The following is a chapter of an improvisational fanfiction hosted on Indie
Madnesse (http://indiemadnesse.sandwich.net).
This chapter was written by me. ^_^;
* * * * *
Imagine the life of a pinball.
It gets knocked around, bouncing off targets and getting slammed
all over the place. The more collisions it endures, the happier the
pinball's manipulator is. And, like all things, after several hundred or
several thousand collisions, it gets chipped or even broken.
Got that image in your mind? Good.
Because Kathleen Hale is currently living it.
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Self-Extraction
When You Care Enough to Send The Very Best Fraggers
Installment #5: Can't Do Anything Right
series co-created by Thomas Wilde (who didn't make me do a dang thing),
A.o.D., and Quanah S. Harjo
This chapter written by W4
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--World #SH03, approximately Tea-Time--
Upon seeing the target, Kathleen Hale decides to try and surprise
Hyperfox with a volley of machinegun ammo.
It is a perfectly good idea which doesn't work in the slightest.
The bullets bounce off of a force field.
"What?" Hyperfox asks himself as he turns and looks at Hale. "Oh!
You're with THEM, aren't you?"
Hale groans in her mind. She knows from the last mission that
there is some sort of leaking of information going on, but it is getting to
the point where she feels as if she's shouting, "HI! MY NAME IS KATHLEEN
HALE, AND I'M HERE TO KILL YOU! DID YOU GET MY E-MAIL REGARDING THIS
SUBJECT?" at the top of her lungs.
Hyperfox turns his plasma cannon at Hale and fires. She barely
manages to leap away from the main blast, the force of the blast throwing
her several feet into the air. She expects the landing to break a few
bones, possibly spinal ones.
The landing feels as if she had merely tripped over her own two
feet. Before she can fully acknowledge this, she rolls aside, pulls a
flash grenade from her jacket and pulls the pin. She guesses that Hyperfox
is going to give pursuit, so she places the grenade in the ground and runs
off.
Hyperfox, as predicted, runs after Hale, and his world becomes very
bright for several seconds.
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"What are you doing, you silly agent-type person?" Antoine asks
Hale as she stops to reload and pull out more destructive weaponery.
"My job," she replies curtly.
"No no no no! Eet ees not ze way! You cannot be winning against
Hyperfox with ze boom-boom sticks!" he scolds her.
"Listen," Hale sneers as she aims a railgun at the still-stunned
Hyperfox. "If you knew how to off this jerk, you wouldn't need me. Would
you?"
Hale fires a few railgun slugs at Hyperfox's cranium. His reaction
to the shots reminds her of Sayajin666's reaction to the same ammo.
"Railgun slugs?" he laughs as his eyes regain focus. "You might as
well be using spitballs! I am INVINCIBLE!"
"Quick!" Antoine shouts. "Be using this!"
Antoine hands Hale a golden ring that is as wide as a basketball.
Hale grabs the golden ring, confused.
And the world as Hale sees it becomes a blur as she rapidly
approaches subsonic speeds.
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"What is going on up there, Snively?" Robotnik asks nervously.
Snively responds, "It looks like a female human is trying to
eradicate Hyperfox, sire."
"HOORAY! I'd give anything to be rid of that pest! I'd give up
triple-layered chocolate doughnuts! I'd give up my 'Playbot Magazine'
collection! I'd even give up my evil ways... naaah."
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Hale is discovering, first-hand, some of the aspects of "Unusual
Physics."
Aspect #1: Gold rings are like nitroglycerine for living creatures.
Hale isn't running as fast as Carver's car can, but she is DAMN close.
Aspect #2: Running into things at high speed usually results in a
trampoline-esque bouncing-off effect as opposed to a sudden loss of
momentum (and usually one's life). At first, the high-speed ricochets and
changes of course are dizzying, but Hale quickly changes her opinion of
them to "rather annoying."
Aspect #3: Sound barrier be damned.
Aspect #4: Changing direction in midair is perfectly acceptable.
She quickly figured this out to prevent having to further investigate
Aspect #2.
Aspect #5: Stopping on a dime is perfectly acceptable. Like
Aspect #2, Hale learns this the hard way. She tries to stop, not
expecting in the slightest to become motionless in the time it takes to
blink.
