigger. His skin had started to turn a dirty dark green, and covered itself in large rough scales. In certain parts of his body he has grown rough keretin spikes all other his upper body (shoulders, chest, arms) and some other places (knees, feet). This natural armor had him somewhat more defense. His eyes completely altered to exactly look like the eyes of snakes with black irises and the rest of his eyes were golden (and glowing brightly). The teeth in his mouth grew sharper, and his lips had disappeared to reveal his alligator like teeth. Drake grew sharp nails on the tip of his fingers, he could slice flesh with his bare hands. On his spine he had thick spikes protruding. His hair had virtually disappeared. While Drake's transformation was drastic, he was still identifiable as a human being.

This was the power of the Blackmore family.

TheⓍperator wrote:: "Drake! C'mon wake up buddy! I dont remember CPR!"

Drake had slowly started to regain consciousness due to his transformation. He hadn't even known that he was transformed yet. He spit out a some water that was in his mouth and loudly groaned.

((Get Drake to the shore, plox))

Pestilence

When the Chairs started to rain down on it, Pestilence looked up only for a chair to hit him directly in the face. He covered his face with his hand and stepped out of the way of the chairs. Keeping it safe. It only had a few thousand flies with it at the moment. It's more than enough to kill two people. The remaining swarm of flies was commanded to fly into the portal and kill Claire and TJ. If they didn't think fast they would be fly food.

((Then it exploded, TJ and Claire saved the day with chairs))

Johnny's Group

Good. They're alive. That means that they have much more people to support the plans for surviving this. Johnny showed no outward response to them. He was thinking, as he watched Carole set up defenses he knew that they would have to set up a good defense. The only way they'll get out is through that hole in the panels. The only thing stopping them was a fly apocalypse. They had the option of making a break for the exit when they were down there. That wasn't a risk that Johnny was willing to take. Especially when they don't know what attracted them here. They need to leave after the coast is clear. The only way to do that is to kill as many flies as possible and try to get out. They were on the third floor, so that left them plenty of room to run.

"Alright, listen up b*tches!" Johnny shouts at the top of his lungs to get the group's attention, "We are in a sh*tty situation. I can tell that. What we need to do is get out of here! The only problem is the fly f*ckstorm that is down there..." For full effect he looked at the ground. "We need to get set up in a good spot here and try to kill as many of them as possible. Are you with me!?" He shouted before he quickly inserts, "Well, you all don't have a choice right now. Because as of now it's do or die, b*tch!"

"Yeah..." Jake wipes the tear off his face.

"It's not like we have a choice right now..." Lemontea says.

"Yup." Sylvia says.

"Now that's the spirit... Um, Carole, Taylor?" Johnny calls out to them, "We better get ready for the swarm."

Nicole was knocked back by the blast of air, and because of her lighter weight, she didn't have very much inertia to begin with, and because the blast was air, and it took her by surprise, there was no wind resistance to soften the blow, either. She flew back and skidded along the ground, almost like a land version of a skipping stone, and then slid to a stop, blood starting to show through her feathers and clothing, and her face, the only place visible that did not have feathers or hair, was covered in small cuts and bruises. She lay there, stunned, before her anger at Zizz started to motivate her again. He had hurt her new friends, and even though some of them she hardly knew, she still regarded them as people worthy of her respect and trust. Such things were rare, as she used to always hate other people, perhaps because they were all meta-humans, she felt like they were the same.

Furious, but fully aware of the danger and the risks she was taking, she slowly began to rise to her feet. She would have to keep fighting, or he would finish her, anyway. As she did so, she heard unpleasant cracking sounds in her legs, and there was a shooting pain in her left calf, although she was still able to stand, albeit it was extremely painful to do so. She probably had several fractures, and she highly suspected that her fibula in the left leg was broken. Excruciating, and some stability on land had been lost, but she was lucky it wasn't the weight-bearing bone. If that had been the case, she wouldn't have been able to do anything to stop Zizz.

