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Winslow High School
Random corridor

If there was one thing that I didn't expect when I had decided to kill the demons was that it would be so... So...

So easy.

In my hunt through this part of the school, I had mostly found zombies. A lot of them were similar to the first one I had killed, all of them looking like withered corpses, wearing tattered clothing of their old lives and some of them had sharp claws. Some wore tatters of uniforms, some wore ripped suits but so many had ripped hoodies, tattered dresses, and destroyed gang uniforms.
Part of me was horrified at the fact I was massacring my former classmates but I took comfort in the idea that they looked pretty beyond saving as I stomped on one unfortunate zombie's neck, severing it with a crunch and decapitating the zombie.

These zombies were surprisingly easy to kill. Yeah, shooting them in the body took a while but everyone knew you just didn't shoot zombies in the chest. You shot them in the head. Even in the real world, this proved to be completely sage advice as a shot to the head dropped these ones just as well. When you took in the fact that they didn't dodge and moved at what seemed to be a snail's pace, then making them re-dead was pathetically easy. Even coming to blows with them was an easy victory despite their surprising strength and claws. Their swings were so clumsy and their lunges and bites were so obvious that even someone like me, who had not done much physical activity at all, could avoid those strikes pretty easily. Whatever had made the zombies seemed to make them a lot more fragile than I guess a normal human was.

Either that or it was quite surprising on how the average spine reacted with being slammed into the thin part of a locker door.
Hmm. One would think that I would have been more upset at musing on how easy it was to kill my former, fellow man but It was at least thirty minutes and over twenty zombies later and I could see that, whatever they had been, they were remorseless monsters now.

One thing that did confuse me was that whenever I killed one of these zombies, they would disintegrate... Somehow...
At least the Janitors won't have to clean up that much,
I thought. It would really suck to have to go looking for the bits of that zombie that had been crushed by that collapsed locker.

My internal musings were interrupted as I heard a growl to my left. Looking in that direction, I saw another three of the zombies slowly shambling towards me.

I immediately turned towards them and raised my looted pistol.
BANG
BANG

I fired twice, pain shooting up my arm from the recoil. A one-handed grip was not the best for shooting a pistol with, but considering I didn't know how to use a two-handed grip at all, it was better than potentially messing up both of my arms. Besides, The recoil has started to hurt less and less as I killed these monsters.

Two of the zombies, apparently too stupid to dodge, took their assigned bullets directly in their heads. They started to collapse, undead muscles fighting with the lack of coordination from their now re-dead brains. I didn't pay attention to them however, I was running towards the last one.

It was better to save ammo after all.

As I reached the zombie, I felt my now ever-present anger erupt. My free fist flew and punched the zombie in its withered stomach area, guarded only by a once tight t-shirt. The force behind my punch stunned it, allowing me to Crush its ankle with a kick. It fell to the ground in an undignified heap. I raised my foot above its head and Stomped down. With a crack, the front of the skull collapsed and the zombie went still.

Once again, the hallway was quiet and I enjoyed the feeling that crushing the zombie gave me. It was weird, but every time I had killed a demon close up, I had this feeling of strength. I felt stronger, I felt faster and I felt the multitude of wounds I had received feel better. Sometimes, when I had checked, I saw that some of the wounds were missing, even though I could have sworn I had actually gotten them. I wasn't complaining about this, though. I knew that I personally didn't have powers, but it didn't matter to me if a parahuman was following me around, healing me, or if killing the demons was actually doing it.
All it was doing was helping me put an end to this.

Again my musings were cut off by a large noise, but this time, it was a gunshot. I dived into one of the nearby classrooms and killed the zombies in there quickly.

Ah, I mused. There are the other zombies.

Unfortunately, whatever had been reanimating the dead, wasn't content to simply stick to one type of zombie. I had almost mistaken them for human until I had seen the gouged out chest. And the Glowing red eyes. And the loud roar followed by a procession of bullets. Frankly, they were rather annoying. These zombies were smarter than the others and all the ones I had found used guns. They also seemed to be capable of focusing on one thing for more than a minute, which seemed amazing compared to their shambling relatives.

There was one good thing, I thought as a bullet hit the door to the classroom I had ran inside. They still aren't that bright.

