Scrape Away

by Go-Go Spiders

Rating: PG

Pairings: Missing Link/Katie and Dr. C/Susan

PART TWO : The Vanishing Girl

***

The trip back home was a living nightmare.

Dr. Cockroach and Susan spent most of the flight in Monger's carrier seated talking to each other. Susan would sometimes delicately play with one of Dr. Cockroach's antenna between her fingers, which he appeared to enjoy.

Link had spent most of the flight lying on the floor with his back turned to them, facing a wall and trying to ignore the other monsters. It really wasn't working. His scales felt oddly dry and tight, even though he'd been out of the water for much longer periods of time. His eyes felt dry as well, although unlike his scales they burned as well.

"You feeling all right?" Susan had asked him at one point, after trying to strike up a conversation with Link and only receiving curt one-word answers.

"I'm tired," Link had mumbled. She had left him alone after that, although later Link had heard her ask Dr. Cockroach softly if he knew why Link was acting depressed.

"A waitress at the dinner spurned his advances," Dr. Cockroach had replied quietly. "He was quite upset about it. You know how he is. His ego's as fragile as an eggshell."

That had stung.

B.O.B. had been tucked into a corner with the plate of lime Jell-O. About halfway to the base the plane had hit some rough turbulence, causing the Jell-O to quiver violently. After they'd passed the turbulence, B.O.B was in tears, convinced that the Jell-O didn't love him anymore and was about to break up with him.

"I don't know what I'd do without her!" B.O.B had sobbed loudly. "She's the love of my life! My soul-mate! We were practically made for each other!"

Dr. Cockroach and Susan spent the rest of the flight trying to calm him down again while Link rolled his eyes. Right before they landed, B.O.B. and the lime Jell-O had a very serious talk about their relationship and announced that it'd just been a small misunderstanding after all.

Between Dr. Cockroach and Susan flirting and B.O.B making kissy faces at the Jell-O, Link wanted to scream. Once the plane landed in Area 52 he fairly sprinted down the ramp and onto the tarmac. On all fours, he ran past a waiting Insecto, who bleated out something he didn't quite catch as Link sped towards the sand dunes of the small beach nearby.

Even though they had been set free by the government, the monsters had made the descion to stay at the base. There wasn't really anyplace else for a 350-foot tall butterfly, a 50-foot women, a fish-ape, a mad scientist with a cockroach's head and a gelatinous mass of blue goo to stay. Insectosaurus and Susan both required a lot of space and Dr. Cockroach's experiments were often loud, noisy and had a tendency to spontaneously combust. The base had been built with monsters in mind, although it had been meant to keep them imprisoned. Thankfully, now they were under no restrictions from Monger and could leave the base whenever they pleased. Those two things alone went a long way towards making it feel less like a prison and more like a home.

But not his home, not his real one. The Missing Link was not a creature raised from birth inside a small enclosed tank. He was a monster of nature, and within him was the urge to swim in the ocean's currents. A tank of stagnant chemically-treated water didn't fulfill the same need.

Within five feet of the water's edge, he gracefully leapt through the the air, doing a perfect backflip before breaking the water's surface.

'Figures. The one time I don't screw this up and nobody's around to see it.'

***

Penny, Denny, and Jenny had been Katie's friends since the third grade, despite the fact all three were total airheads. They'd been together through the sixth-grade band concert, the horrors of puberty, and an endless cycle of boyfriend-swapping. That did not stop her from wanting to wring their necks right there. At this point, the only thing restraining her was that there were about a hundred witnesses eating lunch in the high school's cafeteria.

An exasperated Katie looked up from her lukewarm macaroni and cheese to find her three friends still staring at her with looks of concern. Katie rolled her eyes. "Guys, I'm fine. Quit hovering, it's getting really annoying."

"Awww, you poor thing," cooed Jenny, sitting down in the seat across from her. "Breaking up with Cuthbert must've been awful."

Katie frowned. "...Not really." Giving Cuthbert the heave-ho had felt more therapeutic then anything else, but she wasn't about to tell them that.

