[10-15] The Docks

[Okor]

Okor’s black and bloated tongue ran over his ebon fangs, savouring the taste as he kneeled, looking over the horde as his fellow survivors began to lay down a fusillade of fire upon the ghouls.

After so long, Fiara had fallen. They had faced the darkness together, bringing the burning light to the abominations within, and had emerged triumphant. But to be slain when the final victory was so close at hand?

It was a tragedy.

He worried a shred of cerebellum out from between his teeth, swallowing the grey matter as his Omophagea set to work, prying memories from the dead organ, ensuring a limited form of immortality, consuming memories like choice cuts of meat.

“That’s fucking disgusting, man.” Spat the hacker, a blood-stained machete still clasped firmly in their grip, white knuckles belying a reluctance to release the instrument of murder, or perhaps in inability to do so. The Champion turned to Hiro, wiping his desiccated lips clean with the back of his hand, his recently severed arm pinned to his body with a rod of rebar, his resilient nature allowing for limited usage of the limb.

”The mind is a… terrible thing to waste, Bounty hunter.” Gurgled the giant, his mirthful chuckles arguably more disturbing without the digitized demonization provided by the helmet resting upon his side. ”Nothing is left behind in the Long War. Weapons, armour, memories… rations. She fought and died alongside us. The least I can do is grant her the same honours.”

“You ate her brain.” Stated the samurai simply, taking a moment to tear his view away from the barrage slaughtering the blood-hungry bodies, glaring at Okor.

Nurgle’s chosen merely shrugged and ran a rotting hand over the bile-stained beard clinging to his scarred chin. ”You can bring that grievance up with… The Gene-smiths. For now, we have a more pressing situation.” He spoke, phlegm threatening to choke his words as he waved his hastily-attached arm over the horde below them. ”We aren’t all getting through this. We’ll need a… diversion.”

He turned his head, a black-toothed maw splitting itself open in a grin, his fevered eye darting over the ragged remnants of the crash’s survivors, his rotting tongue licking over the onyx fangs in anticipation of the destruction to come.

”I intend to show these worms how a son of Barbarus dies. Who will stand by me?

430 words, will be posting again later.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

As the survivors trekked away from the crumbling ruins of the census building, Nanaki’s thoughts were elsewhere. Karl Jak had given them no time at all to mourn their dead before ordering their exodus toward the shipyard under the pretense that worse things would be coming for them. The battered beast suspected it could just as easily have been the blood and grime smeared on his previously pristine suit that spurred him toward escape. The executive had never shown much affinity for empathy. 

As they left the disintegrating body of their fallen comrade to dissipate into the night, Red and Abner shared a sullen glance. His sagging face briefly contorted in surprise as he eyed the feline, eventually settling back into melancholy. “Your eye,” he said, a small smile punctuating his gloom. “She’s with you.”

Nanaki tilted his head in confusion, the ex-trooper retrieving a large shard of broken glass from the rubble and holding it helpfully at eye-level. The flickering light of the carmine cat’s flaming tail illuminated the crystal fragment as it displayed his own image. To his shock, his milky right eye now shone a bright blue, untainted by the partial blindness that had previously afflicted him. Christa. Their momentary union had left her signature upon his countenance, a permanent reminder of the woman he'd failed. 

“She died like she lived,” Abner mused, head hung. “Kicking some bastard’s ass.” The words were meant to bring some semblance of levity to the situation, though immortal Prime-status or not, it was difficult to watch a companion fade away before you. Nanaki could sense the storm brewing within the scruffy soldier, his trembling hands telling volumes about his emotional state.

The crimson Prime remained silent, limping his beleaguered body after the rest of the fleeing squadron. Ultimately, the deaths had not changed their goal, though he could think of little else despite the pressure of Karl’s insistence. Barring the gravity of the woman’s death, something arguably more tragic hung over the hobbling panther. He and the gunslinger had shared headspace, allowing him to feel the full burden of her pain: Katia. The smug shyster dragging them across the island was the sole informant who could offer information of her whereabouts, the only person able to force anything more than a self-satisfied chuckle out of the man being Christa herself. 

“Ah, I see that Fangs and Ginger have been holding the fort. Wonderful,” Karl said breaking Nanaki from his introspection. He gestured toward a smallish boathouse along the water, scarlet flashes shooting up sporadically from the rooftop. The group could barely make out a pair of silhouettes beyond the veritable sea of blighted creatures surging toward the waterfront.

The scarlet predator stared silently at the abysmal scene spreading across the shipyard, eyes unblinking. Among the swarm were all manner of foes, from simple corrupted humanoids to towering titans of taint. Overhead, Nanaki could make out swarms of winged horrors, resembling a somehow more hellish depiction of mythical harpies. Before he could rightfully comment on the events, a loud crack split the air as one of the larger flying terrors was forcibly separated from its wing, sending it plummeting downward to crush a handful of walkers below. The falling fiend seemed to offer no distraction, the ghouls continuing to surge toward the waterfront. Red caught sight of Abner hefting the fallen gunwoman’s bloodstained rifle, ejecting the spent casing and loading another pair of bullets. The look on his face was pure “fed up”. 

”We’ll need a… diversion," Nanaki heard the hulking rotknight to his right rumble. The revolting warrior’s face was smeared with blood, bits of flesh clinging to his rusted armor. He was sure that he’d rather not find out what the aged warrior had just consumed. "I intend to show these worms how a son of Barbarus dies. Who will stand by me?” 

Red’s eyes slowly closed, his thoughts casting back to his fallen comrade. Though his mood was solemn as the curtain closed on the gunslinger's life, he could not labor in melancholy forever. As her sad symphony settled to silence, he already knew what her answer would have been. 

“Fuck it,” the beast declared, a hint of the blonde’s signature gruffness evident in his voice. “I’m in.”

721 words. More to come.

