Forces Beyond Mortal Comprehension

By ______

Disclaimer: The author does not claim to own any of the intellectual properties contained herein, as even things not from the Stubbs/Avatar continuum could perhaps have been... lifted from elsewhere, perhaps even other fan-fictions. And if any particular fan-fiction based idea happens to be your own, it's flattery, not theft.

#Author's Notes#

I have no explanation. It just... happened.

#Prologue#

There are two important morals in this story, both of which will be up front so as not to interfere with the stupidity later on.

+++++Moral 1: Don't Mess With Mystical Forces Beyond Your Comprehensions+++++

With a blinding pillar of light lifting him into the air Aang began to truly ascend into his complete avatar powers.

Only as the moment passed a blot of lightning pierced his back. As he fell to the cavern floor the warning Roku had given him rang in his ears, "If you die in the avatar state the chain of reincarnation will be broken, there will be no further avatars."

His corpse fell lifelessly to the cavern floor, a failure. But more importantly the world lost its balance within that instance. Vengeful spirits banished long ago began to slowly crack the barriers the original spirits had placed against them when the world was made, now it would be theirs by right of conquest.

Even they did not predict the exact effects this had.

+++++Moral 2: Never Fire A High Powered Self Reflecting Laser In An Enclosed Area With An Experimental Power Source+++++

"I hope you like the taste of formaldehyde, cause you're going to be swimming in it!" Dr. Wye screamed in his vaguely German accent as he fired his weapon at point-blank range. Only to miss and have the beam reflect back into a reactor coil.

In that instant Punchbowl and everything within twenty miles of it disappeared off the 1950s Pennsylvanian map.

When the world stopped warping Stubbs lumbered to his feet, put his hat back on, adjusted his ugly tie and shambled on.

+++++Stubbs the Zombie in: A Really Stupid Crossover+++++

#Earth Kingdom, Wasteland Beyond The Great Wall Of Ba-Sing-Se#

Stubbs shambled pass the slower and more disoriented zombies in the lab, heedless of the intense spiritual powers soaking into him. Being the original zombie and the only zombie with a brain, rotted as it was from twenty six years of decay, he was the only one who wasn't meandering uselessly now that all the scientists' brains had been eaten. He had something to do… sort of.

Outside he found the city of Punchbowl was gone, having been sectionalized and scattered across this planet. Not that he knew that… or would have even cared if he did. Instead there was a vast wasteland in one direction and an equally vast wall in the other… Only the wall had a gapping hole in it surrounded by flimsier wall where a giant metal drill was being removed.

Whistling to his zombies to rally them he shambled forward to devour another city's worth of brains.

Guarding the dinky little temporary barricade two Earth Kingdom soldiers looked up from their goh game when they heard the awkward shuffling and ragged panting of an approaching zombie horde. They hesitated for a moment before one guard stepped forward to block Stubbs' path. "I'm sorry but you can't… are you okay?" The soldier started, noticing the gapping missing section in Stubbs' torso.

Stubbs grabbed him, knocked aside his helmet and chomped into his skull, not even impeded that this victim didn't give the usually shout of "My brain!"

Seeing his comrade fall the other soldier acted rapidly, shooting a pillar from the earth beneath Stubbs, launching the alpha zombie up, over the great wall of Ba-Sing-Se. No way he'd survive that so the soldier turned his attention to the slower zombies still charging forward, preparing to take as many of them out as he could… only his fallen ally had risen up and began chewing on the back of his skull.

Within the minute the horde of zombies had beaten down the temporary wall, killed the workers and swarmed through the breach.

On the inside Stubbs fell to the ground, retrieved his hat and was off again, shambling through the cramped, disorganized outer ring, devouring the brains of myriad defenseless refugees just like he'd devoured the brains of the hapless citizens of Punchbowl. They were tightly packed, weakened by disease, starvation or thirst and all too poorly defended by the disorganized Earth Kingdom forces within the city as their infighting following Azula's coup left no one to take up such a duty.

He was halfway to the middle ring by the time the first plausible threat appeared, a small squad of earth kingdom soldiers trying to flee from Azula's soldiers. Upon seeing him devour a citizen they promptly rushed forward and took up a defensive formation. Their earth bender launched a barrage of small boulders forward, which ineffectually knocked a few zombies down but did no real damage, after all even their limbless, headless torsos could continue to charge forward, so falling down was nothing. But due to how incredibly slow even a sprinting zombie is the earth bender had no problem raising a wall to block the charge before flinging them away with it.

