The Menace of The Necromancer, Tales of Interest - Issue #4

[Shiv]

Doctor Weyland van Spraggen pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his sweat-covered nose as he wandered into the cemetary. He would show them... he would show them all. When he discovered this Ascendancy, this power, this gift, he had been ridiculed. They had told him that he had become... "unscientific". That he had gone wrong, and his methods were unsound. Unsound! Bah! But he would show them. His gift would become their curse. When he reached the centre of the cemetary, he dropped to his knees, digging his fingers into the soil. Of course, he did have one obstacle in his path; one thing that would prevent his victory over the rest of the scientific community. Skygate Institute.


**********


It was getting late, and Nick was still up for some reason. Probably still coming off the battle high. Most people wouldn't consider running around the Institute in their pajamas trying to figure out what Computer Girl was up to now a "battle", but to him, pretty much everything was. He wasn't sure why he'd stayed up so late; really, the reason he'd been upset about being awakened at 11:00 that morning was because he had been up until about three hours earlier watching the Kung-Fu Marine marathon that had been on the night before. The first ten movies. The good ones. But now, he was about ready for sleep again. Hopefully nothing untoward would happen.

Something had possessed him to wander down to the lobby while he was brushing his teeth, leaning against the wall by the doors. He glanced outside, then quickly did a double-take, his toothbrush falling out of his now-open mouth. Reaching out, he quickly locked the door, then sprinted toward the vacant reception desk, vaulting himself over it and taking the phone down. Quickly, he dialed Major Barrows' room. "Greg!" he yelled into the reciever when the Major picked up. "There's something coming toward the Institute! A lot of somethings! And they're shambly!" With another glance over the desk, he added, "We're gonna need guns."

[Oversoul]

Nick's demands were all well and good... save that it wasn't Gregory Barrow who answered the phone at all. Instead, when he finally fell silent long enough for the man on the other end of the phone line to get a word in edgewise, he would hear the voice of Domerin Lorcasf saying, "Hold on. Greg's in the shitter."

Domerin had enough sense to pull the phone away from his face, at that point, though he didn't go so far as to hold his hand over the receiver. Nick would be able to hear his voice, loud yet distant, as he called loudly enough for it to penetrate the doorway nearby, "Yo Greg! It's Nick! He says there's er... THINGS shambling towards the Institute. He's demanding you and lots of guns!"

[Legion]

Before Domerin even finished his last sentence, the bathroom door he was addressing swung violently open and slammed into the adjacent wall with a loud crack! In the now-open doorway stood Major Barrow, toilet paper in hand and a dark scowl perched on his face. Fortunately, he had already pulled his pants up. "So it's finally happened..." he growled under his breath. Setting the roll of white paper aside, he stalked out of the bathroom and past Domerin to the apartment door. "Call the others. Get as many able bodies downstairs to the main lobby as you can in two minutes. Two minutes. I'll meet you down there in a few minutes." Without any further explanation, Greg pulled the door open and disappeared into the corridor, leaving his friend to the task he'd assigned him.

Mere moments later, Greg strode into the lobby with a purposeful pace, lugging two large army kit bags in his hands with two more slung over his shoulders. The bags issued a loud, metallic clatter when the grizzled soldier stopped and dropped them to the floor, hinting at the deadly contents within. His steely blue eyes surveyed the people assembled in the lobby, and his mouth pressed into a grim line. It'll have to do, he supposed. "Alright, Omar, uproot that desk and push it up against the door. We're going to need a barricade." Greg shrugged the other two bags off of his shoulders and dropped them on the floor beside the first pair. "Everyone else, grab some guns. Don't be shy, there's plenty to go around. Once you're armed, fan out, and remember to aim at their heads."

[Tag]

/Zzzzzzzz!/ Sound asleep, was the young Speeder, as his hyp'd up metabolism demanded ample amounts of rest and rejuvenation, lest it fail him at a most inopportune moment. Under the blissful dimness of a dark room, and the soothing lullaby provided by his laptop, currently station on Youtube, the sounds of Daft Punk aiding in the acquisition and maintenance of rest. Yet, it was no match for the sudden WHIR-WHIIIIR that bombarded the nearby desk, sending Quentin hurtling over the side of his bed. Dammit! And here he thought keeping his phone on vibrate would prevent such awakenings.