"That was COOL!" Hale can't help but declare.
Hale turns and sees Hyperfox as a rapidly approaching blur. This
causes her to learn...
Aspect #6: Going from 0 to Speed of Sound is perfectly acceptable.
As she runs, she pulls out some chaff grenades, hoping that if she can't
outgun Hyperfox, she can screw up his high-tech gear so he can't use it.
She lobs a chaff grenade at Hyperfox and is shocked to find out...
Aspect #7: Fired projectiles travel "in respect" to their launch
point. That is to say that if someone usually throws a grenade a few yards
away from him/herself when absolutely still, the same grenade will be a few
yards away from him/herself if he/she throws it while running at any speed.
Trial and error is a rather painful process.
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"Fess up, Ant. What's with that lady trying to take down
Hyperfox?" Sonic angrily asks Antoine.
Antoine gulps and tugs at his collar. "What ees making you
thinking that I am knowing about such things?" he mumbles in reply.
Bunnie Rabbot grabs his throat with her robotic arm and picks him
up. She shouts, "Now listen and listen good, you snake-in-the-grass!
If anything happens to my fox honey, I'm takin' it out on your worthless
hide!"
"Calm down, Bunnie! How is he supposed to tell us anything when
you're choking him?"
Bunnie throws Antoine down to the ground. He coughs violently,
crawling on his hands and knees to Sonic. "I am with the begging,
please!"
Sonic folds his arms. "Make with the explaining, Ant!" he snaps.
"Okay, Sonic! I am explaining everything!" Antoine bawls. "I am
knowing about agency that specializes in ze elimination of people like
Hyperfox, so I make ze call..."
"Agency?" Sonic asks.
"ELIMINATION?!?" Bunnie shouts.
"Let him finish," Sonic orders Bunnie. Bunnie balls her fists,
waiting for her chance to pound Antoine into a pancake. "Okay, Ant. I
don't like Hyperfox much, either, but don't you think that hiring a hitman
is a bit extreme?"
Antoine, in tears, shakes his head. "No, no. You are not
understanding. Eet eez not just his amazing powers. Eet eez ze way he
throws everything off the kitten!"
"Off-kilter, Ant," Sonic corrects.
Antoine replies indignantly, "Zat is what I am saying! Off the
kitten! Anyways, as I was explaining... nothing eez what eet eez
supposed to being! Not that I am wanting Robotnik to be zee.. how you
say.. 'Beeg Cheese.' But look at what Hyperfox ees doing! He ees
upstaging you, Soneeck! He ees making whoopee with my... how you say...
'honee bunee!'"
"YOUR HONEY BUNNY?" Bunnie shouts, winding up for a punch.
Sonic rushes between Antoine and Bunnie. Bunnie reluctantly winds
down.
"Yes! Do you not be seeing with your own two eyeballs? Zeez
Hyperfox eez throwing everything off of the weed-whacker! Eet ees not
natural! I am not wanting zees super-warrior! I am wanting my 'honee
bunee' back! I am wanting Soneeck to be zee hero! I am wanting things
to be zee way they were!"
Sonic nods. "And that's why you hired the hitman and gave her one
of my power rings. Because you knew that Hyperfox was out of place here."
Antoine nods.
Bunnie Rabbit yells at Sonic, "Have you flipped your gourd?!?"
"Ant's hit the nail right on the head, Bunnie. There's too much
about HyperFool that just doesn't add up. I have the sinking feeling that
that lady will do more harm than good. But she'll probably need some help.
I'm backing her up."
"You're mad!" Bunnie and Antoine shouts. (Actually, Antoine
shouts, "You are not haveeng all your monkees een a fool deck!")
"You bet I'm mad. I'd take five Robuttnicks to one Hyperfox any
day!" Sonic concludes as he uses his power ring to find Hyperfox and the
hitman gunning for him.
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Hale picks herself up, cursing Unique Physics. She grasps the gold
ring in her left hand.
Hyperfox stops right before her. "Oh? You're stopping? What fun
is that?" he taunts, leveling his plasma cannons at Hale.
