The robo-bear didn't respond, only menacinly advanced on her.
"I know that we didn't really come to a clean break back in Highland - there's a lot of unresolved issues between us, like the abear-aBORtion, I mean." Daria mentally swore at Jane. "Plus how you tried to kill me, and my family fled the state. We haven't really had a chance to settle things."
The robo-bear finally reached her, and Daria cringed as he raised one claw up and swiped. The blow knocked Daria on her ass, but sure enough, the bear armor absorbed the blow just fine.
"I think we should break up."
XXXX
Jane and Bork both crouched down and heaved, lifting up the garage door with ease. Jane hit the light switch, fluorescent tubes above flickering to life. Bork looked with unease at the half-finished art projects which were scattered through the garage as Jane reached below a work bench at the back and pulled up...a chainsaw.
"What're you going to do with that?" the junior BATF agent asked. "I mean, that bear shrugged off all the small-arms fire we could throw at it. I doubt a chainsaw is going to be much more effective."
"I had an idea," Jane said, as she checked the machines' vitals. Swearing, she strided over to a nearby shelf, where at least half a dozen small gas containers were sitting. "You know that movie Small Soldiers?"
"Movie? ...Yeah."
Jane gave him an askew look. "What do you mean by THAT? ...Nevermind." She finally found a container with fuel inside. "Anyway, the climax of the film is when they blow up a transformer, creating an EMP that fried all the evil toys. All I have to do is cut down a utility pole, and when the transformer explodes, it should short out the bear!" She filled the chainsaw's gas tank, then started yanking on the starter cord.
"But that's not what really -" Bork was cut off when the chainsaw let off a mighty roar, its teeth spinning, hungry to be fed. One look at the twisted grin on Jane's face, and Bork swallowed and subconsciously took a few steps back.
Jane let the chainsaw go back to sleep, turning to Bork. "What was that?"
"I was gonna say that in real life, a transformer explosion doesn't create that kind of energy. Maybe if the transformer exploded from crash-landing directly into the bear, or if the bear was touching a wire leading to the transformer, but otherwise you're just pissing off ten thousand Maryland Electric customers."
Jane slammed Maurice down on the work bench in frustration. "Fucking Hollywood!"
"Well, to be fair, in real life, they actually had to evacuate the entire neighborhood and deploy a tactical nuke to kill all the evil toys."
Jane stared at him. "After all this is over, Agent Bork, you and I are gonna have a looooong talk, capische?" Without waiting for an answer, she picked the chainsaw back up. "Well, we may as well try precision pole-dropping, at least. I'm guessing the cavalry won't be here for a while yet, and I'm not about to let my best friend bear the unbearable."
"Heh," Bork said, before they both began running back to the war zone.
XXXX
The bear's mangled face pressed up against the mask of the suit, its hot breath (breath from where? Daria wondered) puffing against her face as it grunted in dull fury. It kept trying to pull the suit apart, or pull Daria apart, or pull Daria out of the suit so that it could pull her apart outside of the suit, but none of those avenues had borne fruit.
"You know, Jordana - the woman who owns this suit - said it could outlast any bear attack," Daria pointed out. She fought down the urge to giggle hysterically at the thought of provoking the bear any further. "She also said that she'd make herself a bear sandwich afterwards." That time, a giggle did escape, and the bear just began mindlessly clawing and pounding on her. "What do you think would go good on a bear sandwich?" she asked casually. "There's a big bottle of barbecue sauce in the fridge at home..." Daria began salivating...and sweating, as any really good barbecue sauce has that effect.
She was interrupted from her drooling by the sound of gunfire. "I'm over here, you ugly son of a bitch!" Flemming shouted.
"Hey, Agent Flemming, chill out. I've got this." Daria giggled again. She hoped the giggling wouldn't be permanent once she got out of the situation.
"Daria, you don't understand! Once the gunships arrive, they're going to shoot enough rockets up its ass to send it to the moon in a thousand different pieces!"
The thought of being exploded sobered Daria instantly, and she began struggling to get free of the bear's grip, to no avail. The cybearg seemed to grin maliciously, actually, as it tightened its grip on her upon hearing the news. "Okay, Agent Flemming, now he's got a death-grip on me. Any ideas?"