I had only killed about ten so far, but they seemed to have very little patience, they didn't dodge and they were excessively bad shots. However, I did notice that essentially all of this type of zombie were former gang members or security guards.

Did this mean that they were this bad shots in life as well? I asked myself.
Ignoring my internal questions, I looked at my current opponents. There were currently two.

One of them looked similar to the one's I had killed earlier. He was about as tall as me, Bald, Asian and wearing Azn Bad Boys colours. His skin was deathly pale, the glowing red eyes creating a nice contrast with it. He didn't have much of a chest anymore, a large amount of flesh missing from it. It was to the point that I could see his ribs and even a small amount of spine.

The other one was a surprise to me. She was a tall, blond girl that I recognised as one of the girls that hang around with Emma Barnes. Her skin was almost ashen with a large chunk of skin on the cheek missing, exposing the teeth underneath. She wore a blood splattered, white mini skirt with a tight, sleeveless, light blue top that explained where the blood came from, through a bloody hole in her chest, staining the shirt. She was also barefoot, the zombie most likely removing the high-heels she probably died in with an outfit like that.
Unlike the gang zombie, the girl held a surprisingly large pistol in both of her hands in a way that felt like she knew what she was doing. The difference in apparent skill was amazing, the gang zombie holding his gun in a loose, one-handed grip, despite the bloodthirsty look in their eyes being the same.

They were both steadily advancing to where I was hiding, too cautious to charge towards a possible trap and too bloodthirsty to wait for me to come out. A large fire behind them giving their movement a sinister air.

They didn't have to wait long.

I exploded out of cover, full sprint and brought the gun holding my pistol to aim at the female zombie as I believed that she was the most dangerous one of the two. As soon as I had run out of the room, they had both started shooting. My suspicions were soon proven true as she managed to hit my shoulder, making another hole in my black jacket, while her partner shot wildly, hitting the walls and floor. I fought against the pain that had engulfed my shoulder and readjusted my aim. I fired the pistol and the Female zombie's head jerked back, the zombie collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.
Smiling at my victory, I aimed at the Asian zombie and pulled the trigger. A Click was heard instead of a bang. I had no more bullets for this pistol so I just dropped it. I was only a few steps away from the zombie anyway, I could kill it without a pistol.

I was only a step away as the zombie fired again and I felt a blossoming pain in my chest. Absently noting that a shot like that could probably be fatal and would put me out of commission on a normal day, I fought through the pain and knocked away the zombie's gun with a backhand. I Punched it in the face and I felt its jaw break under my hand. It turned back to me and growled, the moderate fire I had only noticed now was causing the eyes to take on a sinister glow. I didn't hesitate.

I reached with both hands into the zombie's wound, grabbing the spine. Then, with a moment of resistance, I Ripped the spine apart.
And I tore the zombie in two.

Now in two halves, the zombie fell to the ground. The top half of the zombie still moved, however, and it made a sound as though it was whining in pain.
I felt no pity for it, it was willing to kill anyone it came across. And so, as though I was kicking a piece of garbage, I shoved it into the inferno with my foot.

I turned around and walked to the other zombie to see if it had anything worth taking, ignoring the sounds the now-flaming zombie made as it died.
Another good thing about these zombies is that they are sources of ammo. I mused to myself.

I searched around for a while and found the Female zombie's gun. It vaguely looked like a Desert Eagle that I had seen in one of the FPS games I had played last year. I searched the zombie and discovered that it was wearing a backpack that would have looked cute if it hadn't been stained with blood. Inside, I had found bullets, a lot of bullets. That was good, I was getting tired of having to pick up a new pistol every time I emptied the one I was currently holding. After taking the magazines of bullets and putting them in my pockets, both Jeans and jacket pockets, I stood up and looked around.

The corridor was quiet again, the two zombies were dead and not disintegrating, similarly to the other gun zombies I had killed, although one was on its way to becoming ash. The zombie-fueled fire crackled calmly. The walls were surprisingly clean and there were only a few bodies that I could see. Not seeing anything noteworthy or related to something I should deal with, I decided to move on.

I didn't see the two bullets that were lying on the floor, covered in blood, as I walked away.

