Horrors Inc.

((Currently has four people (including me), though if anyone else wants in, just post in the discussion topic first ^_^))


There were only three months left until Annah Lohan's retirement.

"Thank you and come again." she said with a weary but pleasant smile as another customer glanced back pleasantly but quickly before running out of the convenience store. Had she been thirty years younger, Anna would have offered to help him out to his car with the supplies.

Unfortunately, helping anyone was out of the question with her leg still in a mechcast and locked in a nearly-straight position. She would have liked to have followed the man out to make further conversation, and it wasn't just because he had seemed nice.

It was largely because the next person in line who walked up in a rumpled grey sweater and black jeans carrying two gallons of milk, a pound of hamburger, and a crimson-stained fishhook which was poking out from between her unusually red lips like a lollipop.

Smiling as politely as she could, Anna attempted conversation. "So, will that be all for-"

The young woman promptly sucked the fishook into her mouth with a small intake of breath and allowed her jaw to begin working as though the barbed piece of metal were a bit of gum.

"All for...today? Good." Anna said, answering the question herself as she suddenly feared what would happen if this raven-haired beauty opened her mouth. "I've got three months left on the job you know. It's about time to give my old bones a rest a-" she paused, listening to the wet tearing noise and muffled squirt. "Rest." she repeated, wishing the receipt would print faster.

The customer smiled, eyes straying across a tabloid rack behind the elderly cashier. Weekly World News, National Enquirer, Limbaugh Livin- oh good, finally something suitable for him. she thought, allowing her eyes to fall half-shut as she tore the interior of her mouth quietly.

"Manager takeover in Line 14." Annah whispered quickly, feeling dizzy as a dribble of blood was seen at the corner of the girl's lip.

CLICK

"Sorry, Anna." The girl said, swallowing the hook and shivering slightly as the familiar warm and wet feeling spread from her esophogus to her stomach. "You.." she began, realizing something had torn and her voice now had the tone of a badly multi-tracked pop singer. "You should've found a better way to hide yourself if you were really trying to uncover a world domination scheme that would've required your fortune as funding." Rule one:" she said, eyes flickering to check the weapon. "Don't risk it all by faking death to draw them into the open. They might react faster than you."

"Wh-" she sputtered, gaining some of her assertion back instantly as she realized the "customer" knew too much. "But they didn't rea-"

The fishhook-chewer stood easily, ignoring the receipt and groceries. All eyes in the area were suddenly on the sawed-off shotgun she had pulled from the back of her wrinkled jacket. "That's because we stopped them. You nearly lost NATO to a group of terrorists."


Twelve seconds, one shot, and two shells later, she walked out of the store with her purchased items, wiping the splattered blood across her pale face into faint streaks that she realized she would have to wash off later.

Yep.. she thought, looking down at her sprayed front. Definitely a shower and a change of clothes after this. "Necromantic to Rigor Mortis." she said, speaking practically to no one in pariticular as she stood behind a vending machine outside. "Exit HN-2 please?"

The vending machine with it's tattered "Out of Order" sign opened suddenly, revealing what appeared to be a brightly lit elevator car.

"Took care of the Trimspa assignment."

"--Good.--" the voice on the other end crackled. "--Better get back down here though...cops'll be arriving any minute--"

The police began to arrive indeed, rapidly followed by an ambulance that roared up to the scene, sirens blaring. The ambulance pulled up and came to an sharp halt, several figures piling out of it, the leader of the group was a somewhat tall, young man, looking to be about 20 or so years old, had a solidly built body, short, dark hair, and piercing, emerald green eyes. Something about him seemed foreign, but no one ever was able to really place what it was. Quickly snapping a mask up over his face, ending with him matching the rest of his team.

Moving into the convenience store, the small group of paramedics approached the scene, and at first glance, the murdered women was pronounced dead. Not long after, she was neatly loaded into a bodybag, then onto a stretcher, then into the back of the ambulance.