"And so close to senior prom too!" continued Jenny, ignoring Katie "Where does he think you're going to find another date on such short notice, huh? It's only four days away!"

"You'd think he'd be considerate enough to break up with you after prom," added Denny, chewing on a large wad of bubble gum. "Making you go stag is awfully cruel. He always seemed so nice, too."

"No, look, I broke up him--"

"I know! I know!" squealed Penny, clapping her hands together excitedly. "Let's go to the beach after school!"

"Let's not," Katie shot back.

The other three teenage girls ignored her again. "And I just got a new bathing suit too!" squeaked Jenny, clearly excited about the idea. "I bet there'll be tons of cute guys there. Ohmigod you guys, we should totally go!"

"So it's decided. We're going to the beach right after eighth period," Jenny grinned, showing off perfect teeth as just as the bell rang, ending their lunch period. Giggling and laughing, they quickly left the cafeteria, leaving a stunned Katie trying to figure out what has just happened.

Unfortunately for her but luckily for them, Denny, Jenny, and Penny had flounced off before Katie could tell them the truth she'd been holding back for nine long years; she'd rather pound nails with her head then willingly spend another minute with them then necessary. They were friends weekdays from 9 AM to 2 PM and at school functions, but that was it. They were nice enough people, but she could not handle the stupid those three radiated outside of a school setting. It simply wasn't possible.

Getting her books from her locker, Katie had the sinking feeling she'd be going along with them whether she wanted to or not. Her suspicions were confirmed two periods later when the trio literally dragged her off to Penny's parked GTO convertible after the end-of-the-day bell rang. The Three-Knees plunked her in the backseat and then crammed themselves into the front, with Jenny sitting between the driver and passenger seat.

Once they'd left the school parking lot, Jenny pulled a hot pink bikini out of her bookbag with a flourish. "Ta dah! Isn't it the absolute cutest thing ever?"

"Ohmigoooood!" Denny and Penny cried in unison, their voices high enough to shatter glass.

In the backseat, Katie grimaced. There was never an alien invasion around when you needed one.

***

A half-hour outside of the town, Gordon Beach was a veritable dumping ground for the nearby chemical plants, and every year or two it was closed for a month while the town board tried to decide if the schools of fish swimming in from the Pacific Ocean immediately dying upon reaching Gordon Beach was worrisome or not. Because of this, it was not a particularly pretty beach either. The skeletal trees on either side of the bank were either completely dead or just very very sick, while the water was an unhealthy shade of muddy brown with a film of something green over it. The smell of dead fish slowly rotting lingered uncomfortably heavy over the water.

Gordon Beach had always been kinda icky, but Katie couldn't remember it ever being this bad before.

The four of them were the only people on the beach. Katie was not surprised – Party Beach was only about forty-five minutes away from town in the other direction, managing to avoid the pollution that had killed everything living in and around Gordon Beach. Party Beach had gotten its nickname from its proximity to a college campus, which guaranteed finding some available young frat guys eager to impress girls. Why the Three-Knees had decided to come here was beyond her abilities to comprehend.

They had spread a blanket Penny kept in her car out on the sand dunes. Jenny stared out over the water in horror while Katie read a book. Denny and Penny, still dressed in their school clothes, were lying down on the blanket looking up at the clouds. Jenny had changed into her bikini, but the look on her face made it very clear that she wouldn't dare to venture into the surf for fear of what it would do to her brand-new bathing suit.

A tall wave of brown water crashed loudly against the shore, leaving driftwood and more dead fish in its wake.

"Ew ew ew eeeewwww," said Jenny, her face scrunched up in disgust. Katie rolled her eyes and ignored her.

Behind a very expensive pair of sunglasses, Jenny's eyes suddenly widened and she gave a loud terror-stricken scream. Before the other three girls could look up, she sped across the dunes, her feet raising little clouds of sand as she ran towards the GTO.

Denny and Penny looked at each other, then out towards the water. They shrieked as well and followed Jenny. A moment later, Katie looked towards the parking lot just in time to see Penny's car speed off in a cloud of dust, leaving four-foot-long skid marks on the asphalt.