As I walked down the hall, I reflected on all that I had killed so far. Zombies were the most common monsters by far, If this was a video game I'd say that they were used to essentially keep you busy in between more challenging enemies. Both types of Zombies were easy to deal with if you knew how. The moment I had a gun, the withered ones were essentially harmless and the Gun zombies were so reckless that they were normally only a threat if you were as well. One thing I had noticed was when I had faced both types together was that trying to cover shoot was suicide.
The Gun zombies would keep you pinned down with bullets while the others would slowly move towards you as a group. And if there was one thing zombie games had taught me was that you didn't want to get stuck in a mob of hungry zombies. So that meant I should do the logical thing and treat this situation like an old-school FPS.

I never stuck to cover, I never stayed in one place for long and mobility was always a priority. It may have seemed like madness in a fight where there were real guns being fired at you and you couldn't really dodge bullets going at slightly slower than the speed of sound...
But I hadn't lost a fight yet, so I must be doing something right.
The zombies couldn't handle a moving target and they couldn't handle chasing someone significantly faster than a walking pace, both things I had taken advantage of.
Part of me was horrified that I was treating a life or death situation like a video game, but a large part of me was quoting the phrase "If it's stupid but it works, then it isn't stupid."

The demons I had come to calling "Imps", they were another reason that staying in one place was a bad idea. I had only faced two since the one I had killed nearby Bethany, but each was a fight for my life. Most of the pistols I had found didn't have the stopping power to break through the demon's natural armor, they hurt the things but I would have had to rely on precise shots in between the Natural armor or beating it to death. Both of them risky. Firstly, they were armoured and I wasn't. That meant I would have to be more careful with my shots and avoid getting hit. They knew this and thus, made it their mission in life to harass me. They threw fireballs (that I could dodge) but they also tried to gore me with their claws (which was a lot harder to dodge). They were agile and intelligent and they were essentially everything that the zombies weren't.

What really frustrated me was that they weren't even that tough. I had managed to get a bullet past the armour once and it had almost completely died from that, so the problem was that the guns I had were too weak to get through the bone and my arms were too weak to crush that same bone. Hopefully, the large pistol I had picked up from that zombie would allow me to kill the imps a lot more quickly and with less hassle.

As I reached an intersection I heard a low growl to my right. I saw a Gun zombie lying on it's back, part of the ceiling had collapsed and had trapped it against the floor. It struggled weakly against the wreckage pinning it to the floor, oblivious to the metal rod that had impaled it. What had drawn my attention, though, was the weapon lying just out of its reach. It was a pump action shotgun. I approached the zombie and it got even more frantic in its attempts to get free, staining its E88 uniform with even more blood. When I come to be a few steps away, it gave up on getting free and focused on trying to grab me. I ignored it and picked up the fallen weapon. I felt a grin creep onto my face. I still knew nothing about guns, but the shotgun felt powerful and that made me happy deep inside for some reason. Maybe it would help with the imps?

Again, my musings were interrupted by a noise but this time, it was a high pitched roar than one that came from a human throat.
Speak of the demon, and he shall appear. I silently thought to myself, grin not loosening from my face at all.
Come get me.

The imp skidded to a halt into the middle of the hall from around the corner. After it stopped, It faced me fully with sheer menace in its crouched posture. It roared at me, hate in its glowing eyes and a sneer on its features. It thought it was scary. I thought it was cute.

It charged, forgoing any fireballs and straight attempting to eviscerate me with its claws.
I waited for it, my new shotgun aiming in its direction as it ran towards me. When it was merely a few steps away, I stepped to the side and communicated my displeasure with it by shooting it in the face. With a loud bang from my shotgun, Its head practically evaporated and the body slid past me.

My grin turned savage. You and me, I thought to the shotgun, are going to be great friends.
My grin evaporated as I realised that this shotgun would be one of my only friends and that significantly brought down my mood.

I turned to the zombie that was still trapped underneath the rubble, It was still trying and failing to escape and tearing itself to ribbons in the process. I went and stood above it. It shifted its attention to me and tried to reach for me. It was too far away however and ended up flailing its bloodstained, pale arms at me. Its eyes still held the bloodlust of its fellows even though a part of its bald head had cracked open.