[Deadpool]

The somber tone of the above posts fit the mood of the setting. Deadpool and company returned to the census building's lobby to discover a handful of survivors mourning over their fallen comrades. Each corpse had one or two people hunkered over it; some of them had tears welding their eyes; a large armored man ate his loved one (enticing a contorted look of disgust from Hiro)

The mercenary went to make a light remark—something to ease the thick atmosphere—but bit his tongue, deciding to let the survivors finish their goodbyes in solitude. He still had a sense of humanity, and could still recall how overwhelmingly painful it was to lose someone you had grown affection for. It felt like a rush of pressure crushing you from the inside; like narrowing walls squeezing your bubble of happiness, not to the brink of bursting, but enough to permanently misshapen it. In that moment, even the mercenary would punch a smart-aleck in the face, if he dared to interject his mourning with gabby rhetoric.

“What the hell happened to them?” Hiro asked. He focused on the chunks of meat scattered across the once pearly marble floor—now it served as a canvas for puddles and smears of black and crimson blood. “They must've gotten into one helluva fight. Makes me glad that we weren't involved—that fox gave us enough of a hassle by herself.”

”Some monstrosity created by Alex,” Deadpool replied, ”influenced by one of his favorite horror video games, I presume.”

Hiro shot him the usual look of bewilderment, but brushed the outlandish comment off with a shoulder shrug.

As the two swordsmen followed Karl out of the building, the rest of the survivors slowly joined them.

Karl looked over the horizon of buildings, and raised a finger to the south; the gold in his Rolex's wristband twinkled. “We have to make it to the docks. There should be a tugboat there, strong enough to hold all of us.” He glanced back at the heavy man cladded in armor, and furrowed a brow, as if referencing to his weight.

The trip to the dock was quiet. While the other survivors spent the journey trudging their feet, thoughts of loved ones still water-logging their brains, the mercenary had noted the lack of obstacles in their way. Things were too peaceful; unless killing omega-zombie ushered in some sort of fleasheater rapture, the creatures were still roaming somewhere.

His eyes darted towards every intersection they passed, anticipating a horde of flesheaters to barrel out, and encircle them like an army of ants swarming a cookie. He saw nothing; he thought he heard the squeal of a flesheater coming from one of the alleys, but when he turned to look he realized it was just the gate to a metal-wired fence crying in the breeze.

Karl looked at Deadpool while wrapping a street corner. “Antsy for a fight?” A smile curled his lips. “I’m sure that this island won’t let us go so easily, so perhaps you’ll get one.”

”I just want to get you outta here, and get my prize,” the mercenary answered. ”Quickly, if possible. I’m tired of killing zombies; I feel like if I kill any more of them they’re gonna congregate, and start a ‘hashtag UndeadLivesMatter’ campaign.”

A gurgling screech slashed the air. Deadpool peered over a collection of rooftops to see a winged humanoid get struck by a radiating beam of red energy. The mutated harpy paused in the air, convulsed like a vibrating phone, and then plummeted into a nonrespondent nosedive. When the creature vanished from sight, the mercenary witnessed two more swoop in to replace it.

“The docks are close—maybe a few blocks,” Karl said, gazing in the same direction. “And it seems like more survivors may be there.”

Hiro stripped his arm from Deadpool’s shoulders to press one of the bottoms on the side of his goggles; his other hand still gripped around his aching manzone. “Less than one hundred yards,” he added in a cracking voice. “If people are there they’re probably cornered, and might need help”

In a weird way, the hacker reminded Deadpool of Sasuke—both of them always felt the need to help those who couldn’t help themselves. It was an admirable trait, but one that often got you killed; Sasuke had to learn that the hard way, last year, when he couldn’t save Gilgamesh.

Deadpool didn’t necessarily care for saving anyone’s life other than Karl’s sweet ass.

They traversed a couple more blocks, then stopped when the pier came into sight. The harpies seen before outlined ellipses in the sky while orbiting around the rusty tugboat roped at the end of the dock. Two individuals took refuge on the vessel; they shot different forms of projectiles into the sky, illuminating it like a Fourth of July firework show as they tried to down the flying beasts. Shambling towards them from the shore, a congregation of flesheaters choked the wooden pier.

Deadpool’s eyes raised when he caught a glimpse of giant flesheaters amongst the horde, towering over their brethren. They had eerie similarities to a particular large green individual from his own multiverse; if they were anywhere as near as strong then the mercenary wanted no parts of them—he still shuddered every time he thought of the how badly Hulk had whipped him in their last fight.

“I intend to show these worms how a son of Barbarus dies,” one of the survivors called, drawing a series of ill sounds from his voice between each word as he struggled to speak; the mercenary smelled him before he heard him—something akin to indian food regurgitated into a dirty diaper. It was the large armored man. He stepped out from the group and stared into the sea of flesheaters; his red eye glowed an unfaltering red; his tarbard represented the chaos he had already endured in a collage of enemy blood. “Who will stand by me?”

Other survivors began to join his call, including Scar from Lion King, who exuded the type of passion that his fallen psychopathic partner would have been proud of.

Deadpool stole a moment to admire the ragtag group. He found it oddly cute how they persisted to ram their collective heads into wall after wall of horde bashing—futile, but cute. It made him pity them. They’d rather schedule their own suicide than form and conduct a solid plan. Perhaps he would have to save them from themselves.

For the third time since he arrived on the island, the mercenary beamed his eyes towards the Furby dangling from his hip; he smiled, as he knew it was time. Originally, his intentions were to save his ultimate weapon for whatever poor fool wished to challenge his claim to Karl’s reward, but it had become abundantly clear that no one else truly cared about it.

While surveying the wall flesheaters, he acutely noticed how most of them flocked to the entrance of the pier—the congested it so tightly that they packed themselves in like canned sardines. The rest of the land creatures were more loosely assembled, and meandered in place as if waiting for a purpose to strike a cord within them.

Deadpool snatched the Furby from his waist, pulling it inches from his face.