Not even bothering with the sirens, the ambulance drove away, vanishing from the sight of the scene. A short while afterwards, the young man who had seemed to lead the team of medics pulled his mask down and looked back into the back of the vehicle at his team. Revealing that they had all removed their masks, disclosing that they were not human, nor where they even organic, they were machines, humanoid in form, but clearly robotic. And judging by the way they were built, and the many appendages and tools that could be seen as they stripped off the scrubs, they were not medical robots....unless one performed surgery with a laser cutters and impact wrenches.

The young man, and now clearly the only living human in the vehicle called back, "You guys got that all buttoned up?"

A filtered voice came back to him, "Yes sir."

"Good, we'll be to the Renegade soon enough, lets get rid of this little package and get paid."

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Not much later, the ambulance, now having left the city it had been in, pulled into a driveway that led up to a small farm house on a rather expansive farm. The vehicle smoothly drove right into a garage.

About ten minutes later, a large portion of the field opened up, and a sleek, silvery craft erupted from the hole, headed for space like a home-sick angel. Breaking free of earth's atmosphere in no time flat, the ship pulled into orbit, and settled into a smooth path. flipping so that the apparant 'bottom' of the ship faced the planet, a pair of bay doors opened up on the bottom, and something somewhat large floated out which, upon closer inspection, was the ambulance, all doors open.

The, now quite misplaced from its intended use, vehicle, drifted for a moment, then began to fall towards earth at a rather sharp angle, and upon striking the edge of the atmosphere, flared in a rather spectacular fireball as the friction heated the metal of the vehicle, then detonated the fuel tank. The ambulance had totally burned up to nothing in a matter of about a second.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Seated in the cockpit of the silvery ship, the young man who had been masquerading as a paramedic picked up what appeared to be a rather souped-up cell phone, and dialed in on it.

"This is Raimer, I'm done with your little clean-up job."

Pause

"That's right, nobody is going to find the body."

Pause

"Yes, we discovered that ambulances weren't made to survive atmospheric re-entry."

Pause

"Now about my payment."

Pause

"Yeah, that's right, that pistol."

Pause

"I don't ask why that body had to be dumped, you don't ask why I'm accepting a .50 caliber pistol as payment."

Pause

"Right, I'll come back by and pick it up once I can get a clean window for re-entry."

Pause

"Figure I can come back down in about three hours."

Pause

"Right, later."

Far from the convenience store -so far in fact, that it was around the world and actually a twenty minute walk away from the convenience store- a simple looking farmhouse sat.

It was a simple structure; three stories high with white siding and green trim that gave one the impression that some millionaire had retired from his mansion and decided to live in something with such a modest air that the entire thing felt staged to the point of guadiness.

Past a red front door and inside a living room with darkwood panelling and a tavern-like feel, eight robed men sat clad in purest white; some wearing their pointed white hoods while others simply held them in their gloved hands. They muttered quietly as they sat on various pieces of furniture carved and painted to look like piles of twisted skeletons. It was simply business as usual for them and the calm demeanor with which they conversed amongst themselves belied the reality of what they were about to do.

Unfortunately, the cordial air was split by one of the klansmen leaping to his feet with such force and vigor that it shook the table and sent the chair he had sat in flying back with a resounding crash as he shouted "HE DUMPED THE BODY!"

The other seven KKK members stared in numb shock.

Then one of them clapped with sarcastic appreciation.

"Brilliant..." he said with a sigh, pulling his own hood off with a clawed arm and shaking out his long red hair. "We're never going to pull this infiltration off."

"Whose idea was it spy on the KKK form within anyway? a red-eyed young man wondered as his split-jaws clicked together with a faint buzing noise.

"Not mine, dear." a girl said from behind her hood as one hand reached into the taller figure's robe from behind and began massaging far lower than any therapist might.

"Okay, enthusiasm aside.." the first hooded figure said, pulling the eyeholed maske free and revealing a macabre mix of flesh and bone that seemed to shift in an out of human-faced and skull-faced. "That was Raimer. Steph's run was a success and Raimer's dumped the body."

"So the Trimspa campaign really is dead?" the red-haired figure asked hopefully, playing with his clawed fingers.

"Deader than Jimmy Hoffa, Michael." the wraith who commonly went by "Rigor" responded casually.