Hyperfox expects Hale to fire one of her weapons or to dive for
cover.
Hyperfox does not expect Hale to physically strike him.
Big mistake.
The forcefields that stop bullets cold do nothing to stop Hale's
punches and kicks which, thanks to the powers of the gold ring, are
delivered at supersonic speeds. Five seconds of merciless pummeling pass
before he realizes that he, too, is capable of supersonic speeds, and,
gosh, it would be nice to not be beaten to death by this agent. So he
begins to block, but it's too little and too late. Hyperfox is thrown into
a nearby tree. He is covered with bruises, and all of his weaponery is
slag metal.
Hale cracks her knuckles and grins, fighting the urge to remark,
"Ready for round two?" She walks towards Hyperfox.
Hyperfox rises to his feet, a grin on his face. "I'm... not beaten
yet!" he coughs. He digs up two irregularly-shaped stones and shows them
to Hale. "Behold! The Deep Power Stones!"
"The what?" Hale replies.
"The Deep Power Stones! If they're put together incorrectly, the
effect is a time bomb worse than any atom bomb! But when put together like
this..." Hyperfox explains, putting the stones together, "I become
invincible! I get a mega-energy barrier! I become faster than light!"
Hale gulps. If what Hyperfox says is true, he's now sayajin-class.
"Well," she states. "That sounds like quite a tale. But I-"
"SURRENDER!" Sonic shouts, stopping in front of Hale.
"WHAT?" Hale responds.
Sonic whispers to Hale, "Trust me on this. He just defeated
himself."
Hale realizes what Sonic is talking about. She bows to Hyperfox,
saying, "Sonic is right! We acknowledge your immense power and realize
that none can defeat you! So we will exile ourselves and never be seen
again!"
"Later, el conquistador de Mobius!" Sonic adds as he and Hale peel
out and run like hell.
Hyperfox chuckles to himself. Now that Sonic agrees to leave,
things will be much smoother for him. All he has to do now is get rid of
Robotnik, and this place will be his for the taking.
And, oh, yeah. He has to whack that agent. Grinning, he kisses
the linked Deep Power stones.
They explode afterwards. The resulting blast destroys him and the
ruins of which he stands in the middle.
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Sonic and Hale return to Carver's car in Robotropolis. They watch
the explosion in the horizon.
Hale comments, "Now, all I have to do is confirm..."
Sonic zips towards the explosion. He returns three seconds later
with Hyperfox's skull.
"...elimination of the target," Hale finished. "Well, my work is
done here. So, where's the client? It's time to collect payment for
services rend-"
Hale is cut off by a rather unusual sight. She looks down and sees
Robotnik kissing her feet.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for ridding me
of that dreadful Hyperfox! Be my queen!"
Hale punt-kicks Robotnik into a pile of broken Swatbots. "There
isn't any chance that he doesn't belong here, is there?" she asks.
Sonic sighs. "Afraid not. Like it or not... and I don't...
Robuttnick belongs here. So what's this about payment?"
Hale looks at Sonic. "We're not a charity. The client said he
could pay."
Sonic sighed. "Ant doesn't have enough to buy a clue, let alone
your services."
Hale grinds her teeth, swearing, "Damn it! I'll wring his neck!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Sonic protests. "I'll tell you what... that ring
you're holding is solid gold. And you seem to be pretty good using it.
Why not take that as payment?"
Left with little other option, Hale agrees. She opens the door to
Carver's car and steps on.
"And next time you're in the neighborhood," Sonic concludes, "Let's
race."
"You're on!" Hale responds with a smile as she revs up the engine
and speeds off.
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Jack Carver is on what he likes to call a "reccomended vacation."
That's far easier to swallow than if he thinks of it as "recovering from
taking two beam attacks from pubescent perverts."
He sits up in his hospital bed to a tray of food consisting of
yellow gelatin, something resembling beef (or maybe dog food), a pink
cup filled with lukewarm water and lima beans.
Suffice to say that Carver's appetite is all but gone. He decides
that catching a few winks would be preferable to trying to feed himself
what might qualify as "formerly food."
