Rigor Mortis

'Fear'

Fear is the emotion that drives all living things to a certain degree. We build homes because we fear living in the dangerous wilderness. We make weapons because we fear the idea of getting into a fight and losing. We purposely avoid doing things that could hurt us because we fear pain. We keep ourselves safe and secure because we fear death.

It's fear that motivates us to fight, as we know that running isn't a viable solution. Fear motivates us to learn from our mistakes, so we do not suffer the same pain twice over. Fear inspires us to hate the unknown, for the unknown could possibly harm us.

Only a fool wishes to be fearless, for without fear, you would have no survival instinct, no reason to avoid harm, and overall, no reason to live.

XxXxx

Aegis team was closing in on the hostile.

The creature who had been the cause of all the destruction was pinned down inside the local supermarket. The N'jal carrier chased the blood sucker into the building, and hazed the building with fire at the slightest sign that it may try to sneak out. The creature may be able to dodge a few bullets, but the minigun fired hundreds of bullets in a couple seconds. The vampire-like monster could maybe dodge one or two shots before it was caught under enough hot lead to reduce it to a smear. The carrier was maintaining a hover to the left side of the building, which gave it a perfect line of sight to the front, back, and left side of the supermarket. The only means of escape that wouldn't put the monster in line of sight of the carrier was the right side of the building.

Which was the direction Aegis team was moving up from, with the bunker suit bringing up their rear.

The vampire was apparently resilient to damage, considering that the pilot swore that he had hit it at least one time with his minigun, but it was not bulletproof in the slightest. That information was all the augments needed to hear to know they'd bring back the monster in a body bag. Firearms tended to be little more than attention grabbing devices when they dealt with higher threat level creatures. The most notable case was their war with the arrancar, who by nature had skin as hard as reinforced steel and overwhelming strength. The augments had to practically re-learn how to fight in order to deal with the evolved hollows reliably. The augments here were very grateful that this particular mission wouldn't be as stressful now that they knew the weapons they worked so hard to maintain would actually be useful for the engagement.

Though it was here that they made a miscalculation.

The vampire-like monster had somehow established control over the cannibals he made and was ordering them to try and swarm his would-be ambushers. While the creatures weren't much of a threat individually, they did two things that made them quite annoying for the PWCD forces.

The first thing they did was act as cannon fodder. The PWCD soldiers found themselves facing so many of them that they eventually had to conserve ammo by willingly closing into CQC combat with them. While the augments tried to be as efficient as they could in evading the already dead bodies, they wasted precious minutes doing so, which gave the target creature more time to try and slip away.

This brought them to the second point. The blood sucking monster may be hiding among the zombie population, using them as decoys. It could either sneak up on the augments under disguise as a zombie, or do the exact opposite and wander off while the augments were busy. This situation made things nearly impossible, as the PWCD special operators didn't have any equipment with them to single out a specific monster species from a group. They went in under the assumption that they'd be fighting a single powerful monster, not an entire monster army.

The augments of Aegis team 'jogged' toward the super market at 20 miles per hour, easily outpacing any zombies lunging for them. Those that ran at them were only able to do so at a stumbling pace, which made them near useless. The zombies in front of the augments however attempted to try and block them with a wall of bodies. They stumbled forward in a controlled walk, keeping within a set distance of each other. They were almost in rank and file, which meant the creature controlling them knew exactly what they were trying to do, and feared them enough to try and slow them down in order to escape.

The augments of Aegis team were only a block away from the supermarket, so with no other alternative, they picked up their jog into a full-on charge.

The 5 super soldiers began hip firing into the horde, their bullets scoring very few kills, but doing wonders for sending the horde of cannibals to the ground. The 3 assault rifle armed augments fired in paced bursts, sending one or two zombies to the ground with each burst. The heavy machine gun armed augment simply jammed the trigger down, making every oncoming zombie fly off their feet the second his weapon flashed in their direction. The automatic-shotgun armed augment was simply blowing a path through, making every zombie that entered his line of sight get blasted apart in a horrific and bloody manner. They all moved and fired without breaking stride.