Suddenly, the sound of a helicopter's rotors filled her ears, and she nearly lost control of her bowels as she was sure she was about to be incinerated and pulverized. After a moment, though, light shone down, and Daria realized it was the police helicopter that had flanked them during the high speed chase. The sound of rifle fire indicated that they had a sharpshooter onboard, and relief filled Daria as the bear shifted its weight off of her.
Her hopes were dashed as it ripped a road sign right out of the concrete and threw it like a missile. It sliced through the cockpit, neatly separating the pilot from his arms and legs, the helicopter spinning wildly out of control and exploding upon impact in seconds.
The bear beared down on Daria once more. "Shit."
XXXX
Bork and Jane arrived back on the scene just in time to witness the helicopter crash. "I feel like I should say something clever and action movie-y about that," Bork commented.
"Can that shit!" Jane chastised, moving closer to the blockade...or rather, the BEARicade. Peeking over a cop car, she watched as Flemming ineffectually emptied another clip from his pistol into the thing from the future. Sensing movement in her peripheral vision, Jane turned and saw Jordana crawling out of the overturned BATF van.
In Jordana's hand was an improvised sticky bomb. She'd found a concussion grenade and a tire patching kit, and had covered the grenade with the sticky goopy crap in the kit, leaving enough of the grenade bereft of stickiness so she could comfortably hold it. Jane watched slack-jawed as she fearlessly leapt upon the bear, slammed the sticky bomb into its fur right in the middle of its back, and yanked the pin just as the bear backhanded her off of it. The grenade exploded, crippling the bear's hind legs, as they locked into place.
"Perfect," Daria griped from beneath the bear. "Now not only am I stuck under a half-paralyzed bear, but now I'm fucking deaf!"
"Hey, I'm trying to save your miserable ass!" Jordana swore back.
Jane swore herself, as the bear was positioned too far from the nearest utility pole to be whacked by the transformer mounted on it. She turned to Bork. "Looks like we'll have to go with Operation: Live Wire," she told him. "Can you shoot one down?"
Bork grimaced. "I'm not a very good shot," he confessed.
"Well try, goddamnit!"
Bork swallowed, drew his pistol, took a bead on the power line, and began firing.
XXXX
From her hiding spot in an alley, Quinn watched Bork, and shook her head at the pitiful stance Bork had. He couldn't hit a barn if he was standing inside of it! She knew her sister only had one chance: herself. She knew the helicopter had crashed a street or two down, but had watched the poor sharpshooter fall out just before. She turned away and shoved the dumpster beneath the fire escape, using it to climb up and up until she was on top of the building. Saying a silent prayer for the dead man, she took his rifle, checking the clip and the chamber. "One left," she muttered to herself. "Of course." She took a position on the edge of the rooftop, glancing down at Jane and Bork, both of them looking depressed (because Bork had missed entirely like an idiot).
She licked her thumb, wetting down the rifle's sight so as to better catch the light and help her line up the shot. The power line was visible (barely), thanks to the little fires and strobing lights atop the emergency vehicles. She focused the sights on the miniscule target, closed her eyes, feeling no wind to push her bullet in an errant direction. She opened her eyes again, swallowed her nervousness, and exhaled.
She pulled the trigger.
XXXX
Jane and Bork jerked their heads at the unexpected gunshot. To their utter surprise, the power line fell to the ground, neatly severed. Looking up across the street, they saw Quinn stand up, rifle in one arm, a cocky grin on her face. "That's how you shoot in Texas," she razzed Bork.
"Thanks, Quinn!" Jane shouted. "Somebody plug that fucking bear in!" She revved up Maurice once, twice, three times before it roared to life in her hands. Her face split with her devilish grin as the chainsaw bit into the wood of the utility pole.
With a glance, Flemming took in what Jane was doing, and immediately understood her plan. He ran forward, grabbed the downed line, turned, and leapt up on the bear's back just as the utility pole began tipping over. Wrapping one arm around the bear's neck, he shoved his other hand forward...straight into the bear's mouth. "Smile, you son of a-"
The transformer struck the ground, exploding (and drowning out Jordana's complaint: "Hey, that's MY line!"). A massive surge of electricity was shoved through the line, filling Flemming and the bear with enough juice to...fuck metaphors, it fried the shit out of both of them. Flemming was blown backward with tremendous speed, landing a ways down the street, prone.
