exaudio

[exaudio]

pride month post that definitely isn’t late shut up

bonus with the tuff guys:

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oh yeah there’s an AO3 account now as well: check out ‘Illbetheshadow’ 👍💖

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EXAUDIO PERSONNEL FILES: PC210

Alias: Deadlock

Real Name: ‘BigB’ (yes, I am aware that this is not a ‘real name’. 210 specifically requested I keep his real name private. I complied.)

Ability: Creaking

Class: W

Description of ability: the user can summon up to three entities that have been dubbed ‘the creaking’. These entities are apparently sentient plant life resembling dead trees. They cannot move while being observed, but when unobserved they can move at high speeds and deal large amounts of damage.

Height: 193cm

Hair colour: Black

Eye colour: Yellow, including sclera

Other notable features:

Some parts of his body have grown to resemble the ‘creaking’. Parts of his skin have turned to grey wood, yellow eyes have been observed on some of his limbs, and he visibly has a creaking heart in place of a human one. Given that he had none of these features while he was a member of [redacted], I can only assume this is a progressive condition. I hope this is the worst that it gets.

As a result of his ‘creaking’ features he occasionally sheds leaves everywhere. It’s annoying. Or I assume it is. I’m not the one who has to clean them up, so who really cares?

Notes:

Has a notable sweet tooth, and favours cookies in particular. This behaviour is consistent with his behaviour while he was in [redacted], which gives me hope that the changes he has undergone are at least mostly superficial.

Can at times be oblique. Some assume this is a result of his ability. It isn’t. He’s always been like this.

Once dug a massive hole in the Headquarters garden. Like, really deep. I don’t know why he did this. I think he knows, but he refuses to explain.

He once convinced #2 that his real name was Terry. #2 is aware of what his real name is.

He, like 31 (and myself), has the 1st of June off. Every year. NO exceptions.

[exaudio]

so I went into this with a vague outline of lore and how things were gonna go down but mostly I’m kinda making things up as I go and occasionally I’ll get an idea for a bit of character flavour that’ll have me like

[exaudio]

EXAUDIO PERSONNEL FILES: PC42

Alias: Impulse

Real Name: Not on file. It is unknown whether he simply did not wish to share it or whether his real name is actually Impulse.

Ability: Teleportation

Class: L

Description of ability: allows the user to instantaneously travel to any place they have seen before. Additionally, the user can swap locations with any person within their line of sight. A highly useful ability which also saves us a fortune in enderporter bills.

Height: 168cm

Hair colour: Brown

Eye colour: Brown

Other notable features:

Always wears his own merchandise. I am specifically pointing this out for the sake of all of the employees who keep voting him as the most humble Party Crasher.

Has a small scar over his left eye. He sustained this scar in a fight against W36. He is still bitter about this.

Notes:

Seems to have forged the strongest bond with PC618 and PC617. This is not saying much, but it is still noteworthy.

Drinks far too much caffeine. We’ve tried to limit his intake by buying decaf, but he just teleports to the store and buys himself caffeinated coffee.

Is generally unproblematic but will occasionally prank his teammates by swapping places with them without warning. This behaviour should be discouraged, but I find it funny so I’m letting him get away with it.

Holds a grudge well. Very well. Like, better than 551 well, which is really saying something.

No apparent tensions with any teammates. This is good, given his relative newness to the team. He also seems mostly unaware of any history his teammates have with one another, only that they have known one another for a long time. I am unsure as to whether this is positive or negative.

[exaudio]

Wild Life AU: The Reanimator’s Guide to Henchmen Rehabilitation

Receive, Consume, Digest

TWs: implied/referenced animal death, unsafe food habits (Mumbo eats a raw chicken)

They were lost.

Skizz had known this for quite some time, but it was only now that he was prepared to admit it, because he’d been the one leading them. And in all fairness, he’d thought he’d known where he was going. Only the direction he thought he’d been walking in wasn’t the direction he’d actually been walking in, which was made apparent by the fact that they were stood in the middle of a forest and not outside a Burger King. He blamed the map. He’d wanted to use Google Maps, but the Reanimator didn’t let either of their zombies have a phone, and Impulse wouldn’t let him use his.

In theory their mission was easy. It was the first proper mission the Reanimator had sent them on since their reanimation a week prior - the first mission that wasn’t just him and Mumbo doing chores that the Party Crashers couldn’t be bothered to do. Arguably being sent on a fast food run wasn’t much different, but it was the first time they’d been allowed outside.

