Chapter 14: The Hidden Ally
On the ground below, Brawlers were engaged in a struggling battle. Brawlers managed to shove back the circle of Robos around them and reduce their numbers by almost half. Once those were dealt with, however, there was still the matter of what looked like every zombie on the planet behind the Robos.
The remaining Robos were starting to fire at the Brawlers with less restraint. Yacazuma was able to deflect a multitude of bullets, but the others (who could not) were forced to hide behind corners, rocks, posts, or anything they could find.
In the middle of the field of Robos, Captain Chip struggled to run. His left leg was sinking to the ground faster than the other, forcing a limp. Ruby was clutched on to his shoulder. Captain Chip supported her with one arm and shot the rifle with his one other one as they searched for cover.
Robos were closing in on Captain Chip and Ruby but were blown back by a huge, blue explosion. Captain Chip looked ahead to see Blue occasionally spawn those sheep-shaped bombs. Blue waved them to a corner where he and John were hiding. Bullets whizzing through the air, Captain Chip and Ruby limped on to the shelter. Yacazuma ran to the limpers and circled them, waving his sword wildy in hopes to block off any oncoming bullets. Captain Chip and Ruby fell back behind the corner with Yacazuma following them.
Now John, Blue, Captain Chip, Ruby, and Yacazuma hid behind a corner while the others were across the street from them. They couldn't stay there for long, though. The zombies were rushing forward.
****
AppleCore watached as Virus and Nekrozoa wrestled with each other. The large circle that was the ship's main hallway was adorned with the laser gun and plasma blasts.
Virus shot at Nekrozoa as he hid around the other side of the hall. Nekrozoa quickly flipped to show himself and shot plasma at Virus's feet. Virus lifted three of its legs and nearly lost its balance when Nekrozoa ran at him and slammed the fisted glove into Virus's face. Virus toppled over and Nekrozoa planted his foot onto his chest.
Nekrozoa was charging up a shot when Virus brought all four of its legs into Nekrozoa's crotch. Nekrozoa clumsily stumbled around, clutching himself, when Virus brought its neck back and slammed its head full-force into Nekrozoa's neck. The blow forced Nekrozoa through the air and slammed him into the a curved wall.
Nekrozoa plopped to the floor onto his bottom when Virus shot again. One shot grazed Nekrozoa's ear and he ducked to avoid the second. Nekrozoa rolled forward to lay down directly in front of Virus. Once there, Nekrozoa spun around and smacked Virus into the wall with the backside of the glove. Virus managed to twist his body time to land on the wall with his four feet. Like a spider, it scampered up the wall and onto the ceiling. Virus looked at Nekrozoa and sprung down to smash Nekrozoa into the floor.
It picked up a dazed Nekrozoa by his collar and smashed into Nekrozoa's face with two of its arms. Nekrozoa landed in the edge where the wall and floor meet. Nekrozoa looked up while lying on his stomach and looked to see Virus pinning him to the ground with two of its legs and pointing its two guns at his face.
****
Zombies were closing in on the Brawlers. A couple caught Zylix by surprise and managed to grasp on to him. Swordkill, who hid with him, noticed the struggle and tried to help, but more zombies kept him away. When Zylix tried to shake them free, he accidentally stepped into the open. A terrified Blue watched as flying bullets smashed into his skull and the zombies fed on his lifeless body.
Swordkill swung at the approaching zombies. Yacazuma saw that he was in need and headed to the edge of the corner.
"Cover me!" he screamed to the Brawlers hiding with him. Yacazuma rushed to Swordkill while swinging his sword around him, again trying to pick off bullets from the air. Yacazuma made it about three-fourths of the way across when something shoved its shoulder into him. The blue-skinned zombie swung his arms to knock Yacazuma's sword across the ground. It shouted a hissing roar as it brought Yacazuma to the ground.
John pushed Blue out of his way and tried to shoot at the thing attacking Yacazuma, but was ambushed by zombies rounding the corner. Captain Chip had enough energy left to raise his rifle at the creatures and fire. Too bad the clip was empty.
