This month's challenge was to tell the story of a superhuman, while including 5 quotes (in bold) from pop culture. Hope you enjoy!

A/N : You might recognize Bastian as Seb from 'Dinner on a familiar theme.' I had to change his name due to its similarity with Seth's.

I

Major Cayman Oshiro realized his mouth was hanging open and swallowed roughly. The night's events were impossible; a hellish scenario that had hauled itself out of a nightmare, and ravaged London. As the technician flicked to the next camera's feed, he glanced at the live surveillance. Even as the sun rose, workers were still sponging blood off the pavings of Rowling square. The Major reached for his coffee. It was stone cold, like the sweat gathering under his arms. He had always hated Halloween.

A short, skittish man approached him. "Sir? I -uh - I might have found something."

"What you want? A cookie?" he spat. "Get the hell out of my face: this is an act of terrorism, not a game of I-spy."

The man rubbed the back of his neck. "Shall I play the footage then?"

Cayman sighed. "Put it on."

It was going on 4:15 in the morning. He'd interrogated the only direct living witnesses on the scene: two security guards from the Imperial Museum. One of the arseholes was still feigning shock, and muttering something about Big Brother having animal sidekicks. It was ridiculous.

The time-stamp on the footage read 19:57. Cayman scowled. They'd already watched this one. On screen, the Imperial museum lost power, drawing both cheers and moans from the opposing crowds gathered in front of the building. The footage was fast-forwarded, and the world's first AI unit exited the museum's doors. It walked down the front steps, human shaped, with sleek metal muscles and glowing blue orbs for eyes.

Civilians noticed the gun in its hand. Their cheers turning to screams when the robot turned its weapon on them. A robot shooting up a crowd of civilians. It was a disaster. "Why are we watching this again?" he asked.

The technician raised a laser pointer to the commotion on screen, pointing to the museum doors. "Watch this very carefully."

The Major's frown increased as a small blur fled from the museum. The footage froze on the evidence. "What is this? You're telling me that the terrorists are a frog and a malnourished ferret wearing body armor? That's what you want me to say at the press conference? 'Sorry folks, but the Disney fu**ing princesses are telling their animal pals to wreak havoc and destruction."

The man blushed. "I think it's a meerkat, sir."

"You think?! What's your name?"

"George... George Goodman, sir."

As much as Cayman hated to admit, the footage did match the security guard's statement. He sighed. "Goodman, the museum's security footage is corrupted, but I want to know how those animals got there. The rest of the team: we're looking at the second case."

The second case was no better. A grandma who'd decided human flesh was better than candy. The footage showed her dragging a superhero impersonator into the Subterranean district, far beneath the city. The response team had found nothing, except for a pile of peculiar sand. He couldn't release any information until they found a body.

~ 24 Hours Ago ~

George Goodman scanned the CCTV screens in front of him. He was a man best described by averages: average height (5''7), average build (could stand to lose a few kilos), common hair colour (black), and nondescript eyes (brown). In a crowd of strangers he possessed neither identifying features, nor interesting clothing choices.

He worked an average job as a CCTV analyst, in which his performance was notoriously average. The only thing that deviated slightly from norms was his inexplicably regular bowel movements; every day at 9:00 p.m. and 4:30 a.m, a mere half hour before his shift was due to finish, George visited the restroom.

When the clock flickered a lazy 04:30, he walked to the bathroom, and despite being the only person in the building, he bolted the door closed.

There was a knock at the window, rattling the glass. Most people would be perturbed by this - the security restroom being on the third floor of the building - but George paid it no mind. He slid the window open, and a spandex-clad figure tumbled through, narrowly avoiding the basin.

"How was the patrol?" he asked.

The masked figure stood, his face and body identically as non-descript as George's own. Every inch of the Doppler in front of him was identical to himself

"You'll know in a minute," his Doppler replied.

Without saying anything else, the masked figure pulled off his boots, and followed this with the remainder of his suit. The navy spandex, with an ice-blue 'B' emblazoned on the front, landed face-down on the floor.