Hiro widened an eye at the mercenary. “You ok?”

But Deadpool didn't answer. He stared into the visage of the Furby and smirked. Ready to be used forreal, and not just in dream scenarios and bluff situations? His finger looped around the ring stringed to its hindquarters and gently tugged; the doll's eyes lit up, and it opened its beak to talk: “I love you.”

I love you too.

He pressed the button between its cheeks, then cranked his arm back and hurled the Furby as far as his 1 ATK permitted. The doll cartwheeled through the thin fog, arching over the beginning of the flesheater wall, and soaring towards the center.

A harpy turned in time to see the bomb. It tried to swoop down like a hawk hunting fish to grab the explosive, but a projectile erupted from the tugboat, ripping through its left wing, and sending it on a corkscrew descent into the ocean.

As soon as the Furby landed it exploded. The bomb rang a hollow bang throughout the area; Deadpool felt the sound and vibration roll towards him like an imaginary bowling ball crashing into a set of pins. He shielded his face from the wave of air that followed.

Flesheaters shrieked as their bodies flung in the air—some were missing limbs, others their entire lower halves. The ones fortunate enough to be at ground zero were either scorched to ash or melted into black figurines. The explosion had engraved a circle into the horde, opening a gap that led directly to the boat.

“I see you finally used it,” Karl said. “I don't know if I should be thankful, or if I should be compelled to sue you for copying an item from my competition.”

”In that case, David Hampton should be suing both of us,” the mercenary quipped; he looked upon the rest of the group, who had taken an intermission in the rah-rah to marvel at the damage caused by the explosion. ”Now, if you want to live more than you want to chase personal vendettas and sideplots, follow me!”

Deadpool unsheathed his katana—hopefully the last goddamn time on this island—and charged forward.

Words: 1631
Furbypool: -2 SP

[Hiro Protagonist]

Hiro had stuck next to Deadpool and Karl for most of the suspiciously empty journey towards the docks. Thank Omni for his last canister of Medi-Gel. He'd slathered it on the nasty, deep cut on his thigh, stopping himself from bleeding out immediately. His pants were already in tatters, so ripping off the ankles for a makeshift bandage left him nearly nude, shirtless and bandaged with nothing but a pair of short now.

Even as they walked, Hiro's leg was burning with sharp, shooting pains. He had to rely on Deadpool for most of the journey, but he could walk on his own after a time, although it was starting to seep into the bandage. If this island had taught him anything, it was that he needed to carry more shit on his belt. Even with all he'd found, he'd still had to scrounge to even keep at an even level.

Hiro had been supremely lucky, he reasoned. Managing to avoid the perils and pitfalls of the island, his goodgood fortune was readily apparent as he beheld the last few survivors that remained of the huge expedition that had set out from the plane hangar.

Then they crested the hill before the docks, and beheld the surging undead tide that stood between them and safety. A beaten tugboat or trawler floated in the water, and with his goggles, Hiro could see two figures on the boat shooting into the crowd of ravenous ghouls. "Damnit....every ghoul on the island must be here."

Okor and the red lion thing seemed ready to drive a murderous, bloody swath through the assembled zombie horde to allow the rest of them to try and make a break for the docks and their escape vessel. The hacker was more than willing to allow them to do that; Okor didn't look any worse than when he'd first met him, and Red Lion looked more than capable of cleaving through an undead crowd. 

Then Deadpool threw his bomb, and everything kicked into high gear. "Go! Go go go go!" Hiro shouted, keeping close to Karl and drawing his katana along with his machete, the two blades still more than capable of cleaving through dead flesh, any stragglers that got through the tagteam of Primes clearing the way falling to Hiro's carefully measured strikes. Every attack was carried out with tactical forethought, the hacker taking no action that would rip his wound further open or exhaust his straining energy.

(Hiro used his last Medi-Gel [9/20 now] )

[Okor]

Jaundiced skin stretched and tore itself apart in a physically impossible countenance of ecstasy, an armoured gauntlet closing around a mangled mace of rebar and cracked concrete, the makeshift bludgeon locked within his grip as he began the charge towards the horde, the dead still reeling from the barrage. The Crimson Killer had granted them an opportunity, and such a gift was not to be missed. An emaciated corpse turned to look at the approaching champion, their loosely attached jaw starting to open in an unearthly screech before several hundred kilos of ceramite and fossilized bone crashed into them, sending their remains flying deeper into the swarm. Rotting feet stumbled over the first of Okor’s victims, the empty-eyed beings shambling towards one of their own, claws stripped clean of flesh eager to embrace their long-lost kin.

Okor responded with a greeting of his own, the meteoritic descent of his mace driving the freshly shattered skull of the foe deep into the tarmac. ”Move!” He roared, his twisted visage freshly anointed with the blood of the lost and the damned.

The vermillion vengeance’s twinned blades lashed out, the masked man’s swords reaping a bloody toll on the horde, a brutal instrument of butchery slicing their way through the ever-encroaching swarm, an ambulatory charnel house intent on claiming the remaining primes for their number.

A piercing scream was issued from above, a sun-scorched corpse aloft in the black sky, a cybernetic harness built into its skeletal body boasting not only a jump pack, but twinned cannons set upon its shoulders, the hellish glow from its empty sockets leaving no doubt as to its will to use them.  At that moment, it loosed its volley, a flurry of smoke-belching bombs flying forth from it’s airborne position, obscuring its position as death came for the Prophet of Nurgle.

Many of the missiles went askew, wind or sheer over exuberance on the revenant’s part sending them into its fellows starting to swarm the Plague Marine, chunks of corpse sent flying as shrapnel from the expanding area of destruction.

Unfortunately, others found their mark. The explosives impacted upon the ceramite lifted to shield him, the force of their detonation cracking the eternal aegis, sending shards digging into the mummified flesh beneath. Dried muscle was scorched from his skull, torn away by the heat and force of the creature’s attentions. Were his nerves not deadened by the gifts of God, he would undoubtedly collapse in pain and shock, slain by the betrayal of his own body and left to be consumed by the ravenous corpses.