"W-w-wha...??" A noisy boom, as Tag's body hit the floor, yanking both blanket and pillow along with. Tag answers his cell, at first thinking the voice on the other end a dream, yet the the seriousness of their tone was easily recognized, demanding Q rise and be suited, prepped and present in the main lobby within Two Minutes. This was no dream, it seemed. Well the request itself was easily doable for the Swift One. But, geez, it was like 12 or something! The hell was going on!! "Two minutes?? Crap..." Better move it.

Dressing and arriving in the lobby with the others took the lesser part of two minutes, yet he was entirely baffled by the presence and reasons. Ever since he joined Gamma Strike, his days were filled with rapid, sudden awakenings, and the loud voice of Greg...despite the fact that he was kinda fond of both by now. After the bags dropped and the table was ordered propped against the door, Q needed answers; why the heck was Gate being barricaded? He was at Greg's side in an instant. \"Erm, why're we doing all this? Yer mom comin' over or something, Greg?"\

[KingMonkey]

Fortunately, DJ had not been hanging out with his two old buddies that night. He was thus spared the sight of Greg Barrow coming out of the crapper with TP in his hand. They'd been soldiers together, of course, so seeing each other in such compromising situations had happened before, but DJ was genuinely glad that those days were behind them.

He was enjoying a late night snack when the call came in. He didn't even pretend to understand what Domerin was talking about, and suspected that Domerin didn't know everything. It didn't really matter, in any case. His friend called with an emergency, that was enough to get him moving.

The elevator was too slow, so DJ took the stairs, jumping from one landing to the next, letting gravity do its job.

"Nick," he said by way of greeting, giving the other Ascendant a flippant salute. "Any idea why we're down...ooooh."

DJ went to the windows cupping his hands around his eyes to break the glare as he looked out at the shambling horde beyond. "Well, you just don't see that every day, do you?"

Greg had arrived by then and DJ turned to see what his former commanding officer had to say. He had to grin at what he heard.

"Really, Sarge? Are we extras in 28 Years Later now? These guys are zombies?" He hooks his thumb over his shoulder to indicate who he means, but shrugs and moves to one of the bags.

"Guess I oughta be appropriate, then," he rummages around until he finds a sawed off shotgun, a Magnum and a couple of belts of ammunition. Fortunately, he brought his knife, so he could do some stabbing and cutting if necessary. And it probably would be. He wasn't much of a shot, after all.

[Oversoul]

When Greg Barrow emerged from his bathroom with toilet paper still in hand, Domerin gave him a very odd look. He was just glad the man had remembered to pull up his pants... though how he had remembered to pull up his pants when he was still holding toilet paper in his hand was a mystery that Domerin wasn't going to question.

"We'll be down in a minute." Domerin told Nick before hanging up the phone. He didn't pay much mind to Greg's raving for the moment. He was sure it was going to make sense to him at some point. Even if it didn't, he was still likely to follow Greg into whatever situation they were about to dive into head first - that was just the way things were.

As Greg left his own apartment to attend to... whatever it was he was attending to, Domerin flipped open his cell phone and went through his speed dial list, leaving off Greg and Nick since he'd already talked to them. His discussion with his old friends was very brief. He knew he didn't need to say very much to them anyway. Like him, they would follow where Greg Barrow lead them, trusting that he wouldn't steer them wrong. Once he'd spoken to those of his old friends from 01 who had managed to wander to the institute, Domerin called and roused one of the research assistants, saying only: "You have the list of all the young ascendants participating in the research here. Call every one with a useful talent who has some manner of control and tell them to get themselves out of bed and down to the lobby in two minutes on the orders of Major Barrow."

Satisfied that the research assistant would know well enough to obey the Major's orders, Domerin flipped his cell phone closed and returned it to his pocket. Then he strode out of Greg's apartment and across the hall to his own. He had a few things of his own to take care of before he could go down to the lobby, after all. Greg was probably fulfilling Nick's request to provide him with weapons, and Domerin, unlike most other ascendants, couldn't put his full abilities to use with the weapons Greg was going to be providing. He needed his own.