Blue desperately swatted and kicked to pick zombies off of John as Captain Chip reloaded his gun.
Captain Chip reloaded the M4. He yelled at Blue to move out of the way and fired at the zombies trying to get to John. John brushed himself to stand up and raised his arm to point at where Yacazuma struggled. He was horrified to see a sinister, yet sword-less Yacazuma with Rageblood standing next to him. Behind them, Swordkill charged at the hiding Brawlers with a revving sword and a harsh zombie yell.
****
"You've been quite the challenge, Nekrozoa," Virus smirked.
Nekrozoa looked up into the barrels of the guns.
"But you're time is finally up," Virus continued. The barrels glowed a hot green and Nekrozoa shut his eyes, bracing for the seemingly imminant.
For whatever reason, however, the barrels stopped glowing. Nekrozoa opened his eyes. His mouth opened slightly from curiousity.
"You know what..." Virus thought aloud. "...let's make this so much more satisfying." Virus reached down and grabbed Nekrozoa by his collar again. It looked him in the eyes with an evil stare and threw Nekrozoa against the wall. Nekrozoa winced when he hit the curved wall, but was soon aiming the glove at Virus. Before Nekrozoa could shoot anything, Virus had its hands raised as well and eveloped Nekrozoa in a green light with rays coming from two of its hands.
Nekrozoa winced and squirmed around. Occasionally, he would let out a painful yelp as well. Nekrozoa had his eyes shut and his teeth pressed together painfully. Virus looked curiously at Nekrozoa as he stumbled and fell in the rays' light.
"Odd..." Virus said. "It seems you have a natural immunity of some kind... No matter. I'll just increase the juice!" More light came from Virus's hands and wrapped around Nekrozoa. Nekrozoa started to scream even more.
From behind Virus, AppleCore has been watching the entire fight. Now he watched as Virus tortured this Brawler... not with his angry stare, but with wonder.
AppleCore stared intently at Nekrozoa as he twitched and moaned. AppleCore looked on with these lifeless eyes it had and the wonder gradually progressed to sadness.
AppleCore stepped forward. It stomped its way to right behind Virus. Virus, having to much fun torturing Nekrozoa, didn't notice AppleCore approaching him from the back. AppleCore now had that angry look as it raised a purple arm over its head. It let out one of the traditional roars. Virus finally took notice of AppleCore. It turned its head to look at what was behind it just as AppleCore slammed the arm into Virus's side and forced the muti-limbed being to smash into and form a mold in the wall. Virus fell to the floor and AppleCore leaned over to slam more punches into Virus's body.
Nekrozoa was finally released from Virus's rays and staggered around the floor, coughing and grabbing his throat. He finally lifted his head and stood straight up to watch AppleCore pummel its new enemy. Nekrozoa cautiously stepped forward towards the enraged AppleCore. Nekrozoa got within three feet of it when AppleCore cocked its head up to see Nekrozoa. It held that angered look, but it eased to an emotionless face when it saw Nekrozoa was the one approaching it. AppleCore gladly stood up and looked down to Nekrozoa.
"This.. this is sort of like how we met during all of this, isn't it?"
AppleCore continued looking at Nekrozoa, but eventually nodded lightly.
They were looking at each other with a certain gladness for a few seconds. Nekrozoa smiled. "I knew that stuff would work on ya, even if you were pissed off to no end."
AppleCore grunted and shoved a fisted arm into the air in admiration. It held the arm in front of him eagerly. Nekrozoa took a bit of time to figure what this gesture meant, but once he did, the two immediately slapped their hands together in a high-five.
Nekrozoa and AppleCore chuckled at one another. Nekrozoa spoke again. "So, you know where the cockpit is on this thing?"
AppleCore turned to point down the hall behind him when he stopped. AppleCore looked at the floor in shock and pointed at the floor while huffing and grunting. Nekrozoa looked down to see what AppleCore was so concerned about: Virus has disappeared. The huge crash in the wall was still present, but Virus was neither in that crevice or on the floor.