Deciding that only in close quarters could real damage be done, one brave fool led the counter charge and ran forward with a blade, skewering a random zombie and leaping back just in time to save his skull when the undead beast didn't even flinch and tried to bite him. He delivered a vicious kick to Stubbs's wound when the lead zombie attacked, only to get smacked by the zombie's immense strength before his arm was ripped off to be used as a bludgeon on his fellow soldiers. The earth bender managed to survive the longest, though even his fall was inevitable.

#The Earth King's Palace#

Azula smirked victoriously as she strode back into the throne room of Ba-Sing-Se, knowing that even though the body had been taken by that water tribe girl the avatar was dead, truly and permanently dead. Yes, she had done her homework before setting out and knew that the avatar was well and truly gone, as were the airbenders with him. She was contemplating the eminent victory of the Fire Nation when one of the Dai Li burst into the room in a fearful rush.

"What is it now?" She demanded, having just settled into the seat of her new throne.

"M, Monsters... Monsters have taken the outer ring and are overrunning the middle ring. W, what will we do?" He sobbed out, clearly terrified beyond reason.

Azula was tempted to tell him to deal with it and run him off, but slowly reconsidered. After all, when had anything that happened since her arrival, besides facing her down of course, even caused a Dai Li to blink, let alone burst into hysterical tears. "What 'monsters'?" She asked commandingly.

The reply she received was not what she had expected, instead of a description or even coherent speech, she was offered a distant, low moan that sounded vaguely like 'brains' which was soon echoed by several dozen even more distant groans.

"They're here!" The Dai Li screamed and tried to flee, only to be cut down by a lightning strike to the neck.

"Princess Azula, perhaps it would be best that you flee." Another Dai Li muttered as eight appeared and dropped to guard the main entrance.

"You expect me to turn tail and run from some sort of children's bedtime story?" The flame princess demanded, arrogantly believing that whatever these monsters were they couldn't possibly stand before the might of the Fire Nation.

And then the severed head rolled into the room, trailing a plume of noxious gray gas behind it as it passed through the entrance and exploded. The Dai Li were quick though, five of them leapt away while the other three formed shields from the stone floor. Unfortunately for those three, the gas was just as fatal as the explosion. They fell to the floor, gagging and died within seconds.

The low moan was heard again, more distinct this time as a form accompanied it. A form clad in a style of clothing never before seen in this world, complete with bowler hat and really ugly tie. A twisted and awkward form with a gapping hole just below its ribcage on one side.

Azula was moderately surprised that this man was managing to stand despite the horrible wound, let alone walk, but she refused to show such a weak emotion before her newly acquired soldiers. Instead, she laughed.

"This is your monster? He's ready to die any minute n..." Her insulting speech ended as the recently killed Dai Li moaned and rose up to stand in the same awkward stance the one who just walked in had. That, and the fact the apparent monster that just shuffled in had reached into the gapping wound to extract a random organ to fling at the remaining Dai Li that had evaded earlier. The glob not only stuck to the target's leg, but also exploded.

The three Dai Li left fled to the throne end of the hall and took up defensive stances while Mai And Ty Lee took a few steps forward.

In contrast, Stubbs stood seemingly unaware of his surroundings as the other zombies milled about the vast room.

Finally one of the surviving Dai Li lost his nerve and fired off the fingers of his stone gloves into the group, which only alerted them to his presence. The fight was fairly brief; the five normal zombies rushed forward, ignoring thrown weapons that hit normally vital organs, agile strikes to now worthless pressure points and various sizes of launched rocks until they were pinned to the ceiling by pillars of stone that suddenly shot up from the floor.

"Well, well. What are these things, I wonder?" Azula mused, staring at the still struggling creatures. This was weird, but no reason to be alarmed, after all, they obviously couldn't bend so there was no reason to worry at all.

And then one of the Dai Li turned and killed the other two before shattering the pillars, a severed arm clutching onto his head.

Mai resumed throwing knives uselessly while Ty Lee dove in and out among the undead, trying to find some pressure point that still worked without getting bitten.

Azula, recognizing that the remaining Dai Li was being controlled, launched a gout of pale blue flames which was blocked by a wall of earth that quickly became a projectile. The fire princess ducked below it and swept her leg to spark off a blazing wave that the puppet rose above on a pillar before firing it at her in sections. Briefly concerned she countered with a blast of lightning only to be evaded when the earthbender dropped into the floor and leapt out from behind her, fissuring the ground under Azula's feet.

