Against the Milah Beast

Well, I had thought I was done with all this strange killings-seriously, after blowing up vampires you're kinda done. I was perfectly content with my life of small, not so drastic jobs. But I should have known better than to start thinking I had a kinda-sort-maybe-just a bit normal life.

It was actually my day off. I was lazing around in my room, letting Leon run around while I read I Am America (And So Can You!). It was then that my phone went off. Leon grabbed it and scurried up my bed to give it to me.

"Hello?"
"Samantha." Anna's voice crackled out of the speakers. "We need you and your team to go to Safeville immediately."
"Me and Leon?" I asked, a little confused.

"No. Your team." I got a little nervous then. My division was never sent out in teams unless it was a dire situation. I hadn't worked with my team except for in training years ago. I'm honestly not sure how we passed the exam. My teammates were actually my two best friends, Andrea Lyons and Laura Vavrek. We got along, but God forbid we try to figure something out together.

"Oh my god. What's going on?"
"The Milah beast is wrecking havoc over there."
"No!"
"Yes." Anna sighed and continued, "We sent Chloe to deal with it, but…"
"The songs won't get out of my head!" A wailing sob was suddenly heard. "Oh God make it stop!"
"Is she OK?!"
"She'll be fine. We've been making her listen to Bowling for the Who as much as possible."
Shaken, I asked hopefully, "But it's my day off. Why can't Nick and Ben go?"
"They've been locked in a room watching Dr. Who for a few days now."
"What about Allen..?"
"No, Adam has a football game, and Allen and Brittney are busy delivering Mrs. Empson's baby."
"How many times have they delivered her child?!"
"It doesn't matter."
"Well what about you--"
"NO, Sam. Just shut up and do your job."

I hung up and grabbed my car keys, putting Leon in my pocket as I head out the door. "Bye mom, off to kill a monster."
"Be back before dark."

I got in my car and began to head for Laura's house, calling her as I did so. "Hey, I'm coming to get you, we got a mission. Yeah. Yeah, bring your stuff." I called Andi after and told her basically the same thing. To ease my nerves, Leon and I head-banged to some rock until we pulled into Laura's driveway. Laura was walking out her front door with a few briefcases in her hands. Her two guinea pigs, Diego and Godot, rode on her shoulders. Like Leon, they were trained to kill, despite how unbelievably fat they were.

The neat thing about my Ford Focus was that it was completely normal… except for the secret extension in my trunk where I kept my guns. It was this part I opened to let Laura stash her 'tools of trade' before I sealed it up. We all piled into the car and headed to Andi's house.

When we got there, Andi was beating back her father, who was trying to come outside and, most likely, annoy us. Like Laura, Andi carried a few bags. The difference? Andi carried her computer, some wires, you know, that kind of stuff. Laura had bombs. We put her stuff in the trunk and clambered in the car once more. The trip took an hour, and all we did was argue over the most stupid stuff ever. It's a miracle we didn't crash.

I parked the car behind the tallest building in the city. From what I had seen, nothing looked out of place. Still, we started to set up our stuff. Laura and I put on vests, where we stocked the various pockets and slots with bombs and ammo, respectively. Andi powered up her techy stuff and strapped small cameras to our guinea pigs. I equipped a Socom pistol and an M9 tranquilizer gun, and then pulled out my favorite weapon: a PSG1 sniper rifle. See, we were all 'ninjas;' trained to sneak around and fight hand-to-hand. But we all specialized too. Laura could make a bomb out of anything (and I mean anything). Andi was the tech person and super smart with computers. And I was a gun specialist. More specifically, a sniper.

"So, what exactly are we going up against?" asked Andi as she finished checking all her stuff. "You never said."
"Because we were too busy fighting over what video game was best--"
"Guh!"
"Guuh!"
"Guuuh!"
"Guys!" Laura cut in, hands on hips and a frown on her face. Andi and I quit grunting at each other. Satisfied, Laura said, "So, what is our mission anyway?"

"We have to stop the Milah Beast." A collective gasp. Well, at least they understood the situation. "The first attempt was a failure, so we really need to do all we can."