Without warning, the ship tilted violently. AppleCore and Nekrozoa shuffled their feet to force themselves to stay standing. From the inside, both could feel that the ship was hurtling downward like a falling satellite. An intercom clicked and a raspy, dying voice weezed over the speakers.
"Let's... let's see you two... get out of... of this one..."
****
Swordkill, Yacazuma, and Rageblood charged with other zombies at the sheltered Brawlers.
John quickly turned to look at Blue.
"You grab Ruby, I'll grab Chip! We've gotta get the fuck outta here! Pronto!"
Blue leaned over and helped Ruby to her feet. The hobbled together as John lifted Captain Chip up over his shoulders. Captain Chip looked behind John as he was draped over his shoulders and tried as best he could to fire at the approaching zombies. The lack of strength in his arm combined with the shakiness caused by John's running made Captain Chip's aim horrible, if not worthless.
John accidentally ran past Blue and Ruby. Blue tried his best to get Ruby to limp faster, but she was too weak to continue any faster than how fast she was going.
John, noticing what he did, looked back to see a tiny group of zombies lurch on to the backs of Blue and Ruby. John ran back and freed one of his hands from Captain Chip to fire at the zombies that have dogpiled on top of Ruby and Blue. Blue could be seen at the bottom, kicking and holding back the chomping heads of zombies, when John reached him. John fired beams to blast away the top zombies and reached in to pull out Blue from the carnage. Ruby was nowhere in sight.
John was holstering Captain Chip while pulling Blue behind him like a preschool teacher pulling on one of their reluctant students. Blue yelled back at John to go back for Ruby, but the noise of bullets flying around him clogged John's ears so he couldn't hear Blue. Besides, John was too scared to go back. He just ran and ran and did nothing else.
Blue struggled to catch up. Once the two were aside one another, Blue freed his hand from John's grasp and ran along side him. John would periodically turn his body to fire behind him and Blue would throw a bomb behind him now and then.
John and Blue seemed to be in the clear, but from behind a building, they rushed out and stood in front of the fleeing trio. John and Blue were forced to stop in their tracks in the middle of the road. Luckily for them, the group of Robos was relatively small. John and Blue were able to momentarily stop and fire at the Robos. The things tried to fire back, but John and Blue had already blown them up before they could strike. The time used was just enough, however. The zombies have caught up with them.
John leaned back as something latched on to Captain Chip and John desperately tried to pull Captain Chp back. The combined strength of the zombies prooved too much for John. Captain Chip fell back into the clutches of an undead hoard.
John and Blue were surrounded. The zombies worked their way to circle the two Brawlers that stood back-to-back. John was blasting as usual at the zombies and Blue would use his physical abilities to push back the zombies, not wanting to use all of his energy creating bombs.
The zombies were closing in no matter how much was thrown at them. There was barely any room to maneuver around the few feet of space left for the Brawlers. John looked around in desperation, hoping to figure a plan of some kind.
John eventually reached his arm across Blue and fired the biggest beam he has ever fired throughout this campaign. The zombies were cleared from that area, but there were zombies already starting to fill the gap. Before the gap could be sealed completely, John raised his foot and violently kicked Blue out into the open. Blue fell to the ground as the zombies filled the gap he emerged from.
Blue shook his head and looked back with panic and tried to find John. All Blue only saw the zombies closing in the gap, the entire crowd concentrated on that one space, which Blue could tell from above the zombies was getting smaller every second.
He screamed in a shaky, terrified voice. "John! John, no!"
John's rays could be seen blasting off in random directions from above the zombie crowd.
"Run, Blue! You can still run!"
Blue heard John scream after he commanded Blue. Along with that, there was a disgusting crunching noise coming from the middle of the mob.
The zombies turned to shift their focus from the defeated John to Blue. Blue, taking the hint, scrambled up to his feet and ran as fast as his legs could take him, zombies close behind.