"I'm sorry, you know," I said to the zombie, or maybe to who it used to be. "You were probably a piece of shit. No doubt about it considering you joined the Empire." I paused and looked at my feet. "It feels weird talking to a dead guy. I need to say this to someone. Aaaand you don't seem to be going anywhere, soo." I looked back at it. "You don't deserve this. No one does. Even if Winslow sucked, these people didn't deserve to die like this."

I raised my shotgun at its head. "So, for what its worth, I'm sorry. And I'm going to kill the things that did this."
I fired the gun and the zombie's head exploded.

I checked the area for ammo and found a lot for my shotgun. As I was leaving I heard distant gunshots and explosions.
It seemed that someone had joined the party.
But, for the moment, I still had demons to kill.

I pumped the shotgun.

-
Earlier
PRT APC 026
On-route to Winslow High

Captain Bill Renard of the PRT was not having a good day.

Some lunatic cape had set some creatures loose and were massacring the students and staff of Winslow High School. That bit of information could ruin anyone's day but it was especially bad for the men and women of the PRT. This was just another example of why capes were so dangerous to everyone around them. Trigger events were common knowledge in the PRT, the worst day of a parahuman's life where they got super powers and possibly severe mental disorders, but no trigger event could justify this in Renard's eyes. To him, this was just another showing of how dangerous capes were, they thought of nothing but of themselves and what they wanted and damn anyone that may get hurt. Yes, there were exceptions to this rule, like most of the heroes in the protectorate, but you just had to take one look outside to see that there weren't many exceptions at all. There was a reason that the heroes were always outnumbered by the villains after all.

But now, thanks to Shadow Stalker, the PRT could put a stop to this before the tragedy got any worse. Unfortunately, there weren't any of the Protectorate nearby to respond except for Armsmaster and it was going to be some time until he could make it to the school. But as he looked around at the heavily armed and armored PRT officers inside the PRT issue Armored Personnel Car, Renard felt that they could probably deal with this situation without the Protectorate.

"Listen up!" Renard yelled, the officers in the APC paying immediate attention to him. "As you know, We are here to resolve the situation at Winslow High. We have received intel that the situation is lethal and has resulted in at least a hundred fatalities according to our Thinker support."
"Sir," spoke up one of the officers in the back, wearing the heavy blue riot armor that everyone else wore, leaving her almost unrecognisable except for her slightly shorter height. "What are the rules of engagement sir?" Lieutenant Cheryl Atkinson asked?
"We are going in lethally. No foam launchers for this mission. The Director sees our priority as, and I agree, to save as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible. Thus, we don't waste time protecting a mass murderer, no matter what age they are."
Renard's explanation got nods from all the officers. It made no sense to risk civilian lives to try and non-lethally apprehend someone who didn't care about those lives. If they came quietly, then it was good. If they didn't...

Well, no one would miss them.

Soon enough, Renard felt the APC come to a stop. The other officers, feeling the same, got up from their seats and did a last minute check on their weapons. Most of them had different models of assault rifles while a few of them checked their chosen shotguns and even fewer were strapping riot shields to their arms. Atkinson even had an impressive SPAS 15 shotgun.
After a second, the last minute checks were finished and the officers got into position to storm out of the APC. Renard felt a surge of pride in his officers, they were always so professional even in the face of such a tense situation. Renard signaled to his troops, and as one they stormed out of the APC. Outside was deceptively calm, Renard's APC was not the only one there and each one's complement of PRT officers was disembarking simultaneously. All in all, there were four APCs, over a hundred PRT troops and an eerily quiet school grounds.

"Alright people, form up!" Renard shouted to the officers. After everyone had formed up into ranks, then Renard continued. "We will divide the school into sectors. Standing orders are to protect the students at all costs. Non-lethal is not recommended."
"Sir, Yes Sir!" the officers collectively, answered.
"Lieutenant Fawkes, Your squad will create a perimeter around the school. Lieutenant Dawson, Your squad will take the western side. Lieutenant Atkinson, your squad will take the East side and Lieutenant Patel, Your squad will accompany me to search for the hostile Parahuman on the third floor. We will breach together and we will split up after entry."
"Sir, yes sir!"
"Good, Move out men!"