Though not without a babysitter. It had been agreed that if Skizz and Mumbo executed this task successfully, then maybe they’d be allowed out on their own, but they should have a guardian for at least their first mission. The Reanimator had refused to be that guardian on principle - “What’s the point of having zombies if I have to help them do everything anyway?” - and of the rest of the team Impulse was the one to eventually volunteer, something that Skizz was quietly relieved about. None of the Party Crashers particularly liked either of them, but Impulse tolerated them the most. Animalia was polite but clearly disdainful of them, Aviator talked to them in such a way that Skizz was never sure whether or not she was making fun of him, and Deadlock was… kind of just vaguely unnerving in a way that Skizz couldn’t put into words.

“Are we lost?” Mumbo asked for what must’ve been the hundredth time. And - yeah, Skizz was ready to admit that they were lost. To himself. Mumbo was a different story. He was pretty sure the man already thought he was a moron, the last thing he wanted to do was prove him right.

“No,” he replied.

“Yeah,” Impulse corrected. “We are.” Ass.

“I knew it!” Mumbo cried, his tone half vindicated and half disgruntled.

“I- dude- shut up! We’re just taking the scenic route!”

“We’ve been walking in the wrong direction for forty minutes,” Impulse pointed out. “How scenic do you want this route to be?”

“Why are you only telling us this now?!” Mumbo now rounded on Impulse, taking the words right out of Skizz’s mouth. Impulse just shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter much to me where you take us. I can be home whenever I want.”

Which was the other reason Impulse had volunteered to go, other than being the only one who sort of wanted to. His power was teleportation - he could teleport himself wherever, so long as he’d seen the place before, or swap places with any person within his line of sight. What he couldn’t do was bring other people with him when he teleported.

“You’re not gonna leave us alone out here,” Skizz said, although it came out less as a statement and more as a plead. Impulse checked his phone.

“I might,” he said casually. “It’s getting kinda late…”

“You won’t need to,” Skizz asserted, reorienting the map in his grasp. “I am going to lead us out of this forest, and get us to the Burger King, and get us back home. No problem.”

“You haven’t been able to do any of those things for the past hour,” Mumbo pointed out. “Why do you think you’ll be able to do them now?”

“Because when the chips are down, I always rise to the challenge!”

“And you couldn’t have maybe, I don’t know, risen to the challenge a little earlier?”

“Nope! Doesn’t work like that! But this time, I’ve got it! We’ll be out of here before you know it!”

Thirty minutes later, Skizz was at least 60% sure that they were slightly less lost than they had been. He’d vaguely recognised one of the stumps they’d walked past ten minutes ago as one they’d walked past from the other direction fifty minutes ago, so given that they’d apparently been going in the wrong direction then, he assumed that meant they were going in the right direction now. Either way, he was taking it as a win.

He only wished he could get Mumbo to share his positive attitude.

“Is the Burger King even going to be open by the time we get there?”

“I think it’s a 24/7,” Skizz replied, although really he had no idea. He glanced over at Impulse, but the look on the other man’s face told him that he had checked out of the conversation a while ago. Which was fair, he guessed. They’d been walking a long time, especially for a guy who was more used to just thinking about being somewhere one moment and being there the next.

But, in Skizz’s own defence, the forest they were navigating was supposed to be confusing. He’d learnt this shortly before they’d left, when he’d asked why they couldn’t just get their whoppers delivered if they wanted them so badly.

“No one delivers to us,” the Reanimator had said flatly. “And civilians aren’t meant to know where our headquarters is. That’s why it’s built in the middle of a forest. Legally, this building doesn’t exist.”

Mumbo had them pointed out that surely being in the middle of nowhere was somewhat of a detriment when it came to actually saving people, given that that was their job. The Reanimator had told them rather shortly that they had ‘enderporters’ - whatever those were - set up in major nearby settlements for the sake of fast response time, but that they were strictly only to be used for official business, not for fast food runs.

“We tried once,” Animalia had added from across the room. “The next day we got a slip of paper from Agent L under our door telling us exactly how much those porters cost to run. He docked our pay for months.”

