[center][u][b]October 31st, 6:58 PM
Lake Dover, Outskirts of Hub City[/b][/u]

As the last of around six criminals hit the shoreline of Lake Dover unconscious, Bruce Phoenix nursed his bruised and aching fists. He was outside Hub City again, here to check up on  both his protege The Question and seek out a particular hero on the advice of the Boddhisattva Rama Kushna regarding a massive upheaval in...well, mystic arts were never Bruce’s forte, but he remembered something about a particular proto-afterlife of sorts being in crisis. But on his way, he had seen these fairly suspicious people headed out towards the lake, and naturally they had gone there to dump some poor unconscious fool who had crossed them in one way or another. Well, what was a former hero to do but teach them a lesson and free the unfortunate prisoner?

The dead might be rising in the West, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t time for some old fashioned heroism on his way to clarify the problem.

Unfortunately just as he was about to try and wake the sod these mobsters had so rudely stuffed into a sack and tied weights to, a pretty noticeable roiling and bubbling started at the center of the lake. Bruce had enjoyed the old Hammer Horror and Universal films back in the day, but with all the crazy things he’d seen in his time he never expected Frankenstein to rise up like the Creature From The Black Lagoon right in front of him. Still, that was exactly what it looked like, a [b]BIG[/b] zombie rising up out of the lake in front of him.

“You know, I thought my fists were sore after taking down those guys, but you my friend, are definitely going to call for some ice packs.” 

Bruce stepped out in front of the unconscious former victim so he was blocking the big zombie as the massive, pale corpse shambled out of the water.  The creature took one look at Bruce’s fighting stance and roared, charging and sending an arm like a tree trunk sweeping down at the kung fu fighter.  Bruce caught the wild swing, though he had to bolster himself with chi to do it even as he redirected most of the force and momentum of the attack into a throw that sent the undead goliath hurtling through the air. It was unfortunate that whatever was powering the zombie hardly took a second to get back up again, but Bruce was already there trying to strike at the eyes, the nose and every sensitive point he could with chi empowered strikes as the creature rose.

Unfortunately, none of his attacks had any effect, and the nine-foot-tall undead simply backhanded the martial artist before he could realize his attacks were being shrugged off. The force of the blow was enough to not only send Bruce flying through the air, but literally hurl him miles away to Hub City proper as the chi reinforcing his body at that moment kept him barely alive before he crashed into some poor business owner’s unsuspecting storefront.

[hr]

[b]7:04 PM
Silver Leaf Academy Event Hall[/b]

“Here you go,” Karen forced a smiled to another student, doing her best to keep her words from coming out in the form of a sigh. Gratefully accepting the punch she had been offered, the brunette returned her smile.

“Thanks! It’s nice to see that hard working immigrants like you can make it into Silver Leaf too!” She replied, waving her off as she returned to the party.

“But I’m not a…” Karen started, her shoulders slumping in a long sigh.

The sooner this party ended, the better. Pulling out her Galaxy X - courtesy of Zoey - and glancing at the time, she mumbled a swear under her breath at the fact that the event would last at least another hour, probably more. All the other kids here were having quite a fun time. A lot of them were discussing their high scores in Polo. Wasn’t that what crippled FDR?

At least she could enjoy watching Maroon Five play on stage. She had to wonder just how much money the school had to shovel out to get them to perform at this thing? These people must be nearly as loaded as Zoey was.

Glancing down at the glass plate that had been wordlessly shoved in front of her, she began to fill it with quiches and other hor d’oeuvres, before filling a cup with punch. The man snatched both away from her without ever saying a word, with the next in line shuffling forward.

“Having fun, creampuff?” Clarissa grinned to her, shoving her punch cup forward.

Karen’s brow instantly quirked at the platinum blonde girl in front of her. She, like herself, was wearing the uniform of a Hogwarts student, but...it was certainly not a [url=https://imgur.com/PmgAnqd]conventional[/url] one. “Clare, what the hell are you wearing?!”

“What? I’m just getting into the holiday spirit!” Clarissa insisted, shaking her empty cup. “You could’ve been doing the same, if you had the balls to turn people down.”

Frowning slightly as she filled the other teen’s cup with more punch, she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous over how much more accepting the students had been towards Clarissa in comparison to herself, despite them both coming from [i]The Wedge[/i]. And despite Clare...well, being Clare. Nobody had even [i]tried[/i] to shove something like this onto the deviant artist.