I told Laura to go find it; the town was unusually quiet for something under attack. I finished fixing up my car so Andi could stay there and keep power going to the computers. Then I climbed to the roof of the tallest building and set up my gun. Everything looked fine, really. I pulled down my headset. "Laura, where are you?"
"I'm near the Starbucks-OH GOD!"

I fumbled for my binoculars and tried to find the Starbucks Laura was at. It was hard because there were like, three clustered together on every corner. I finally found her among a mass of terrified, fleeing people. She pulled aside one of them, who I realized with surprise was out friend Jordan Henderson. So this was where he worked.

I could hear their conversation over my headset. "Jordan, what's going on??"
"She's angry!" He was freaking out. Laura was trying to ask something else, but Jordan started screaming and struggling. I shifted my gaze and immediately wished I hadn't.

Walking out the Starbucks was Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana (yes, they are separate entities). They're faces were contorted into looks of absolute hatred. "How dare you not know who I am!" They spoke as one, and they suddenly reminded me of those creepy twins that liked to stand at the end of hallways and tried to make you play with them.

They clasped each other's hand and activated their Wonder Twin powers, only instead of changing into two different things, they merged into one. The Milah Beast.

Let me describe this thing as best I can. Imagine the hydra from Disney's Hercules, only it has just two heads. Now, remove those two heads and put Miley Cyrus's and Hannah Montana's heads on the vacant necks. It looks as awkward as it sounds. And considering they were already wearing too tight tube tops and too short short skirts, it wasn't a pretty sight.

"RRRAAAAWWWRR!" The Milah beast destroyed the three nearby Starbucks, and then the Miley head lunged and devoured Jordan just as Laura dived out the way. All I could hear was her heavy breathing as she stumbled behind another building. Or maybe that was mine. I couldn't tell. It didn't occur to me for a while Andi was talking to me. "Sam. SAM. What's the plan?!"

"Uh, uh…" I was completely at a loss of what to do, which really sucks when you're supposed to be the leader. "Okay, um… Laura, can you get a reading on her defense rating?"

"Give me a sec." I again pulled out my binoculars and watched. Laura sent Diego and Godot in close to the raging monster to collect as much data as they could while avoiding being squished. She suddenly gasped. "I-I don't believe it!"

"What? What?!"
"It's… It's over 9,000!"
"No way! Is that even possible?!"
"Well, apparently it is. You wouldn't know of course, healer."
"Hey, I don't need your sass young lady. And if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't last five seconds."
"Guys, I don't know what you're talking about!" This time it was Andi that cut in, only she burst in with a whine.
"Alright, alright. Everyone just shut up and let me think." I sighed and rubbed my temples. "Okay, I guess the first thing we should do is a small explorative attack to see what her weaknesses are. Then once we--"
"That's enough of that. Let's do this thing! LEEEERRRROOOY JEEEENNNNKIIINNNS!"
"No, Laura! Don't!

Too late. A huge explosion suddenly went off, resulting in the destruction of a few more Starbuck's. The Milah Beast roared in pain and swept a massive claw in a large arc, effectively destroying everything within a fifty foot radius. All I could do was rub my eyes and wonder how we were put together for a team.
"It didn't do anything!" Laura was once again speaking, and her voice sounded strained.
"What! No way!"
"I don't see any damage at all!"

"Okay, let me try." I settled down and looked through the scope. After a few adjustments, I lined the cross hairs up with the Miley head. After all, she had eaten one of my best friends. When the vibrations of falling buildings calmed a bit, and I was able to keep the shot lined up, I squeezed the trigger.
Bull's eye. Her head exploded into hideous teenage fashion accessories as the Hannah head howled in anger. I jumped up and cheered; maybe this was the weakness we needed. My celebration was short lived, though. The neck stopped flailing around like a lizard's tail and from it grew two new Miley heads. Well crap. This thing WAS a hydra. My job just got a whole lot harder.