His would-be slayer still hovered in the air, rearing its head back as it screamed in victory, its engines glowing crimson as it glutted itself on the glory of victory.

In the embrace of the great Nurgle, I am no longer afraid.

His ravaged body stepped out from the cloud of smoke and still-falling detritus, his flesh hanging in ragged strips from his skeletal form, shrapnel embedded deep in his body, his naked arm barely hanging onto the rod pinning it to his body. He held his weapon behind his head, yellowed bone laid bare as his miraculously untouched eye stared down his victim.

For with His pestilential favour I have become that which I once most feared:

He completed the motion, flinging the makeshift mace towards the foe, their flame-forged eyes seemingly widening in fear as their boosters flared, seeking to escape the promised end hurtling end-over-end towards them.

They were too late.

The amalgamation of corroded steel and cracked stone hit home, sending them tumbling, trailing flame into the swarm beneath them, a fiery blossom borne from their fuel and ammunition setting their fellows aflame.

Death.

Claws scratched across his warplate, prompting him to turn and drive a fist into the body behind him, their skull snapping back as the sweet sound of cracking bone issued forth.

No weapons. One arm. A nigh-infinite number of the walking dead between the survivors and safety.

His half-flensed face looked towards the firepower possessed by whoever sheltered within the ship, sorcery and technology uniting to end the monstrous menace.

Final destination.

He began to run, crashing through the serried ranks of skeletal corpses as he began to carve a path through the horde with his own blighted biology, several hundred kilograms of festering flesh and ceramite a more than ample replacement for weaponry. Soulless bodies parted before him, his trampling greaves pulping the remains of those too slow to shamble out of the way of his onslaught, ploughing forward towards their seaworthy salvation.

790 words.

[Zack Fair]

Something felt fundamentally different inside Abner. He’d seen death again and again in his long career with the Empire. Many friends had been killed in horrible ways by terrible people, never to be seen again, the latest of which was Trent. Christa and Colonel would be back, if Omni was even the least bit true to his word, which should have been the ultimate comfort. Yet, as Abner limped on, commanding his body to advance through the chaos, he felt both an anger and grief unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life.

When Christa came back to life at the Fountain of Infinity – he didn’t want to even consider a scenario where she wouldn’t – it didn't matter if they never lifted a weapon for the rest of their lives and enjoyed their “happily ever after.” The fact was that Abner would never erase the feeling of horror and helplessness he’d experienced when he watched the tyrant slam her into the ground and end her life. That image was forever burned into his mind.

He kept his rifle raised, unleashing constant energy bolts into the crowd and the skies above. The fliers descended from all sides, and Abner prioritized them with his ranged ability. Thankfully, there were others assisting him from the other side of this madness. His teeth were gritted tightly, as the only thing preventing him from screaming out with inconsolable rage was just how much it would fucking hurt to do so, with his ribs shattered from the previous fight.

Regardless of the sickening crack that came from his chest with each heave of his diaphragm, Abner was extremely calculated in his aim. Yet, he still wasn’t entirely focused in the moment, having completely forgotten to pace his shots appropriately. He squeezed the trigger carefully as a flier rapidly descended towards him, but instead of watching its head burst like all the others, red smoke ejected from the side of his gun with a pitiful fizz.
 
Abner pushed passed the terror, instead he dropped his overheated rifle and moved towards his sidearm, but the deformed ghoul descended too fast. Sudden movements were not in Abner’s playbook at the moment, so he knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at dodging the onslaught. As he braced himself for the inevitable, a fireball connected with the flying husk, setting it ablaze and adjusting its trajectory.
 
Abner remained stationary as the winged zombie crashed to the ground next to him in an unmoving, flaming heap. He merely drew his pistol and fired two shots into the burning mound of flesh, then continued to advance forward. It hurt too much to actually make the effort to turn and look at it. The crimson hound that had saved him gave him a determined and satisfied nod, and Abner could only return one of his own. He barely knew the odd looking beast, but they’d certainly bonded in their brief, shared experiences. If Christa trusted him, that was enough for Abner, even without it narrowly saving him from a terrible fate so close to the end.
 
He turned around to see they’d all made it through the entrance chokepoint that Deadpool had cleared so effectively. More of the insufferable undead were clambering in, slowed only by the time it took to squeeze through the narrow space. They needed to deal with this endless assault on the flank as well, or this would all be for nothing. Abner reached to his belt and pulled on of his collapsed deployable shields from it. All he had to do was clear opening for just a couple seconds so he could place the shield properly. Easier said than done.
 
“Okor!” Abner called, looking for the hulking plague marine that seemed to specialize in mass violence. Abner turned to see the rotting mammoth charging through the zombies between them and their destination, with bodies flying in every direction. Yea, he was already where he needed to be. “…nevermind!”
 
Nanaki stopped beside Abner, looking to the same chokepoint that Abner was eying. His eyes narrowed, as he sensed his newest brother in arms was plotting something, but it had to be done quickly.
 
“I can plug the gap,” Abner was as concise as he needed to be. “Just need an opening.”
 
“Be ready,” Nanaki did not hesitate with his response, and Abner could already feel the air around them heating up.
 
Just the same, Abner raised his pistol and unloaded into the horde. Each shot, though rapidly fired, was carefully placed to drop the front members of the pack and slow them down. Red XIII’s fireball trailed immediately behind the lead, casting them even further back with it’s perfectly placed burst. Trusting in the abilities of his ally, Abner had already thrown the shield right behind the fireball. It landed in the narrowest part of the pier entrance and lit up with solid blue hardlight. Zombies replaced their fallen just as quickly, and got to work pounding on the shield. It wouldn’t last forever, but it didn’t have to. Just long enough.
 
