Nightshift 42: Main Street

[arc_wrench]

At first, the idea of being stuck in this meatbag dwelling sector at night seemed like a wonderful idea. So many targets, such an open field, and so many things that could be repurposed for use as weapons

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[ruthless_hunter]

As soon as he had fled from the restaurant, Lockdown ran down the street a little ways before catching sight of a familiar inmate.

The bounty hunter ran towards his roommate, calling out his name. Seeing how terrified the assassin droid was, Lockdown gripped his arm and said, "Get ahold of yourself!"

[arc_wrench]

HK, who would like to point out that he did have a hold of himself, just in the hugging sort of way, was jarred out of his terror by the sudden arrival of someone familiar. Someone with a working processor, therefore someone he could irritate. And blame for this whole thing. "Accusatory: If it hadn't been for that story about the parasitic meatbags, I would have already started killing!" Now he was scared of it! Imagine, an HK model scared to kill something! What great shame he would bring to his maker if this were to become more widely known!

[ruthless_hunter]

Lockdown pinched the bridge of his olfactory sensor. "Look, how was I suppossed to know something like this would happen?" The bounty hunter had only said that to coax HK into his bed for a kiss. Had he anticipated actual zombies, he would have come up with another tactic.

But now was not the time to get fragged over it. "Look, we'll talk about this later. Let's just get to that hardware store."

[arc_wrench]

"Statement: I don't know!" But he was used to dealing with clairvoyant meatbags at every turn. If the Jedi and Sith could do it, then why shouldn't everyone else?!

HK sighed, trying to reroute his brain away from adrenaline production and to focus more. "Agreement: If I am going to be surrounded by infectious drone meatbags, I would rather have something to cut them open with."

[fourtharcana]

Akihiko Sanada had seen more than his fair share of weird stuff in his eighteen years. Freaky monsters who were out to suck out your soul? Par for the course. The really big Shadows that were apt to cause a hell of a lot of damage before you killed them? Sure. A teammate shooting himself or herself in the head to call a giant monster? Happened every night.

But he had to admit, this particular situation threw him for a loop. He'd half-expected to be stuck in town, since sunset came and the nurses didn't. But this? Zombies? Really? What the hell was up with that? Well, there was only one thing to do in a situation like this. He would have been glad to have their Evoker, but that was still all right, really.

One of the zombies got within punching range, and he grinned, cracking his knuckles once before delivering a hard right hook to its skull.

[SEES zombie kickassery time go.]

Alley between Wicker and Main

[whos_da_man]

[SAVE ME SENPAI! THEY'RE GOING TO EAT ME!.

[from here]The alley seemed like a good idea at the time. This brought to mind the question as to whether Junpei's ideas were ever good. The alley was narrower than he'd expected with dumpsters and the other stuff people stick in alleys. His ankle hurt, but the bleeding had stopped and he wasn't really paying attention to it. He was more worried about the twenty zombies cornering him in the alley

Re: Alley between Wicker and Main

[fourtharcana]

[popping down a thread from here]

At least those first couple of zombies had gone down without too much of a fight, Akihiko thought, looking around for the next wave. Before he found that, though, he heard an all-too-familiar scream from a nearby alleyway.

"Iori? Stay where you are, I'll cover you," he called out, running over to where the junior was. "You take what's right in front of you and I'll take what's behind them."

Without waiting for more word, he aimed a hard punch at the back of the closest creature's head.

Re: Alley between Wicker and Main

[whos_da_man]

HE WAS SAVED!

Having his senpai there boosted Junpei's confidence a little, feel much better knowing he wasn't going to die alone. Taking the chair with both hands, Junpei swung it hard (and much better) at the zombie right in front of him. It hit with a sickening crunch.

"That's a nasty smell,' he called out, wrinkling his nose at the scent of the goo coming from the broken parts of the zombie. Still, he hefted the chair and smashed it against the zombie again. As long as it even twitched, he'd beat it with the chair. And then some.

Re: Alley between Wicker and Main

[fourtharcana]

"You can say that again," he shot back, stepping back and aiming a hard punch at the side of the other zombie's head. The two collided with a loud snapping sound, falling to either side. Of course, the night after I find shiny weapons, I'm stuck in the middle of Zombieville without them. Figures.

That just left two more to clear out, and since Junpei had one of them handled, he went for the second, this time punching it at the neck - hopefully that would wind up being easier than constantly trying to knock their heads in.