As one, the PRT officers got into formation and converged to the main entrance while Lieutenant Fawkes organised his officers to secure the grounds.
As the officers got half way to the main entrance, Renard shouted, "Hold!". The officers all stopped simultaneously, all of them holding their weapons towards the school entrance while their eyes scanned the crumbling and dirty walls of the three-floored high-school.
He could just barely hear it, but there was definitely something happening behind the closed door of the main entrance of the school. It was faint, but he could hear... screaming?

All of a sudden, the entrance burst open and a horde of students of all types ran out. All of them looked like they might have shit their pants collectively.

And seeing what followed them, Renard couldn't blame them.

It was a horde of withered corpses but was still fleshy as though their flesh had gone necrotic. They were wearing the tattered remains of clothes of all shapes and sizes. Anyone might have thought that these were more of the creatures they heard about from Shadow Stalker, but Renard, with over five years of experience in the PRT, knew that it wasn't the case.
They are the students... he thought. Something had happened to turn them into these creatures, possibly related to the oppressive feeling in the air.

One of the students hadn't made it far enough from his "zombified" peers and the assembled PRT officers were treated to a disturbing view of one of the zombies lunging at him and tearing his throat out.
"Shit!" Renard exclaimed. He toggled his radio. "Fawkes, secure the students. Get them organised for emergency services!" toggling his radio off, he continued. "Everyone else, pick a target and prepare to fire on my orders!"

He didn't need to hear any confirmation of his order being heard. They were the PRT and they would do their job to save these people. As the officers took aim, Renard took aim with his M4 assault rifle at a particular zombie that seemed to have flesh growing into its tattered Gang uniform, the colours saturated by all the blood and it also had particularly red teeth.

"Ready!" Renard shouted to his men. Victims or monsters, it wasn't worth risking the lives of the students.

"Captain Renard, This is Chief Director Costa Brown. DO not fire on the targets! Repeat, Do not fire on the transformed civilians!" A stern, female voice came over the radio unexpectedly.

Renard stalled, his mind doing whirls. Why?
Why did she not want us to shoot them? Former humans or not they were killing people!

"With all due respect, Chief Director, What are you doing?! These monsters are clearly indiscriminate and have no qualms with taking innocent lives!" Came the exceptionally angry voice of Director Emily Piggot, voicing Renard's concerns.

"Director Piggot, we have no idea what we are dealing with here and it would be best to not stir the hornet's nest until we have a better understanding of the situation."

Captain Renard couldn't remain silent any longer. "Mam, Civilian lives are at risk. As PRT officers... We can't just ignore that."

"You have your orders, Captain." The Chief Director said, a note of finality in her voice.

Renard moved his attention back to the situation. The PRT officers were nervously looking towards him and the approaching zombies. The zombies had taken note of the heavily armoured PRT troopers and were making their way to them, ignoring the scrambling students for the most part. Most of the students had gotten to Fawkes' perimeter and were being organised into an area to wait for evacuation. Renard could also hear ambulance sirens in the distance.

He hated it, but he had his orders and he kept this in mind as he watched the transformed civilians shamble closer. His heart filled with dread as he saw more spilling from the entrance to the school. There were over two hundred of them now.

Renard ordered his men to stand his ground, he would follow orders but they could go to hell the moment another life was in danger.
He just hoped that his orders would change soon.

-

PRT Headquarters
Emily Piggot's office

Emily Piggot, Director of the PRT ENE, was close to erupting in rage.

She had seen what that monster had done to that kid, those things were a menace to anything around them and needed to be put down. If the PRT squads had been outfitted for non-lethal takedowns then it would have been fine. But foam launchers and munitions took some time to equip and outfit and with the implied casualties from Shadow Stalker's message... There wasn't time for that.

In a situation like this, every second counted and now with the "zombies" blocking the way and the orders from Costa Brown meant that the troops couldn't get through the door and more students inside could be brutally murdered at any point. She had no idea what the Chief Director was thinking, they were the PRT and to ignore a risk to human life like that was completely against what the PRT, what any law-enforcement agency stood for. Emily knew something was going on with the Chief Director but she didn't know what.