George stripped down as well. He'd been doing this for years now, and accepting a Doppler back your body was almost as hard as creating one. The only thing that sped the process along was increased surface area contact. This did give rise to some morally questionable outcomes, and give some insults literal possibilities, but George had gotten over those qualms long ago. After all, it was 2273.

He watched in the mirror, as he and his Doppler spooned awkwardly. Their skin melted together; their bones fusing and minds syncing. As they became one, George learned that his Doppler had stopped two muggings and an assault tonight, among other things. He also learned he wasn't all that impressed with his costume, disliking the colour scheme. Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex? George thought, as his teeth lined up and disappeared into themselves.

The smell of sulfur had become strong in the air, an unfortunate side effect, and George grimaced. Tonight he had only one Doppler, but he could make two or even three if the occasion demanded it, though the rejoining process was more taxing. He took his place at his desk at 4:40 a.m, skimming over the cameras quickly. The town was quiet. It was Halloween morning. Bright, raucous, decorations crowded the street. Holographic witches flew along store fronts, alongside leering pumpkins and skeletons. Behind the glass window of Wal-Mart, Big Brother costumes were for sale; a costume he was now hiding beneath his clothes.

His colleague, Jean, arrived just as 5:00 a.m rolled by. George punched out, and went home to sleep the night's experiences off.

*

Bastian kicked at the ground as he walked through Subterrania. It was a place of perpetual darkness and salted earth; the rotten bowels London. Halloween was upon him once again - blood-bags roaming the streets, alcohol, and costumes - it was the perfect equation. He couldn't wait for the sun to go down on the surface above him. The surface; how he despised the word. When global warming had pushed up ocean levels, the salted water bled into subway tunnels and ground water without discrimination. Their solution: building the entire city up on giant stilts, forgetting about the dying world beneath it. Stories above, London stood on grotesque pylons, censoring them to darkness. His boots crunched on gravel as he passed through a pair of crumbling apartments.

Halloween was one of the few things he still enjoyed in this hellish human utopia. Tonight, London would be his playground. He'd arrived a few months ago, having not been back since his 'Jack the Ripper' phase. Making off with organs, despite being immensely amusing at the time, was a trend that had disappeared, along with the general vampire population.

The Authorities, mindless law keeping drones, always questioned his lack of heartbeat, usually summoning Med-Drones to resuscitate his dead body. He'd found two ways around that: clinging to an industrial hot water cylinder, or feeding. He much preferred the latter. Because of that, in the sack across his back was an old woman he'd captured several leagues from this part of Subterrania.

Bastian felt for the old woman; the old crone might've been old enough to remember a time where the the sun actually touched the ground. Someone younger would be far tastier; but you couldn't have aged stock eating up all the resources, and there were few enough resources below the city as it was.

He finally arrived home: a sunken building crushed between an ancient subway station and pylon. Unbolting the door, he pulled the woman from the sack and positioned her on the rotting couch, before lighting a small wax candle in the corner of the room. She regained consciousness, sitting up suddenly.

"Tell me, do you bleed..?" he asked.

She spat at him, contorting the wrinkles on her face so that she looked like a prune. "Rot in hell, beast," she said, reaching for a cross Bastian had had the foresight to remove from her neck with wire cutters.

How low he had sunk. From only biting the necks of the young and beautiful, to any scrap of meat that happened to be available. "You will," he replied, answering his own question. Then he moved in for the kill.

*

In a long-abandoned subway station, where water occupied the space in lieu trains, a blue flash illuminated the dank space. Light sparked across the surface of the murky canal. No one was around to note it, but the blue flash was more than just another shorting circuit. It was in fact, a rather purposefully created time-space anomaly. In the fading light, there were two echoing splashes.

Lars spluttered as the cold water surrounded him. He was knocked to the bottom. At least the amphi-suit won't have any issues collecting water, he thought wryly. With two kicks of his powerful flippers, he broke the surface of the water. Blackness pressed in on all sides.

Frantic splashes filled the air, and Lars spun to face the sound. "Seth?"

"Get me out of here!" the meerkat spluttered, swallowing water as he struggled to keep his head above the water.