“I hope they’re not going to have something like this for [i]every[/i] holiday,” Karen muttered.

“Yeah,” Clarissa agreed, not even waiting a second to take a long drink of the punch. “You’d probably get pressured into serving drinks at those too.”

Karen exhaled, a low grumble rumbling from her throat as her only friend here departed. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for an emergency right now.

Karen got her wish sooner than she might’ve expected, in the form of a grey, nine-foot-tall zombie in tattered, lake-soaked clothes bursting through the wall nearby like it was made of paper. He didn’t roar or screech or ask for brains, in fact now he seemed disoriented by his surroundings, holding his head with one massive hand and looking around as if trying to get his bearings. As if on instinct he had headed toward the city, but he had more or less walked in just a straight line, smashing through or stepping on whatever was in his way up until now. But the decorations and screaming children seemed to give him pause, as if he knew that something was off with his surroundings now, like one odd detail sticking out to give away the fact that what someone is experiencing is a dream.

Diving under the table reflexively when the thunderous crack of the wall breaking sent children screaming for the exit, Karen crawled her way out the opposite side before she was able to really get a solid look at the creature.

It looked a lot like one of those zombies she had been dealing with for nearly two weeks, but it was…[i]big[/i]. Both in height and in bulk, like he had been juicing hardcore down in the underworld. But it obviously wasn’t just his appearance that differed: that strength was for real. It was like the wall was made of tissue paper or something!

Noting that doors were pretty packed with kids and teachers alike desperately trying to force their way out, she began chewing her lip nervously. Too many witnesses to transform right now. All the obvious exits were packed with people. That left only the [i]non-obvious[/i] ones...namely the one that this mountain of undead muscle had just made.

Swallowing the sizeable lump in her throat, Karen charged to the far end of the event hall and pressed herself up against the wall. As the super zombie moved forward, she quickly slipped out of the hole in the wall. There were still plenty of witnesses outside, though, so this wouldn’t do [i]either![/i]

[color=orchid]“Oh shit, I don’t like where my mind’s going,”[/color] Karen muttered to herself, drawing in power from the surrounding laylines. Hub City was a rich epicenter of magic, so at least it was always easy here. Forming a little purple ball of light in her hand, she reared back and hurled straight at the back of the oversized corpse’s head. Her spell, naturally, shattered on impact. Hopefully he at least felt it. [color=orchid]“...Hey you!”[/color]

Karen bent over and smacked her ass through her Hogwarts robes. [color=orchid]“Catch me if you can, ugly!”[/color]

Dashing as fast as her very human legs would carry her, Karen ran across the campus and into the main part of school. She needed to get to a classroom or something where she could transform without anybody seeing it!

The massive zombie roared and charged after Karen, moving with the graceless speed and inevitability of an undead rhino, or maybe a freight train made of reanimated meat. He slammed through any obstacles between himself and the main school area without bothering to try and maneuver, only knowing that he was now angry at the small thing that taunted him.

Rushing down the main hall at speeds that exceeded anything she’d ever managed to accomplish at the school track & field, she screamed when the monster came smashing through the wall behind her, sending lockers flying across the hall, their sacredly private contents spilling out for whatever poor soul had to clean this all up to find. Arriving at the high school biology class, Karen quickly twisted the nob and dashed inside.

She didn’t need a second longer to consider what her next action would be.

[color=orchid]“SHAZAM!”[/color]

A blinding flash of light followed by an echo of thunder heralded her transformation, and not a moment too soon. Just one glancing blow from that freak would’ve splattered her across the city.

Drawing a deep breath, Lady Arcana readied herself.

The colossal zombie shouldered his way through the doorway of the biology lab, exploding it along with a good portion of the wall as easily as an angry child kicking over a sandcastle. Unconcerned with the shower of debris he’d created. He lunged forward with all the technique of a rabid animal, trying to simply grab Arcana in two massive mitts and pulp her like an overripe fruit.

[color=orchid]“Woah!”[/color] Lady Arcana yelped when he came smashing through the wall, rising above his muddy murder mittens in the nick of time before twisting in the air to issue a kick to the side of his head. Since he was - like all the others - a mindless zombie, she didn’t have to worry about taking it easy on him, so she put a considerable amount of force behind it.