Nicole lowered her head, but kept her eyes on her foe, unaware that her feathers had begun to mysteriously glow with a pale, bluish-white light. Her eyes, which had already been reflecting light from the moon, indicating night vision, narrowed. Without another word, she launched herself at the bird man again, unaware that, in response to this threat, her body was preparing energy for an accelerated growth and development of her powers. The power to perceive all forms of electromagnetic waves, which created light itself, had only been the beginning. Although the advancements had originally been so slow, they might not have finished over the course of her life, they were now ready to work instantaneously. All that would be needed now, was a trigger, such as being attacked once more. Nicole didn't know this, though, except that she had to act.

Spoiler:

Dragonfly, even though he was preoccupied, had noticed the transformation Drake had just gone through. Despite his thoughts of 'What the hell have I done this time?' he brought the now reptilian man to shore. Once he could reach the bottom, Dragonfly put his arms underneath Drake's and began to pull him back. Dragging the man to shore wasn't very difficult as Dragonfly could easily lift his own weight, and he guessed he was heavier than Drake.

As he rested Drake on the ground he saw him begin to spit out water. He thanked his very few lucky stars that he didn't have to try and perform something he didn't know how to do. He looked to Nicole as she crashed to the ground, his pupils dialating to slits in worry for his friend. He turned his head to the source, which was Zizz. He brought himself lower to the ground and screeched, standing in front of Drake defensively. He wanted to help Nicole, but there was only one of him. Her feathers were glowing a strange blue, and she once again threw herself at the flamingo monster.

Tapping his large claws in the dirt, he looked back to Drake. "You ssaid to help you when you dropped to the ground dead. Sso here I am." he said to the meta who looked like a hybrid between himself and Dragonfly.

This side of the lake was insane.

Everybody was getting attacked by this guy that looked like… well… a flamingo-Slender Man that shot compressed air. Some were running, some were fighting, even Drake was… yea, Drake was probably dead. It wasn't hard to see that everyone was in a lot of pain. Jacob, on the other hand, WAS hard to see, and he wasn't in any pain. As soon as that scream cried out across the lake… Jacob hid. He became a shadow and left. When there's a cry, there's something to cry about. He retreated to the far side of the lake. After a while, he changed his mind. There was obviously a big commotion, electricity, sand, even Nicole was flying into the air. For the past couple of minutes Jacob had been viewing the fight from the side. Then he took in the whole situation. People were being injured! Killed! This flamingo guy was hurting his friends! As a shadow, Jacob wasn't even effected by the compressed air. Who wouldn't put that to good use? What kind of person was he anyway? A coward? Just selfish? Did he even care?

It was that moment that Jacob realised what his real problem was. It wasn't that he was scared. It was all of this depression. He hated himself for the way that others treated him. It dug it's way into him, and it made him like this. If he could stop thinking about how he was afraid, then maybe he wouldn't be so afraid. Jacob thought about all of this. By the time he was done, Drake was being dragged onto the shore, Nicole looked like she was about to explode, and that crazy dude was still there. Jacob forgot about all of his depressed thoughts. And like always, following his depression came rage. Still in his shadow form, he sprinted strait at the back of Zizz's legs. He rammed into him from behind as hard as he could, tripping him up. Running away again to avoid being seen, he called out to anyone. "Get him while he's down, rip his fuckin' face off for what he's done!' Then, as quickly as his adrenaline rush came, it left. He kneeled down, and crawled over to where Drake was lying, returning to his visible form. "Drake! Hey! Are you okay?! What happened to your body!" He looked up at Dragonfly. "Dude, why does he look like you?"

Drake & Victoria

Everything was so blurry. Drake was still hurt from the attacks from Zizz. There were cuts and bruises all over him, and he was bleeding at a slow rate. The advantages of his transformation had started to heal him slightly. That sure wasn't going to slow him down at all. Now that he knew that he was alive again--- The only thing on his mind was getting up and fighting Zizz. Every time he tried to get up... He just couldn't. He was too weak right now to stand up and fight that monster. He felt so useless for getting defeated just like that. Drake raised his head to see Dragonfly standing over him. That didn't exactly help now that he needed to be defended. It was humiliating that he couldn't defend himself (and others).

TheⓍperator wrote:: "You ssaid to help you when you dropped to the ground dead. Sso here I am."