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches something. He sees
Matthew Russell for the briefest of moments. Russell makes a drinking
motion, and then he is gone.
Carver isn't entirely certain that that was Russell and not some
injury-induced hallucination. But one way or another, he decides that a
good, hard drink is in order when he leaves the hospital.
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Hale checks Carver's fax machine again. She hasn't been back less
than half an hour when a new job rolls in.
She tears the sheet off of the machine and looks at it.
"What the hell is 'Code DUH?'" she asks herself. She tries to
remember how the acronym goes.
Ten minutes later, she realizes that it's not an acronym for
anything.
"Oh, shit," she mumbles to herself as she darts out of the office.
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--World #RE209--
The two STARS rookies look at each other with confusion and fear.
"We'll be overrun by zombies at any minute!" the first one laments.
The second one grabs the first one and shakes him vigorously. "Get
a grip, damn you!" the second rookie shouts. "We'll be just fine as long
as we keep our heads. We can figure out how to work this thing."
"But it's too complicated! Do YOU have any idea how to work it?"
the first rookie asks.
The second rookie thinks for a moment and then replies, "Not a damn
clue."
The two rookies look with anger and nervousness at the device that
is causing them confusion and frustration.
It is an unlocked door with a brass knob.
"Try saying 'Open, sesame!' again!" the first one demands.
The second rookie sighs, "You just said it, you lugnut."
"How about knocking on it?"
"We knocked 52 times, and nothing happened."
"Perhaps we were knocking the wrong way?"
Before the second rookie can respond, the door is ripped apart by
zombies.
"See?" the first rookie cheered. "I told you that you were
knocking the wrong way!"
The second rookie shouts, "ZOMBIES!"
The zombies lurch towards the rookies, who pull out their guns.
They aim the guns at the zombies' knees and open fire.
This doesn't have the desired effect for two reasons.
The first reason is simple; it is well-known knowledge throughout
the multiverses that a zombie's weak point, more often than not, is its
head.
The second reason is even more simple than the first; the STARS
rookies have their guns pointed in the wrong direction. The shots that
would have hardly fazed their target blew their own heads off instead.
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The chief of STARS pauses the surveillance camera video at that
moment, using a laser pointer to draw attention to the guns.
"And that," he tells Hale, "Is just the tip of the iceberg. It
all started a month ago when I noticed a slight decrease in our officer's
performance. Since we were just recovering from our first brush with
Umbrella, I chalked it up to fatigue. But then, things got worse."
Hale takes notes as she sits in a wooden chair. "How so?" she
asks.
"Well," the chief continues, "Officers began to start forgetting
basic rules and skills. We tried retraining them, but restoring one skill
led to forgetting others. We retrained them how to fire a gun, and they
forget how to fight. We teach them how to fight, and then they'll collapse
and wail in pain if someone so much as taps them on the shoulder. It's
gotten to the point where we've almost had to, for the first time ever,
send officers back to preschool to get potty-trained.
"And that's not all. Our titles keep getting changed. As STARS is
a police force, I should be a chief. But yesterday, I was a general. The
day before that, I was a CEO. Last week, they tried to call me 'Grand
Poobah.'"
Hale takes more notes. "So you think that someone is deliberately
dumbing down your forces?"
"Think?" the Grand-Poobah-cum-CEO-cum-general-cum-chief of STARS
repeats with a bitter chuckle. "I KNOW that someone or something is
screwing with our minds. How else could you explain two cadets that
graduated from the head of their class not knowing how to open a door?"
"Okay. I see your point. From the moment this started to now,
have you seen or heard of anyone that seems out-of-place?" Hale asks.
The chief of STARS thinks for a moment. "I'm sorry," he answers.
"I can't say that I've heard of anything like that."
Hale fights the urge to bite her lip. She doesn't want to go
toe-to-toe with a ridiculously overpowered target unless necessary, but a
crime without any discernable suspect does her, her agency and her client
no good.
Fortunately, she has an idea.
"Do you think I could accompany one of your top officers in
action?" Hale asks.
The chief of STARS ponders this. "I'm not sure what good it would
do, but if you think it would help... Whatever it takes," he concludes. He
presses a button on the intercom on his desk. "Send in Jill Valentine."