When they got within touching distance of the first zombie, Aegis team's squad leader dropped his shoulder and completely blitzed through every zombie in his path. He was over 600 pounds of speeding heavy armor and muscle. The zombies in his path were all tiny in comparison to his massive frame, and were completely plowed over. The rest of the squad followed his example and either plowed through or evaded the zombies as they got around the horde.

The window of the supermarket exploded outward, revealing a creature that looked deceptively human. However, it was much too pale to be considered anything but an albino. It had blood-red eyes that narrowed at them in frustration. Its mouth wasn't as messy as that of the other ghouls, but it had clearly been drinking blood. As well, unlike the others, it clearly displayed intelligence, seeing as it began sprinting toward the fishing docks immediately after spotting the augments. The Aegis team squad leader was immediately on alert as he saw the creature flee in a direction that evaded them, and still gave it cover from the N'jal carrier's nose-mounted gun.

It was the very creature that had caused all this in the first place.

"Target spotted! Don't let him escape!" The squad leader bellowed, pointing at the creature as it began fleeing.

The augments cleared their way through the army of undead that tried to wall them off. The team of 5 augments began their pursuit of the vampire, running down the same dirt road it had taken. The N'jal carrier immediately noticed the creature's attempts to escape and began to move away. The pilot knew that it was likely heading back to the dock to escape into the water. So the best counter would be to get there first, and wait for it with its minigun already warmed up to fire.

"Hummingbird to Aegis actual, target is moving to the docks again to attempt an escape. More than likely it's gonna try to swim out through the water. I'm moving to cut it off."

"Roger Hummingbird. We're in hot pursuit as we speak. Light it up if you see it. Bunker suit, move toward the docks as well. You're currently closer to where it's fleeing than any of us."

"Copy." The heavy armored augment grumbled, apparently not liking that he was chasing a target in a suit that wasn't made with swift movement in mind.

The dead apostle cursed as he ran through the back allies.

He called every single one of his minions to protect their master, hoping they'd be successful in slowing down the humans on his trail. He dipped into another alleyway, hoping his sporadic trail would throw off both his hunters, and that accursed aerial vehicle that insisted on trying to shoot him the second it caught sight of him.

The vampire ran past a small group of zombies, immediately ordering them to cover his rear as he escaped. The zombies simply groaned with their usual dim-witted expressions and ran forward, hungering for the flesh of the humans that their master had promised would come.

A single augment came at them, a rifle in his hands, but oddly holding it so that the rear of the gun faced the zombies instead of the actual barrel.

Aegis 3 smashed the butt of his assault rifle into the forward zombie's throat, severing the bone in its neck easily. Following his momentum, he right elbowed one of the nearby creatures in the side of its head, shattering the side of its skull from the force of the blow. The one directly in front of the augment was also the furthest to the rear, which gave the augment a bit more room to work with. Aegis 3 took a running jump into the air and brought his knee forward, square into the cannibal's nose. The 3 zombies struck went flying from the pure momentum behind the blows, while the ones left untouched tried and failed to catch the augment before he continued running after their master.

The zombies barely got the chance to follow after the augment, as the second they turned their backs, explosive rounds tore into their bodies and blew them apart from the inside out. An AA-12 thundered loudly a handful of times as each shot found its mark on each of the ghouls still standing, the power of the shots nearly cutting the zombies in half. 3 more augments ran by them, not even giving a second glance to the creatures they had just annihilated.

The single augment that wasn't pursuing the creature by street, Aegis 5, had pulled himself up onto the roof of a house, and began jumping from house to house. This way, the augment could possibly get a clear shot on the target, while still keeping pace with the rest of the group. Should trying to snipe the target fail, he could possibly cut the creature off if it attempted to turn in a different direction or backtrack, as fleeing monsters often attempted to do when being hunted.

The dead apostle was clever, the augments would admit.

