Chapter One: Wait, What?
Once upon a time, there was a secret base. The secret base was underneath a large sycamore tree rooted at the top of a grassy hill in the north Georgia mountains conveniently located next to one of the state’s famed national parks. The base stretched wide and deep and was home to a team of gloriously awesome elitist assholes who were more awesome and amazing than anyone else in the whole world. No member of their team had complete control of their sanity and they all had their fair share of problems.
Collectively, the team was known to the world only as “The Megabuddies.” They were a top secret government sector disavowed by the government created under the supervision of President Reagan during his administration. Their existence in modern day society was but a rumor, their very existence was only shared with high ranking government officials on a need to know basis. Not only were they super top secret, they had access to extremely advanced technology that defied modern science often for decades before the general public would ever be able to use them.
The group’s current team leader was rather mysterious and crazy and affectionately known to them by her codename as Mother Ten. They all had codenames; none of them knew each other’s real names. They were all very close friends and had aided in saving the world many times. When all else fails you send in the MBs and they usually get the problem done.
One day, T_L stumbled into the base with the smell of cheap whiskey lingering on his breath. He was drunk as usual. Nobody paid any notice to this because it happened so often it wasn’t even notable. He began his usual paranoid drunken ramblings, pointing fingers at people accusingly, making threats and accusing people of stealing his things while he’s sleeping or moving his stuff around to mess with his head.
“You… You yellow-bellied toad… You moved my flask… Where…” He slurred and raised a hand at Chaos, one of the newer recruits.
“I didn’t do anything! I swear!” Slap. T_L backhanded him hard. “Stop that!”
“You’re a cheat! Just like that stupid gypsy at the bar today… Stupid idiot tried cheat at cards… So I didn’t pay him. Mumbled some shit about cursing me and all my friends or something to some horrible horrible fate or something.”
“Wait, what?” asked the leader, passing by. She stopped and looked at him concerned.
T_L shrugged. “Dunno…” He clumsily staggered off to the kitchen in search of a bottle of Valium ignoring anything else his friends said.
Cajun stepped into the hallway. “Hey, does anybody want to play Connect Four with me?” Everybody groaned.
“Not now. Maybe later.” said Ten.
Something shattered nearby. “God dang drunk is breaking stuff again…” mumbled Ten. “Better check on him.” She walked off towards the kitchen.
“I’ll do it.” offered Chaos.
“No, it’s ok, I’ve got it.”
In the kitchen, T_L was slumped down on the ground facedown amongst a lot of broken glass and spilled liquids. Sun was crouched next to him trying to figure out what had happened.
“What’s wrong with him now?” asked the Leader.
“I don’t know… One second he was fine then he just fell over.” Sun grasped his chest, his eyes widening in pain and terror and he gasped loudly. “Something is wro-”. He didn’t get to finish because right then he collapsed and fell down as well.
“Uh huh…” went Ten. “Well, have fun I guess. Be sure to clean up this mess before you go to bed.” She turned face and walked out of the room not the least bit concerned, nor realizing she had just witnessed something out of the ordinary.
Throughout the rest of the base, the other MBs began to feel strange as well. The oblivious Ten continued strutting around proudly and obliviously as her friends began crying out in pain and falling down. The leader paused for a second in deep thought and remembered something. She took passage back to the kitchen and foraged until she found herself a nice bag of tasty potato chips in the pantry.
Ten walked throughout the base until she hit the rec room and moved over to one of the couches. There was one other person in the room, her loyal underling Cajun. The rec room was his usual hangout. He tended to keep to himself and spend most of his free-time watching movie marathons when he wasn’t on a mission.
“What’s up?” she asked.
No reply. He was unconscious as well, but sitting up and with his eyes open and staring at the large screen.
“Mind if I change the channel?” No reply. She guessed he didn’t care and she looked around searching for the remote. It was resting in the unconscious Cajun’s hands. She pulled on it, but he refused to let go.
“Relenquish the remote, duckling! You have it every day! I’m picking what we watch! It’s my turn! You promised!”
The remote slipped through his hand and Cajun was tugged forward in the process, seconds later slumping forward and falling off the couch.
“Lazy duckling. He really needs to start going to bed if he’s going to sleep.” Ten kicked off her shoes and propped them on Cajun as she opened up her bag of potato chips and tossed one into her mouth.
Channel surfing, Ten happily munched away on her snacks as Cajun gurgled and groaned on the ground with his eyes rolling back revealing white. He looked demonically possessed.
“Shut up, this is the good part!” hissed the leader. “I’m quiet during your shows!” She gave him a nice good kick to quiet him. The man on the ground stopped making noises. “Thanks, Cajun, you’re a pal.”
Suddenly there was screaming elsewhere in the base and ZF ran into the room clawing at his body, ripping off his shirt. He was hollering bloody murder and had tears of panic in his frightened eyes. “It’s happening! It’s happening! Rapture! The crazy man on TV was right this time!” He threw himself on the ground screaming and began saying hail marys as he rolled around like a pig in mud screeching and mumbling to himself. “Repent, damn fools! Repent! Not my blood, not my blood!”
ZF quieted down too and slowly stopped moving. By now he’d ripped off most of his clothes and the tattered rags still clinging to his body barely covered him. At this point he was practically naked.
“Oh you.” she said laughing it off.
A distracting blue light began to emerge in the room and it was coming from Cajun as he started glowing. Another light began to cover ZF as well and they began to look rather blocky and turn into tiny little squares as they slowly became pixilated. The light was rather bothersome and blinding Ten, so she raised a hand and blocked it from view. “Can you turn that light off?”
There was a loud audible whoosh sound and suddenly Cajun disappeared. A few seconds later there was another ping sound and ZF vanished out of existence as well. The light and MBs were gone.
“Thanks.”
Ten’s feet dropped down and smacked the floor. She finally noticed her friend was gone. “What the….” Suddenly she collapsed as well.
End of Chapter One