"I thought Hoffa was still alive." the redhead muttered. "You know, Section 14 Janitorial Services?"

"That's just someone who looks like him. Not every dead person is really alive." Rigor said with a tooth-revealing grin as the skin and muscle on his jaws momentarily faded to invisibility.

In the area around the store chaos reigned as people ran to and fro trying to make sense of the maddness. Among it all a young girl approached one of the policemen on guard.

"What happened here?" She asked.

The policeman opened his mouth, at that moment several things happened, thoughts shifted over the entire area, forcefully, they shoved their version of truth down the throats of all nearby so quick and feirce that most never even notice the change. Also in the video room where survalance equipment had recorded the shooting, there was a flash and then nothing, the tape was gone, replaced with another.

The moment passed.

"There was a robbery 5 armed gunmen they took a hostage and fled the scene," The policeman answered.

The girl smiled, "Thank you," With that she walked out into the street and into a waiting van.

"It worked," She reported as she took her seat.

"Of course," Itzal answered from where he sat in the back of the van.

"I got the tape, replaced it with the other one, whats next?" Lucius asked from where he sat in the drivers seat.

"The wreckage," Itzal said.

"Oh ya, I did that already, six bodies burned beyond all recognition, no dna testing or anything conclusive,"

"They we have completed our task, get us out of here," Itzal said.

"Why do they have to be sloppy about these things, its so much work,"

"If they hadnt had the body dropped it would have just looked like a random shooting but with them taking the body, that could lead to question if the wrong kind of reporter gets on the trail, it could spell the begining of some unwanted problems, so we had to finish the job, tomorrow the papers will read of the heroic sacrifice of a shop lady who allowed herself to be taken hostage rather than a innocent bystander," Itzal not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

"Well whatever," Luna said, "Get us back will ya Lucius,"

"Right on Nemo, away we go,"

"Well that bit could've gone better." Stephanie said, shaking her head as she stepped naked out of a shower in her room. Wet hair clinging to her back, she stared in annoyance at the television moutned in the far wall as coverage of a hostage situation began. "Dammit...it's tabloid coverage of something bizarre..." she said, repeating what she thought the story trio had heard earlier that day. "Six people dead in a hostage situation is going to become national news."

They covered it up well. she thought, given Itzal's team credit where it was due. But we don't want anything we do becoming a big story like this.

Smiling slightly at the idea of six bodies somehow being burned to charred heaps in a scenario involving hostages, the girl reached over to a metal rack and pulled off a grey, glittering towel.

The steel wool was going to feel good on her bones, once it got through the skin and muscle of course.



"So unless anyone else has something to bring up, I'm heading back to our outpost." Rigor said, folding his white hood back up and shoving it into one of the robe's numerous pockets.

"Don't think so." Hellfire said, glancing at the other seven members. "I've got my team working on a plot to harvest potential energy from Mount Vesuvius and resurrect Hitler right now. Supposedly the Catholic Church is behind it too. They need something to rail against."

"Same here...in terms of getting back to stuff that is." Hikaru said as Hikari's arms snaked around his front from behind. "We've got something important goin-"

"Business related." the girl said, raising her hands innocently.

"See you back in another week then." Richard said, ducking as he walked into the house's ancient refrigerator and vanished.

"So how bad is it?" Lucius asked as he drove.

"Bad enough, but we're fortunate, in this day and age in two days everyone will have forgotten about it, something else will have got their attention, but either way this was two flashy," Itzal said.

"Maybe that will throw any conspriy theroist off, they woundt expect us to be so blatant," Luna suggested.

"You have given me the one solace I can find in this mission, the orignal plan would have been much better, simply replace the tape with one that had Necromatic's face distorted, but at least were able to improvise,"

"Yep," Lucius said with a grin. "There's nothing Team Flash can't do,"

Silence

"Lucius, if you ever refer to me as part of that delusion of yours again, so help me I will show Luna's Bo staff parts of your atnatomy that would make Necro cringe," Itzal said darkly.

"Heheheh," Lucius sweatdropped. "I'll keep that in mind, at least I still got you right Nemo?"