"Yeah..." He muttered loud enough for Dragonfly to hear him. It didn't take him long to realize that Dragonfly was the one who saved him from drowning. It was easily one of the kindest things someone did for him. He still felt weak for--- That wasn't relevant. The point is that he's breathing right now: All thanks to the kindness of someone he just met a few hours ago. Sure, if Drake would have saved anyone that was here right now (except for Zizz, obviously). Drake was eternally thankful for Dragonfly now. "Thank you... For that, I can't put into words how I feel right now." He managed to gain the strength to sit up, he stared at Dragonfly trying to keep his focus off the scene with Zizz.

Victoria was still running towards Drake and praying to herself that Zizz doesn't notice them. The second she saw that Drake was well and alright she immediately wrapped her arms around him and her eyes teared up. Disregarding his transformed form of a lizard and his natural--- The second she saw Dragonfly up close she knew that he must have touched him whenever. "I thought I lost you..." She quietly whispers to Drake.

"Yeah... Just lucky to be alive." Drake immediately tried to get up from off the sand, only to be pushed back down by Victoria.

"You have to stay down!" Victoria said to him, loudly--- Loudly enough so that nobody that isn't in the immediately area will hear them.

"I have to help!" Drake says in response, anger in his voice.

"You will die." Victoria says one final time as they both stared into each others eyes with hostility obvious. Jacob had broken their death stares to each other.

UltraCRAZY1 wrote:: "Drake! Hey! Are you okay?! What happened to your body!" He looked up at Dragonfly. "Dude, why does he look like you?"

Drake had exhaled heavily. "Yeah, I'm fine.... Mostly." He spoke as both of the siblings started looking towards the fight with Zizz. There wasn't anymore point in hiding the secret behind their abilities, "Well, Jacob. It's time that I---we start being open with our power..." Drake looked at Victoria for a second before turning his attention to Jacob. He started to explain his true "Electricity isn't my true power--- I can copy powers from any Meta-human and 'embody' that power. I discovered my power when I got my electrical form for the first time" Drake started examining his reptilian hand for a moment. He could revert back to his human form at any time. The only thing that would do is leave him open in case Zizz did strike.

Drake knew that Victoria wasn't going to let him run over there and get killed. But, they seemed to be in great health, "You two... Can you do me a favor...?" He spoke with a bit of embarrassment in his voice, "Leave me. They need your help more than I do and all you're doing is wasting time with me."

"We'll be fine. Go help them." Victoria agreed with him and looked at the fight again.

Zizz

"Well looky, lil' birdy. Did I clip ya' wing...?" Zizz stares Nicole down before laughing loudly like a maniac. "I'm goin' to do more than clip ya' wing... Yer' spine is next." He noticed the white light around Nicole and his eyes widened as she charged blindly at him. Without a second thought he pointed his hand palms out at Nicole. A bubble of air surrounded his hand and he fired a blast of air, followed by another blast, then another blast. The sand in the area was sent aside as the three blasts flew towards Nicole at high speeds. This blasts would injure Nicole if she didn't dodge in time.

(dude kill the "If they get hit" bullshit)

Alejandro

The gust of wind had blown Alejandro out of the sky. He crashed loudly in the sand by the lake, and skidded like a crashing meteor in a movie. He had been able to brace himself for the fall, but was still pretty banged up. Unfortunately for Zizz, however, Alejandro was now in a very bad mood. He rolled backwards onto his feet and took off, soaring directly at Zizz. He curved around the giant bird at one point to try and make his wind miss, and swiped at its throat with his claws.

Claire, TJ, Carole, and Taylor

TJ jumped away from the portal and pulled Claire with him when he saw the flies start to go through the portal. He pointed to his portal and swiped his had down, causing it to move to the base of the wall and the floor. The portal became severely distorted, though the other side was still opened. Any fly that went through there would get either disintegrated or lost somewhere in space time, though still out of the fight. TJ and Claire knew their limits, though, and decided to do the smart thing and run down the hallway. Hopefully by then Claire's powers would return and they would together be able to defeat Pestilence once and for all.