Domerin appeared in the lobby hot on the heels of his friend, bearing a bag and a large case of his own. He had paused long enough to pull his hair back into the usual braid with the readily identifiable brass ring bound at the base of it to keep it out of his face. He was also wearing his Oversoul gear... not that it ever really took him long to put it on. He'd long ago gotten into the habit of being ready to change from his real self to his alternate self at a moment's notice. The mask was not drawn up over his face, however, instead it hung at his neck, still waiting to be fixed in it's proper place.

He set his own burdens down and nodded to both Nick and DJ as he began to remove his own guns from the smaller bag, sliding them into holsters at his hips and on his chest. They looked exactly like the guns Greg had provided for everyone else, only they appeared to be made of an almost plasticy kind of material that turned them a cross between silver and milky white. Once he was satisfied that he had enough hand guns and ammo to last him if he needed, Domerin opened the larger case to reveal a sniper riffle which was coated in the same silver-white material as the rest of his guns. He glanced over his shoulder at Greg as he assembled the rifle.

"What'd you mean when you said you always knew this day would come, Old Man? You always knew we'd get stuck in some bad B movie someday?"

When he had finished assembling the sniper rifle, Domerin settled the mask over his face and became Oversoul. Muttering something to himself about shooting them in the head while avoiding being scratched or bitten, he glanced around the room to find a place where he could get above the group that would likely be trying to break through the doors. He didn't think the desk was going to last very long as a barricade. In the end his eyes settled on the large - and gaudy - statue which took up residence in the center of the lobby. That would do well enough, it was tall enough, after all, and he didn't think anyone would complain if it got ruined. He crossed the lobby quickly and scaled statue, settling him self somewhere between the statue's head and shoulders, making sure he had a good enough perch that he wouldn't easily be shaken loose and braced himself against the statue's shoulder to prepare firing.

"I swear to GOD, Old Man, if I become a zombie, the first thing I'm doing is gnawing through your bullet proof hide." He called down, but then focused his full attention on the door, waiting for the action to begin.

[RoseThorn]

Unlike the rest of her companions' entrances to the lobby, her's could have gone largely unnoticed. She drifted down the stairs and through the doorway almost silently. She was not at all dressed for the task they were preparing themselves for. Instead of what one might expect a woman about to walk into battle against zombies to wear, Rose was wearing one of her usual elegantly cut dresses, the skirt brushing the floor as she made her way gracefully into the center of the room to join the rest of the people preparing to fight the battle.

She had brought with her only a small, zippered pouch. While the rest of those who had gathered helped themselves to the weapons Gregory had brought, Rose ignored them completely. She glanced at Gregory and then beyond him to the door, a strange sort of look on her face.

"It's an odd situation to be sure." She said, finally announcing her presence to those who had yet to notice her. "I don't sense anything out of the ordinary. In fact, there are no minds approaching the Institute, as far as I can tell. When Domerin called me, I looked out the window and saw the creatures, however, so I know that something is there." She gave Gregory a questioning look. "You know what these... things are? What caused them to spring into existence?" While everyone else may have looked out the window and seen 'zombies', Rose wasn't willing to accept anything short of some kind of scientific explanation for what was going on. After all, things didn't just spring out of horror movies and into people's back yards. Either some sort of ascendancy was responsible for creating the things moving on the institute, or they were some kind of illusion, likely also generated by an ascendant of some kind. "Have you seen them before?"

But she had not been called down here just to talk about what was going on. Domerin had called her because her skills would be quite useful in a situation of this kind, and while she waited for Gregory to reply, she prepared herself for the battle to come. She backed up, placing herself behind the gunmen so that she wouldn't be in their way. Then she opened the small pouch she had brought with her and turned it upside down. A set of a dozen or so tiny circular blades, somewhere between Japanese throwing stars and miniature chakrams , tumbled out of the pouch. Before they could tumble and clatter to the floor, they seemed to freeze in mid air. Then each one swung slowly in a graceful arc from it's position, frozen mid fall, to take up a position behind Rose, tiny little sentinels waiting for their orders to strike. Rose folded up the pouch the had been resting in and tucked it away in her pocket.

