Everything began that day. Marvin, Vesper, Jen, Eddie, Chloe, and Jack had just found a strange dilapidated building, out in the desert outside Angel Grove. They knew each other, loosely, from before, but weren't exactly friends. But, somehow, they all came that day. None of them particularly remembered why. And they never asked. The inside was dusty, caked in time and darkness. Cellphones alleviated some of that, although it definitely wasn't the dust that fled from the light. They found a series of six strange objects, sitting neatly, clean, glowing softly: red, blue, black, yellow, and two pinks. Each of them picked up one of these devices: Marvin went for the red, Eddie the blue, Vesper the black, Jen and Chloe each grabbed pink, and Jack grabbed yellow.
The earth shook, and light glared on them from above. The light showed them Angel Grove. At first they didn't notice the monsters. The sky, which had been a myriad menagerie of colors for a few weeks, was still so distracting to them that they couldn't really focus on much else. But when their eyes adjusted they saw monsters. At the Park. At Ernie's Juice Bar. Downtown. Right now. One flash of light later and one of those monsters, a grey thing made of rocks, stood amongst them. Everyone screamed. The thing seemed startled as well.
Sometimes when things get frightening and adrenaline kicks in the world slows down. That's certainly the norm. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the world only speeds up more, until it's a blur. Remembering later isn't a problem, but during that moment you wonder if the world will go back to normal. There was another flash of light, and a black-clad figure knocked the monster over and shattered it in one blow.
They all looked at each other, and they knew what to do. "Go!" Marvin shouted, and he and Vesper found themselves at Ernie's, while Jen and Eddie, Chloe and Jack found themselves in the park, facing two of the monsters they'd seen in the building, with three monster that were growing and changing form as they moved. One of these moved fast, much to fast for Jen, Eddie, and Jack to track, changing shape to swallow one of them whole. They never figured out who, because Chloe's foot connected to the monster's chin and shattered its head. Another one attempted to swallow Jack, who grabbed it by the shoulders and headbutted it so hard that it shattered. Jen found herself lunging at another one of the shifting monsters, but she was moving as fast as Chloe was, who had shouted something incomprehensible in her direction. She burst through the thing, sending pieces across the park. Eddie, watching all of this, found that he was holding a trident. One of the more familiar monsters leaped at him, and he skewered it, slamming it into the ground. "Heh, these things are like putty", he chuckled. There was still one monster at the park. Chloe hit it in the chin with a right hook, but it barely cracked. Eddie jumped onto it and slammed it, headfirst, into the ground of a basketball court, shattering it.
At Ernie's everyone was running around, screaming and running from the five monsters. Vesper jumped into the fray, Marvin hot on her heels. Claws popped out of his gauntlets, and he cut two of them down in rapid succession. He missed a third one, who jumped on him and practically buried him in a series of blows. Vesper pulled the monster off of Marvin and punched it into the ground, winding it. Climbing atop it, Vesper beat it into gravel with her bare fists. Marvin ran at the fourth monster and cut it into crumbly ribbons. The last one came at Marvin, who found that he had a hand cannon too. One good blast later and civilians were harmlessly showered in bits of rock. Chloe and Jack sat down for a moment, shaking their heads. They took a deep breath.
A crackling noise happened in everyone's helmets; schoolchildren were running for their lives, chased by the four shapechanging monsters. A strange pumpkin-headed creature, along with four of the strange monsters. Two more were at the docks, and a strange, short white creature in workrobes dropped into Ernie's bar, just in front of Marvin.
Jen, Eddie, Chloe, and Jack teleported from the park to the docks, facing the pumpkin-headed... thing. Jack jumped right into the fray, the others following. Eddie shot on ahead of Jack, and slashing at the vines that came out of it. But he couldn't cut through them, and the vines smacked him, Jen, Jack, and Chloe. Jack took some of the brunt, but he couldn't stop everyone else from being hit by the vines. Chloe whipped out a bow ("Wait, where did I get this?" she shouted) and shot an arrow at the creature, whose mouth started to spark. Flames shot out and burned them all. Jumping back, Jack found that not only did he have a gigantic maul but it had a cannon in it. He pointed it directly at the pumpkin-headed thing and shot it, point blank, enveloping it in an explosion. Jack then headbutted a putty, breaking it into pieces. Chloe jumped at the vines coming out at the pumpkin-headed creature and severed some more of its vines. Some of putties jumped onto Jen and Eddie and beat on them, with the vines crawling over them. Eddie grabbed his blades, threw the putties off, and cut all the vines apart. One of the putties budded, producing another one. Jack, sick and tired of everything, walked straight up to the pumpkin-headed monster, who was just about to drop some sick rhymes, and headbutted it, breaking its head open. The rest of his remains dissolved. The putties ran away.
Back at Ernie's, Vesper found a darkness welling up inside her. It rushed out, and ran over the strange white creature. "Why, I say!" he shouted. Marvin examined the creature as it was being overwhelmed, and pointed out to Vesper how it tried to protect its stomach. But that's when the creature, who introduced himself as Finster, pulled two putties, straight out of the ground. Marvin jumped at Finster, claws cutting deeply into his stomach. Vesper pulled out her axe and ripped into Finster as well. Marvin dropped back, waiting for Finster's next move. A few of the putties jumped onto Marvin, but he pulled out his hand cannon and shot Finster right in the face. The two parties pulled back and took a breather.
Jack, Eddie, Chloe, and Jen teleported over to Ernie's Juice Bar. Finster tried to get the drop on them as they teleported in, but Chloe blocked him, forcing him to back off. Jen whipped out a rifle and began to blast at Finster, and Eddie followed up with a pair of blades. Finster responded with a cannon of his own, but it glanced off of Jack. Eddie pinned Finster to the ground, Marvin held up Finster's head, and Vesper smash it with her shield. With a bright flash Finster was gone. Jen and Eddie, exhausted, teleported back to the mysterious command center they had found and sat down, exhausted. It was over.
Chloe outraced the strange creature, who turned to face them, only to find that she was blocking him. Taking the opening, Eddie pulled out his trident and impaled the robed one, deep in the chest, with Jen laying down covering fire with her rifle. The darkness streamed out of Vesper and engulfed the thing, Marvin shot him in the face, and Jen ran in and shot it in the hand.
With a flick of its fingers Jen and Eddie disappeared.
The robed figured grabbed Vesper and brought its face up to her ear. She grew pale. With a crack and a flash the stranger was gone, as were the putties. Vesper collapsed on the ground and began to weep.
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