Abner and Red turned and followed their companions. Abner holstered his pistol and reclaimed his now cooled rifle, and set to work picking down the stragglers. Each step hurt, each breath was an aching pain. He was leaving this island one way or another, but at this point he was too damn proud to fall to Karl’s bad dream.

Abner used Tier 1 Super Defense - Deployable Shield (1/6 SP)

[Remilia Scarlet]

A cascade of bodies surged towards them as the two prime companions battled back with everything they had, fire and lightning thrown down at the horde while their far-flung allies now broke though the ranks of the living dead in a hope toreach the boathouse that was their chance for survival. Remilia had knocked down far too many flyer at this point, each one killed only resulted in two taking its place. While she had delt with that, the ground forces seemed without number and soon enough laid siege to the outside of the building they defended.

"They're getting in, Gin!" Remilia warned as she readied another Critical "Heartbreak", but was stopped when a massive explosion ripped through the ghouls. Was that a furby she saw? It didn't matter, as the fellow survivors had now made a break for the boat while the enemies surrounded them. Remilia flung her spear into the many towers of crates around them and sent many of the ghouls either falling into the abyss or crushed under several tons. She rushed into the building and then leaped down onto the boat, where an inattentive zombie broke her fall and the vampire broke its neck.

"I'm captain of this ship!" she yelled as she swiped a fist towards the rest "and I didn't say you were allowed on board!"

[Gin Yatreg]

Gin looked back inside and saw that Remilia was right, they had begun to get in. Inside the garage area, there were now arms stuck through the wall on the opposite wall, they wriggled and thrashed about as they tried to make the holes even bigger. Gin Quickly climbed up onto the roof and slid to the other side to greet their guests. He aimed the bazooka directly at the center of the group and whistled to get their attention. 

The horde looked up at him and snarled in animalistic anger, "We'll swallow your soul!" one shouted.

"Swallow this." He said as he pulled the trigger, which released another blast from the bazooka. It blew away the creatures and thankfully left the wall intact. After that, he moved back across the roof to Remilia to assist with the remaining flyers.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

The gaggle of fleeing survivors hurried hastily down the pier as the horde continued to surge behind them, threatening to swallow them up. Though Abner’s tactical barrier had stymied their assault somewhat, the swarm of flesh-eaters seemed to be never-ending. Adding insult to injury, the ghouls seemed only to grow more frenzied and desperate as they neared their escape vessel. Karl and his wounded entourage scrambled down the pier, the ex-trooper taking potshots at the airborne attackers while the hulking plague marine crashed through their ranks like a living plow. Red offered what little help he could afford, discharging pyrotechnics from his open maw as he limped beside his comrades.

“Get in!” a voice cried from the rooftop of the boathouse as they neared. Nanaki glanced up to see a haggard redhead gazing down at them, makeshift firearm in-hand. His eyes plead urgency as he hastily reloaded his gun, losing its explosive payload to their flank. They quickly piled through the doorway as the explosion rocked the dock, the sounds of perishing undead music to their ears.

”Go,” Okor urged, slamming the door tight and bracing it with his enormous weight. His sole remaining arm took up a nearby harpoon gun, firing a serrated spear through one of the many holes in the building’s walls. 

Red staggered to stand near the door, body braced against the collapsing wall as he fought oxygen into his lungs. The hours up hours of running on empty were finally catching up to him, blood loss and muscle fatigue conspiring to nearly bring him to the ground despite the literal avatars of death now nipping at his heels. Adrenaline could only carry one so far.

“You alright?” The ex-trooper asked, taking a break from unloading rounds from his sidearm to gaze down at his primal companion, now nearly prone on the dirty floor. “Here,” he said, retrieving a bottle of clear fluid from his pocket. The container’s label bore the text ‘Crystal Pepsi’ in colorful letters, doing nothing to help Red understand its contents. Abner quickly removed the cap, lowering the neck of the bottle to rest against the feline’s lips. “It’s not water, but it’s all I have.” 

“Thank you,” the burgundy beast rasped, lapping up the sickly sweet concoction. Though the flavor immediately brought with it the urge to retch, he soon felt a surge of energy in his limbs. Whatever apothecary had crafted the elixir would have his thanks. Though far from a replacement for rest, it would have to do. 

”No time for...Chatter," the monstrous marine commented, pounding the butt of his firearm down to splinter the arm of a particularly unlucky undead. With a nod, both soldier and feline made haste up the stairs to the upper level.

“Took you guys long enough,” Nanaki heard as they reached the top of the stairs. A pale young girl clad in a ripped t-shirt--confusingly, advertising some sort of guided blimp--smirked at them before launching a vibrant crimson lance through an airborne horror. Over her shoulder the carmine cat saw that the numbers of their foes seemed to have somehow doubled despite Wade’s adorable explosive ordnance.

“SHIT!” A voice called from above. “There’re too many!” The cries of the voracious rotwalkers threatened to drown out all sound as they pounded their bony fists upon the woodwork, crawling upon each other like insects as they attempted to breach the walls. 

Nanaki swallowed hard as he stepped onto the balcony beside the pasty spellcaster. Their odds were shrinking by the second as the rest of the crew attempted to fortify the building while Karl and his escorts attempted to get the boat running. From below, the feline could hear wood splintering as the ghouls greedily tore the walls apart, each second bringing them closer to entrance. The survivors would need just a little more time; As with most things, if Omni would not provide it, they’d need to make their own.

“Fire another shot close to the wall,” Red advised, making eye contact with the gunman on the roof. He waited for the boy’s nod before glancing to the dirigible enthusiast next. “Do anything you can you keep them off of the walls.” She too offered a brusque nod.

Nanaki limped forward toward the railing, staring down at the endless sea of hungering fiends. He heard gunshots behind him as Abner guarded his flank, obliterating the skull of a ghoul as it attempted to crest the balcony. Blue-and-gold  optics turned toward the heavens as he began channeling mako energy, spreading his jaws wide to harness an orb of pure destruction between them. Seconds ticked by as he charged the spell, a detonation below queuing his intervention as the ginger’s rocket detonated the pile of climbing zombies below. Showtime.