[Psyca]

Tilly hadn't meant to be at the institute so late. She really hadn't. She had gone straight from her last class of the day (with a very quick dinner snatched from the university's dining hall in between) to the institute to practice her new skills. She hadn't meant to fall asleep surrounded by pieces of metal, either, for that matter. But she had and now she'd have to catch the late bus back to her apartment. She briefly thought that, perhaps, she should think about accepting an apartment at the institute as she strolled into the main lobby. The scene before her made her rethink that decision. She knew that some of the instructors could have slightly interesting methods to their teaching, but middle of the night combat training in the lobby? Not her idea of a fun time.

However, as she approached closer and heard the Major ordering everyone to grab a gun.. well, she knew something far more serious than quirky teaching methods was going on. Tilly didn't think she had signed up for this at all. Definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight, dear... she thought as she dropped her book bag to the ground, kicking it well out of the way. It wouldn't do for someone to trip over it while carrying a loaded firearm.

As she hesitantly armed herself, Tilly realized that she recognized no one in the crowd that had formed, which she expected, honestly. She hadn't been coming to the institute for very long, after all. However, she knew who the Major was and when he said to arm himself, she did just that; she certainly wasn't going to question him. As she watched the rest of the gathered crowd arm themselves, she stepped back for a moment, pulling off her ridiculous amount of silver jewelery. Her hair fell free of the tight bun it had been in, becoming a long braid as the hair pins that held it seemed to melt into her hands as she touched them. The metal slithered in her fingers, changing shape. At the moment it was still weak, soft, and fragile, but her recent practices had taught her how to harden and strength metal with the right mental push. All she had to do was pick what she wanted to shape it as...

[Tag]

/Traditionally/ conversation required two or more conversing parties taking turns speaking and replying, and thus Tag was waiting for the Major to uphold tradition, yet curiosity made him glance over to the door, and those hyper-keen senses, which contained 20/20 eyesight, and untainted hearing [as if his eardrums were a day old], gave him all the reply he needed. "....Aaahhh, nevermind...." Quentin obeys the vocal orders of the Major, and is quickly, and perhaps even before anyone else, besides one of those dropped duffel bags, digging through as he stoops besides one. He was not very versed in firearm usage, but knew quite a bit about Zombies.

Oh, yes! Be neither shocked nor amazed. He only mastered and beat Resident Evil One, Two, Three, Code Veronica, Gun Survivor, Zero, Four, AND the grossly under-celebrated yet wildly frightening and fun, Resident Evil Remake [Yo, pick it up if ya haven't yet!! Beware Crimson Heads!!!]. He was ready for some Zombie whupping. "Oh, and then burn the bodies!" Chiming in, amending the Major's words. And, on that note, he removed from the bag a Remington Assault Shotgun with automatic fire as an optional secondary mode, along with two straps of shells, which he donned about his upper torso in a criss-cross fashion. Loading the gun, as he glances about, he couldn't help but notice a young girl who reminded him of the Metal Bender from Avatar, an anime he enjoyed thoroughly. When the Remington was loaded, he tossed it over his shoulder and made his way to her.

"....Hey. Ya ok? You seem a little shaky..." Excuse him if he was mistaken. He was NOT trying to be a dick, but she looked a bit young [like he wasn't] and it was better they all stick together. "Major wants us to fan out; if ya like, I can tag along, I think you'll find me kinda quick on the draw..." A mini joke, she'd probably not get due to not \knowing him\

[Saeryn]

Saeryn couldn't believe this... any of this at all.

All she knew was that she was hitchhiking, yes hitchhiking. Actually part of her was planning to leave whoever was willing to pick her up on the side of the road with way too many limbs, but yet again she just wanted to get into the city without having to walk. But while she was heading towards the city now she was running the other way. She remembered what exactly got her into this situation.