She shifted her uncomfortably large frame in her seat. It was caused by her, unfortunately, failing kidneys. It was a gift she had received from Ellisburg and another gift she had received from there was her intuition. She just knew that something was wrong with this situation, it felt familiar to Ellisburg before things had gone wrong. This was the symptom of a larger problem and she just couldn't not do anything about it. She needed to act before this threatened the city as a whole. She quickly accessed the comm system in her terminal and typed in Armsmaster's comm code and waited. While she waited, she nervously glanced at Renard's helmet footage, watching as the horde got slowly closer to her officers.

"This is Armsmaster, what is the situation, Director?" A neutral, deep voice spoke as the comm channel was established.

"Armsmaster, I need your authorization to help me countermand orders from Cheif Director Costa Brown that pose a danger to the students at Winslow High School."

There was a moment of silence, "Please elaborate on the situation." He said with urgency in his tone

Emily smiled at Armsmaster's insistence. That meant his mind was in the right place in this situation, on the students' wellbeing. "The Chief Director has ordered a no-fire order on transformed civilians at the school, despite them blocking the way of the PRT squads on site and their apparent blood lust, this includes video evidence of them killing fleeing students. I wish to use Directive 32 to countermand the no-fire order and allow the squads to enter the building and save any students that may be trapped in there."

There was silence on the other end of the line where Emily knew Armsmaster was thinking. Directive 32 was put in place to stop hilariously bad top brass decisions in critical situations. It allows the Highest ranked PRT and Protectorate officials in the field to countermand higher ranked individuals orders if that superior is not out in the field with them. However, the decision always faces scrutiny and investigation afterwards and the highest PRT and Protectorate member in the field must agree to use Directive 32. Frankly, Emily felt that Costa Brown's order is so nonsensical that no one can probably blame her, let alone charge her with insubordination if she told Renard to ignore his orders and fire. Directive 32 was made for this very reason however and despite what she thought about parahumans, Armsmaster was an exception. His desire to gain personal recognition is not the most altruistic of motives, but it wasn't that different to ordinary PRT officers and he had chosen to be a hero after all. All in all, Emily believed that Colin Wallis would choose to do the right thing over orders if they ever conflicted.

It was another second of silence until she got her answer. "I agree to that use of Directive 32, Director. I will be there momentarily to provide support at Winslow. Have we received word of Shadow Stalker's whereabouts?"

Emily grimaced. "No, we don't. She is most likely still in the school."

-
Winslow High School
PRT Formation

Renard was getting nervous. The zombies were getting ever closer with their slow, shambling steps but that wasn't what was bothering him. It wasn't even the constant growls, shrieks and hissing coming from the horde either. Past the zombies, he saw something that, at the same time made sense in a "Fuck you" kind of way and didn't in a "That isn't a power" kind of way. At the entrance, numerous figures were gathering and on closer inspection, they all looked like civilians. That is if you ignored the blood red eyes and growling. They seemed to be a mismatch of students, teachers and security officers with gang members making up the majority of that fraction of students. All of them had glowing red eyes and a lethal wound somewhere, ranging from torn throats to complete holes in their chest with one even being burnt to such a degree that the skin was charred black. They stared at the assembled PRT officers, aggression and bloodlust evident in what was left in their features. It seemed that the universe just had to have two different types of zombies.

And what was worse? All of the new undead were armed.
Handguns, sub-machine guns, and shotguns. Every one of these new targets all had some type of gun.

However, Renard felt that, even though this felt like a logical escalation of the day, there was something more to all of this. These transformations, zombies and whatever creatures started this mess didn't feel like the result of powers. Powers were often very specific and to have so much fantastical stuff in one place meant that it wasn't a single parahuman that was responsible for this. It was either a team of parahumans or something else entirely...

It was another few moments of waiting, tension filling the air. The zombies approached ever steadily, they were close enough so that Renard could see the drool and occasionally blood that drooled from their lipless mouths and the details on their tattered clothing. The Undead by the entrance had begun to aim their Renard knew he couldn't wait any longer without putting lives at risk. Insubordination or not, he needed to tell his men to fire.

As he was about to give the order, he was interrupted by a welcome voice.
"Attention, I am invoking Directive 32. All PRT squads are cleared to open fire" came the voice of Director Piggot over the radio.

