Sprout to Saviour
Footsteps
Their exit was promptly halted by the appearance of a column of browncoats, a convoy carrying a new set of supplies. The browncoats spotted the mess of smoke and charred metal that indicated the former position of the warehouse, staring dumbly at the wreckage. Lathyrus could only smile at the cannon fodder. This wasn't like before - they had open sight and could rain fire for some time before the browncoats actually got into range. This advantage was strengthened by the fact that it didn't occur to the zombies to drop their load in order to go faster. Carnegiea adopted the closest thing to a suspicious frown that her prickly countenance could host. This seemed to be too easy. Zomboss could afford to sustain horrendous casualties to get what he wanted.
Never-the-less, they continued their advance. The terrain made an ambush infeasible for the time being, so advancing was a safe bet. This continued until the party encountered a small abandoned town. They stopped near the entrance, Dionaea offering to scout in advance. The others understood the reasoning implied. If all went south, he could tunnel out, and the tighter spaces would serve him well. Dionaea was also itching for a zombie more appealing to his palette than a basic grunt.
Ten minutes past, and the chomper turned up nothing. Suddenly, at the very edge of his hearing, he detected a sequence of beeps. Instinctively, Dionaea sought the underground, and that became his saving race as a rocket struck the point he was standing on three seconds before. Dionaea burrowed in the opposite direction and surfaced such that an RV stood between him and wherever the source of the rocket was. Unfortunately, popping out of either side of the RV would have opened him up to fire, and, unaware of the distance of his potential assassin, he opted to keep his head down and make a break for it in a few minutes when he could burrow again.
Growing impatient, Lathyrus followed Dionaea down the streets, frantically searching. His demeanour brightened as he found Dionaea standing behind an RV, and, looking around, saw the zombie pinning him. This thing was not a rank-and-file drone. It sported a vaguely militaristic uniform complete with a hard-wearing green hat. A weird tube was strapped on it's back, and, conspicuously, one of it's boots was absent from a foot, instead hanging off of it's...
...gun.
Was this one of Zomboss' supersoldiers? The way it carried itself was dignified, methodical...intelligent. Standing in front of the RV, it continued to train it's gun, ready to fire as soon as Dionaea emerged. Lathyrus thought to himself that the zombie seemed to fail to account for one thing. Dionaea peeked out, spotting the zombie. It was in strike range, he thought. The zombie spotted him and began to bombard him with pellets, the pinpoint assault dealing considerable damage before the soil became the chomper's shield and sword. Dionaea surged forward, the earth being churned as he went, but just before he could make the killing bite, his quarry pressed a button, triggering the weird tube to shoot a jet of flame downward and reveal itself as a rocket pack. The soldier leaped upward from the force and planted it's feet firmly on a nearby rooftop, out of reach, and reloaded.
Startled, Dionaea was forced to emerge, and retreated to get back behind the RV, taking fire. Lathyrus decided that now would be a good time to intervene, and communicated the message by attempting to clean the soldier's clock with a pea. Unfortunately, the zombie spotted the pea and decided his clock didn't particularly need. Thus, he rolled backward, the projectile sailing harmlessly over his head. Lathyrus realised to his distaste that the battle was easily out of his favour. Once again, he activated hyper, darting forward and taking a mighty leap that landed him next to the soldier.
Lathyrus fired a bean bomb, but unfortunately his placement was just a little off and the attack rolled off the house. The fighters began to trade fire.
On hearing the struggle, Dionaea turned back around to witness it, and grinned triumphantly as he saw Lathyrus run circles around his opponent. However, the smile faded as the boost burned off. Back at normal speed, Lathyrus was no longer able to effectively dodge the pellets, which quickly chipped his good condition away, inflicting numerous lesions on his head and stem. Meanwhile, Lathyrus struggled to score critical hits and was forced to rely on the mediocre blast damage. Overcome with concern for his comrade, Dionaea attempted to intervene, but his goop was hardly ideal at this distance and angle - it merely caught on a shingle and left a stain.
With no change in expression, the soldier grabbed a canister and hurled it at his feet. Immediately, a sinister purple gas leaked out, the putrescent scent of which was so nauseating that it oppressed the will and burned the nostrils (even though such organs didn't actually exist on peashooters). Lathyrus felt as though his soul itself was being assaulted. Blinded and thoroughly repulsed, he lurched uncomfortably, grasped by a fit of choking and coughing. Pinpointing his location by the sound, the zombie knelt over, and with a few beeps...
Dionaea growled in rage as the ordnance hit home, felling Lathyrus in one shot. That done, the soldier rocketed off into the distance and weaved around the houses. Losing the zombie's trail, Dionaea emitted a mournful howl before heading back to Carnegiea and Helianthus with a heavy heart. As they spotted him, he signalled them to follow him and led them to the site of the battle. Helianthus found to her horror that there was no way to reach him to revive him. She looked at Dionaea hopefully, but Dionaea shook his head. They only had one flare, and they couldn't afford to summon help now, in case things got even worse later. Dave didn't have the fuel to keep watch over them for the rest of the mission, and when he did go back to refuel, it was likely that he wouldn't find them again.
The only solution was to press on. Justice could be dealt at a later time. If they succeeded, they would use the help to get Lathyrus back up (and wouldn't he be annoyed if he got revived only to find out that he missed most of the action?). They moved on, morale, strength and heads all lowered. There could be no separation from now on.
The group hightailed it through the town, more vigilant than ever, without encountering Lathyrus' nemesis. At the end, they found a valley. A bridge to the right ran the entire length of the chasm, but it had far too many zombies to assault - including the soldier, who must have just taken his position after running away, and a large quantity of rock-carrying browncoats, coneheads and bucketheads. They hadn't been spotted yet (although it was almost certain the zombies knew they were coming). Carnegiea could snipe, but they'd be spotted, pinned down and ultimately picked off. This was not a favourable situation. The only option was to descend down the ravine under the watch of the bridge and exploit any concealment offered by the trees on the way down.
Things are looking down, but don't worry too much for the plants - this story is rated K+, after all. The next update will hopefully come quicker.
Dorylus signing off.