With a final guttural roar Red let the enormous crimson orb loose, turning away as it careened with terrifying speed toward the undead below. Half a beat later the projectile made contact with the landward end of the pier, detonating with an almighty BOOM. The asphalt at the shoreline was rent upward and backward, curling away from the hellish explosion as it rattled the dock. Smoke and debris filled the air as the wharf, now mostly unsupported, creaked and wobbled beneath the weight of the corpses and various steel containers. Its complaints were heard for but a moment before it collapsed unceremoniously into the sea. 

Using Abner’s SP item with his permission. 
+2 SP (Pepsi), -2 SP (Tier 2 Super: Cosmo Memory); Net of 2/4 remaining
1616 words, both posts.

[Karl Jak]

Finale - Part 1

They fought with everything they had left in their failing bodies.

Hiro stood a few feet away, his eyes nervously scanning the doorway that led out from the bridge and onto the flat deck atop the wheelhouse.  If someone was coming at them, it would have to scale one of the ladders and come slobbering through that door.

“Give me that container from the briefcase,” Karl muttered, holding his hand back as he used the other one to thumb and flick various controls.  When nothing happened, he shook his outstretched palm.  “Mr. Protagonist, do hurry.”  The tone of the producer’s voice grounded the young man back in the present reality, and he quickly dropped the container into Karl’s hand.  A beat later, Karl chucked the now opened box over his head.  He paused and glanced over his head at Hiro.  “You might want to help them, you know.  If I need you to hack a thirty-year-old tugboat, I’ll let you know.”

The samurai shook his head, seemingly oblivious to the smarmy tone of Karl’s voice.  With the machete in his hand, Hiro made his way out from the bridge, down the ladder to the deck, and started toward the stern of the ship.  He got about halfway there before Nanaki’s explosion threw him back a few feet and against the base of a large winch.  The blow caused Hiro to immediately lose consciousness.

At the back of the boat, Deadpool dropped below the gunwale and put his hands over his head as the blast threw chunks of splintered wood and superheated metal shrapnel through the failing walls of the boathouse.  When the mercenary lifted his head, he saw that the majority of the dock had collapsed into the ocean, but the lion’s raw display of force had only momentarily stymied the advance of the horde.  The first of the ghouls left intact by the blast leapt across the frothy ocean as it swallowed the aged docks and landed against the front deck of the boathouse.  Abner quickly blew the creature’s brains out the back of its skull, but already there were others attempting to get inside the crumbling building.

What seemed to be a burst of plasma tore through the remains of a nearby window frame and narrowly missed hitting the tugboat.  Instead, the superheated projectile sailed wide of the boat’s wheelhouse and out through the front of the structure.  “Which one of you assholes decided to make them sci-fi monsters?  The teeth are bad enough, you know.”

“Metal or flesh, they all will fail.” Okor rasped as he grabbed hold of a nearby ghoul and crushed its skull in his hands.

“We can’t have a conversation if we have the same formatting – it gets awkward.”

With a groan, something beneath the deck stirred to life.

Up on the roof of the boathouse, the two primes heard the mechanical roar.  “The engines!”  Gin shouted as he checked his bazooka and leashed another round against a dive-bombing mecha-harpy.  The shrieking beast was swallowed up in a flash of yellow and red, but before Gin could celebrate, he felt a hand latch around his upper arm.

“We’re good up here,” Remilia shouted.  “Back down.  We’re leaving.”

Down inside the boathouse, Hiro had regained consciousness, although his hair was moist with blood.  The journey back to a vertical position took more effort than he would have like, and by the time he was ready to take his first few steps, Remilia came barreling passed him.  Her shoulder smacked into Hiro’s chest and sent him crashing back against the unrelenting steel of the winch, and he retained consciousness just long enough to hear the vampire’s redheaded pal yell out an apology.

Remilia let go of Gin when it became time to clamber up the ladder.  Once she was up, she looked through the glass of the bridge to see a smiling Karl Jak waving to her.  The executive popped his head out through the open doorway and gestured her inside.  “I need you on these controls with me.”  He shouted as the boat lurched forward a few feet, causing everyone onboard to nearly lose their balance.  The vampire shut the door behind her as she approached her side of the control array.  Now that the boat was alive, there were so many lights and gauges and meters to pull her eyes every which way.

“Grab the two thrust levels and engage them,” Karl barked as something exploded a little too close to the wheelhouse.  A beat later, Remilia’s hands found the two tallest levers, and she pulled back on them.

There was a momentary lull, and then the tugboat’s engines roared and sent the derelict vessel back at the remains of the shipping dock.  The people fighting for their lives in the boathouse had to jump onto the deck as the tugboat crashed through the front of the building and kept going forty feet until it bashed against the docks.  Fortunately for the crew of the ship, the tires lashed to its sides kept it from crushing itself against the pier, but although the hull remained structural intact, the collision caused one of the metal storage crates to slip lose and slide down onto the tugboat.  As a result, even when Remilia sent the levers in the opposing direction, he screaming engines found themselves unable to get the vessel moving in the correct direction.

“Gin!”  Remilia screamed through the glass window of the bridge.  The redhead, who had grabbed a railing to prevent himself from falling eight feet to the deck below, turned to look at his friend.  “Go see what’s tangling us up.”

The redhead held up a thumb and slid down the ladder en route to the stern of the ship.  He immediately saw the crates that were effectively pinning the boat.  A glance back over his shoulder showed that the boathouse was starting to sag into the ocean.  “Gonna need a bigger bazooka,” Gin muttered as ghouls started to flood onto the tugboat.

