Chapter Two: Don't Call Him Sean, Call Him SEEN!!

Real MFG's original story by Max Gardner and Travis Taylor

"Breakin' the law!

 Breakin' the law!"

            --Judas Priest

            Nasty threw herself against the vaulted and ornately carved throne room doors with all her weight, but they remained as tightly closed as they had for the past ten minutes, in which time an impressive pile of dead (if that was the word) zombies had gathered on either side of the party, some charred beyond recognition, others bristling with crossbow bolts.  If anyone's in there, they probably think we're the zombies--we've been pounding on the door loud enough to wake the dead, Nasty thought, and motioned for Santa to help.  The stout man yelled triumphantly and threw his ass into the door as hard as he could, but a shower of dust from above was the only answer he received.

            "Hey, lemme try something," Bumpy said brightly, and fell to his hands and knees before the doors as if to gnaw through them from the bottom and wriggle through the hole.  "HEY! WE'RE ALIVE OUT HERE, LET US IN, OKAY?!"

            Nasty's jaw dropped as a latch was drawn from the inside and the doors creaked slowly open, releasing into the corridor a smell of discarded bandages left too long in the sun.  A trio of dismembered zombies lay just inside the door, swathed in fabric brown with dried blood.  A white-clad Atlantean priest, her eyes wild with fear, motioned Nasty, Bumpy, Santa, and Fernando inside and quickly shut the doors again, snapping the lock into place.

            "Thanks, we--" Nasty ducked a flying spiked fruit lobbed in her direction by someone lurking behind the far end of the banquet table.  "Hold it! We're humans!" She glanced down at herself and then at her companions.  "Well, Santa and Fernando are, anyway, and...and I don't know what the hell Bumpy is, but--we're not zombies, okay?"

            Another Atlantean peered over the finely carved stone, his hair disheveled and stained with blood.  He looked like a man on the edge of insanity.  "Oh.  Sorry about that."

            "Any other survivors, or is it like this everywhere?" Nasty inquired, sitting heavily on one of the long stone benches on either side of the table.

            "There's five of us here," the priest said, running her fingers through her spiky hair in a way that reminded Nasty of Miles.  "We just...we just ran, we don't know where the others are, if they're still alive.  There were ten of us in the beginning.  The Bricklayers and the Wrecking Balls are still in the field cleaning up, we've been waiting for them to get back and take care of it."

            "Listen to me," Nasty said, fixing the priest with a stare she hoped would inspire a little common sense.  "What's your name?"

            "Shemp."

            "Listen to me, Shemp," Nasty continued, "I don't know when the others'll be back, but for now we'll have to take care of ourselves, okay? We have to get out of here.  Out of Atlantis, it's the only thing we can do.  The saucer bay is empty and I don't think all nine of us--"

            "Ten," Bob muttered.  "I'm not chopped liver, y'know."

            "All ten of us won't fit in the one saucer we landed here," Nasty said.  "Is there anywhere else we might find a way to the surface?"

            "We were about to--" She stopped herself, eyes downcast, as though she were ashamed of even thinking whatever she had been on the verge of saying.

            "About to what?" Nasty pressed.

            "We were about to try to get to the power room," Shemp said quietly.  "To consult the Orb of Wrath."

            "WHAT?!" Bumpy covered his ears to drown out Nasty's scream.

            "W-w-well, you know it's powerful enough...it could wipe out all of-" Shemp stammered nervously.

            "IT COULD WIPE OUT ALL OF ATLANTIS, DILDO! IT DID ONCE, IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN!" A prominent vein started bulging angrily beneath the blue skin of her forehead.

            "It'sh already duhstrooed, Narshty." Santa struggled to get the words out in his inebriated state. "Cuhd rilly fug shid ub."

            All of the Atlanteans nodded, and Bumpy gave a what-the-hell sort of shrug.

            "This is a bad idea, all of you know." Nasty said to everyone in the room.

            "Should we just wait until we get jerkied by the zombies?" One of the Atlanteans priests piped in. An electric silence filled the air.

            "Alright," Nasty said. "bear in mind, that chances are Miles had the same thought. Look around the halls to see what that did to him. Here's the plan. We'll need someone who can take the Orb of Wrath, someone with the best chance of using it long enough to get rid of the zombies. Four of you stay here and lay down a suppressive fire until we're clear. Then close the door. If we don't make it to the Orb, then we'll be dead anyway, and you'll be on your own. For now, it's me, Bumpy, who will take the orb-" Bumpy's cheek flushed even more. "-Santa for obvious reasons, Fernando, if he's done pissing himself-"

            "HEY!"

            "And lastly, Shemp."

            "Er...why me?" Shemp said worriedly.