Andi was screaming over the head set. "Look out! She's about to use her Party in the USA attack!" I snatched Leon off the ledge of the building and stuffed him in my pocket to protect him from inner ear damage as the Milah Beast began her attack. In a swift motion she had selected a fairly sized building and began pole dancing on it as she 'sang' and sent many running people on the ground clutching their heads in agony. Luckily for us our headsets blocked most outside noises, but I still had to look away. I didn't want my eyes to start bleeding or something.

I saw a couple more explosions, but the Milah Beast continued her assault and I heard Laura say she didn't have anything that could hurt the monster. It was at that point I knew we were done. I'd usually try to get away, but the Milah Beast had finally spotted me and was coming. I reached into the pocket that wasn't taken by a guinea pig and fished out my iPod. Andi started telling me not to take my headset off, but I ignored her and threw it down, then put in my headphones. Might as well go out doing something I don't usually do.

As the first song came on, I burst into an explosion of flailing limbs I liked to call dancing. The thing was, I could dance about as well as Miley Cyrus could sing. I just had the decency to hide it from the public. Glancing up, I saw to my amazement that the Milah Beast wasn't attacking me. She was watching with interest. Of course; I was dancing with the same level of talent she had, and she thought I was good.

Still flailing my arms around, I carefully bent down, picked up my headset and said in the mic: "Andi, bring me your iPod speakers. I have a plan." I didn't hear a response but assumed she would do it. It took a few minutes, but apparently Andi had sent an emergency call to Anna, and in response she had sent a helicopter to get us out of there. I saw that Nick and Ben were behind the controls, which I wasn't too sure on what to think. Andi opened the side door and flung out her speakers, yelling orders to the pilots. I had enough knowledge to know they needed to circle around again in order to position right and get me. I didn't have long.

I caught the speakers and set them in front of the Milah Beast, who by now had a look of confusion on her face. I slammed my iPod in place and turned it up all the way, and the creature got a full blast of Behind Blue Eyes. She screeched in pain, much louder than before, and staggered back a few steps. I had found her weakness: good music. Taking the distraction, I put my headset back on. "Andi, get Laura some speakers, then you guys set them up around this thing. Then sync them up with my iPod."

I panicked as the helicopter sped away, and I changed to the next song. The Milah Beast was shaking her three heads and came up snarling. I went to my other The Who song, Baba O'Riley. It had the desired effect of making the Beast shudder in pain, but she wasn't caught off guard like last time. Just as I switched to Poker Face, the music suddenly seemed to echo more that it usually did. I heard Laura confirm she had her set hooked up and going full blast. The Milah Beast was swinging around in anger, trying to find the source when another set joined in, then another.

I ran to the edge of the building as the Milah Beast staggered away, trying to find Laura. She was waving from on top a building to my right. To my left, I saw Andi on top of the Apple store (which had somehow managed to survive) hooking up a few looted speakers and tossing the rest up to Ben. He scurried up the rope about half way and let Nick pilot the helicopter to other buildings, where he jumped down, started them, and then repeated the process. Within minutes we had her surrounded, so no matter where she turned music was blaring at her.

I switched the song again to Feel Good, Inc. While these songs seemed to be weakening her, they weren't destroying her. We were gonna have to go older and better. I started scrolling as I told Nick to fly farther away so the music would be more effective. Rock You Like A Hurricane. Welcome to the Jungle. Highway to Hell. Stayin' Alive, just for the irony. Finally I went for it and played Let It Be by the Beatles. This made her have strange convulsions, and I knew we were almost there. I would have to bring out the big guns.

Finally I found Beat It and waited. The Milah Beast began shaking uncontrollably but was still able to make a swipe at my building. I clutched the side tightly as the building groaned and swayed slightly. I finally just skipped ahead and played Thriller. That did it. The Milah Beast screamed and melted like the witch she was, bleeding into what I hoped was the sewers. I cheered again along with the many people, then hurriedly grabbed the rope as the helicopter swooped past, holding my gun close as the building crumbled a bit more. It wouldn't last long, and I needed to get my car.

Later, we were back at the main building. Anna patted her pockets and frowned. "Huh, I was sure I had your pay check… Oh well. You girls won't mind if I pay you… IN GUM?!"
"That's new Trident Layers, with layers of flavor of gum! Of course you can pay us in gum!"