Skizz probably could’ve thought of other reasons why it wasn’t absolutely, totally necessary for him and Mumbo to be the ones to pick up their order - Impulse himself had even offered to do it, since he could literally get it done in no time - but the point of this mission was less ‘get fast food’ and more ‘prove the zombies can be trusted out in the wild’, and besides, Skizz had been getting kind of stir crazy.

His stomach growled. He wasn’t exactly hungry - at least, he didn’t think this feeling was hunger - but that familiar dull ache was creeping into his limbs once again. Mumbo was likely feeling the same. Neither had thought to bring food with them, so they’d just have to stick it out until they got back. None of the orders they were to pick up were their own, and even if they were, Skizz had discovered fairly early on that while he could eat pretty much whatever, meat was the only foodstuff that could stop the ache, the rawer the better. The other day he’d walked in on Mumbo eating a raw chicken breast and hadn’t known whether he was more disturbed by the act or by the fact that he’d wanted some too.

He examined the map closely, pulling it almost flush with his face.

“I think we’re almost out of here dude,” he said, and he even meant it.

“Really.” Mumbo’s reply was short.

“Yeah, dude, really! Back me up, Impulse-“ - and here he turned to where he thought Impulse would be, only to find empty space. He turned to his other side, did a full 360 spin, looked left, right, and up for some reason.

No Impulse.

“Did he actually leave us?!” Mumbo cried incredulously.

“Looks like it,” Skizz replied, scratching his head. “I thought he was just messing with us.” He exhaled through his nose, pulling himself together, ignored the bitter sting of the betrayal in his mouth. “But you know what? Doesn’t matter. We don’t need a babysitter. We’re finishing this mission, even if we have to do it ourselves!”

He marched forward, Mumbo following reluctantly, ready to reach the forest’s end.

Ok. So Skizz had genuinely meant it when he’d said he’d thought they were nearly out.

Maybe he’d made a tiny miscalculation.

Maybe it had been the better part of an hour and they were only just now coming to the forest’s edge.

It was an honest mistake! And besides, they were actually out now, so no harm done!

This was not how Mumbo was seeing it.

“You always do this, Skizz,” he grumbled, for perhaps the fifth time in as many minutes.

“You can’t say ‘always’,” Skizz countered, the same response he’d had the last three times. “You’ve only known me for like a week.”

“Well, I’m fairly certain that if I could remember knowing you when we were alive, I’d be saying the same thing!”

It was late. Actually, scratch that - they’d come to the outskirts of the city now, and a glance at a nearby clocktower told Skizz that it was, in fact, very early. God, he hoped the Burger King was a 24/7 place. God, he hoped they wouldn’t mind him being over two hours late for pick up.

Speaking of, now they were here and he wasn’t even sure where the damn place was. The map he’d been given was of the forest. It didn’t cover the city.

“Shoot,” he muttered to himself. Mumbo definitely heard him, but he seemed to have exhausted his reserve of cutting remarks as he remained silent.

Skizz looked around slightly frantically. If he was lucky, the Burger King would be on this very street. But of course, he wasn’t lucky, and the Burger King was nowhere in sight. He scanned the area for some sort of signage, maybe, even though it was too dark to read and there was no reason why there would be a sign pointing to Burger King specifically. Nothing. Absolute zip.

And then something did catch his eye.

A flash of orange - his heart nearly leaped out of his chest, or would’ve done if it still beat, because for a moment he thought it was the Reanimator come to deride them for their failure. But it wasn’t the Reanimator - whoever it was was a lot smaller, dressed in soft greens and blues. She was sat quite casually on a nearby bench, unmoving, relaxed, like she was simply enjoying the scenery, like it wasn’t gone midnight on a November night. Skizz couldn’t feel the cold, but he reckoned she could.

She was also, somewhat unsurprisingly, the only person around.

Strictly speaking, the only civilians they were meant to interact with were the Burger King employees, and them only out of necessity. But Skizz was desperate, and with their babysitter gone it wasn’t like anyone was ever gonna find out. He approached her in a way that he hoped came across as casual and unthreatening, clearing his throat once he got close enough to her.

“‘Sup,” he said.

No response.

He cleared his throat again.

Nothing.

Now feeling more than a little awkward - and maybe like a total creep - he risked a glance in her direction.