"Leave me out of your fantasies weirdo,"

Gino flipped a page of the week old newspaper several times before it onto the wet ground. Several asian characters scrawled across it, accompanying a picture of a man with two heads and a picture a gigantic lizardlike footprint.

"Whats done is done, lets just hope no one notices that this thing was real," said Gino from behind his polarized helmet.

Stetching his spine covered back, he rested against the pointed 'chair' he had been lying against for the past several days. "So, enjoy your trip?"

A massive roar echoed from the cavern behind him, shaking the mutant to the very core, "Not, you big guy; Our other guest"

Looking over at the small pile of bandages in the corner, he gave a sharp whistle, "Oi, wake up... its creepy seeing you like that."

The bandages oozed and grew, seemingly wrapping themselves up over an unseen figure. Clothes came into view, followed by the head of a Chinese girl. "We there?" she asked, turning to face him while a large black eye slid across the bandages on her stomach like mercury.

"No, but its boring trying to read the same story over and over again, and you're more interesting to talk to than Zilla here." A loud growl of annoyance rippled through the cavernous mouth. "No offense"

"You just need me for translation," the mummy girl said, cheeks puffed out.

"You don't speak Korean... You couldn't translate that if you wanted. Though it would be nice if you did, then we wouldn't have had to rely on my friend here to stop the giant praying mantis in North Korea. We would have been able to delt with them ourselves, but you killed the scientists and couldn't figure out which button was "self destruct" or "Make bugs BIGGER""

A peice of the bandage whipped out and pointed at his neck, "I still beat you in one on one fighting match. No forget."

The small 'run away' siren in Ginos head blarred; rubbing his temples to get the throbbing to go away he added, "yeah yeah dudette, I know"

"Good," said Bandages, whipping the peice of gauze back into her arm. "Oh, What you been eating? It been a week since Horror call us back"

Gino looked at her, then began digging around into the gums of their monster chauffer. With a small 'ah-ha' he pulled out a peice of rotting tuna from the gap, "This. Once you force yourself past the gag reflex, this stuff is plenty good."

~~~

The fisherman had moved from New York to the beaches of california after the incident where he hooked a monster. Being the man to basically usher Zilla into the city of new york had been a 'memorable' experiance, but he wished to never have one like it again.

So here he sat, at the end of the dock with his fishing rod in hand. Smiling as he felt the tug he began reeling, but something in the distance caught his attention.

A surge of water.

Three sets of spines rising into view.

Then blackness as the heart attack hit and he fell backwards onto the wet wood motionless.

~~~

A set of rough growls echoed from the monsters throat, and Gino blinked in confusion "... Why's he laughing?"

Rigor glanced up from his watch to check the lights in the elevator. They were going dim again. He'd talked with his sister about replacing them yesterday, but that plan had been put off by the urgency of the Trimspa Operation.

The elevator itself was of an odd design; looking like the interior of a refrigerator, which indeed it had been until moments ago. The system was a simple setup, and very convenient as one could survive for a few days if the elevator happened to lose power along with the dozens of backup generators while between floors in a situation that left debris pinning it shut.

In short, being trapped was about as likely as President Obama bleaching his skin and turning gay for Michael Jackson.

Still, one didn't usually find elevators with enough materials for a complete deli sandwich inside. All you did after shutting the door was pull down on the inside handle, and the compartment would sink back into the wall and be replaced with another elevator-refrigerator compartment from above. The only real challenge was not eating everything before you hit the interior of the operations base.

As the elevator hit bottom and hissed open; its curved doors opening into a corridor barely four feet long, Rigor's nostrils detected a faint coppery smell.

She's at it again.. he thought as the secondary doors hissed open with a clank and a raspy breathing hit his ears.

Despite having seen it many times, the wraith's nose wrinkled and vanished briefly in a shimmer. "Would you...mind not doing that on the furniture?" he said as Stephanie raised her glistening crimson head with a sticky tugging noise off the cushions to glance at him in mild surprise.

"Sorry." she said in a faint whisper as she shakily got up, leaving a massive body-shaped bloodstain on one leather couch as she stumbled off towards her room.