Jane let Maurice drop as she and Bork raced forward to the now-dead robo-bear. "I don't think you should touch -" Bork's complaint died as Jane shoved the bear as hard as she could, trying to move it. He shrugged and joined her in shoving, met soon after by Jordana, and soon after that by Quinn, who used the rifle as a lever.
"I've got an idea!" Jane said. She began to unfasten the bear suit and take it off around Daria (who had also taken a bit of a jolt - she was alive, but unconscious). Jordana reached for the discarded armor, but one sour look from Jane and she continued to help pull Daria free from the hulking ruin.
"Gunships inbound, thirty seconds," Bork's radio squawked.
"WHAT?" Bork grabbed the radio and started shouting into it. "Stop! Abort! Go back! God damnit!" He chucked the radio and everybody redoubled their efforts. Finally, they pulled Daria free of the armor (and the bear) and started running just as the sound of the military choppers reached them. They threw themselves behind the barricade just as the barrage of rockets struck home, obliterating the bear, the bear armor, and most of Jordana's SUV.
"My car!" Jordana cried out.
XXXX
After the gunships withdrew, Bork broke cover, running past the smouldering hole in the street, to the fallen form of his boss and mentor. He checked for a pulse, found none. "Come on, Chief, don't die on me," Bork prayed as he began administering mouth-to-mouth. "Breathe, damnit!" he urged while giving chest compressions. He repeated the process a few more times. "Dolan, PLEASE!"
"You've never called me by my first name before," Flemming croaked out, a crooked smile on his face, before he began coughing deeply.
"Oh thank God," Bork said, wiping a few errant tears from his face.
XXXX
Jane and Quinn watched with curiosity as a limousine drove up to the roadblock. Jordana also watched, though with contempt. It stopped in front of the three of them, and the door opened up.
"You little snot," Jordana spat.
"Is that any way to treat your old friend?" Richard Dreyfuss smiled smugly.
"You're not gonna take THIS one away from me!" Jordana angrily declared. "My boyfriend slash nemesis will back me up! Along with these girls!" Jordana grabbed Jane and Quinn and pulled them to her in an incredibly awkward hug.
Richard Dreyfuss laughed. "You forget, Jordana, you're a wanted woman across the country. You try and fight me on this, you'll end up in prison. Unless your boyfriend over there is actually the President and can pardon you..." He chuckled at the dark look on her face. "That's what I thought."
Quinn wrenched free of Jordana's grasp and pointed an angry finger at the actor. "Now listen here, buddy. You might be able to take this story away from...whoever the hell this is, but you can't take it away from Daria! She's all about stories...she's a BRAIN!"
Richard Dreyfuss gazed thoughtfully at Quinn for a moment. Then, he pulld out a checkbook and wrote down a number. He showed Quinn the check. "Does your sister care THAT much about stories?"
Quinn's mouth dropped open when she saw how many zeroes were on the check. "Holy shit," she whispered. "Hell no she doesn't!" She swiped the check before he could change his mind.
Jordana snarled in anger at the betrayal, pushing past the two girls, until she was up in Dreyfuss' face. "Look here, you little snot, you may have won this round...and the last round...but I'll get mine someday! Mark my fucking words!"
"Goodbye, Jordana," Richard Dreyfuss said with a parting smug smile, before getting back in the limo.
"What the ever-loving FUCK just happened?" Jane asked aloud.
XXXX
"So, all movies are real?" Jane asked.
Bork shook his head. "No, not all movies. Just...a lot of movies, like Jaws, and Terminator. And Hollywood changes a lot of the details around frequently."
"Like Small Soldiers."
"Yeah."
"How come people don't know about this? Is it a conspiracy?"
Bork shook his head. "Nah. People are just stupid. If they bothered to watch the credits of a movie all the way through, most of them say 'Based on a true story' in big letters."
"Ah."
"Like you saw, Hollywood usually buys up all the rights to the strange event, with a clause that those involved can't ever tell about what happened, or they'll be sued."
Jane massaged her temples. "Between finding out that my best friend is into bestiality with a robot from the future and finding out Bad Movie Night's been a long string of documentaries, this has been one fucked up day."
Bork eyed the ambulance where Flemming was getting checked over by a doctor (he had insisted he didn't need hospital care). "Yeah, I know how you feel. I gotta go ask my boss something, Jane, I'll talk to you later."
He walked up to Flemming. "Hello, Bork. Looks like mission accomplished."