The vampiric monster was taking the route that went through as many zombies as possible. The creatures parted to allow their master convenient passage, but viciously attacked the 4 trailing augments that followed him. The augments found themselves wasting the majority of their ammunition clearing the way for their hunt rather than actually fighting the target. At the rate they were going, not only would the vampire escape by simply putting bodies in between him and his pursuers, but his pursuers would likely have very little to left to shoot him with if they finally did catch him.

Of course for Aegis 5, this wasn't an issue. The target didn't know that the augment was gaining on him by jumping from roof to roof. With no zombies to inconvenience him, no rough turns, or obstacles to obstruct him, he was easily going to catch up with the vampire.

As the blood drinker finally came upon the edge of the housing district, and within viewing range of the dock, a single shot rang out.

The dead apostle had absolutely no way of dodging. The bullet came streaking out at him long before the sound of the gunshot could alert him to the incoming projectile. The Aegis 5 had roughly estimated in his head where the dead apostle would be by the time his bullet reached the target, and adjusted to place the shot directly in front of the beast so that he'd run into it. Of course, he didn't stop at one shot. That was the beauty of assault rifles after all. You knew that one shot had your enemy's name on it. If you were unsure which bullet that was, you could just hold the trigger down until you figured it out.

The vampire-like monster cried out in pain as it felt a bullet strike him in the shoulder blade, and then a few more bullets tear into his back.

The creature staggered more from surprise than pain, and turned a corner to the left. The augment jumped to the nearest roof to the left, quickly reloading his gun as he kept up with the vampire. The zombie master called upon his minions to protect him, but they were truly unable to help. Even if they were fast enough to keep up, they couldn't hope to catch the augment while he was running on the rooftops. The vampire glanced up and felt his eyes widen at what he saw.

One of the super humans had caught up to him, and was currently trying to aim at him without sacrificing too much speed. The man was literally directly above him, chasing him from the roofs of the buildings he passed. The vampire glared and turned down the opposite direction, running in between yards. The augment leapt across the street and landed on the roof of the closest house, still keeping right on top of the vampire the entire time.

"Aegis 5 to Aegis actual, I'm right on top of the target and laying on pressure. The target's changing direction toward the left of the docks."

"Repeat Aegis 5, you said to the left? What area are you coming up on?"

The augment began hip firing down at the fleeing undead in short bursts of fire, which the creature managed to evade now that he actually knew the bullets were coming. However, his previous wounds were slowing him down. He needed to be focused and somewhat still in order to heal himself, and the stress of running for your life and being shot at made that more than a little difficult.

"I don't really recognize the area, but we're heading toward a 'Village Inn' sign."

"Good work Aegis 5, we're bringing up your rear so that it doesn't backtrack. Bunker suit, what is your current position?"

The nearby Bunker suit paused his jogging and stopped. He looked to his left and blink, realizing that he was right in front the Inn that had been mentioned.

"I'm directly underneath the sign right now. Send the bastard my way." The Bunker stated, a noticeable amount of glee in his voice.

"Hummingbird to Aegis Actual, I can move in right now and box him in." The pilot reported, still maintaining his hover over the docks.

The man in the suit absent-mindedly shook off all the zombies that were clinging to and gnawing on his armor. The Bunker suit could only barely outpace the zombies chasing him at full speed. The ones in front of him managed to latch on to his legs and start biting at his armor. Like any sane man, he freaked out having a bunch of cannibals dog-piling on his legs and feet. Then after a few seconds of flailing and yelling, he realized that they weren't able to get inside his armor, nor were they heavy enough to really slow him down. Bashing them with his rail rifle made him run the chance of breaking the thing just to re-kill a useless corpse. So instead, he simply opted to drag them along for the ride, losing a few and gaining a few along the way.

Now that he was actually in a position to attack, he couldn't afford the distractions.

The few that couldn't be shook off were forcibly pried/squished off by his massive gauntleted hands. Those he shook off but tried to re-attach themselves were stomped on, or hurled against a brick wall or something. The entire time he spent doing so, he pointedly didn't look at the creatures. He could already feel the bodies being crushed and squished by his hands and feet. The last thing he needed was to actually see himself doing it.