It was a little hard to make out her face, given the lighting, but he could immediately tell something was up. Not with her face, but with her expression. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide open, unblinking, and staring at nothing - and come to think of it her eyes were kinda weird, a strange mix of green and blue with pupils that were entirely too narrow-

Whatever. Her eyes weren’t important - it was that look on her face that bothered him, faraway, expressionless, like she was-

Skizz froze. Then he cautiously tapped her on the shoulder as he asked, “You alive?”

It was like the instant he touched her she came back - into herself. She blinked, flinching back, shook her head a little.

“Yeah,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Yeah, I’m alive.” She turned her gaze to him, and frowned. “Are you?”

“Uh- sorta? You’re ok, right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just - somewhere else.”

“Ok! Ok, great. Um- do you know where the Burger King is?”

She looked a little taken aback by the question. Still, she answered quickly.

“Yeah - it’s like, in that direction. Few streets down, next to a hairdressers. But I think it’s closed now.”

Dangit.

“Alright,” Skizz said, forcing a smile onto his face. “Thanks anyway. We’ll leave you in peace.” He backed away, and began heading in the direction she’d pointed.

A quick trot of footsteps behind him told him Mumbo was still following, confirmed when the man opened his mouth once again.

“You heard what she said, right? It’s closed.”

“She thinks it’s closed. She could be wrong!”

She was not wrong.

That, right in front of them, was the Burger King. It was most definitely closed, and had been for the past forty two minutes.

“Ok,” Skizz said. “We’re screwed.”

The walk back to headquarters was long and silent.

Skizz had contemplated many things on the way. He’d contemplated stopping at a fast food place that was open and attempting to gaslight the Party Crashers into believing it was Burger King, but he didn’t have any money. He’d contemplated running away with Mumbo, moving to another country and changing their names, but again, money. He’d contemplated just laying down and returning to the ground, but even if he did the Reanimator would just reanimate him again. So he was left with no choice but to face the consequences of his actions.

The sole consolation he had at this point was that he had a pretty solid case for claiming that this whole mess was entirely his fault - the case mainly being that it was, in fact, entirely his fault - so if the Reanimator was fair, Mumbo at the very least could escape retribution even if he couldn’t. Whatever the retribution would be.

“What do you think they’ll do?” Mumbo asked, as if on cue, breaking the silence.

“I dunno, man. Maybe they’ll use us as coffee tables for the rest of our lives.”

“Or feed us to the cats,” Mumbo suggested, shuddering, and Skizz felt a shiver run down his own spine. The Reanimator apparently adored cats, to the point that they would reanimate any deceased cat they came across, and it would’ve been kind of cute if it wasn’t so screwed up.

You know what else was screwed up? The fact that he’d led them all the way back to Headquarters in record time, without getting lost once. What, so he was only useless when it mattered?

Speaking of useless…

Someone was stood at the door, waiting to greet them. Someone wearing a purple visor, a black suit with an obnoxious yellow ‘i’ insignia, and an entirely too smug smile on his face.

“Hi guys,” said Impulse.

“You absolute tosser,” said Mumbo.

Skizz did not know what a tosser was. But judging by Mumbo’s intonation, he was inclined to believe it was not a compliment. He was also inclined to agree.

Impulse opened his mouth to speak again, but Skizz cut him off.

“What the heck, man?! Why’d you leave us like that?!”

“What?” Impulse almost looked genuinely confused. The slight uptick in the corner of his mouth gave him away. “It’s not like I could’ve made you guys any less lost. I can only teleport myself. I just thought that there was no point in all three of us suffering.”

And - ok, maybe he kind of had a point, but Skizz wasn’t letting this go so easy.

“Well, you could’ve at least been there too- I don’t know, comfort us when we failed!”

“Who said you failed?”

Now that was out of left field. Skizz blinked, mouth hanging open, trying to process what the man had just said. Was Impulse trying to make fun of them or something?

He noticed for the first time the bag Impulse held in his left hand. One of those insulated hot food bags.

“That’s not-“

“It is,” Impulse confirmed, and even unzipped the bag to show them the complete order nestled inside. “I teleported there once I knew you guys weren’t gonna make it in time. I’ve been waiting out here for you to come back.” His smile was something more genuine now, something almost friendly.

“I don’t understand,” Mumbo said beside him. “Why?”

“Well,” - and here Impulse grew almost shy, losing some of the bravado he’d put on around them all night - “I was the new guy too, once. And yeah, I trust you guys about as far as I could throw you, but - as far as I’m concerned what you did is in the past now. Besides, this week’s been tough enough for you. I wanted to cut you a break.”

