[ PRP ] For Testing Purposes Only (Fantastic Two)

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

-"Testing purposes only," Mark insisted, sliding the key card across the security pad. There was a small beep. He gave Dwight that look, the look of pure genius, of course. "I have to know and this is our only chance. I swear to god, Caelius practically sleeps with this thing next to his nightstand, if he had one. " The Death assistant frowned. "If he has...." It occurred to him at some point that he had never actually seen the Death lead asleep or not wandering around at any point in the day. "... do you think he sleeps at all? Maybe it's like that one demon in Buffy, who doesn't actually like, sleep because he steals the sleep from other people's souls."

The door, already open from the key card, lay waiting in front of the two who were absolutely up to No Good. Mark shrugged. "Which is why, of course, we're here. To disable this before the evil overlords of Deus Ex take over the world. We're preventing a national disaster here. Err, a global disaster. A universal disaster." He hushed his voice to a whisper as it started to echo lightly, in the dead of the night. "We would be heroes." Excited whisper.  

[lizbot]

Dwight was a bit pre-occupied with making sure the cameras were on an alternating loop, his hands flashing over a heavily modified tablet, but the last claim had him rolling his eyes. "Dude, I doubt they'd be able take over the whole world." With a shrug, he continued, "Just like, maybe a continent. Or two. Whatever, and anyway, if you're talking about the demon Eyghon, he didn't steal sleep from people's souls, christ. He possessed the bodies of the sleeping." Obviously.

Looking into the room, he frowned, "Is this going to be like the Arc of the Covenant? Should we be worrying about out flesh melting off or our heads exploding? Because we got this kid named Melvin who has a total hard-on for artifacts, and I bet we could use him as a canary, like coal miners used."  

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

"But not Japan right?" Mark, like Allan, and a few select others on the island, had an invested interest in the very small piece of country. "Cuz they're like, gonna make an Avengers anime, and I gotta see at least season one before it comes out, I mean did you see that trailer where Tony Stark was like all CGed and stuff and they like animated each of the giant mecha robots going out to chase him because that was like, totally bad a**." He paused right in front of the door and then stiffened up, warily looking at the rather impressive, cleared-out space between them and the artifact, currently suspended in a long glass container, at the center of the room.

"And Eyghon didn't possess the bodies of the sleeping, if you want to get technical he only possessed the bodies of the weak cuz like, Buffy never got possessed and everyone else is clearly weaker because she has a strong soul, so yeah like, souls." A tentative footstep was taken forwards, and then, with one eye trained on the disabled cameras, another step. So far so good. He had this.

"Besides of course I have it, I was here earlier and uh, I was the one who did the securities? Me? That's right, they'll never expect that the tables have turned. It is I who will betray them and bring justice to this world! Well, okay you can help too. No sidekicks, no Melvins, or whatever. They'll just get in our way, okay, like god, Batman was way more badass before Robin came in." A shrug, as he took a third step. "I was being clever and installed a sequence to counter-install my last security setup. Each tile has exactly thirty seconds between the other, in consecutive thirds, for someone to travel in between them. As long as we move together as a unit, it will be a piece of cake. As long as you got the equipment right?"  

[lizbot]

"Naw dude, consider who you're talking about. They'd go for China and the Koreas first." He paused considering, "Except Allan, but I'm pretty sure if the bosses ever decided to grab for this much power, you know he's at least number three on their list of s**t to destroy that annoyed them but they were never able to dismember up until then." The List of Who Will Be the First Against the Wall was a topic of ongoing discussion. Allan was a perpetual favourite, especially after any encounter where he actually managed to physically stop their ridiculous villain bosses. Usually with a smiling ease that was at turns alarming, hilarious, and kind of insulting, really.

"Wait, dude what? What. ******** you, he possessed Angel, ok? Whose soul did battle with the demon inside of him for over a century. His soul was a combat veteran, and the equal to Buffy's and you need to step off acting like you know something. You probably never even watched that one. I bet you were watching like, 7th Heaven or something instead."

Nodding along, Dwight mirrored Marks actions, "Yeah, you do still have the Deathsweeper high score, even after Clarice started adding rabid wildlife to counter your skills.Sorry, bro, I know better than to question your Death Spy techniques." At the question, the Life Hunter solemnly patted his crotch.  

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

"Uh, yeah," Mark retorted, " I was watching the director's cut of that episode you know, with the director's commentary because I got the special tenth anniversary DVD which I downloaded from an internet rip? Just because you're Asian doesn't mean you know everything god. Besides, Buffy has nothing to do with math, and if it did the only equation is Buffy plus Angel equals messed up. Cuz Joss Whedon. Angel was totally messed up on the inside and his soul was all weird and stuff. Spike was way cooler man."

There was a series of light beeps, as Mark suddenly stiffened and then stopped, as still as a board. He held up a finger, holding his breath, and then, as the beeping stopped, slowly exhaled, taking another step closer. They were almost there at the treasured well you know, that artifact. "You know, I don't even see what's the big deal. Where did Clarice even get the rabid wildlife? I like, worship her okay. I spend ever waking moment of my free time and life stalking her and wondering what she would do. The least she could do in return was respect me. I had to take like fifteen different rabies shots before even attempting to test out the Deathsweeper course because Clarice told me to. She doesn't even know how much I put out for her." He was getting a little teary eyed now. "Why wont she notice me?"  

[lizbot]

Dwight turned to stare at Mark, wide-eyed and silently asking himself why he allowed Mark to have opinions that didn't involve Marvel or runetech. He decided to stop there because this could only get worse, now that Spike was in the discussion, and honestly Dwight didn't want to have to bring up Seeing Red...ever. If had hurt his feels and crushed his soul, and this really wasn't the time for tearful, heartfelt discussion with Mark about season six.

Maybe after, though.

"Dude, I think she notices you. She notices you a lot." From Dwight, it sounded a lot like a death sentence. "Like maybe you should work on her noticing you less, and she won't feel so uh..." this probably wasn't the time for it, so he smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging manner, "...threatened by your strength and masculinity. I mean no wonder she's into chicks now, because you..." he gestured broadly at Mark's everything, "...with the rugged looks and technical skills. Super intimidating to people who don't know better."  

[WE ARE HALLOWEEN]

Mark dropped the remote he was carrying. "WHAT?!??!"

A couple of things happened in that timeframe.

The first was that despite Dwight's reassuring words about his manliness and rugged looks and masculinity and stuff, the other issue was that Clarice had pulled a Willow on him-

- The second was wondering if it was possibly possible to be to tragically good looking and how many other equally beautiful ladies he had inflicted this on-

- The third was that everything suddenly made so much sense now-

- And the fourth and last thing was that the remote went clack on the floor, dramatically slow, and the room started blaring loudly. Too loudly, a series of yellow lights blasting into every known corner and nook of the room, down the hallway-

- Mark panicked and ran towards the sealed artifact, pressing as many buttons as he could hurriedly before swiping his card one more time for security clearance as the heart unsealed-

- With no time to think he grabbed it and-

 

[lizbot]

"s**t! s**t! I ******** knew it would all go Raiders on us, I ******** knew it! SHUT YOUR EY-"