The other 4 members of Aegis squad were having a bit of a tougher time moving.

Aegis 1 had his elbow firmly placed in a zombie's stomach and his rifle hand out to the side, ignoring the creature's attempts to bite through his forearm plates. He was using the creature as an improvised battering ram to force his way through the throng of zombies that were walling him and his squad off. There had originally been much more of them in the way, but with a combination of Aegis 2's AA-12 and a lot of grenade lobbing, an impassable horde was now an annoying large mob. The augments weren't wasting their time trying to fight the things, as they weren't so much a threat as they were a distraction. Whatever method of getting through them that went by the fastest wasbest.

It was somewhat humorous in a dark sense to see so many zombies getting knocked on their back by slamming into their own comrade, but no one dwelled on the situation as anything more than a necessity. The moment Aegis 1 bashed his way through the last of the undead, he threw the heavily abused monster to the side and went on with his pursuit, his 3 squad mates hot on his tail.

The dead apostle itself was nearing the Village Inn.

He couldn't move any other direction but straight. The black thing chasing him wasn't giving him any openings to turn left, and if he went backward he'd not only still have the black thing on his tail, but be getting closer to the 4 others chasing him. To make things worse, he could hear a familiar set of rotors coming from his right, which meant the carrier was bearing down on him as well. His only hope was to outrun this one and keep heading straight until he cleared the city. From there he'd keep a low profile until...

BOOOOOOOOOM!

WHAT THE HELL! The dead apostle shouted in his head.

A single massive projectile that was as big as small football came streaking toward him through a brick wall at high speed. The dead apostle was barely able to throw himself out of the way in time, before that same round could cut him in half. The undead could only watch in slight fascination as the round flew straight past him and into a parked car. The round didn't so much as impact the car and blow up, but rather punched a hole straight through it, and continue to go forward through yet another house. From there, the dead apostle could no longer see the massive bullet's trajectory.

The dead apostle was so stunned that he had almost died that he almost didn't notice the quartet of normal bullets streaking for his head.

The apostle rolled to the side to evade the bullets and dunked behind the nearest cover he could find, which happened to be a tree. He sat against the tree and pulled his legs to his chest to avoid taking any more bullets than he already had. The apostle didn't dare move as he felt multiple bullets pierce into the tree's trunk and land on both sides of his body, kicking up dirt and concrete all around him. Taking advantage of this brief moment of reprieve, he went to heal his wounds.

Sucking in a deep breath, time seemed to reverse across his body. Dried up bloodstains re-liquified and returned into their wounds. The bullets in his back slid out and clattered to the ground. The numerous punctures in his back closed back up, sucking in all of the leaked blood while doing so. The dead apostle let out a sigh of relief, feeling refreshed now, despite the fact he was under fire. Now to deal with those pesky huma-

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The dead apostle placed in a state of shell shock as the tree he hid behind was blown to shreds. The only remains of the tree were just high enough to cover him. Had the apostle been standing up, he would've lost everything above the waist to that single impact. The dead apostle had to reverse time on himself again just so that he could regain his hearing. The massive explosion had nearly deafened him. Still shaking out the ringing in his ears, the magical vampire looked over the remains of the tree to spot what had nearly killed him again.

"-ammit I missed. Third time's the charm."

By the root, what was that thing?

Standing in the hole of a brick wall, (the same one that the giant bullet had come from, he noted) was what could only be described as an armored behemoth. It was at least 12 feet tall. It had 6 'eyes', which were all facing different directions for some reason. It was clad in colossal armor, though the armor around its legs and hands were stained with a lot of blood. It was holding some kind of gun that was longer than he was tall! More importantly, that gun was pointing at him, and still smoking from its last two shots. The suit was also in a strange stance, with its legs braced and its arms bent; as if it was scared the gun it was holding may try to attack its owner.