She was still on this road, still trying to get into the city, she had plenty of money on her to bribe anyone encase they were too weirded out by her eyes to trust her. Then she remembered the sound that caused her to whip around and the tentacles to come from her wrists. With the benefit of hindsight, that was probably a bad idea, seeing as if it were someone then they would probably be very scared of her should they see two blackened tentacles come out from her. Saeryn was having a real hard time to not appear like a monster. But she saw a person, his skin was very pale, kind of a greenish tint showing that his bodies decayed a bit. But Saeryn didn't really realize it till after it happened. The person just shambled towards her, Saeryn tried talking to it but nothing would happen, he just kept on shambling towards her and Saeryn shivered at the memory of that moan that escaped the person's mouth at the sight of her. Saeryn simply took off her glove and shoved it away, intending to turn it into something that would be less of a threat to her. But nothing happened, the person stumbled back a bit and just continued to shamble towards her with both arms raised. Saeryn just did the next thing, still not quite sure about what the hell was wrong with him. Saeryn just stabbed the tentacle right through him, till the tip of it was coming out the other side of his chest, the thing went right through his heard, she had done that to plenty of the scientists at the facility. But the person just stood right back up...

Man when those things got back up...

Saeryn remembered how she killed him, the person tried to grab her and bite her and as a last ditch effort Saeryn shoved the tentacle into the soft skin that was part of his Jaw, and the tentacle shoved right into his brain and apparently the thing died. But right at that moment Saeryn could see more and more of them starting to advance on the road, all swarming towards some unseem location. Saeryn didn't want to fight through that river of shambling corpses so she ran the other way, outrunning them for the moment seemed easy enough. But she really didn't know where she was going. There seemed no way to shake them off their path and there wasn't any place where she could possibly barricade herself and just wait them out. There had to be some military organization that wouldn't be blind enough to not notice hundreds of shambling corpses.On second thought that'd be bad, chances are this very same military organization could easily turn on Saeryn and put her back in some JW facility. Saeryn really couldn't decide what would be worse, those things, Saeryn refused to call them zombies since they weren't supposed to exist, or what seemed like an eternity sealed in a glass tube forced to live through the night mares of her own mind. Well at least these things would hopefully kill you quickly... sadly in her tank she never stayed dead...

"OH crap... here of all places."

Saeryn recodnised it from several images that she saw in the facility when she had some time to do some minor research on the place that she was escaping to. She really didn't like this place, while it might advertise itself as a sanctuary which really appealed to Saeryn at the moment, she wasn't going to simply roll over and let them poke and prod her like the lad rat that she was. The connectors in her arms and neck were rather painful reminders that she was in that situation not too long ago, people saw her as a monster because of her "gifts" and so she was treated like a monster, that would happen no matter where she went. But she just ran through the open gates, there were already zombies there in ones and twos, hopefully they would either notice that she was a human, er living thing amongst these undead. But the more likely situations was that she'd blend in to the horde and hope to not be the one cut down, Saeryn was sure that her eyes and pale skin wouldn't help to stop her from getting herself killed by whoever was obviously preparing to repel the invaders. Saeryn decided that instead of running towards those who were now turning their lavish building into a fortress. Saeryn instead ran towards the side of the building, some of the zombies turned their attention to her, but their shambling gait wasn't going to be able to catch her as long as she kept on moving and took enough care to not get corralled in.

Saeryn was able to find a side entrance and slinked inside, not before locking the door. The last thing she wanted was to be blamed for letting in those things inside this sanctuary...

[Shiv]

"Oh, you let the new kids call you Greg, but when *I* do, you lose your shit," Nick said when everyone else started arriving, even as he stood up from behind the desk. Placing his hands under the top, he pulled up, ripping it from its foundations and fairly effortlessly shoving it up against the door. "Pfft," he said, looking toward DJ once the door was barricaded. "28 Years Later sucked almost as much as 28 Months Later. Now, 28 Decades Later is when they picked the franchise back up." Heading toward the bags that Greg had brought, he rummaged through them, grabbing the biggest weapons he could, which ended up being a Mk. 48 Model 0 lightweight machinegun in his right hand and an Atchisson AA-12 automatic shotgun with, of course, a twenty-shell drum loaded in for the left hand.