Confused, Katie stared disbelievingly at where the convertible had been moments before. Behind her, another large wave broke against the sand. That had been...weird. What on Earth had gotten them so worked up?

Closing her book for a moment, Katie turned her head towards the water.

***

Link had focused on swimming as fast as he possibly could. He had not been paying attention to what direction he'd been going or keeping track of time. There was only him and the sparkling sea water. Hours went by without another thought entering his head. The rough motion of his tail snapping back and forth as he glided almost effortlessly through the surging water, no glass walls...

He'd missed this. He'd missed this so much.

Link was so caught up in his enjoyment he didn't noticed the slight tingling sensations beginning around his eyes, nose, mouth and gills. Gradually, the water became more and more murky until suddenly it became totally brown, like swimming in mud. It forced him to slow down almost to a lazy crawl. There was something strange about the part of the ocean, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The taste of it seemed alien, but he'd come across it before fairly recently...

The fish-ape frowned, slightly puzzled at the change in the water. Something drifted by his feet, and he quickly snatched at it with his toes before bringing it up to his eyes.

It was a dead fish. Bloated and rotten, he could barely see the gills, which were stained a dull red. The otherwise white belly of the fish was covered in brown bumps. Two more dead fish floated up, then three more, all bobbing towards the surface.

Link realized with a start that something was wrong. There were lots and lots of chemicals in this water, like the chlorine in the Murphy's pool. That didn't make sense...

Suddenly the water swelled around him, pushing him further into the muddy, chemical-ridden water. Gurgling in surprise, his gills began to violently burn as the current dragged him further in. All his scales felt like they had been scalded with boiling water. He found it difficult to breathe. Those were all very bad things.

Link quickly swam towards the surface of the water, gulping in huge lungfuls of air once he surfaced. The pain in his gills eased as soon as he was breathing oxygen again, but the part of him below the water was still having a painful reaction to the chemicals.

Land. He needed to get to land. Luckily it looked like it wasn't too far away and the tide would be carrying him to shore, which was a godsend. He still needed to get out of the water as soon as he could. He swam along with the tide until his felt his feet hit the bottom, and then lurched along on his still-burning feet.

After his near brush with death, Link's good mood had vanished. He needed a pick-me-up, and he needed it now.

Then he spotted several girls seated on a blanket several yards away from the water's edge. No one else was around. Only one girl was in a bikini, and she was the least-attractive of the group, but it was better then nothing.

'That'll work nicely,' Link grinned. After all he'd been through over the past few days, he deserved to indulge himself in a little bit of harmless fun, right?

Raising his arms, he charged towards the girls. The one in the bikini spotted him first and ran screaming towards the car surprisingly fast. Two other girls looked up, and followed the bikini-wearing one towards the car, leaving just one girl on the blanket. She had been reading a small book, but looked up towards the parking lot as her friends drove off. The sound of the beach's waves masked his approach, and she didn't spot him until it was too late for her to escape.

***

The monster roared directly into her face, and Katie got a very nice view of his razor-sharp teeth. With one quick movement he grabbed her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder without breaking stride.

Katie had seen enough old cheesy sci-fi movies to have a pretty good idea how most women would take suddenly being abducted by a monster – they'd either scream, pass out, or scream and then pass out. To her, that had always seemed like a stupid thing for someone to do, and it seemed just as stupid now, in the middle of an actual monster attack. Her first reaction to being carted off a beach by what appeared to be a large ape covered in fish scales wasn't one of intense fright, and she didn't lose consciousness.

No, Katie was just incredibly pissed off.

END PART TWO

Notes:

Party Beach is a reference to an old b-movie called 'The Horror of Party Beach'. Gordon Beach is not an actual place. I have been at some beaches that didn't look much better then it, though. x_x

I really felt bad writing this chapter becuase Link's still all mopey and sad. ;_; He'll be back to his old sarcastic self by the next part.

Thanks for reading, I'll try to have the next chapter up soon! :D

G-GS