The dead apostle got his answer when he saw another small football sized object streak out the barrel of the gun.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The dead apostle hastily dived away from the tree's remains, watching as the massive bullet speared straight through the tree and slammed into the ground directly behind it. The dirt blew upward spectacularly, showering the area in sand and pieces of shrapnel. Had the apostle not moved, that shot would've turned him into a splatter on the dirt.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten about the other augment.

Aegis 5 strode toward the target, his rifle repeatedly barking as bullets were sent toward the creature. The apostle cursed and rolled away from his spot on the ground. However, that mattered little. There was an added bonus to being able to see bullets while they were in mid-flight. With a gun in your hand, you could trace the trajectory of where a bullet was going to land while it was still moving. As such, a gunman could adjust his aim with every shot so that they angled more to the direction they wanted. The dead apostle rolled out of the trajectory of 3 bullets, but found just about the rest of the magazine's contents zipping straight for his chest. Armor piercing bullets at that.

The dead apostle cried out in pain as he felt the rounds slamming into his chest. He was thrown to the ground by the sheer stopping power of the bullets, writhing and flailing against the ground as more and more bullets pumped into his abdomen. When his rifle finally clicked empty, Aegis 5 lowered his weapon to inspect the results. The target was a bleeding mess on the ground. The doctors at the PWCD base probably wouldn't appreciate having to remove 20+ rounds from the body on the autopsy, but then again, they weren't the ones who had to kill it in the first place.

Then, right as he thought this, the bullets suddenly were pushed out of the target's body. All the blood on the ground belonging to the creature suddenly retreated back into its body.

Aegis 5 hastily dropped the spent magazine and reached for a fresh one. Just as he slammed in the new clip, a powerful hand slapped the rifle out of the augment's fingers. Looking up from his currently empty hands, the shorter creature he had been hunting was right in his face. The target being about 5 ft. 11 and the augment being 7 ft. 3, there was very little intimidation to be felt by the human. However the augment silently wanted to yell 'DAMN!' at the top of his lungs, as he realized this particular monster type could heal itself from lethal wounds. He knew that his bullets had punctured the heart, lungs, intestines, and just about any organ worth being labeled as 'important'. Yet here the thing was, snarling at him with its fangs bared.

The augment threw a quick right hook to the creature's gut the second his gun left his hands, and felt some satisfaction as he felt the creature actually stagger a little at the surprise blow. The dead apostle launched a powerful hand strike at the augment's chest, attempting to impale the super soldier with his bare hands. The super soldier was slightly faster, and countered by grabbing the outstretching hand by the wrist and pushing it away from his body. He maintained his hold on the wrist and smashed his knee into the target's gut, feeling it bend over in pain.

Aegis 5 punched straight down into the back of the vampire's head with his left and threw a right uppercut to the creature's face. The target monster actually spat out some blood from the pair of blows, standing at its full height as a result of the uppercut. Taking full advantage of the monster's daze, he wrapped one arm over the vampire's shoulder, and his other arm under its armpit, locking both hands behind his back. The augment spun so that his hip was in the creature's gut and planted his feet.

Then, with all his might, he hip-tossed the vampire to the ground.

Augments only learned combat techniques that were confirmed to work firsthand. The hip-toss was a well-loved technique for the deceptive simplicity behind it. All you really did was hug your opponent, then turn and pull them to the ground. It was so easy that any old middle school wrestling team could perfectly execute it. Yet when done, it was beautiful and greatly effective to watch. The landing stunned your opponents so much that you had plenty of time to either kill them, pin them, or bind them, depending on the situation you were using the move in. It could be used so easily because it didn't rely one bit on strength, but simply leverage. Monsters to this day were still wondering how they had been slammed on their backs by humans who were several times weaker than them.

Aegis 5 monopolized off his opening by grabbing the first weapon that came to his mind. He ripped his knife from its holster on his shoulder, and stabbed it through the target's throat, feeling the blade imbed itself into the bone. Despite the fact that this was a vampiric creature, it was still pitifully weak in close combat. Superior strength only helped when you knew how to use it. If you had no proper form, training, or general skill to speak of, then a trained, seasoned soldier would walk all over you on their worst days.