Having barely made it to safety in time, the next assault of shrapnel sized rocks almost took her off guard and sliced off her honor topknot as her hasty counter was once again blocked.

She stared in shock at the fallen lump of hair, taking in the cruel irony that she only recently stole her brother's honor by slaying the avatar herself when his shout reached her.

"Azula!" Zoku roared, engaging the Dai Li before a finishing blow could be delivered.

The fire princess watched him briefly, noting how much he was outclassed by the earthbender dwarfed how much he was outclassed by herself. She also glanced to where Mai and Ty Lee continued their useless attacks and evasions against the much slower and clumsier enemies. Little by little they were being beaten back by the sheer tenacity of their enemy.

Moans from the entrance announced the arrival of reinforcements. It was time to leave.

Unfortunately the zombie reinforcements were also emerging from the escape tunnel, as another fragment of Punchbowl had materialized at the exit end.

#Fire Nation's Capital#

"They're reds, all of them! I knew those zombie scumbags were in league with 'em but this..." A man in green army fatigues muttered, staring out over the city below them with a pair of binoculars. Behind him most of the military forces sent to assist and reinforce Punchbowl had gathered.

"What do we do sir?" A younger soldier with a bazooka asked, looking at the vehicular support that survived the transfer.

"You know the general's command. Better dead than red, son, better dead than red. Prepare to show these red bastards why capitalism works sergeant. Let's make general Ripper proud! Attack!"

#North Pole#

Andrew Monday looked over the numerous surveillance screen, most of which were little more than static. The park, capital building and most of the main garden had survived and been pulled with him, here. To a frozen wasteland.

Andrew was nothing if not a clever businessman and genius opportunist. The feeds from beyond his area showed just three things, zombie hordes, primitive natives and the military destroying city after city of primitive natives wearing red. Odd that.

But unimportant. What really mattered was that this world was distressingly unadvanced. Crude. Archaic.

If he wanted a comfortable life-style, like he was used to, he had only two options: advance their technology or conquer and rule the locals with an exorbitant tax rate in place.

Looking over the figures on a few screens, the robot production and flash clone manufacturing rates, an epiphany occurred. Why not do both?

Oh, the flash clones were the perfect citizens... or bodyguards if one excused the minor barber shop quartet obsession, but they only lasted a few weeks at most. Somethings would require longer lived workers.

Hmm. That quaint native ice structure nearby would probably be the best place to start... recruiting.

Plasma mortars were set.

#Earth King's Palace#

Stubbs stumbled up to sit upon the throne. His throne.

He'd discovered that these humans could inherently perform the supernatural element manipulations, no unique weapons just a sort of movement and mental command. And since zombies could do anything they could while still alive, just less coordinated...

But that really wasn't of any interest to him. Somewhere out there in this new world his love was waiting for him.

And no matter how many brains he had to eat, zombies he had to create, armies he had to destroy or unbalanced worlds he had to exact retributions upon, he would find her. For now it was finally time to take command, even as he sat there his loyal zombies were gathering every human vehicle and preparing to move out. She wasn't in this city, so he'd try the next one and the next one until he did find her. His beloved Maggie...

#Epilogue#

The vengeful spirits shrugged and gave a few more little pushes before withdrawing to their own world. It wasn't what they had in mind, but whatever worked.

Needless to say the world the avatar awoke to restore balance to was pretty far out of whack by then.

The End.

#Author's Notes#

Okay, I do have an explanation, just not a very coherent one. I was thinking about how to write the next chapter of Ninja Chef, when I saw that one clip where Aang takes a lightning bolt to his back. It always bugged me that the supernatural forces in Avatar are so passive, so I decided to write something to make up for it. Only, what sort of supernatural terror could be unleashed to destroy a world that, for that moment at least, was no longer balanced as there was now no 'air' element to speak of, the benders were dead, the bison were dead and for all we know the spirit was too. If Aang could water bend while the moon was dead why not air bend while the... whatever the air spirit is, is dead too?

But then I thought, 'man that sounds like a lot of trouble' so I turned it into a joke and threw in the least threatening supernatural horror I could think of. Outside of the stay-puff marshmallow man.

I then I realized I now have two comedy-esque things out that both involve abhorrent dietary habits and wondered if I shouldn't post something else first. Unfortunately nothing else is ready yet. On the bright side, no translation guide at the bottom for this story. Yeah!