A/N: This is a heavily OC story. Instead of focusing on the Japanese conflict, we view this through the perspectives of the American Front, more specifically, the perspective of American teenagers.
While I will be working on Kill La Back and Fire Team RWBY, and eventually Gensokyo Reapers, I wanted to pull this story out of cryo storage, and at least begin the story, to create a basis to later return to.
I present to you a parallel to the story of Highschool of the Dead, an American setting in this case. Eventually, the cast will show up, but this will remain primarily Self Insert based.
"It's starting."
And indeed, the end, or perhaps beginning had come.
It was 2025. On November 7th, news channels were frantic about these new developments, these reports of rabies developing in South Africa. At first thought to be unimportant, it turned out to be a catastrophic incident. Every news station tried to find info on this large scale phenomena, but governments around the world refused to allow them. They even issued broadcasts saying that news stations were unable to attain info because of them. And then, the planes started flying out of Africa.
In each country's attempt to look good for bringing relief to the masses of Africa, they were shipping the infection back home. Right in the hearts of every single country in the world, excluding Cuba and Australia. What a nightmare. The infection spread quickly and ruthlessly, this time the only method of transmission was by cavital transmission. For you simple minded folks, that's by bite.
With the overrunning of hospitals and such, came the numbers needed to begin the systematic slaughter of civilians and low scale law enforcement. Just because practically everyone knows how to kill a zombie, there are little to no people truly willing to kill.
There are times when even military personnel hesitate to pull the trigger, if only due to curious reasons such as the infected being family or killing innocents being a jarring new experience, having not previously committed such an act.
Although they had, and still do look deformed, too many people still see them as humans, even though they no longer are. All that's left is an empty shell, which is why granting them a quick death is the only way to grant them mercy from their tortured existence. But what does it matter whether you kill a human or an infected? After all, one is dirty, the other pure. We as humans are sickening creatures and as such, our judgment was a parasitic disease, that turned our own against us in a survival game. Infected on the other hand, require no resources, accomplish nothing, and succumb naturally to the whims of the planet. It's why so many environmentalist created the Undead cults. Those weren't fun to deal with...
Our lives had been permanently changed, with no way to reclaim our old ways. But what people have always longed for, is a chance to start fresh, have a clean slate, redo your life, even with the mistakes you might make again. None but a few blessed souls ever realized that new beginnings don't come easy. It comes only through hardships and sacrifices. To change is to lose everything. Your family, your contacts, your previous life, even your name. A new name... And so, my new name became, Reaper.
At that time, we greeted a new dawn in our lives, to the first days of the Zombie Apocalypse.
November 11th, 2025.
Location: Near a town bridge.
"****! we have to go!"
Hm? Who is that? Why can't they let me sleep?
"We need to go! We have to evacuate! The police said so!
Evac? What Evac? What's happened?
The Infection is here! Please wake up!
My eyes jolt open, as I take in my surroundings.
"Argh!" My pained voice cries out.
I can hardly see, my vision unfocused and agonizingly painful as it tries to readjust. A figure is yelling now, but I can't make out the words. The shape looks like a human, but who is it?
Get up! They're here! Run!
My vision finally adjusts to the light, as my eyes begin to recalibrate to their surroundings.
In 2024, Cyborg enhancements were introduced to high ranking military officials, namely Special Forces. They weren't classified to be talked of, but no one could get their hands on schematics and such. After a few months, I was able to convince Major General Hewley of the Marine Corps to get me cybernetic eyesight with a fairly large sum of money, namely bribery. Although it pains my heart to commit such a dishonorable act, I needed new eyesight. Out of everything that I could have chosen, I chose my eyesight, because for a long portion of my life, I'd been handicapped with glasses and contacts. I wanted to get away from that, and increase my natural talent for observation.
The random sight of a far off car, the nearby coat that was missing a button, a person who had colored contacts, I notice the most mundane, but damn near unnoticeable details, some pointless, some vital.
My new eyes, containing both mechanical and organic tissue finally readjusted to my brain, and I was greeted by the sight of chaos. People running in hysteria away from danger, of an unknown type. Before making some rash decision, I took stock of whatever I had. My Cyberoptic eyes were still adjusting to their surroundings, but I could make out what I had on me. I was wearing my favorite clothes. My trench coat, combat boots, ACU pants, jacket, even my mask and gloves for Veteran's day, I even brought my trusty switchblade, money and phone. I checked through my pockets and found my tinted shooter glasses, and set them upon my face. I had to analyze the situation and keep my identity hidden, even while everyone was running.