The augment stood up, knowing that creature couldn't possibly survive past the next minute or so. If the stab itself doesn't do it in, it'll simply drown in its own blood now that its arteries are leaking blood into its windpipe. The knife wasn't removed, so it wouldn't be able to heal so long as the blade was there.

Aegis 5 turned to watch as the Bunker suit and his fellow squad mates jogged up to him.

"Nice kill Aegis 5. Keep this up and I may see you in commando armor eventually." The Aegis squad leader stated.

"Thanks Aegis 1, but it wasn't a big deal. These things aren't nearly as tough I thought they'd-"

SHINK!

"Gah!~"

The 6 augments all pivoted and leveled their weapons at the downed target, seeing it yank Aegis 5's knife from its throat and coughing up globs of blood. The dead apostle blinked and turned to face the augments. Due to the creature's skin color, it couldn't pale any more than it already had, but the 'oh crap' look on it's face spoke the story well enough. The dead apostle sat perfectly still, not daring to move a muscle. Apparently he figured if he didn't make any sudden movements, the chances of him surviving this encounter increased. Despite that, he simply needed to know about these things, and now was as good a time as any.

"Wha-What are you things? You smell of humans, but you can't possibly be-!" he target creature half asked, half demanded.

"Aegis squad, put him down." The squad leader ordered, not taking a moment to even humor the creature.

2 assault rifles, 1 heavy machine gun, 1 fully-automatic shotgun, and 1 hastily drawn side arm all opened fire into the dead apostle at once. Each and every single weapon was equipped with either armor piercing (AP) bullets, or explosive shells in the AA-12's case. Each and every gun was fired at point blank range. Each and every bullet had the stopping power to put a grown man on the ground. It wasn't until the squad members realized how many of them were actually shooting at once that they stopped.

Now Aegis 1 stood there, looking rather embarrassed with himself. When he said what he said, he didn't mean for the entire team to shoot at once. Well yeah, the target was...dead now. But the PWCD Ireland base wouldn't be satisfied with the results. Maybe he could use the creature's healing powers as an excuse?

"Aegis Actual to Hummingbird, come in."

"Copy Aegis actual, this is Hummingbird. Did you get the bastard?" The pilot asked, some anger seeping into his voice.

"Oh yeah we got him. But we still need to do something about the rest of the undead here. We can't allow them to spread." Aegis 1 stated, trying to evade the subject of the target's status.

"Don't worry, I've sent the initial combat footage from your helmet cams to the base. Three more squads of augments and a PWCD hazard operation team is on their way right now for cleanup. Command however, wants us all to report in and deliver the target's body." The pilot stated.

"Yeah Hummingbird. About that body." The bunker suit stated, sending the pilot a digital image of what he was seeing.

There was a pause over the COM link as the pilot stared long and hard at the target monster's remains.

"...Oh Command isn't going to like this."

xxXxx

Inside the PWCD Ireland base, the debriefing room was entirely quiet. Despite 8 people being present.

6 unarmored augments stood tall in simple fatigues, they being Aegis team and the operator of the bunker suit. The one person of the group who wasn't augmented was the pilot, who stood alongside them, though he felt significantly less important beside the other 6 colossal human beings. They all looked straight ahead, fully prepared to get chewed out by the base's operations commander. He wasn't augmented, unarmed, and happened to be a measly 5 ft 6, which made him an ant compared to some of the giants in the room.

Yet even with all that, he still drove fear into the hearts of the 6 men in the room. With a full blonde goatee, brown eyes, and short muscular build, he was often called 'Napoleon on steroids' behind his back by his subordinates. It was only because he grew rather fond of the nickname that he didn't order everyone on the base to do a 10 mile conditioning run, monster attacks be damned.

"So. Your mission perimeters were clear correct? No misunderstandings. Nothing lost in translation. No typos or anything similar right?" The man stated, his slight Irish accent not taking away from his voice at all.

"No sir." They all said in unison.

"You were ordered to go in, kill this new mystery monster, and bring its body back for study. Did you misunderstand any of that?" He asked again.