Renard grinned, he wasn't going to be charged with insubordination for protecting people after all.
"You heard the Director! Open Fire!" Renard yelled.

As one the PRT opened fire, and the horde evaporated. Zombies fell in droves, some torn apart by the sheer force of the bullets that slammed into them, others stumbled around headless, others fell with nothing but a neat hole in their withered skulls. The Undead by the entrance had started to open fire as well but their accuracy was horrible. Renard saw one of the bullets hit a PRT officer in the shoulder, where the bullet deflected off the PRT-issue riot armor. By now the Armed zombies were running out of the entrance but some of the officers had started to focus fire on them. They were falling by the dozen, the ones behind them shooting into the PRT as they leapt over their dead fellows. Renard himself took aim at one of them and fired. The chosen zombie's head jerking back, a hole erupting in the head of the former student, the zombie's drug affected features relaxing as the former Merchant collapsed, blood soaking the dirty clothes he wore.

The battle was going well, the zombies were being ground down like wheat. Renard could see the end in sight, the number of zombies were trickling down, they didn't have the density to make a horde anymore and had spread out. From a horde of hundreds to groups of a dozen. In maybe a minute or so, Renard felt that they should manage to clear out the last of the monsters.

That was of course, where things started going wrong.

"AAAAAGH" came a panicked shout. Renard looked in that direction and saw one of the PRT troops had somehow caught fire. The trooper leapt down to the ground and rolled as she tried to put the fire out. While she was trying to put the fire out, Renard looked around for whatever did it.
There! He thought as he spotted a light brown creature with a fleshy purple back clinging to one of the walls of the school. It saw that Renard had seen it and let out a roar. Renard quickly aimed at the creature and fired. Unfortunately, the shots missed as the creature dropped from the wall and ran to the side. During its run, it gathered a freaking fireball in its hand and threw it at Renard. He ducked low, the fireball flying over his head. Raising his head again, he was confronted close-up by one of the withered zombies. It hissed, red staining it's visible teeth and a tattered blue dress was hanging awkwardly off of it. It lunged, claws reaching out clumsily. Renard ducked underneath the swipe and smacked the zombie on the temple with the but of his gun. He heard something crack and the zombie reeled back, stunned. Renard took the opportunity and aligned the barrel of the gun to the zombie's head and fired. The zombie collapsed, its head sporting a new hole.

Ignoring the corpse for a moment, he scanned the battlefield
and could find no trace of the creature. "Attention, we have new targets in the fight, they are using the transformed civilians as cover and are weaving in and out of the battle. Look out for an organically armored, light brown creature with purple flesh. Beware they also have the ability to throw fire." Renard told his men of his assessment. By now, the previously flailing PRT officer had managed to put out the fire and she was now standing up. She quickly rolled to the side as she noticed another fireball heading toward her. It missed her by inches and splashed against the grass, torching it. Renard's eyes followed the path of the fireball and found that there were more of the creatures, over 15, on the roof of the school. They stared down at the PRT troops, hate evident in their posture and Renard heard them all roar simultaneously. Renard was familiar with such sounds thanks to the number of primal thinking parahumans he had dealt with, it was a roar that promised blood and death.

Then the creatures joined in the battle. It went horribly.
Renard absently noted that his tactical assessment was correct, the creatures did use the zombies as cover but it was way more effective than he had feared. The creatures would dart in and attack the PRT officers dealing with the remaining zombies and would distract others so that they didn't notice zombies aiming or creeping in on them. Despite Renard's best efforts at constantly distributing orders and warnings, he still spotted the errant officer taking a lucky shot from an armed zombie, being mobbed and torn apart by unnoticed shambling ones or being struck by a fireball while being distracted and not getting up. He had even seen Patel, having been distracted by an approaching group of zombies, choking on his own blood as a creature ran past him, cutting his throat with its sharp three-fingered claw as it did so.

They were taking casualties, but they were also dishing it out as well. Many couldn't dodge the hordes of bullets that were sent their way by attentive PRT troops. and crumpled as bullets slipped into unarmoured flesh or high caliber rounds punched through their brown carapace. Others didn't have the upper hand in close combat and the PRT dealt with them with devastating strikes, knives or close range shotgun blasts. Atkinson had even clotheslined one of them as it ran past her, put the barrel of her shotgun in the mouth of the prone creature and fired.