Rigor stood at the entrance still. The room was little more than a glorified alcove off to the side of something far more vast.

The chamber itself was something of a sphere, marked by a massive computer-covered cylinder in its center. Terminals, keyboards, and screens covered its surface and each in turn was partially obscured by a seemingly primitive web of pullies and swings that operators could sit on and if skilled enough, run several tasks on three computers each above another with ease. The very layout of the place using ladders and small one-man elevator platforms seemed almost ancient, but Rigor often commented that the "patched together" look of the place usually made people feel comfortable. There were five levels total; each surrounding the central open area and each with doorways branching off to various houses or in the case of overseas operatives; underwater monorails.

It had been no easy task getting it all assembled, though the underwater lines were simple enough, as many countries put on a public face about advanced methods of transportation and nobody ever questioned why no one ever seemed to use such extravagant methods.

"You want to sit in a sealed train car with freaks!?" would have been a public response if the question had been asked, and if anyone other than the organization knew about the organization.

As it was however, the public response when someone happened to ask was "Tell me, do you love your family?"

So we keep people out who probably wouldn't wanna even be here. Rigor thought, looking at the drying blood on the black leather couch.

"Hey boss," Lucius called to Rigor as he entered from the other end of the room Luna followed behind him. Rigor didnt even need to turn around to know that Itzal was already seated in his favorite chair.

Lucius took in the blood on the couch, "Looks like our resident Cenobite is at it again,"

Luna looked at the blood with slight apprehension and shivered.

"What is our next assignment?" Itzal asked from his seat.

"Next assignment actually came in this morning." the mutant said, pulling a folded sheet of paper out from his jacket pocket. He blinked almost lazily at it as the bluish transparency sheet seemed to dry itself and solidify into something the others would recognize as normal paper. "Ah yes...Itzal, I'm sending you and Stephanie up to Maine for a while. People keep dropping dead from smallpox, despite the fact that everyone's been vaccinated against it now.

"I know," he said, holding up a hand which shifted to a ghostlike state save two fingerbones. "It may sound mundane, but the fact that people are dropping dead after visiting a certain bookstore." he added, flipping the paper out to reveal the address of a Waldenbooks. "Only makes it odd enough to investigate. I'll be keeping tabs so I can send you guys more information, but smallpox epidemics spreading from a book outlet rated as the "Cleanest Store Around" last month is more than a little suspicious."

"So we investigate dead people?" a topless Necromantic said, struggling to pull on a black tank top to hide the seeping stitches going up between her pale breasts. "Sounds fun to me."

"Find out the cause, and neutralize it in a way thay only makes tabloid headlines." he answered, one eyebrow twitching into invisibility. "Figure it out, and get back here as soon as you guys can with answers. Lucius and Luna..." he said, nodding to the other two. "I've got a few other things to handle, but we need Gino's group back here for that first."

Lucius had politely looked away when Stephanie had emerged, Luna had pretended to be looking elsewhere, and Itzal, if he saw or noticed or even cared at all he wasn't saying and the darkness that hid his face wasn't telling.

"When do we leave?" Itzal asked simply, all business.

Lucius sighed and stretched, "Well seeing that Gino was on the coast last time we checked, we should have some time before he gets here, right Nemo,"

"A break, woo hoo," Luna responded sarcasticaly though she smiled at the news and headed off to her room.

Lucius plopped down in a chair and streched out.

"This job can be hell, but ya can't argue with the perks,"

An echoing rumble tore through the ground below them, as if something massive and angry had decided to build its own subway system in 3 seconds flat. The rumbling slowly vanished, and was followed by a distant roar.

A voice over the communcation systems barked, "Hey, sorry about that guys, Zilla doesn't like using the Underwater sytems around here... Have someone fill in his tunnel after he goes out the way he came. Gino out"

It was about a minute later that the smell of week old Tuna hit them, and two minutes later when Bandages and Gino walked into the room. The lizard like teen crossed his arms and said indiffrently, "You'd smell the same too if you traveled via Kaiju mouth. Besides, I kinda like it"

"You get used to it. Maybe soon" said Bandages.