He flipped the lid of the bag back down, zipping it shut.

“You two are still gonna have to be the ones explaining why we’re so late.”

Skizz felt a smile grow on his own face. For once not a desperate, almost manic smile, a frantic attempt to stay positive, but a real smile.

“You got it, dude!”

He didn’t feel so lost anymore.

[exaudio]

EXAUDIO PERSONNEL FILES: PC617

Alias: ‘Skizz’

Real Name: Unknown

Ability: N/A

Height: 201cm

Hair colour: Black

Eye colour: Blue

Other notable features:

Still wears the suit he was buried in. Unlike 618, he has taken the liberty to alter this suit by tearing off the sleeves of both the jacket and shirt. He seems rather insistent on ‘having the guns out’. This behaviour appears consistent from when he was [redacted].

Some parts of his body have been affected by decomposition. Since reanimation his condition has not improved, but it has not deteriorated either.

Notes:

Calls everybody ‘homie buddy’. I fear this habit will rub off on the rest of the team.

Seems far more at peace with his predicament than one would expect. Perhaps he is hiding something. Perhaps he is genuinely content. Personally, I’m more inclined to believe the former explanation.

Is rather accident prone. As of writing this he has been reanimated for a week, and 551 has already had to re-reanimate him four times. That I know of.

Has taken a liking to 42. This is convenient given that 42 is by far the most tolerant of 617 and 618.

Like 618, does not seem to have retained any memories from when he was [redacted]. Key word: seem. I, for one, am still keeping an ear to the ground.

[exaudio]

fun fact: Tango’s villain alias in this au is ‘Overclocked’

second fun fact: Scar has never once pronounced it right

[edit 25/05/2025: changed Tango’s alias to ‘Overclocked’]

[exaudio]

Wild Life AU: The Reanimator’s Guide to Henchmen Rehabilitation Masterpost

If you ask anybody who their favourite hero is, chances are they’ll say it’s one of the Party Crashers - a team known and beloved worldwide for their altruism and their expertise in heroism. Some adore the level-headed leader Animalia or the good-natured Impulse, others look up to the fearless Aviator or the charmingly strange Deadlock, and a few devout fans sing the praises of the Reanimator, the zombie-maker. United together as a team, guided by their employers EXAUDIO, perhaps the most well-respected organisation dedicated to professional heroism there is, the team does battle against nefarious evil-doers such as the Tuff Guys and the Spanners to the tune of an adoring audience.

But when two of the three Spanners meet their unfortunate ends, the Reanimator sees an opportunity for their second chance. Reanimated, stripped of their memories and most of their free will, Skizz and Mumbo will have to re-learn how to be human at the same time as learning to be heroes. And it won’t be easy - between doubtful new teammates, a hostile general public and secrets that threaten to destroy the black-and-white world of heroes and villainy that they live in, these former henchmen will be lucky if they make it through this with their lives. Or they would be - if they still had them.

This is a wild life superhero au inspired by session seven! The main focus is on Skizz, Mumbo and Cleo, but all lifers will fit into this au in some way.

Links under cut!

EXAUDIO Files:

Cleo

Skizz

Impulse

BigB

Chapters in order:

Don’t you forget about your friend death

Receive, Consume, Digest

[exaudio]

EXAUDIO PERSONNEL FILES: PC551

Alias: The Reanimator

Name: Cleo Z.

Ability: Reanimation

Class: L

Description of ability: grants the user the ability to reanimate and command dead matter. Can be used on plant life but is most effective on animals. Reanimated matter will display behavioural tendencies matching those it had while living, but ultimately works in service of the user.

Height: 165cm

Hair colour: Orange

Eye colour: Green

Other notable features:

Green skin. This appears natural and not as a result of skin paint as previously thought.

Occasionally favours left hand despite being right handed.

Notes:

Some tension has been observed between 551 and 210. Possibly related to their previous partnership? Keep an ear out on this.

Has a habit of reanimating cats. There are currently 14 reanimated cats roaming our headquarters. We should discourage this behaviour. It’s kind of weird.

Consumes mostly meat. The lack of variety in their diet has not seemed to have affected them negatively so this does not seem to be an issue. I would just like it noted for posterity.