Meanwhile, up on the third floor, Taylor and Carole were getting ready to go on the defensive. Carole had already sealed the elevator and stairway door shut, and Taylor had created several balls of water which floated around the floor. If the flies came up she would be able to turn the balls into whitewater twisters to kill the flies. Carole created several steel plates out of thin air in a neat orderly stack near her right leg. At a moment's notice, she could launch those plates to strike down any large flies that survived the twisters.

"That should keep them at bay." Taylor muttered "Now we just need a central location for us to stay. Probably a 4-way intersection or something like that".

Nicole suddenly became enveloped in bright blue energy, and dodged out of the way of the attack, somehow much faster than she had been moving a minute before. As she ascended to prepare for another dive, she became invisible as the energy brightened until it was pure white. To look directly at it would be blinding, and people could only wonder what was happening. For a moment, it hovered there, before dissipating. When it did, Nicole looked completely different than she had a moment before, although she still seemed to glow faintly under the moonlight. Her mutations had advanced, and she now looked even more bird-like than before, her face resembling that of an owl's, and her hair having been replaced by long feathers. Her mouth and nose had now fused together to form a shiny black beak, and aside from her eyes, which now seemed to be almost wolf-like in nature, her face looked eerily like the mask of an owl. Scalloped markings had developed all over her body, like a snowy owl, and her primary feathers had darkened tips like a seabird. However, instead of the markings being black, they were shiny and metallic, with an adamantine luster and bright coloration, like chromium. Despite this, there was a bluish cast, like Osmium. They seemed to glitter with even the slightest amount of light. The feathers that had previously covered Nicole's alula-hands and feet had fallen away to reveal black scales, and razor-sharp talons had taken the place of fine black nails. The edges of Nicole's beak and talons glinted with the same sheen as her markings, and somehow, it made them look dangerously sharp. Even her wings had grown dramatically larger, the wingspan appearing at a distance to be double her height.

Nicole blinked for a moment, as though confused, but suddenly her now-piercing eyes focused on Zizz again. She opened her beak slightly, and a bright light seemed to come from within her mouth. Without a moment's warning, she suddenly shot a powerful beam of white plasma, that somehow seemed to resemble a solid ray of lightning. It was so bright, that it seemed to illuminate the entire area around them. It began to head straight towards Zizz, and it was moving so rapidly fast, there was no way he would be able to dodge it. He would only be able to hope that he could endure it. Nicole felt extremely tired suddenly, but she was determined to level the playing field.

Zizz

Zizz had noticed that Alejandro was flying towards him. Claws aimed at his neck. He smirked before standing completely still, raising his arm right high enough to block the gargoyle charging at him. All Alejandro did was scratch his arm, making him bleed a little bit more. Before the creature could react Zizz dashed off in a burst of speed. His back was against the bushes, and he was laughing loudly. This creature was next on his list of people who will die, this time he'll take pleasure in vivisecting him. All in front of everyone as they look on in horror. He then quickly pointed his hand at Alejandro and fired a blast of air strong enough to keep him down. Once it connects Zizz was going to make it painful. After Zizz had charged after the blast of air he had his talons ready to slice Alejandro's wings off and make him walk (unaware of Nicole's burst starting). Half way he noticed a bright light coming from the girl that had narrowly dodged his blast of air. Immediately Zizz had stopped in his tracks and looked extremely shocked. "No... no... no..." Zizz knew what she was doing. She was preforming a Burst attack, he's seen bursts and done several in his life time. He knows that one person doing a burst can bring down even the strongest of meta-humans to their knees.

There was no way that he was going to fall. He turned his body and started charging towards Nicole, but he was panicking and just couldn't reach full speed in time to strike down Nicole. He raised his claws after he was getting close enough. Ready to bring them down which would have certainly killed Nicole. Fortunately for her, she fired the blast at just the right time. The blast of pure plasma hit him directly in the chest point blank. It was incredibly damaging, and Zizz had assumed that he was going to die from the blast at this range. It would have been better if he just hid in the bushes. The blast burnt the skin on his chest leaving an enormous circle shaped burn on his exposed chest. It launched him back several feet and he landed back first on the sand. It appeared for a moment that Zizz was dead. He was lying on the ground, breathing quietly. This was the first major blow done against him, and it sure showed.