She should’ve probably been more concerned about all the school property they were breaking...but hey, they [i]were[/i] ridiculously rich.

The zombie took the kick to the head surprisingly well, digging in hard with his feet to prevent himself from being knocked back and uttering only a low ‘Ungh!’ of sorts as his head was briefly snapped sideways by the strike, apparently even more durable than his smaller kin. Strangely enough the kick seemed to rattle something loose in his brain, as instead of simply trying to grab at her again, he reached out with each hand to grab a biology lab table in each, swinging them at her with unexpected speed for his size in a bid to improve his odds of hitting her with the improvised bludgeons.

Lady Arcana had most certainly [i]not[/i] expected him to remain on his feet after that hit. In fact, she had figured it would either send him flying, or knock his block clean off. Not only that, but he was [i]startlingly[/i] quick to retaliate against her with a pair of lab tables that he wielded like they were ogi fans. Feeling them shatter against her with enough force to send splinters flying in every direction - to the point where some embedded themselves in the [i]wall[/i], she was sent flying back by the unexpected force.

Smashing through the blackboard at the far end of the room, she emerged in History 1103. Plowing through several rows of desks before she managed to stop herself, Lady Arcana frowned at the towering menace through the hole she had left.

[color=orchid]“Alright, I get it. You’re big league,”[/color] she muttered, lifting off the ground again.

In a sudden blur of motion she charged forward, drawing back her fist and slamming it towards the side of his left jaw with a slight “hyah”! This time she did something she’d never really done before: she put [i]effort[/i] into her attack. Even against Asad she’d tried to be careful not to hurt him...but this guy was already dead, and was mindless to boot!

The super-zombie didn’t have time to react to Arcana’s attack, except for perhaps the briefest flicker of shock across his face before his lower jaw snapped painfully sideways and he was sent flying backward instead this time around, slamming back almost through the holes in the wall he’d created, though his outstretched arms did more damage to the school hallway’s stability as he went past.

It would be tempting enough for Karen to think that he’d been defeated. After all, no opponent so far had taken a serious punch from her and kept fighting and the mammoth zombie had ended up knocked into a pile of rubble with a good portion of his face rearranged. Unfortunately the zombie rose from the detritus as easily as he’d risen from the grave, his jaw and portions of his skull visibly snapping back into place and knitting back together. He picked up the two biggest chunks of leftover building at hand and pitched them at Karen one after the other like baseballs, his movements seeming to become increasingly human as the fight wore on.

[color=orchid]”Eh? He’s still in one piec-”[/color] Lady Arcana started in disbelief, only to have her words cut short as a piece of her new school came hurting towards her. Swiftly moving to catch it in order to keep it from potentially slamming into somebody, this unfortunately blinded her to the [i]second[/i] one as it crashed down upon her. Driven to the ground by this, the wizardess left a series of small impact craters as she bounced along into the playground area.

Shaking her head slightly in disbelief, she placed her hands onto the ground and pushed herself up. That was something she didn’t even believe was [i]possible[/i]. She really was trying to destroy him that last time. What was he made out of that he could still be coming at her? Worse, the damage he [i]did[/i] take had just healed almost instantly!

Pursing her lips and knitting her eyebrows, Lady Arcana stared down the massive creature. That was finally when she noticed it.

That chill running up her spine. Her ability to sense magic’s calling card. And it was a sharper sting than she had ever experienced before. This thing was far beyond what Asad’s armor had been capable of, and worse, there was...something else about it...a maelstrom of screams that made her head throb. She could feel them now, like a [i]hurricane[/i] of tortured souls swirling about this creature, with it as the gruesome eye. How many? Millions? Tens of millions?

[color=orchid]”What [i]are[/i] you?”[/color] Lady Arcana couldn’t stop herself from asking.

The creature actually paused at the question as if taken by surprise and needing to ponder the answer for a moment, briefly hesitating. An answer bubbled up from the roiling, mixing swamp of souls that animated him, a half-remembered name he wasn’t sure was his own.

“Me….Solomon...Grundy.”
With that, whatever personal crisis the mega-zombie seemed to be having ended, and he once again charged Arcana like an undead rhinoceros, tearing up chunks of flooring and earth as he raced across the building and the playground area to try and collide with her again.

Solomon Grundy? Where had she heard that before?