Still has not forgiven me for the incident in [redacted] 18 months ago. It was a miscalculation and I said I was sorry, 551. Just let it go already.

Recently chose to reanimate two former villains, now known as PC618 and PC617 respectively. This decision appears to have been controversial amongst their team. I am more interested in seeing if they will regain their memories from when they were living. I could use an inside source on W11.

[exaudio]

Wild Life AU: The Reanimator’s Guide to Henchmen Rehabilitation

Don’t You Forget About Your Friend Death

TWs: themes of dehumanisation, minor reference to decomposing/rotting bodies, referenced character death (they got (sort of) better)

He came to in stages. First, with the awareness that he was, or rather, the awareness that up until quite recently that he hadn’t been. Then, a sort of pins-and-needles tingling sensation in all his limbs, gradually intensifying to be almost agonising before settling into a dull yet persistent ache. And the pain was unpleasant, sure, but it also told him what kind of shape he was, created a map of his body. The slight pressure against his back told him he was lying down. The rawness under his fingernails told him he’d been digging. The rawness in his throat told him he’d been screaming.

One by one he opened his eyelids, an action his body remembered doing even if he didn’t, even if that memory was faded. He clenched his hands and unclenched them. He curled his toes, feeling them scrape against the confines of narrow, sturdy shoes. Then he braced himself, and sat up.

The room he found himself in was unfamiliar to him. But everything was unfamiliar to him, so he didn’t let that worry him. It was a pretty nice room anyway, brightly lit to make up for the lack of windows, white walls, green linoleum floor, a bed beneath him and a bed to his left, and a floor length mirror affixed to the wall that he faced. From the corner of his eye he could see the shape of another body laid on the other bed, but that didn’t interest him so much as seeing what his own body looked like did.

His legs shook under his own weight when he stood, but held out. They looked like good legs from his admittedly limited perspective. Strong legs. They walked him to the mirror even though he barely knew what walking even was, which made them pretty damn great in his books.

In fact, he thought to himself as he looked at the mirror, his whole body looked pretty damn great. It was a tall body, tall and broad, with an unshaven face and startlingly blue eyes. It - or, well, he, he supposed - wore a sharp black suit, albeit one that was torn and covered in dirt. He didn’t mind that so much, he actually kinda liked the ‘rough’ look. He liked the sleeves of the blazer he wore less - they were too tight, and it somehow felt weird to see his arms covered. The seams at the shoulders were half falling apart anyway, so he tore the sleeves off and spent the next few moments admiring his own hairy biceps. Was that weird? Ogling at his own body? Whatever.

Another thing jumped out at him - a red and white sticker stuck to his lapel. He squinted into the mirror. The sticker had writing on it, and he tried to read what it said but it was hard enough to remember what words even were, let alone to recognise them backwards. He got about half way through the first line - ‘My nam-‘ - before realising it’d be easier if he took the sticker off and read it the right way around. He did so, and read:

‘My name is:

SKIZZ’.

Well. Alright then.

Now he - now Skizz, since that seemed to be his name - felt satisfied enough with himself to turn his attention to the other body in the room. And just in time too, since it seemed to be waking up. Its face twitched, and it mumbled something unintelligible. Then it sat bolt upright, eyes wide, hair stood on end. Its head moved restlessly, snapping around the room before its gaze landed on him, and it froze.

This body was dressed similarly to his, in a black suit that had seen better days. It was pretty tall too, though not as tall as his. That was where the similarities ended. This body was rail thin, its dark hair slicked back, and its pale, nervy face sported the most impressive moustache Skizz had ever seen - and granted, it was the only moustache Skizz had ever seen, but he found it difficult to imagine a moustache that could top it.

The other body wasn’t saying anything, just staring, so Skizz decided to take initiative and introduce himself.

“Hi there!” - he squinted at the sticker attached to its lapel - “… Mumbo! I’m Skizz!” He stuck his hand out, because he was pretty sure that was what you were supposed to do when you greeted someone.

Mumbo squinted at him suspiciously, before cautiously taking the offered hand and shaking it.

“… Hi. Uh- where are we?”

“I dunno, dude. Just woke up here, same as you.”

“Are these actually our names?”

“That’s what our stickers say.”

“They’re really weird names.”

“What else would we be called?”

Mumbo frowned, trying to think.