            "In all probability, someone will die on the way down. May as well bring along someone expendable to fill that niche." Nasty said with a shrug.

            "Oh." Shemp slouched deeply. "Fine."

            "Open the door, let them filter in, Santa and Bob will take out the bulk of them, after that, run like hell."

            The doors opened with an ominous creak, and the darkness beyond seemed ready to fill the throne room like a mist.  The silence which followed was abruptly broken by an irregular shuffling, scraping sound like that of a body being dragged slowly across a length of sandpaper.  Nasty quickly lit a fabric-wrapped arrow and shot it into the darkened corridor, where it lodged in the wall and illuminated the emaciated form of another Atlantean guard who had fallen victim to the zombies.  Behind him, clinging to the guard's shoulder as though it were the only thing which kept his legs from collapsing, was a Navarone officer whose richly embroidered overcoat was covered from collar to tails in blood.  His face, pale and thin, was no better off.  These two were followed by several others.  Santa staggered to the doors and shoved the Atlantean roughly into his companions, whereupon the whole group of undead fell in a pile of writhing arms and legs.  At a gesture from Fernando, Bob arced over Santa's head and engulfed the gaggle of zombies, leaving something which resembled a mass of senile old men who had suffered spontaneous human combustion.

            "Fury of the gods, running through my intestines! Cheeks of Fire!" Santa rushed into the hallway and cut twin paths of flame across the group of zombies which had moved in to fill the gap left by those Bob had incinerated.  Nasty pushed Bumpy and a reluctant Shemp into the corridor and leaped in front of Santa, bringing her crossbow to bear on a pair of zombies Santa had missed.  The first, a Rammsteiner with a piece of wire holding his mouth open in a perpetual gape, fell with an effeminate groan of despair.  The second grunted, tore off the index finger of its right hand, and threw it at Nasty.  The rotting flesh glanced off of her tunic with no particular effect.

            "Huh? Finger?! What the hell?" she exclaimed, disgusted.

            She loaded another bolt into the crossbow, pegged the undead creature between its beady eyes, and darted past its twitching corpse with Santa, Bumpy, Fernando, and Shemp in tow.

            "Hey, wait, I--" Nasty glanced over her shoulder and gagged as the priest fell behind a few precious steps and was seized by a trio of zombies who ripped her skinny frame apart like a piece of wet paper.  Shemp's screams followed the remaining four until they rounded a corner and found themselves in a corridor apparently free of zombies, although, judging from the shattered glow-orbs and the half-eaten bodies lying in the shallow river of fast-running water, they had certainly come this way to reach the throne room.  After traversing several such corridors without so much as a groan from the undead plague, which had obviously taken up residence elsewhere in the compound, Nasty held up a hand to stop the others.  By the torchlight she could make out a door perhaps twice as tall as Nasty herself, arched and intricately carved like the doors of a cathedral.  Into the dark wood was engraved what she at first took to be a sun, but on closer inspection found to be a sphere atop a stone pedestal.

            "Hey Shemp, this thing's not going to kill us all as soon as we open the door, is it?" Nasty inquired.

            "Shemp's dead," Fernando reminded her.

            "Oh yeah," Nasty said.  "Well, we either stay out here and get eaten or go in and take our chances with something that sank a civilization that used to rule the entire world into the ocean.  Take your pick."

            "Cool!" Bumpy said, running toward the Orb at a cheerful gait as Nasty and Santa pushed the heavy doors open.  The room was small and consisted of a central island of perfectly carved white stone around which was situated a still pool of clear water at least ten feet deep, a moat around a miniature castle.  The Orb itself rested atop an elaborately carved stone pedestal at the island's center, a glass ball the size of Nasty's head, clutched in a wooden claw which might have been either that of a bird of prey or of a particularly large lizard.  At the base read a phrase in ancient Atlantean which, as far as Nasty knew, said "My Karma Ran Over Your Mama." The artifact pulsed with a malignant blue light.  So this was what powered the ancient civilization.  The same civilization it had once destroyed, ironically enough.  Bumpy hit the Orb at full speed and plucked it from the claw's grip as if it were a Christmas present.  He turned to face the group, a slightly meanspirited gleam in his eye.

            "Okay, guys, what the fuck do we do with this thing now that we've got it?" His eyes widened in amazement at the naughty word which had escaped his lips.  "Um...buddies, um...I don't know why, but...this thing just told me if I let it go it'll get really pissed off.  I don't think that'd be a good thing."

            "...Bumpy?" Nasty placed a hand on the crossbow at her hip.

            "Yeah?"

            "What the hell's with you?"