[rectifies]

In the blink of an eye, the world settled into the familiar features of dusk. But before Ken could comment on this new facet to the adults, elements foreign crept onto the scene. Flesh. Decay. The shuffling sounds of feet and clothing.

He placed a hand over his nose as realization sank in. The men and women around them had turned, no different from the influence of Shadows but with a twist the child had only seen in horror films. What were they called again? Walking dead? Animated corpses? The shock of it all had removed the exact term from his head.

Run. His heart skipped several beats in succession as he eyed his companions. Completely stationary. Run. Or be killed. He couldn't afford to let them be killed.

And so, Ken screamed, reaching out to grab at Phoenix's hand. "RUN!"

[pleading_ngri]

For a second, after the transition, the town was perfectly silent. That was when Phoenix looked around himself and stopped, frozen in the slow, uneven crescendo of yelling, scraping, shattering, and over it all his own trembling, erratic breaths slowly rising in tempo. It was daylight. This wasn't supposed to be happening. The shops had been whitewashed perfection, not rustwater-browned and warped. These had been people a second ago, and now they were something else, something that sent a panicked kill-it-kill-it-kill-it of self-defense into minor-key siren wailing in the back of his head

[high_prosecutor]

Miles didn't hear Ken's cry at all. It was drowned out by the noise in his own head, the voice screaming out a sharp, high-pitched cry. The noise was accompanied by a stab of pain. This was...between the noise, the pain, the sharp smells of blood, metal, and burnt flesh in the air, and the sights...

For a moment, it was all too much, and he froze in place. None of this made sense. They had just been talking on one of the street corners at sunset, and now? The scene was like something out of a bad horror movie, and it was a little too surreal.

When Phoenix grabbed his hand and yelled, that was enough to break the moment's spell. "R-right," he stammered, trying to swallow down a wave of nausea. "Where to?"

[rectifies]

The adrenaline shot through Ken's entire system, and any desires to sit and think it out vanished. Without waiting for input, the child took off down the street, pulling Phoenix--and subsequently Edgeworth--along. Any fears regarding his former condition had no place; Ken, in fact, appeared more than capable of mowing down a set of undead town folk. In fact, the strength used to guide the adults felt less of a child's, more in line with something bigger, stronger.

He whirled a head back once to answer Edgeworth. "Anywhere! Anywhere we can barricade ourselves!"

[zeus_incarnate]

[From here]

There were zombies everywhere, and Marcus found himself having to knock and smack them aside with his arms as he charged down the street to avoid getting grabbed. They clawed and scratched at him but none managed to bite him.

He could hear Stefan and Scourge behind him, and the fading sounds of the voices of the other team. They seemed a lot slower getting their act together. Marcus wasn't sure if Scourge had any notable powers or not, but now wasn't really a good time to ask. People were running and screaming and fighting Zombies, it was chaotic in the way only large scale battles could be. At least in most of the ones he'd been in there had been some semblance of coordination or battle plans, this was simply mayhem.

[tartaros_avatar]

Recluse followed, tossing zombies aside as they tried to attack, perfectly calm. "Just like Paris," he said, not bothering to raise his voice. Marcus would hear him. The only differences between that day Paris and tonight was that he was not in the lead this time, and in place of the entire Paris police force, zombies. Not that it made for much difference in their effectiveness.

[haplesstracker]

The smell, sweet Cybertron. It was the smell of rust, of acid, of ruptured fuel lines mixing energon with lubricant and old oil boiling in the blasted gut of a downed seeker lying prone in the middle of a battlefield. The movies told Scourge it was rotting flesh, but the smell curled inside his organic brain and found the most wretched analogous image to offer up to his robot mind.

"Get away from me!" he screamed as his arms lashed out at the horde, attacking with the one weapon he had left. His clawtips left thin lines across the peeling flesh of his attackers and decayed skin under his fingernails.

Scourge couldn't see the hardware store from here. The hardware store might not even be there anymore. But he kept pace behind Statesman to the point of almost catching up to him, running with the hope that somewhere soon there would be safety and a place to rest.

[alwayscomesback]

The day had turned out to be pretty pleasant for Sokka, especially as the boy had never seen a whole lot of the things around in the shops. It was too bad that he didn't have any of this world's money, otherwise he would have gone crazy at that gadget shop he stopped at - he had so many ideas now! And with the sun setting and them heading back for the buses, Sokka knew he would just have to write all them down the moment he could get at his journal. Oh, and see if Shinichi could tell the difference between a drawing of a boomerang and a banana. That was going to come first