"No sir." They all said in unison.

"Good! Well in that case, one of you can explain what the hell happened between receiving your orders and carrying them out, which caused this huge fuck up to happen!" The man barked in anger. Aegis 5 spoke up.

"With all due respect sir. The creature had regenerative powers. We mortally wounded it twice, yet-"

"Some 'regeneration' it had. You brought us back a fucking bucket! A bucket filled with dried up chunks of meat, some disjointed and fragmented bones, and a handful bullets lodged into every hole piece we could find was seriously the best you could do!? You couldn't even try to bring it back in the shape of a body? You may as well have just cut off the thing's middle finger and dropped in on my office desk for how much use it is now!" The man took a calming breath.

No one said anything, knowing that silence and resigned acceptance was the best reaction they could give.

"You lot are the most experienced soldiers we have at dealing with these things, which is why we're going to need you in future missions. However, if you can't do something as simple as bring back a body, then what the hell do you expect us to do with you?"

"Sir, I accept full responsibility. My squad was simply following my orders." Aegis 1 stated.

The commander just looked at them, and shook his head. "We have no doubts that whatever that was, it was a complete unknown. Its DNA didn't match up to a single other Youkai we know about. Not even the vampires. In fact, the closest thing we could find that were related to this monster were the Chinese zombies that the Youkai gang in Hong Kong use, and even they were only similar in that they were both made of dead tissue that used some sort of magic to bypass the rigor mortis process. We would've preferred a full body to work with, but having remains is still viable."

No one dared to breathe a sigh of relief, but they were satisfied to know that they were at least somewhat out of the fire.

"Dismissed. Don't let something like this happen again."

xxXxx

At the far edge of the fishing village, agents of the Church and Magus Association stood by and watched.

Massive super soldiers were marching through the fishing village and opening fire on any undead they saw. Trailing closely behind the augments were men in hazard suits with flamethrowers. They were setting fire to all of the bodies, and in some cases getting DNA samples of those that they confirmed to be dead. In the air, no less than three attack helicopters hovered in the sky. The helicopters rained hot lead and missiles upon any gathering of undead that was even slightly noticeable.

While the 3 attack helicopters were doing crowd control, the augments were clearing out houses and rescuing any civilians that managed to survive by hiding. To ensure that absolutely no undead were left alive, UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) were sent out to every remote corner of the village and everywhere within 3 miles of the area to ensure that no undead had wandered outside the town limits. When UAV's located any zombies in a place that would be rather difficult to reach, one of the helicopters would swing by to fire on the position or a team of augments would move in. Either way, the threat was being neutralized accordingly.

And for the first time, the Church and Magi simply stood by while it happened.

Had this been some sort of raggedy militia with a fast response time, a government black operation team, or anything else, the Magus association would've attacked and killed them all. However, they weren't. Their soldiers moved with a speed that was nearly impossible to conceive. They moved and killed efficiently. They acted like they were well practiced in what they were doing. They were non-magical to be sure, but they were simply too dangerous to simply rush to attack. In addition to their forces being unpredictable, they had air support in the form of three attack helicopters. They may very well be dealing with a group similar to the Holy Church. A group of magical and non-magical humans who lived to hunt the horrors of the earth. They were better left observed and studied, rather than attacked. If they didn't know of the extent of this new party's enemies, they may make a powerful enemy needlessly. The magi stood by and watched as the PWCD laid waste to all the dead apostle spawns in the area, and then burnt them alive. They were tempted to attack when they saw the organization was rescuing people rather than killing them, but knew that they couldn't risk attacking and losing. So they watched quietly from the trees, observing the methods, tactics, and abilities that this new organization employed.

The Church agents were far less judging. This new power was exterminating the dead apostles for what they were. That alone gave this new organization positive points as far as the church was concerned. Their ways of fighting were too...new and loud for their tastes, but if they could manage it, then by all means. The Church members turned and left, trusting that this new organization would carry out their mission effectively. They had to report this to their superiors.

It seemed that the world was starting to run out of secrets to keep.