"Just keep kicking," Lars said, looking around in the crushing blackness. He activated the lights on his suit. The luminescent strips encircling his joints and limbs blinked on, and the water became alive with scattered light. They were in a tunnel that went on for as far as he could see. Lars looked up, to see the water's reflection glinting off a brick ceiling.

Beside him, Seth was sinking below the surface. Only his nose was above the water, quivering frantically. Parts of his suit were absorbing large quantities of water, as any good amphi-suit hybrid should. The added weight pulled him under. Lars' pulse beat in his eardrums as he considered the situation: he had to help, but if he got too close... Lars had seen the meerkat's claws shred fish, and even walls.

He dipped below the water, and locked onto Seth's frightened eyes. "Hang on," he mouthed, as vaguely salty water filled his mouth. He wouldn't let this place become a watery grave for his friend.

Swimming beneath the meerkat, he moved his flippers to create a steady rhythm. Being a mutant had its advantages. He envisioned a platform, and pointed to the space just below Seth's feet. The force of the creation jettisoned him backwards through the water. He collided with the bottom, his feet pushed off from a hard metal rod at the bottom. When he reached the surface, he was satisfied with the result; Seth was lying precariously on a platform of ice, its upturning corners stopping him from sliding off. The meerkat's fur was plastered against his panicked face.

"Why does the future always want to kill me Lars?" Seth asked.

"Hey! Secret identity?"

The meerkat rolled his eyes. Ever since they'd 'borrowed' a stash of comic books on their previous mission, the frog had been obsessed with them.

"I'm not calling you 'The Blizzard,'" he said. "Besides, it's not like anyone from this time zone is going to recognize you. You don't need a secret identity."

Lars puffed out his chest, the pale blue 'B' on the front of his amphi-suit glowed, luminescent in the darkness. "Don't ruin all my fun."

He hopped onto the icy platform, and stared out into the distance. The light from his suit didn't reach out very far, so he steered the platform along the canal, looking for darkness; patches where his lights didn't reflect off water. Some time later, they spotted solid ground. The tiled floor was crusted in dirt as they dismounted. Scouting the area revealed it to be deserted. These were certainly not the conditions you'd suspect humanity of creating the first humanoid Automated Intelligence Unit in. Yet that was they were here for.

"Flippers to snorkel. Come in," Lars said into the transceiver on his arm. "We have arrived safely, if a little too wet for Seth's liking. Scheduled time is reading 16:09, 31 October, 2273. We appear to be in an abandoned, human-made tunnel, purpose unknown. No signs of recent habitation." Over the years, time-travel had become increasingly precise, at least for the eras with human internet. Blog and news sites with time-date stamps had become so prolific that their time footprint had literally bled into the continuum. That was what Base explained it, anyway. They could trace it, and that meant there was less chance of sending a frog into the abyss of time. Lars liked that part.

He glanced across to his partner. The meerkat was geared up from head to tail-stub in a navy suit. Unlike his own amphi-suit, which kept his skin wet; Seth's allowed for warmth and wicking of any liquid they might encounter. Mammals, it turned out, didn't thrive in the constant cold and wet that amphibians did. Several panels ran horizontally along the suit, thicker than the rest of the material. The modded amphi-suit material stored water, in case attack or defense was necessary.

A few minutes later, accounting for the time-space delay, a message returned to Lars' earpiece. "Snorkel to flippers, read and received. Explore the surrounding area, and locate the Imperial Museum. Your task remains the same: infiltrate the first conference of the AI, and update its base code before it begins at 19:00."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Lars asked. "Let's ice this town."

"That's the catch phrase you're going with?" Seth said.

Lars hopped lithely onto the meerkat's back. They headed toward a staircase at the back of the platform. "You know, we still haven't found a nickname for you yet."

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, the duo squeezed themselves between the bars of a rusted gate. The landscape was inky black. Lars felt the meerkat shiver beneath him. He looked around. A massive column stretched into darkness to their right.

Seth's whiskers twitched. "I can smell death, and it's close."