            "Hey Nasty," Bumpy sneered, clutching the Orb protectively.  "You're so flat, you're jealous of the wall.  Santa's got bigger boobs than you."

            "Hey, little buddy," Santa growled, undoing a button at the back of his pants.

            "You're not my buddy, titty-man," Bumpy hissed, and laughed malevolently.  "Know what's funny to think about? You love food so much, but if I just happened to...drop this thing--" He feigned dropping the Orb.  "--you'd never eat again.  Not a sandwich, or a salad...not even a little baby pea."

            Kill the little freak, an impatient female voice suggested.  Nasty glanced around the room, attempting to discern its source.  If he breaks his contact with the Orb while he's alive, everything'll go boom, but if he's dead it won't give a damn what happens to him.

            "What the hell?" Nasty said aloud.

            I'm in your head, ace. Kill him.

            "I mean, seriously though, Nasty Biatch, what the hell did you see in Fernando? The guy's off the fucking assembly line for Wizard Nerds R' Us." Bumpy's normally glassy eyes caught an evil gleam.

            Kill him for Wendt's sake!

            "If I kill him, then we still have the zombies to deal with." Nasty said through gritted teeth. It had been a long, annoying day, and having something in the back of her head bossing her around wasn't improving Nasty's disposition any.

            Huh. I know, say this to him.

            Nasty listened and nodded.

            "Hey, Bumpy! One of those zombies called you chicken-boy!"

            Bumpy's eyes bluged out even further, and an electric surge pulsated up and down along one of his forehead veins.

            "WHAAT?" Electricity exploded out of the Orb and shot out the door.

            That should have done the trick. Now kill him.

            Nasty leveled her crossbow and buried a bolt in the back of Bumpy's head.

            "That kinda sucked," Bumpy said before slumping over. The Orb glimmered for a moment before reappearing on its perch.

            "Well," Nasty said, "that worked, sort of." She re-holstered her crossbow.

            You realize, of course, that even though the zombies are gone, that the Orb isn't too happy.

            "THE ORB'S BACK ON ITS PERCH! WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?" Nasty asked, oblivious to the blank stares she received from every corporeal being in the room.

            It'll explode, eventually. Then we're all screwed. The Orb isn't  a toy. It is the physical incarnation of the wrath of Wendt, looking for a host, an ego to channel its unending rage. I tried telling the Atlanteans that, but noooooooo, they were perfectly content to just have this one orb to power all their gadgets, and now what happened? They're all a bunch of fish-people.

            "What's your point?"

            There're two more Orbs that you'll need to find to balance the three of them out. In that case, the planet won't erupt into a giant hoe-down from this thing. You probably want to find Miles, too.

            "He touched the Orb, didn't he? That's why he did all this?"  The voice in Nasty's head started fading out.

            I've sent a couple of people to help. They'll be along soon.

            "How will I know who they are?"

            Oh, trust me, you'll know them when you see them.

            Nasty was alone in her own head once again.

            "Hey, you guys!" Bumpy exclaimed as he burst through the door, rubbing a sore spot at the back of his head.  "You've gotta see this!"

            "What the hell?" Santa muttered as the party emerged into the dark corridor.  Zombies lay scorched and blackened along the entire length of the hallway, most reduced to bare, charred skeletons and piles of ash.  Bumpy's anger, channeled through the Orb, must have done this.  A quick reconnaisance of the adjoining corridors found more undead remains, and the walls had been seared by the burst of blue electricity.

            "I didn't do that," Bumpy said with a hurt expression.

            "'Course not," Nasty said absently, running her hands through her spiky hair as she attempted to work out some course of action, some plan of attack.  The posse would split up--two, possibly three groups.  One to find Miles, whoever or whatever he had become, and two to find the remaining Orbs, which would hopefully balance the Orb of Wrath's hatred in time.  The Orb of Love and the Orb of Time, the voice in her head had called before it had faded completely.  Perhaps the location of that first Orb might be known in Pimptown, although Nasty had no particular desire to return there anytime in the near future.  What had to be done, she supposed, had to be done.

            "Listen," she said, turning to the group.  "We've got to find Miles.  He needs help.  And as for the other problem, there should be two more Orbs somewhere.  We may have a day or a week or a year, but if we don't find them in time to satisfy the Orb of Wrath, we're all gonna fry.  It won't be easy one way or another.  Are you all with me?"

            A resounding cheer arose from the others, with the exception of Bumpy, who raised a hand in reluctant agreement.  Nasy leaped back, crossbow at the ready, as a tall black man who looked as though he had just been attacked by hungry ghosts staggered into the corridor and collapsed at her feet.

            "This," he said weightily, "is how it begins...."

-----

Back to the Real MFG's index