Prologue
Toudou Heikichi sighed and began to walk down the halls of El Dorado.
It was a catastrophe; a complete and utter disaster. They never realised what the vaccine would bring.
Zombies.
Living, breathing zombies; That was what the vaccine created. It took over the Second Stage Children's minds and degraded their bodies to the point of looking dead. They had an intense craving for human blood, and had attacked many of the soldiers they had sent out to detain them. It was a full on epidemic, starting within five hours of the children receiving the vaccine.
Entering a single barricaded room, the four remaining Second Stage Children and his three main commanders looked at him inquisitively.
"Found a cure yet, old man?" Saru asked, somehow sitting on the large floating globe in the middle of the room. Upon seeing Toudou shake his head, the white-haired boy frowned and groaned. "Just great. I knew we shouldn't have left the cure to senile old men…"
"Hey! Show some respect!" Gamma yelled from his place on the small black couch. "Be grateful! He could've just left you to die in the hospital room."
"I'd be grateful if he'd left you in the hospital room..." Zanark Abalonic muttered, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. "But then again, you'd probably die as soon as the first person lost their mind."
"Buuuurn." Beta's response was short and sweet, and she smirked from her place next to Gamma.
"Now, now. Don't gang up on him just because you're stronger." Giris's calming tone attempted to soothe the atmosphere, and he tightened his grip on his girlfriend's shoulders. "We have to work together. Zombies look for weaknesses like that."
Assessing the situation in front of him, Alpha frowned a little. Noticing Gamma was about to retort and make it worse, he stood up and put his hand in front of Gamma's face. "No. Don't. The fight will escalate. Have you forgotten we're in Master's presence?"
"Fine." Folding his arms and huffing slightly, Gamma looked pointedly to the side. "Don't expect me to just sit here and listen to these assholes constantly berate me all the time, though-"
"Jesus Christ, just give it a rest." Meia interrupted and pointed to the old man standing in front of the doorway. "Just let Heikichi speak."
Clearing his throat, Toudou nodded. "Thank you, Meia. Now, I need you nine to do a task for me."
"What?" the group replied in unison, staring at him in slight interest.
"I need you to defeat them. We're almost at a cure; however, they're beginning to gain on our scientific laboratories, and if they reach it before we've got it confirmed…"
"We'll lose all the information stored in the databases and lose all hope of finding a cure." Gamma finished, looking up at Toudou in slight panic.
Nodding his head gravely, Toudou sighed. "Yes."
"What?" Beta raised an eyebrow, looking at Toudou in surprise. "But we're just kids- well, middle-schoolers. How do you expect us to fight off something like that?"
"I can't." Toudou felt a strange lump in his throat, and swallowed in fear. "But I need you to try."
Looking at one another in debate for a few minutes, Saru stood up and took a deep breath.
"We'll do it."