Young Justice Invasion, Of the Dead
Chapter 1 - Prologue
A/N: There ain't much to say really, enjoy!
June 19th Gotham Academy's Gymnasium Roof:
The summer sun set defiantly behind the building of Gotham Academy, it glared darkly in the midst of the evening sky as if to say 'Screw you. Screw this, I'm done, I'm out. I ain't coming back out again after this.' That's what Artemis imagined to herself anyway as she sat crossed legged on the flat roof of Gotham Academy's gym. She shivered slightly as the cool evening breeze whipped past her carrying the prominent stench of decay. "Damn summer uniform." She thought. What a mess this day had turned out to be.
Beside her lay her phone; there was no noise from it. It remained silent and disheartening. Her efforts to contact her mum, her sister, the League, the police, anyone had become clear that they were all in vein, nobody replied and she was sure that nobody would anymore. The lines were either flooded or… She continued to stare blankly at the murky mix of colours melting in the sunset.
Dick's back stayed turned to her, the silence hung thick like the sickening stench of decay in the air. Her weak attempts to string together a reasonable sensitive sentence to console the saddened boy wonder had come to no avail, but no one could blame either of them. After all he'd just lost the man who'd taken him in after his parents passed away. The two remained seated there in silence whilst the horizon deepened in colour.
Artemis continued to contemplate, how would you approach someone who just lost everything they knew? The person that had taken them in, raised them, taught them. The one man who had replaced everything they'd lost, however key it was; family? She didn't know. Chances were, Batman was laying either dead crushed under a helicopter, or dead and walking as a bloodthirsty monster willing to kill Robin if he ever saw him again.
Come to think of it, silence would be a lie. She was desperate to break the quiet now, even if she was sensitive to the fact that Dick was mourning, Artemis couldn't bear it any longer. The nearby growls and eerie moans which made her stomach turn were so clear, the birds had gone quiet. Even the wind dissipated, only a cool breeze remained and even that carried the lingering stench of blood on death. Upon that thought, she quickly glanced at the scene below her; bloody corpses lay strewn across the courtyard as flesh was being torn rapidly from bodies by those things. The zombies.
Their putrid existence was marked clearly by their decrepit posture and dry veins swelling on their defiled bodies. Dragging their feet, they hauled themselves towards nearby once human piles of meat, and devoured the already mangled too far to identify corpses. Dripping red, mutilation beyond any stretch of the imagination, their disgusting entities continued to hoard flesh as much as they could before it was savagely torn away from them by the other un-dead only to be devoured. Familiar faces, friends, now welcomed her death. She shuddered.
"Dick?" she turned slowly, "um have you managed to make contact with… anyone?" Her voice trailed towards the end of the sentence.
She was almost surprised by the lifelessness in the boys reply. Never had Artemis seen him like this; it was such a contrast to the usual childish trickster attitude. And she didn't like it. "Artemis, I haven't ever not been able to make contact with anyone, despite all my experience with intercommunicative technology." Dick paused, "I'm afraid the international grid is dead. As is NASA, the military, and the police were just a joke! You know this means we're basically dead."
Slightly taken back by his response, she took a moment to stumble to her feat. "Jesus! Look I appreciate that this is hard for you, but imagine all the other people that have lost loved ones in this situation. Imagine my mum, she's in a wheel chair! I want to break down even though that's not like me at all, I have to bite my lip and accept it if we want to find the rest of our team! You realise that with the League gone, we're the next best thing and that's our priority. We're even better equipped than most people!?"
"I- I, well, you're right." He responded. A little disgruntled from the harsh truth, "What's the guarantee they're still–"
"Get traught, or get dead." Simple and plain, the words left her mouth confidently.
"You're so right." he realised that the entire time he'd been sitting down looking up at her and too stood up, "we've been here a good couple of hours now, let's pack it in for tonight and try and get some rest. We'll figure out what to do tomorrow."
Behind them, the sun finally set. Darkness closed in adding to the sense of unease about the situation. The wind too had picked up, as a typical summer evening would. It was anything but typical though; the wind masked the cries of the dead. The walking dead that fed off of the flesh of the living, they both felt blind and exposed a top the roof of Gotham Academy's gym.