[Karl Jak]

Finale - Part 2

Deadpool dropped back and swung the katana in a wide arch, disemboweling the pair of growling creatures.  The two ghouls toppled head over heels into the water, but another came screaming out from the din of combat.  The mercenary grunted as the monster tackled him to the deck and tried to rip his throat out with its teeth.  Deadpool managed to jam his forearm into its mouth, and as it chewed on his arm, he pushed it far enough away to give him room to run it through with his katana.

“Fucking.  Teeth!  And not even the pleasant yet disturbing vaginal teeth.”

A twitching dark hand reached down to Deadpool.  On the far end of that bloody appendage was Hiro, who’s complexion had become something closer to ash.  A few trails of blood had wormed their way down from the corners of Hiro’s head.

“You okay there, Black Thunder?”

Hiro nodded his head a little slower than a fully aware person should have.  “Yesh,” he mumbled as a four-legged thing let out a scream and lurched onto the ship.  Abner, Nanaki, and Okor moved to engage the monster as the redhead continued to played with the winch.  Blasts from the stormtrooper’s rifle light up the deck as the slobbering, man-horse creature lashed out at the man with a pair of scythe-like appendages.

“Impure.”  Okor rasped as he ducked one of the organic blades and grabbed it with his hand a beat later.  “Move.  Now!”  The plague marine boomed as Red came bounding down the deck and leaped at the head and neck of the monster.  The lion’s claws raked at putrid flesh as he sank his teeth deep into its throat.  Foul-smelling blood spurted from ruptured veins as Nanaki tore away a mouthful of his adversary’s neck.  The lion managed to spit out the rotting tissue before one of the creature’s extra appendages bashed against his back.

As the mighty feline dropped to the deck, Okor yanked the monster by its bladed limb, shattering its balance and causing it to stumble forward to its knees.  Before it could regain its bearings, Abner walked up, jammed the barrel of his rifle through one of its eyeballs, and pulled the trigger a half dozen times.  When the monster crumbled into a twitching, blood-stained heap against the back of the boat, Okor finish the job by slamming into it will all that remained of his diseased bulk.

The impact of the monster hitting the murky water jarred the boat, causing a few of the nearest metal crates to topple sideways.  Everyone on the deck felt the vessel lift up a little bit, and before more ghouls could board, they turned their focus toward Gin’s winch.

“Someone jam it through the crate on the bottom!”  The redhead shouted as Deadpool moved to prevent anyone unwanted passengers from getting onto the tugboat.  With the mercenary playing defense, Abner grabbed the hook and tossed it to the one-handed Okor, who punched it through the side of the crate.

“Now!”  The marine shouted as a ghoul sprung from the pier and landed on his shoulder.  Hooked barbs sank into the base of Okor’s neck, and while the festering titan was immune to pain, he still felt the organic steel talons tear through his armored plates into the diseased-addled flesh beneath.  As Okor grabbed at the slobbering creature with his hand, Gin, Abner, and Hiro pulled back on the winch controls.  The machine let out a metal shriek as the cable went taut and the metal containers started to shudder.

“Put some fucking emphasis on that!” Deadpool bellowed as a cybernetically augmented ghoul bashed him in the side of the face with a pair of glittering steel knuckles.  The impact tore away part of the mercenary’s mask to reveal part of his hideous, hate-fucked avocado face.  “Bust out the italics, for fuck sake!”

Realizing that they were running out of time, the three primes pulled back one more time, and the old winch twisted, dragging the bottom crate off into the water.  A moment later, the rest of the crates feel free, and while a few bumped against the boat, they all wound up in the ocean.

“We’re good.  Hit the gas!”  Hiro bellowed as he hacked off the arm of a ghoul and struck it in the side of the head with a forearm, knocking it from the boat.  As the creature fell from view, the samurai’s eyes went wide as he saw the hulking, hockey mask-wearing monster standing on the dock just a few yards from the boat.  It seemed as if all the punishment that Hiro had delivered upon the massive zombie had vanished in the time since the campground.  Jason flexed all ten of his fingers as he started to walk toward the boat, his soulless eyes never wavering from the samurai.  “…hit the fucking gas!”  

The tugboat’s engines groaned as the vessel lurched away from the dock just as the waterlogged corpse leapt effortlessly from the pier onto the deck.  Hiro, clutching the killer’s machete in his hands, growled and rushed forward, swinging the giant knife at the creature’s neck.

With more dexterity than a zombie from the bottom of a lake should have, Jason sidestepped the chop and loosed a punch at Hiro’s jaw.  The impact obliterated the bone and shattered half a dozen of the man’s teeth down to their roots.  ‘Black Thunder’ smacked the floor with a dull thud, and moments later, the blood began to pool around his face.  Without skipping a beat, Jason collected his machete and turned to deal with the other primes that had formed a loose semi-circle around him.

[Karl Jak]

Finale - Part III

Deadpool, despite Baron’s better hopes and dreams, was the first to lash out against the zombie serial killer.  The mercenary managed a quick succession of swipes and slashes that found their mark and even managed to elicit a few gratifying spurts of blood from the damp body of Jason Voorhees.  Unfortunately for the ‘merc with a mouth,’ his twelfth sword attack was grabbed out of midair.  He attempted to resist for a brief moment, but then the sword shattered, leaving him staring blankly at half of a katana before a wet fist smashed down onto his head with enough force to easily fracture his skull.

As the swordsman dropped into a twitching heap, the others seem to spring into action.  Abner laid down a hail of energy bursts as he circled around the monster.  With that distraction, Red leapt onto Jason’s back, and for a slight moment, it seemed like the strategy would work once again.  The lion dug his claws into his foe’s shoulders, but before he could sink his teeth into that slimy, gray flesh behind the hockey mask, Jason inverted his machete and drove it through his own chest.  The partially rusted blade tore through its owner and into the gut of Nanaki, who’s eyes went wide as he felt the steel rip him open.