The battle continued like this, the PRT taking casualties despite Renard's best efforts as they killed the enemy.
Then, there was a flash of red light and a deep roar that struck despair into the hearts of the PRT officers. Standing where there was the flash, was a large humanoid creature. It stood taller than most people and had grey skin. It had thick corded muscles, large elephant-like feet and its head looked like the skull with no eyes. It had a lipless mouth with human teeth and Its skin was mottled and stretched tight. It had three fingered hands. It heaved its massive chest with every breath.

A nearby PRT officer aimed at it with his shotgun and fired into his chest. A burst of blood erupted from the creature as the buckshot ripped into the creatures flesh.
It didn't fall, however, and looked in the officer's direction and roared in rage. It moved, faster than one would think, and reached the PRT officer in seconds. It's hand reached out and grabbed the officer's head. It lifted the officer with one hand, the officer struggling as his helmet compressed thanks to the creatures grip, and it threw the officer to the ground. A sickening crack and the sound of crunching plastic and metal sounded out as the officer hit the ground.

The creature leapt into another knot of PRT officers, a downward strike crumpling one of the officer's helmet while she collapsed. A backhand hit another officer, throwing him into a group of zombies. The PRT were not idle, however, any officers that were nearby pumped every round they had into the large creature. After it kicked another officer, creating a large dent in the armour and the officer went flying with the sound of broken bones, its multitude of wounds finally took its toll and the creature stumbled for a second before falling over and not rising again.

Just as the PRT were felt relief at the death of the creature, there were more flashes of red light with each revealing another hulking, grey creature similar to the first. The PRT didn't waste any time and open fire on the new arrivals. These creatures waded into the formations of PRT troops, using their immense strength to kill the troopers with ease while taking all of the punishment that they gave out. They inevitably fell through the sheer volume of gunfire but they wrecked a bloody path through the PRT before they did.

Renard was shocked, everything was going wrong. These new creatures needed to be focused on in order to be eliminated quickly, but that left openings for the smaller creatures and zombies and if a trooper fought off the glancing attacks then one of the brutes could blindside them. And it seemed if one of these things blindsided you, your death was a likely outcome.
Renard continued to attack, surrounded by three of his officers and organising his troops into some kind of cohesive unit. They needed to cover each other if they would have any hope of winning this. Just as he was about to call his other men over the radio, a PRT officer bodily landed on top of one of the officers next to Renard while a large grey fist punched a punched another one in the face, breaking the unfortunate trooper's neck. The large creature then spun around and roundhouse kicked the last standing PRT trooper in the chest, denting the officer's chest.

Renard unloaded his rifle into the creature and it took every bullet with almost no reaction but the blood that splattered out of each bullet hole. It then stood up to its full height and backhanded Renard's rifle. Renard felt immense pain shoot up his arm as the gun was thrown from his grip as his right wrist broke. He focused past the pain but it didn't matter as the creature's fist started glowing and it threw and uppercut at Renard's chest. Pain blossomed in Renard's chest as he felt his ribs break and armour crunch into his chest. He flew and bodily landed on his back. He coughed blood as he saw the creature stand over him and roar at him. The creature raised its foot above Renard's head...

And as it put it down, Renard knew no more.

-

Winslow High School
Almost Empty Hallway.

As I shoved a Gun zombie's head into a jagged wreckage of a locker, killing it, I had a horrible thought from listening to the distant gunshots for such a long time.

Maybe the PRT aren't doing so well...

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AN: Over 7k words and i still wanted to add more.
Frankly, I had no idea that this was going to be so big when i started writing and It surprised me.

You know, if you take the DOOMguy (or in this case DOOMgreg) out of DOOM then it becomes an action horror, with no hope of winning and so i tried to put that hopeless and horrific tone into the update in the non-Greg POV, and put nonchalant beserker tendencies into the Greg POV. The PRT is good, but modern military tactics do not do well against the legions of Hell, Hell Knights in particular. I also feel that after this chapter that this is one of the most gory worm stories I've seen recently.

I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
I welcome your comments and critisims.