June 19th Starlabs:
"Luther, how kind of the founder of our recent project to pay us a visit upon completion of it." A wiry dark haired man in wide glasses, wearing a 'Head of Science Department' badge beamed and cupped his hands in a business-like fashion.
"James Deacon, it's always a pleasure." A wry smile edged its way to the corners of his lips, "Much so is the witnessing of the completion of my investments." Spoke Luther placing his hands firmly atop the outstretched one of Deacon's.
"Please do follow me; General Reid will be joining us for the presentation shortly." Deacon ushered.
"Gentlemen, scientists and journalists, it gives me great pleasure to present to you the fruit of our labours, of which could not have been undertaken without the generous donation of Mr Lex Luther himself. The military's cooperation with us has been remarkable, together we have created and completed project 'Military Bio-weapon', it is sure to be the greatest development in bio technology of our time. From here on out, we will no longer have to rely on the Justice League to win our wars. Matters are for once, in our own hands. Now please, witness history being made. Tea and biscuits will be made available afterwards." General Reid announced.
Two soldiers dressed menacingly in deep green jungle cameo and dark steel toe boots approached the presentation podium, in front of them a tall muscular man with a snake like appearance and tattoos covering the majority of the surface area of his body, was being walked with obvious restraints. He wore an orange jumpsuit with 'DA' printed on the front in large black letters.
Two soldiers dressed menacingly in deep green jungle cameo and dark steel toe boots approached the presentation podium, in front of them a tall muscular man with a snake like appearance and tattoos covering the majority of the surface area of his body, was being walked with obvious restraints. He wore an orange jumpsuit with 'DA' printed on the front in large black letters.
"Now this man is on death row," continued the general, "details needn't be stated but he is our subject for this project." The larger of the two soldiers removed a syringe from a tray on a nearby silver catering table and registered a position in which he could administer it the contents or the syringe via the vein in the prisoner's neck. "Now the drug will take twenty-nine seconds to take effect and once it does, we will leave a ten second period in which you will witness the permanent effects of the drug. Those with a weak or nervous disposition are encouraged to look away after those ten seconds have passed." The syringe was plunged into the man's neck.
Foul screams of aggravation and pain were let loose from the prisoner, seconds passed and those screams turned to howls of bloodlust and murderous intent. Gasps of repulsion left the mouths of some of the audience members. The prisoner crippled, only to be dragged to his feet by the two soldiers as his skin faded and he began to look dead on his feet. Then he went quiet.
"Now general, who do you propose to use this outrageous drug on?" A stocky young reporter pressed.
"Ahh, now we plan to administer the drug to fifty death row inmates at the Military penitentiary and contain them in a high profile facility in an isolated – nameless – location until they can be used…" The general was broken off and others caught off-guard by a sickening sudden scream as the man twisted violently in his chains, unbalancing both soldiers. The shorter dark skinned soldier reached for his pistol attached to his back pocket, but lighting fast, the prisoner twisted his body an unnatural fashion until he was facing the soldier head on. He lunged and bit into the soldier's throat releasing a spray of deep red blood into the auditorium, his head rolled back in the prisoner's jaws and his body dropped forward so the he was being semi suspended by the apparent vice like grip of the now non-human creature.
Journalists screamed and fainted as the persons making the audience fled the building rapidly. A rush of soldiers flooded the room and opened fire on the thing. Apparently not affected by the lead in its chest it continued to turn to the next soldier who was frozen to the spot and grab at him, biting savagely into his left shoulder whilst the poor soldier's body shook violently. Blood bubbled out of the wound splashing into the faces of both the thing and the draining man. Behind the scene of bloodshed and horror, the body of the dark soldier rose, neck tendons were leaking out causing the body to become unbalanced whilst it lashed out at an unfortunate member of the audience.
The large room was soon covered in crimson, splashed up the white washed walls and spilled across the floor as if a pipe had burst. Empty shell cases added to the bloody ruin, mutilated body's laid still for a number of seconds before rising and leaping savagely upon the backs of those still breathing.
I really hope anyone who's reading this can stick with me on this for a bit, I promise it'll get better! Thank you if you have and I'll be publishing the next chapter soon. I've decided that at most I'll post a new chapter every three weeks. But I'm aiming for good consistent updating as fast as!