Unfazed by the gruesome display, Okor moved forward and started to release a thunderous succession of punches at the zombie’s masked skull.  Each blow of steel against hockey mask could be heard over the purr of the tugboat’s engines, but instead of faltering, Jason absorbed the shots much like Okor would have—with no response but a silent glare of indignation.  Abner didn’t wait for the plague marine to receive the same treatment as the mercenary.  The once-stormtrooper charged a shot and released a concentrated blast of energy.

Although Jason took the Tyrant-slaying super burst square into his undefended side, the impact didn’t have the same body-bursting effect as it had in the past.  The mass murdering zombie was thrown to the far side of the boat, but all that seemed to do was give him the time he needed to free his machete from his ribcage.

“Distract him!”  Gin shouted from behind the little control panel for the winch.  After a pause, the redhead tossed his bazooka to Okor.  “Here.  Use this!”

Although the weapon was an archaic piece, the marine scooped it up and set it against his mangled shoulder.  As Jason rose to his feet, Abner fired a second energy blast as Okor leashed a screaming rocket from the bazooka.  The boat lurched in the water as the primes launched their ordinance, and in the resulting splash of water that washed over the tugboat, they lost sight of their opponent.  Rocket and energy blast tore through nothing but mist thrown up by the foaming ocean.

“Where did it go?”  Okor shouted.  

The marine’s response came in the form of a machete casually tearing through the remaining vestiges of his armor and cleaving the head from his neck.  Okor’s head rolled to a stop a few yards away as his hulking mass toppled over like a fallen statue.

“Shit.”  Abner growled as he swung his rifle.  He managed to squeeze off a shot before a gloved hand swung down and punched it from his hands.  The trooper scowled and held up his fists, but before he was reduced to fisticuffs with the seven-foot zombie, the winch hook came swinging in from behind Jason.  The masked monster shuddered as the hook punched cleanly out the front of his ribcage.

“How does that feel?!”  Gin roared with delight as he smashed a button with his palm and pulled back on the controls.  The winch started to whine as it lifted the thrashing form of the serial killer up off the deck.  “Now then,” the redhead spoke aloud as he turned his focus back to operating the controls.  “hy don’t you go for a—”

Gin paused and glanced up in time to see the thrown machete right before it pierced through his heart and pinned his already limp body against the side of the wheelhouse.

Inside the cabin, Karl frowned as he steered the vessel through the fog surrounding the island.  “I’m sorry,” he muttered as he looked over at his fellow captain.

“What?”  Remilia, who had avoided talking with him for more than a few reasons, remarked as she glanced over from the other side of the controls.

“You should go help the others before it’s too late for them.  I can get through the fog.”

The vampire, who saw what seemed to be a little bit of genuine emotion in Karl’s expression, dropped her grip on the controls and rushed from the bridge.

On the deck, Jason stayed aerial for just a few more moments.  That was all the time he heeded to reach up, grab the reinforced chain of the winch, and snap it apart with a sturdy yank.  The monster dropped down to the deck and wrenched the hook from his body, leaving behind a baseball-sized hole clean through his partially decomposed chest.

Before Jason could turn to dealing with the only person still vertical, a brilliant spear of red energy tore through his body.  The impact stopped the waterlogged killer dead in his tracks, but after the initial shock wore off, it looked up to see an incensed Remilia Scarlet glaring down upon it.  The vampire held up another spell card and readied herself as Jason tried to come at her.  Instead, a thick, armored arm wrapped around the killer’s neck.

Abner watched with a faint smirk as the headless form of Okor tried to choke the life out of the zombie.  With a grunt, Jason reached up and squeezed through the marine’s arm, ripping through the armor and the body below as if it were all made from forest detritus.  Before the killer could tear clean through the arm, Remilia lashed out with a trio of magical red chains that lashed against Gin’s murderer with hapless abandon.  As the monster was distracted by the chains, Deadpool slipped up behind Okor’s body and jammed a toy down the marine’s bloody, headless neck.

The mercenary gave the marine a pat on the back.  “Always carry a spare one.”  He whispered before scrambling to safety as a glowing Nanaki rose up from the bloody deck.  The lion’s maw was filled with brilliant red energy that quickly ballooned outward as he found his footing on the ensanguined surface of the tugboat.

Nanaki fired the limit break, pouring everything he had left into that desperation attack.  The sphere of energy roared forth and slammed into the chest of Jason Voorhees.  Unable to stand his ground with the corpse attempting to strangle him, the serial killer and his attacker were caught up in the path of the attack.

As the boat sped away, the surviving primes watched with mixed emotions as the combination of limit break and furby erupted.

The shockwave was strong enough to reach the boat, and the resulting shake caused the engines to sputter out for a brief moment.  When he felt the lurching of the vessel, Karl killed the power anyway, for fear that he’d short out their only means of non-violent escape from the island.

So the boat gently bobbed in the ocean.

“At least he went down swinging,” Abner muttered as he looked down at a broken piece of Okor’s armor lying on the deck.

“… more is required… to destroy Nurgle’s Chosen.”

At the sound of Okor’s voice, Deadpool let out a yelp and threw out a finger.  A few yards away, the plague marine’s severed head was lying in a pool of foul internal fluids.  

With a groan, Hiro pulled himself up through use of the tugboat’s rails.  Although the fog had grown progressively thicker, the explosion had dispersed enough of it to let him see the chaos left behind—the ocean was littered with chunks of twisted steel and scorched leather.  About twenty yards out, the barely conscious samurai spotted half of a hockey mask floating among the floatsam.  Hiro felt great at the sight of that monster’s fiberglass face bobbing there in the ocean, but then the rotting hand reached up and grabbed hold of the mask.  A moment later, the mask was gone, and the water was so still that it was almost as if nothing had disturbed it.

Gin has been killed and will respawn at the Nexus in 7 days.  Your rewards will be in a Coruscant lockbox.

Deadpool has been eliminated from final prize contention.

Congratulations to Nanaki/Red/CatDog for 'winning' 2016's Summer Syntech event.  You are the very well-deserved champion of DA16.