Redux Riding Hood

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"Stop trying to pet me, Red," the wolf complains. "You know I hate that."

Red and the wolf are lying on a grass embankment overlooking a fortress which is surrounded by the undead. Red is wearing a long red-leather coat with a matching hood. She pulls the hood down and pulls her black braid over her shoulder before reaching into the back of her coat to retrieve her katana and scabbard.

Wolf watches her lay the blade aside and roll onto her back. "What are you doing?" the wolf asks.

"This is it, Wolf," Red replies. "We either stop her or we don't. It's 4th and long, 4th quarter with only seconds left on the clock."

"If you keep on with these sports analogies, I don't think the end is going to be able to get here fast enough. "

Red narrows her eyes. "Shush, this is important."

"Hey, if you don't like it, you should have been a better influence."

She rolls her eyes. "Anyways. This is our only shot at this. There's no undo or reset. We have to stop her now if we have any hope of stopping her at all. Now that she's made her portal device mobile, she's going to be able to get into other worlds like we can. Then there's no telling what sort of powers she will accumulate. It's bad enough that Dr. Frankenstein is making more monsters for her.

Red sticks her metal-left arm into the air, forming a finger gun and aiming at the moon. She shoots.

Wolf rolls onto his side, facing her and propping himself up on one arm. "You know you're a bit of a monster now too, right?"

Red turns the metal hand over and looks at the back of her knuckles. "What she did to us was monstrous, so that makes us just another product of her efforts."

"So what? Are we gonna roll over now and play dead?"

"Hell no. You really think I'm going out like a punk?"

Wolf smirks. "I was wondering when the real Red would show up."

Red's metal fist clenches and she twists herself to her feet, snatching the katana as she rises. She checks her watch and then draws her blade. She swings it causing a portal to open in front of her that faces down a set of subway tracks and an empty tunnel.

"It's almost time, Wolf. Are you ready?"

Wolf climbs to his feet and draws the greatsword from his back. "Are you kidding? I didn't do all that work for nothing. I'm ready to just get this over with."

Red turns back away from the portal and looks down to the horde of zombies crowded around the entrance of a gray-stone keep. Watch towers stand at the four corners of the structure, and werewolves can be seen prowling along the top of the walls.

She reaches the metal arm into the back of her coat and pulls out one of the two handguns she keeps holstered at her lower back. She places her foot on the ledge, points her gun down at the horde, and peers down the iron sights. "Well, I guess we're going to see how that new charge shot works out."

A train horn blares from behind her, and she turns to see a light rapidly moving down the tracks in her direction. She looks over to Wolf and he nods back to her.

Red dismisses the open portal with a swipe of her blade as she places the top of the pistol against her chest. She presses it against herself and pushes forward, causing the slide to move back and expose the open chamber. As she holds it open, a growing light intensifies within the barrel.

She swipes the katana two more times, causing an exit portal to open on the ground level amongst the zombie horde. A moment later, a subway train is barreling out of the opening. Its nose buries, causing each connecting car to jackknife and tumble across the field like a farm combine tending to the harvest.

The light from the barrel is becoming so bright that they both have to look away. Red opens another portal over the ledge of the embankment that leads them out onto the field of zombies. She tries to squint beyond the light, looking into the portal as zombies start to gather amongst the train wreckage.

"Ok, Wolf." She calls to him over the whine that's now coming from the weapon. "Our only chance is to get that portal device away from her, so are you up for a game of fetch?"

Wolf glares back at her. "If I don't like petting, why the hell would I agree to--"

Red lets the pistol's slide move forward, then aims it through the portal, the weapon's form no longer being visible from the intense light of the barrel.

The horde starts to approach her portal as werewolves can be seen sliding down the face of the castle wall in the distance.

"Yippy kai yay," she says grinning and squeezes the trigger.