Bork shrugged. "I guess. The bear is dead, but Jordana got away."
"Damnit!"
"Oh, cut the act, sir. You were fucking her in the van!"
"It's not an act, Bork. We happen to be nemeses on the opposite sides of the law who have consentual sex. If I ever manage to catch her, I'll make sure she ends up in prison." A naughty smile bloomed on Flemming's face, looking out of place. "One that allows conjugal visits." His smile disappeared as he glared at Bork. "Besides, you're being just a little hypocritical, considering what I saw you get up to with Dallas Grimes."
Bork paled. "Uh...you saw that, Chief?"
Flemming nodded. "I also saw her steal both the handcuff keys and your car keys after you fell asleep. Damnit, Bork, a government agent always engages in afterglow pillow talk with his lover, especially to prevent situations like those!"
Bork was now blushing furiously. "Uh...sorry, chief. Won't happen again."
Jane walked up to them. "Hey, guys, I had a question. How did Daria get pregnant?"
"What?" Flemming asked.
"Well, you knew that Daria dated the bear, and you knew that the bear got her pregnant. If it was a robot, how did it get her pregnant?"
Flemming was speechless for a moment. Then: "...I didn't know Daria was pregnant." He turned to the paramedics. "We need to get to Cedars of Lawndale. NOW!"
XXXX
Daria awoke gradually. The aroma of 'sterile' and the sound of beeping and the sensation of needles in her veins and her bare ass touching the bed all told her that she was in a hospital (wearing one of those embarrassing-as-hell gowns with no backs, to boot). She turned and saw Quinn and her parents in a deep sleep, the three of them sitting upright in those impossibly uncomfortable hospital chairs. They must have been really tired.
She laid back herself and tried to sleep, but couldn't, due to the residual adrenaline still in her bloodstream from the day's events. ...Was it really only a day? Holy crap.
A nurse walked in, smiling. "How are you feeling, dear?" she asked kindly.
"Like I just spent the day running for my life, being shot at, electrocuted, and near exploded," Daria replied in her usual monotone.
The nurse giggled. "Sounds like you had a bad day!"
"Yeah. Plus, my ex-boyfriend died, which was kind of a bummer, even though he was a jerk who tried to kill me, and a bear, and a robot, and from the future."
"Ah," the nurse frowned. "Sorry to hear that."
Daria looked at the TV, playing infomercials at mute volume.
"It's time for your barium enema," the nurse said.
Something in the woman's voice spooked Daria, and she turned to the woman, whose smile had returned with full force, and then some. "Uh, I don't think I'm scheduled for that procedure," Daria said, her voice warbling just a bit with nervousness.
"Get it? A BEARium enema?" The nurse chuckled, her smile growing larger and larger, and Daria noticed that she didn't have the teeth of a human woman, but of a male bear. The flesh of the face began splitting open, revealing not muscle and sinew, but a coat of brown fur.
"Oh Gramma, what big teeth you have," Daria moaned out, trying to sink through her bed.
The bear shook its head ruefully. "Wrong fairy tale animal, my love," he said, before reaching down and...
XXXX
Minutes later, Flemming, Bork, and Jane burst into the hospital room. The other three Morgendorffers were still asleep in their chairs, but Daria was gone from the bed. Bork noticed the discarded nurse disguise on the ground. "Chief," he said, pointing to it.
Jane went around the bed and shook Helen, Jake, and Quinn awake. "Where's Daria?!" she asked. "Didn't you assholes see her get taken?"
"Taken? What? Where?" they all said, overlapping each other.
Flemming walked over to the window and looked out it, brooding. "Have the hospital searched," he ordered Bork, though in his heart he knew Daria and the bear were long gone.
The long night had just begun.
XXXXXXXXXX
The end! I considered stopping the chapter after the gunship strike and having everything after be the epilogue, but writing it out was so fun I couldn't stop!
Once I decided to put Jordana into the story, the scene where she confronts Richard Dreyfuss was a 'must-write'. And the implications (Jaws being real) opened the door for a few other plot points as well.
I do intend on doing a sequel. But...I have no idea what the hell will actually happen in it. I've a few weird ideas (as if that's a surprise), though. We'll see.
I decided to see if Maryland Electric was a real company, and it is...albeit based in Michigan, hahaha. And they're a maintenance company, they don't actually generate power.