The Intellect of Mnemosyne quickly helped her recall the old Nursery Rhyme her mother once sang to her when she was small. Right, it was an old English poem. Somehow, though, she didn’t think the nine foot tall mass of pain and hatred that was thundering towards her right now was what the poet behind it had in mind when he wrote the thing.

Still, even more surprising was that it had [i]talked[/i] just now. No mudo had ever done that before. Still, it didn’t change the fact that he was ludicrously powerful, and still eager to throw down with her. She needed to end this, or the damage to not just the school, but Hub City itself was going to be outrageous!

Lifting off the ground just shortly before she was within “Solomon Grundy’s” immense grasp, Lady Arcana darted to the side in a blur of motion and wrapped her arms around one of his tree-like limbs. Spinning her entire body along with her passenger in an instant, a cyclone of wind immediately blasted the area and made the nearby trees sway violently, with the various slides and jungle gyms the younger children played on creaking in protest.

Finally she allowed her grip to go lax, launching the behemoth of undead flesh not only into the sky, but clean out of the Earth’s orbit. He was like a blazing fireball, in fact, as friction took its hold over him in a vain attempt to slow his ascent. Actually, she was starting to feel like maybe she had gotten a little carried away when a visible mushroom cloud of fire erupted on the moon, causing her to wince.

[color=orchid]“Uh...sorry, Mr. Moon,”[/color] Lady Arcana muttered.

Lady Arcana then felt a gentle vibration inside of her, recognizing the feeling of her cell phone vibrating from a new text message. Reaching a hand up to the metaphysical conduit in thunderbolt form on her chest, a thunderbolt immediately shot into her hand, the brief light fading to reveal the device.

Holding it up, she saw it was a text from Zoey.

>Was that you or is World War 3 starting?

Karen felt a blush slowly working over her face as she exhaled. Everyone in half the world had just witnessed that, hadn’t they?

>Yes. It was me. I’m sorry, there was...a REALLY big mudo.

Unfortunately, Karen’s embarrassment seemed just slightly premature as before long what looked like a shooting star, or more accurately a small meteorite, was hurtling through the atmosphere. The brilliant streak of light grew larger and larger until it rapidly became obvious that, however impossible it seemed, the mudo known as Solomon Grundy was making a return trip, right ontop of Lady Arcana’s position.

Lady Arcana felt her jaw drop at the sight of the burning meteor that was rapidly heading back towards her. It...couldn’t be, right?

[color=orchid]”No fucking way…”[/color] She muttered, lifting off the ground.

There was no time to be surprised. If he impacted Hub City at that speed...well, she didn’t even want to consider the damage it was going to do! Without another moment’s hesitation, she rocketed straight towards the glowing ball of hate, slamming into it while it was still in the upper stratosphere.

The resulting [i]crack[/i] would be heard across much of the United States, and perhaps even beyond that, a sonic boom of unprecedented proportions. Her arms wrapped firmly around the burning hot corpse as she fell back to the Earth with him at a far less dangerous pace, crashing down into the fields on the outskirts of Hub City with a series of cratering bounces before finally settling off the shore of Lake Dover.

[color=orchid]”Nnn…”[/color] Lady Arcana grunted, stumbling back away from the towering man before he could potentially rise again…as ludicrous as that thought felt.

This time though, the smoking, smoldering nine-foot-slab of a corpse didn’t rise. He twitched weakly, but didn’t seem to be regenerating like he had previously and had a good portion of his anatomy reduced to ash from the intense heat of rapidly exiting and re-entering Earth’s atmosphere already besides. It was a testament to his freakish durability that there was anything left of him given what he’d been through, but Solomon Grundy seemed as good as dead once more.

 Lady Arcana didn’t approach at first, especially as he twitched. It was only after several minutes of staring at his charred, smoking corpse that she cautiously edged closer. Reaching a leg out, she nudged him with her foot. Nothing. Releasing a heavy sigh, she ran her fingers through her hair and let her head sag slightly.

[color=orchid]”Man, what was [i]with[/i] that thing?”[/color] She muttered, lifting off the ground once more. She continued to stare down at it until the sound of distant sirens caught in her ear.

Shaking her head slightly, she raised her hood and flew her way back to the school. The least she could try and do was fix what damage she could there. Maybe, like...awkwardly prop up all those lockers or something…

Halloween was now probably her least favorite season.

Hopefully nothing would happen to ruin Christmas for her, next.[/center]