"Couldn't get any miniguns or anything on short notice, eh, Major?" Nick asked Greg as he strapped a third weapon, an M-29 SABR OICW rifle across his back. Laying the shotgun in the crook of his right elbow, Nick reached into the pocket of his pajama pants, pulling out his cigarettes. Apparently, this time he had come prepared. Lighting up a cigarette, he grinned widely at the doors as he replaced his smokes and lighter, getting his shotgun back in his hand. "Let'sh do 'dish!" he said around the cigarette, just as the zombies came pounding on the door.


**********


Doctor van Spraggen, who had begun to refer to himself as "The Necromancer", stood at the back of his horde of the undead, cackling with glee. The Institute would fall, and then he would get his revenge. Unfortunately, this would take longer than in the movies. These were more like... puppets than traditional zombies. Their bite couldn't turn another living being into one like them. Of course, that wouldn't stop him from bringing anyone that fell in this battle back to join his horde.

The zombies, for lack of a better term, proceeded to pound on the Institute doors at their leader's direction. It didn't take incredibly long for the realisation to come, either independently of themselves or by the will of the man that drove them, that simple pounding and shoving would not force the doors open. Eventually, they concentrated their efforts on the glass. Once they broke through, the zombies began to clamber... more or less... over each other to get in. This, of course, made it so that they had to not only get over each other, but also the desk Nick had put in the way. And they weren't very nimble. But there WERE a lot of them.


**********


Saeryn wouldn't find it incredibly hard to get away from the zombies, as long as she kept running. They didn't move very fast, after all... more of a shamble. Unlike the ones in the fourth remake of Dawn of the Dead, they didn't have jetpacks. The sheer numbers of them was what really made them dangerous, but that didn't really come into play unless someone had to run extremely long distances. When she reached the Institute, whether she would notice it or not, a handful of the zombies headed after her, even though most of them massed up on the front. Not long after Saeryn got in and locked the door, she would be able to hear them pounding, if she stuck around long enough. She may also be able to hear a mildly disconcerting moaning coming from them. The didn't say anything like, "Braaaaaaaaaaaaaains," but it was still there.

[Tag]

/....Uh, nevermind; guess we won't have to spread out.../ Q observed as the horde had just broken through the oh-so-impenetrable barrier propped up against the wall. Really, had the Major really thought a desk would stop this mass of mangled men? Man, oh man was he missing his marbles. But, Q knew better then to speak that opinion aloud. "Desk didn't work..." But he did see fit to state the obvious, just in case anyone missed it. Those shambling souls shuffled in, and Q turns to the girl he was just conversing with, suddenly jutting his shotgun towards her sideways. He had an idea to buy some time, and converse ammo. "Hey, hold this a sec..." Just too bad he didn't give her much time to reply. The weapon was nearly pressed against her, but not rudely, and he disappeared into a blur.

A moment later, Zombies, as they were being called, began flying up against walls as they attempted to rise off the ground after stumbling over the desk. The reason being Quentin's fist, colliding against the foreheads and faces of a quite a few of them, sending them spiraling towards the walls and floor, heads smacking against surfaces hard enough to cause brain damage in living beings. This endured for about five seconds, in which time he managed to tag about twelve or so before he had to retreat due to sheer numbers; not like he could get them all. Later, sienna and silver swooped past Psyca, and, assuming she'd actually grasped his weapon as he asked, she'd find herself now relieved of it, giving her a good gust of wind through her hair with it. A moment, and Tag was besides Greg, cocky smirk on visage, barrel of gun resting on his right shoulder, butt of which supported by the right hand. "All without firing one shot...." Ah, a cocky sum-mama-bitch he was. But, he had managed to, hopefully, impede the masses transgressions into the Institute, albeit slightly.

Hell, this was beginning to feel more fun than scary; he'd cough suddenly, as his air turned into something else. ">Hack!<....Did a Zombie fart...??" Waving his hands in the air, the nicotine was simply icky, for lack of a better word. Turning to Nick, he makes a comment the Muscle Man has probably heard a million times, and will hear a million more until he ceased that nasty habit....at least from Quentin anyway, who utterly despised smoking. "Yanno, I hear those'll kill ya..." \Mr. Obvious was he\

[Legion]

"My name," came the first shot of the night even before Greg Barrow had finished loading his semi-automatic shotgun, and leveled straight at the Institute's resident high-energy speedster rather than the shambling horde that was descending on the Instiutte, "is Major!" The grizzled army officer could count the number of people he allowed to call him 'Greg' on one hand, and Quentin was definitely not one of them. "Now quit yapping and get ready for..."