“… good point.” It - he - stood up, peering past Skizz to look at himself in the mirror, poking curiously at his own moustache. It was a very good moustache. Still, Skizz was pretty sure he’d won overall in the body department.

“… do you remember anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Why are we here?”

“No clue, dude.”

“What happened to us?”

“You died.” Mumbo jumped nearly out of his skin, and Skizz wasn’t too proud to admit that he may have screamed a little. The last voice was a new one, and it came from the person who now stood in the doorway.

This person was significantly shorter than both of them, but that didn’t make them any less intimidating. They too were dressed in black, but not in a suit - instead they wore a long black cardigan, complete with a hood that was pulled up and over a mass of orange hair, over top of black and grey clothing that looked comfortable yet practical. Their skin was a pale greenish colour - Skizz wasn’t sure whether it was painted or whether that was just their natural skin tone - their eyes a bright green, like a traffic light. And those eyes were fixing both Skizz and Mumbo with a stare that put him in mind of a teacher observing unruly students. Unconsciously he stood a little straighter.

“We died?” Mumbo said incredulously.

“Yes,” the stranger responded, their tone even, matter-of-fact. “And I reanimated you.”

“You resurrected us?” Skizz blurted out.

“No, I reanimated you. There’s a difference. If I’d resurrected you, you’d be alive. You’d have heartbeats. But you’re not alive. You’re zombies. My zombies.”

Skizz blinked, noting for the first time the absence of a pulse in his chest. It didn’t feel unusual - it didn’t feel like there was anything wrong. He couldn’t even imagine what being alive would feel like.

“So we like… belong to you?” Mumbo ventured.

“Pretty much, yeah.” They regarded the zombies with a severe glare. “When you two were alive, you were trouble. Now you’re dead, I’ve reanimated you to give you a chance to make up for what you did. But you’re both going to have to listen to me.”

That sounded reasonable enough. It sounded so reasonable, in fact, that there were alarm bells ringing in the back of Skizz’s mind telling him that it shouldn’t sound reasonable - that he should feel indignant, outraged, horrified. But he didn’t. Instead he just asked,

“So what do you want us to do?”

Their Reanimator beckoned them closer.

“I want you to follow me.”

It took Skizz about half an hour to realise that this walk the Reanimator had been taking them on through this massive compound was a tour, which meant he probably should’ve been paying attention to what she’d been saying rather than marvelling at how he had to stoop under every doorway and how was at least a head and shoulders above everyone he’d passed so far. There wasn’t much he could do about that, other than hope that there wouldn’t be a pop quiz at the end.

He had, at least, listened to the important bits at the beginning, mainly because the Reanimator had specifically told him - told them both - to listen closely, and he was fairly certain he was literally incapable of disobeying her if she gave him a direct order. What she’d told them was that her name was Cleo, but her title was the Reanimator and when she was in costume that was how they should address her. She’d told them that she was a part of a superhero team called the Party Crashers, and that her team worked for an organisation called EXAUDIO, and it was that organisation’s headquarters that they were in right this second. She told them that once she’d learned of their deaths, she’d searched tirelessly for their unmarked graves, solely because she believed that everyone deserved a second chance.

“Even though we were bad guys?”

“Even though you were bad guys.”

She’d also told them that the rest of her team were more than a little wary of them. Which was fair enough, to be honest. Skizz had no idea what he’d done when he was alive, but he didn’t miss the looks passersby gave him. It was also entirely possible that those looks were less about who he was and more about the fact that he was a shambling corpse whose flesh was partially decomposed, although in his defence he hadn’t even realised that was unusual until he’d realised that no one else other than Mumbo and himself had places on their bodies where you could glimpse exposed muscle and bone.

“This,” the Reanimator said as she gestured to a heavy wooden door, breaking Skizz out of his reverie, “is our sleeping quarters. They are not your sleeping quarters. Where you woke up is your sleeping quarters. I am only telling you that these are our sleeping quarters so that you know which place you should never, under any circumstances, go. Understood?”

“Uh, understood.”

“You got it!”

“Right,” she said, moving on. “Ok, last stop.”

They came to a halt outside another door at the end of the corridor. Skizz could just about make out the sound of muffled voices behind it. The Reanimator turned to face them fully, her face stony, serious.

“This our break room,” she said. “My team is in there right now, waiting to meet you. Consider this me officially ordering you to make a better second impression than your first.”

Then she pushed the door open, and the room went silent.