"Wait, where's my sister?" I thought to myself. Glancing around, I couldn't see her anywhere in the mass of bodies surging by.
"Must have been caught by the crowd, I'll have to find her later..."
We had been caught in what was originally the Veteran's Day shopping rush of our town's Main Street. I had decided to take a nap on a bench while my sister sat by me texting on her phone. But now that I had awoken to this chaos, my instincts took over.
Ascertain hostiles, find high ground, preferably with cover.
As my body adjusted to my eyes, I was gradually able to see sights I'd never known before. The fly buzzing about in the air, the sweat on man's eyebrow as he ran with his wife and children, a ball left in the crowd of legs rushing past, a teddy bear left abandoned on the left side of the masses.
Looking around at my surroundings, I run to my right, vaulting over a low fence, and wall run to a hanging pipe. Thankfully, it was strong enough to support my weight, and I lifted myself up, crouching on it, before springing off onto the roof of a Starbucks. From there, I ran to the edge, picking up a lead pipe along the way and sliding it into a pocket, and saw a sight worthy of the term absolute chaos, one that I could have only envisioned in my dreams.
Hundreds of civilians were surging as a mass to escape from an unknown threat. The opposition was coming from, I believe the south, moving in a mass considering the crowd's movement. Police forces were attempting to calm the surge, having set up a barricade at the bridge before me, but were failing to do so with their meager riot equipment, restricted to nothing but low powered tasers and extendable batons. The crowd's force was too great, and many escaped through the barricade, whether through force or the river.
Thinking to myself while observing the police forces resorting to violence to curb the tide of panicked civilians, "Of course, I expected the police to eventually succumb to their base instincts, but that begs the question, just what is the threat? And why the other side of the river? What could possibly be deterred by a river, or restricted passageways-"
"It's here!"
"Oh my god, run, run!"
"Save yourselves!"
"Don't get bit, or you'll become one of them!"
"Mommy!"
Off in the distance of where the upper area of out town was, I could see a crowd rushing towards this location. Yet, even at a slight glance, I could tell something was wrong.
A surge of flaming pain flowed through my eyes as a voice from my new eyes sounded out,
"Calibration complete. Features of 1X-400X zoom, personnel identification, and HUD enabled. Thought activated and deactivated. Currently active: None. For additional help, say, 'Echo Yankee Echo'."
With a jolt of inspiration at these words, I quickly thought, "Activate X2 Zoom."
As my eyes locked onto the crowd approaching from the south, several things stood out to me at once, some of them quite obvious even to a commoner's eye.
The crowd moved in no particular formation, some of them even bumping into each other without care. As the crowd, more appropriately called small groups moving together, stumbled toward us- "Wait, stumbling?"
Going over what information I had gathered, I continued to observe the incoming crowd. Their clothes were torn, fatal wounds covering their necks and bodies, ones that humans shouldn't be able to move with.
"How on earth-"
Memories come to my mind unbidden, "Don't get bit! The Infection is here! You'll become one of them!"
Various words came to my mind, as I attempted to make heads or tails of the information. Seeing that the crowd in the distance had paused in their stumble, I saw that they were crouching down, with their faces close to a thrashing female body on the ground. Even from this distance, the wind carried a few indistinct words, "No! Stay away! Don't eat- AHHH!"
The crowd was bent over, and they were-
No.
It couldn't be.
That was simple fiction, a fantasy used by movie makers and video game companies-
They were eating her. They were eating her. They were eating her.
As my mind attempted to reconfirm the sight bestowed upon it, I saw that the half eaten woman had begun twitching. Her eyes, blank as the clear blue sky above, devoid of life. She rose up, on wobbling legs, but once she got up, she began to move with the crowd, heading towards us, the survivors.
Zombies. The fictional creatures that had once been but a simple fantasy, a cheap horror ploy to make money. Yet now, those fictional creatures had come to life.
This was no dream. This was no game. This was no movie.
This was reality.
Survive. Find your weapons, gather the squad. The dawn of a new age has arisen, and we are going to be the first ones to fight.
A voice, a voice of deep, terrifying tones and fear radiating from its very core. A voice that was my own, another me, as it seemed.
"Could it be that I have a dual personality?" I thought to myself.
"No. It's your true self awakening. Embrace the darkness of him, and join together."
I decided to refuse to lie to myself anymore. Embracing the darkness inside me would allow me to survive, but I would need to be cautious to not succumb to it.
Turning back, I arm myself with my switchblade and lead pipe as I run across the rooftops in my bid to return home, to where I could gather supplies...
This is where we begin our tale, of a young boy who became a hero, a monster, a warrior.
This is the tale of Reaper.