Before the major could finish his order, though, the young man who was standing next to him seemed to suddenly blink out of existence. Accompanying Tag's sudden disappearance, a tightly-packed cluster of the shambling cadavers crawling through the partially-blocked front entrance across the lobby reeled, some even taking to the air, as if struck by some invisible force. In the time it took him to load one round into his Benelli M1014 (compared to Nick, he was slightly more old-fashioned in his selection of weapons), Quentin was back at his side, all smiles and bravado. For a moment, Greg could only shake his head. It was an impressive display, but ultimately, "That was a goddamn stupid move. No matter how fast you can run, bullets still move at the same speed." The major loaded the last shell into the breach then, cradling the shotgun in the crook of his arm, he plucked his security card from his pocket with his free hand and tossed it to Quentin. "Running in front of loaded guns gets you a free pass to ammo duty. Take those bags to the south-end security office near the loading bay, fill them up with ordnance from the armoury in there, and bring them back."

Considering Major Barrow's reputation, it was clear that Quentin got off light. He hadn't even raised his voice. With a note of finality in his orders, Greg turned his attention back to the swarm of animated corpses pouring in through the front doors. "Alright, let them have it!" he shouted to the other armed ascendants as he raised his shotgun and fired off a blast at a nearby clump of zombies trying to squirm into the lobby through their own mass.

[KingMonkey]

"Hey, Sarge, the new kid's got some useful skills," Shadow Hunter commented as Tag sent many of the zombies flying. He was probably one of the few people who would be allowed to call Major Gregory Barrow "Greg" but he much preferred his own nickname for him. "'Course, I'll bet he can reload like a mug..."

Unsurprisingly, the desk barricade did not hold. But then, what ever did keep a zombie horde out? What would be the fun if you could just corral them some place and not deal with them?

"28 Decades? Are you kidding me?" he asked incredulously as he took his first shot. No one would be more surprised than he was that he actually splattered his target's brains.

"Well I'll be damned," he muttered. "Anyway...what's entertaining about people in power armor with laser guns and light swords shredding zombies? Anyone can do that."

His next shot was not nearly so accurate, though given how packed in and how hard it was to miss with a shotgun, he still scored a hit. It wasn't a head shot, so depending on what brand of zombies they were dealing with it might not do anything.

"Didn't you know, Dom? Sarge's real power is that he can see the future. He knew zombies would attack one day. Then, again, everyone knew zombies would come someday. It was inevitable. The Zompacalypse is nigh."

A strange look came to his face then and he moved closer to Rose as he took another shot at the shambling horde. once closer to her he sniffed loudly, leaning towards her.

"Hey...when'd you start sleeping with Sarge?" he asked, a bit indignantly.

[Psyca]

Tilly looked at the young man as he approached her, surveying him critically, and realizing that he couldn't have been any older than she was. "I'm fine," she replied and she seemed to pull herself up, as if confidence was now running through her veins. She shot him a bright smile. "Quick? But how accurate are you?"

Tilly never received a reply as in the next instant his gun was pressed to her and, if she would have blinked, she would have missed the obvious display of speed. A slight frown crossed her lips, but in the next instant, the gun was taken from her again. Show off, she thought and agreed wholeheartedly with the Major about running in front of people with loaded guns.

As shots began being fire, Tilly also raised her weapon. She aimed carefully and fired. While the shot was nowhere near the level of a professional shooter, it certainly made its mark, striking a zombie in the head. Those that knew her and her "try everything once and anything you like twice" personality would not be surprised to find that the petite woman had, long before she had come to Anglia, taken shooting lessons and frequented a firing range for a short period of time.

The metal she had been forming earlier had settled across the knuckles of her right hand and in a curious coil around her left forearm. As Tilly prepared for another shot, she couldn't help but overhear a comment made to the elegant woman. She's seeing the Major?