Zizz wasn't dead yet--- The battle was far from over. He raised his head and saw that the bird girl was different... Much more bird-like than before. That means that the burst she did was an Omicron burst. Her powers had now branched off and now she has so much more potential... That will be squandered. He jumped back on his feet. He looked down at his wound and saw that he was burnt pretty badly. Before he started laughing, "Oh my, an Omicron..." He spoke loudly and gloriously, "I heard das' one in a million... Yer lucky girl..." He trailed off before he started his rush directly at Nicole with his claw up and ready for downward slash that would more than likely to kill her instantly. "Jus' not lucky enough. HMHMHMHMHMHMHMHMH!" He started laughing like a maniac as he charged. Leaving himself open somewhat, the only thing he had in mind was killing Nicole.

Pestilence

That was the last of it's swarm. Only a few hundred flies had remained. All circling the catatonic Beast of Pestilence. It's entire swarm was all ruined. There was nothing left of it. It was useless without it's swarm, and it's swarm was useless without it. After Claire destroyed it's swarm a power had begun to spark within the beast. This spark exists in all meta-humans, giving them the power they need to save themselves and others in their darkest hour. There were no hour darker than this for the beast. Regardless of morality or state; every meta-human has a potential to burst. It dropped to it's knees in a large thump as it cried out loudly in pain. Of it's lost swarm and the transformation it was about to undergo.

It's eerie cries served as a warning of what was about to come.

Boss Battle Song:

It's rotten green skin started to take a black-ish color as it started to take the appearance and properties of a fly. It's right started to swell up, deform until it appeared exactly like a fly's compound eye. It was bright red and weird looking. The rest of his face started to deform until it lost even the last part of it that appeared human. It's lower jaw just fell off it's head and was replaced with a labrum, labium, mandible and maxilla all of which made up it's mouth. Out of the strange wounds on it's back nine enormous wings grew out of it's back. These wings were exactly like the wings of a Anthomyiidae fly. On it's lower back at least thirteen long and bony insect legs grew out. These legs immediately touched the ground and gave Pestilence support. The last part of it's horrible transformation was that it's shoulder opened up with a deep gash. Replaced by an even larger red compound eye, this eye was larger than it's entire shoulder, and allowed it even more vision. The upgraded Beast of Pestilence was much more agile than it's lumbering form. It also had the capability to fly--- Even though it was useless in this situation. If he flaps all his wings hard enough then he'll make noise comparable to a jet engine. This time it was going to be much harder.

After it's transformation it immediately leaped through the ceiling head first (causing arguably minor wounds) with an immensely loud crash. Before it started running down another hallway, jumping through another ceiling to the third floor--- The remaining flies had followed Pestilence to the third floor. This had surprised Johnny and friends.

In the mean time, a sole regularly sized fly named Jasper flew down the hallways at Claire and TJ on the intent of slaying them. A true underdog story right there. Nothing was going to stop him.

Johnny's Group

"Alright that's good that's good." Johnny says at the progress of defense. They needed to be ready for anything, and sealing the exits were the best bet of survival. "Alright, everyone get ready to kick some @ss!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.... Before the Beast of Pestilence jumped through the floor right behind him. Johnny's body tensed up as everyone looked shocked. A moment afterwards Johnny shifted to his emotional energy form as he nervously turned around to see the monster face to face.

"I got this!" Johnny says in an arrogant tone as he balls his fists up and get into the stance. His eyes glimmered with a sparkle before he unleashed a barrage of punches on Pestilence's stomach. Using the speed, and the hardiness generated by his form he managed to deliver at least thirty punches in less than a minute. This would have hurt someone average... Unfortunately for him, he's dealing with everything but average. Pestilence raised his arm in the air--- While Johnny was busy punching the monster more and more he hadn't noticed Pestilence readying itself. It brought it's arm down which such incredible force that he was sent completely through the floor of the hospital mid-punching storm to the floor below. While Johnny was tough there was a limit to how much he could take. He felt quite a bit of pain, and that attack would have killed him if he wasn't so hardy. There was a nice hole where he used to be. Pestilence stared at it while everyone looked on in shock.

One of the most powerful members of their group was taken out of the fight.

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