No response.
"Send in Jill Valentine!" he repeats.
No response.
Hale draws her pistol, anticipating a zombie attack.
"SEND IN JILL VALENTINE!" the chief of STARS shouts.
Hale cracks the door open and glances out. She sees nothing out of
the ordinary.
"SEND IN JILL VALENTINE!"
Hale takes a deep breath, shoves the door open and scans the room.
"SEND IN JILL VALENTINE!"
Hale hears a voice mutter, "Who's Jill Valentine, sir?" She turns
and sees another STARS officer. Said officer is saluting the intercom.
"What are you doing?" Hale asks, tucking her weapon away.
The STARS officer answers, "The commander-"
"chief."
"Right. The admiral-"
"chief."
"Right. The sensei-"
"CHIEF."
"Right. The administrator-"
"HE'S A CHIEF!" Hale shouts. "He's not a member of the armed
forces! He's not a teacher! He's not a fast-food restaurant manager! HE
IS A CHIEF! C-H-I-E-F!"
The STARS officer nodded. "Right. As I was saying, the dean is
trapped in this here box, and he doesn't hear me. He's been like this for
days."
Hale groans.
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It takes Hale far longer than she cares to admit to teach the
chief of STARS and his office assistant how an intercom works. It takes
even longer to find out where Jill Valentine resides. She finds out that
she has not reported in to work for almost a week.
She parks Carver's car across the street from the apartment complex
where Jill Valentine lives.
Hale realizes that something powerful and sinister is somehow
robbing STARS of rational thought and common sense.
This, however, does not prepare her for what she sees when she
enters the complex.
Jill Valentine walks down a flight of stairs with a bucket. She
walks over to a red chair and dumps the bucket's contents, water, onto the
chair. She then walks back upstairs to her room. Two minutes later, she
walks back down and douses the chair.
"What are you doing?" Hale asks with clenched teeth.
Jill replies, "I'm obeying that sign."
Hale looks around the wet chair. She sees the sign. When she
reads it, she fights the urge to punch Jill squarely in the jaw.
The sign reads, "Wet Paint."
Hale grabs Jill's wrist. If Jill were in full control of her
abilities, a fierce fight would have broken out between Hale and Jill.
However, Jill gives Hale a fearful look. "Jill... JILL. Stop." Hale
demands. "You haven't reported in for your shift in days. The chief-"
"Oh? You mean the senator?" Jill interrupts.
"NO. THE CHIEF. CHIEF! He sent me here to check up on you. And
he wants to send you on another assignment."
Jill nods. "Okay. Just give me a few more moments to take care of
the chair."
Hale is no longer able to fight the urge to punch Jill in the
mouth. However, before she can do so, zombies storm the lobby of the
apartment building. Hale draws her weapon and takes aim at the lead
zombie's head.
"EEK!" Jill shouts. "They'll ruin the chair!"
Hale grumbles as she opens fire that this could be a long, LONG
case.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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Author's Notes:
I admit it. I broke a Self-Extraction tradition. Instead of throwing a
where-the-hell-did-THAT-come-from curveball at the next author, I lobbed
a slowball at him. Thomas Wilde (who, for the record, didn't make James
Howard or Kristen Smirnov do anything) has quite a bit of knowledge of
"Resident Evil," and we both had our reasons, both storywise and
otherwise, to start the zombie jamboree.
(Yun, we're not slamming a specific author. Really. Take some deep
breaths. It's all in fun. No rabble-rousers are we. ^_^;)
At any rate, this was pretty fun to write. And I got help from a group
of individuals who were willing to offer ideas and c&c without
force-feeding it to me. Racewing, A.o.D., Thomas Wilde, Vidstudent,
Austin Loomis and Arlieth Tralare gave me encouragement, helped me
brainstorm and proofread it. I appreciate your help, guys. 8)
And now, the obligatory plug...
http://indemadnesse.sandwich.net
Indie Madnesse: Improvisational Fanfiction, Improvisational MiSTing, and
Improvisational Lunacy all in one place. 8)
Send your questions, comments, statements, inquiries and things you want
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