Quick note: Grave is Brandon's alias during his days as a necrolyzer.


Chapter 7: Conspiracy

With an anti-necrolyze rifle in his hands, Charles walked down the pavement under the moonlight, looking left and right in search of the hellhounds. Those mongrels didn't deserve to live in such a maddened state; his purpose of creating them had always been to sell them as terrifying guard dogs, not to let them roam freely as bloodthirsty beasts. He never wanted to hurt the innocents, except those Millennion agents, because their deaths would surely lure Grave out.

Grave... Charles wouldn't mind if those mad dogs shredded him, especially if they knew to let him go after tearing off a limb of his. That damn necrolyzer started everything; because of Grave blowing up the lab, he had to work as a doctor at a clinic. His wage went from sixty million yules to ten million yules per month as a result, crushing his dream of having a happy family. If taking care of just his mother had sometimes affected his well-being, what would happen if he had a wife and a few kids?

You destroyed everything! Charles' next step dented the ground. Halting, he clenched his jaw at the shattered concrete surrounding his green, brawny foot. Would Sara still accept him - a monstrosity - as her son when they met again?

Tears welled as Charles remembered why and how he became a necrolyzer. His throat burned, almost as it had done after one of the mongrels latched onto it. A lone tear coursed down his cheek and was dashed away with angry fingers. Grave, what kind of person are you? You destroyed the lab just because you had a vendetta against our boss. You didn't bother thinking about us, who were just working to take care of our families.

Suddenly, his booming laughter echoed across the silent street. He had accomplished one of his missions at least; he had rendered Grave's legs nonfunctional and taken away his ability to support his family. Now, he only had one more objective in this town: eradicating the hellhounds. He knew his mother wouldn't want him anymore, but his heart told him to still protect her.

Resuming his stride, he looked left and right with the rifle ready. Dark alleys always caught his attention more than anything else, since the absence of light could easily conceal those big black dogs. But this time, no hellhound lurked in the darkness; maybe because they didn't have any poor critters to chew on.

Minutes later, the illumination from a nearby street lamp soon confirmed his assumptions. Three hellhounds surrounded a dismembered body of a cat on the floor. Seeing their lack of focus on him, Charles fired his anti-necrolyze rifle.

He didn't manage to score a hit; instead, he provoked the hellhounds with the gunshot. They now rushed towards him with their bloodstained fangs ready.

He pulled the pump handle. He fired again; this time, his bullet tore off a dog's pointed ear. But the injured mongrel pressed on. Charles slid the handle and fired once more, but the anti-necrolyze round ripped through the empty air.

As he pumped the gun again, one of the incoming dogs sprang at him. Charles swatted it away with the gigantic rifle, but a tugging sensation overwhelmed his right leg. Looking down, he saw the remaining hellhounds clamping their jaws on his calf.

Charles would utilize the distraction to put a bullet through a hellhound's head. When the dogs retreated with a chunk of green flesh between their teeth, he took aim and fired. One down, two more to go.

Charles pulled the pump handle again, but the other dog had recuperated and lunged at him. As it opened its mouth for a bite, he raised his free leg.

Crunch!

Bloodstained shards of concrete flew everywhere.

Another tugging sensation struck his bleeding leg. But Charles simply pointed the rifle at the hellhound's head. A bang, and the dog slumped.

"You rabid dogs," he sputtered, kicking away the nearby carcasses before sitting down and placing the rifle on the ground. "If you all had listened to me, I wouldn't have killed you."

He took a vial of necrolyzation serum out of his pants pocket. The green liquid only occupied three-quarters of the container, as he had rubbed some on the bite marks Grave had inflicted on his leg last night. This time, he used up another quarter of the serum, leaving the vial half-full.

Unlike yesterday, the green flesh growing from the edges of the lacerations left thin red lines on his calf. Crimson fluid seeped out of them and trickled down his leg.

Noticing the oddity, Charles recalled when he created this liquid; he suspected that the serum had expired... No. As long as this thing remained in the fridge, it would take a longer time to expire. There must be something else.

Two days ago, when those hellhounds broke loose, he still had two vials of necrolyzation serum inside the drug storage fridge. One entered his digestive tract to transform him into a necrolyzer, while another went to his pants pocket as a preparation to combat Grave and the hellhounds. The green liquid worked almost like a panacea to necrolyzers; it could heal any wounds as long as they didn't come from anti-necrolyze bullets.

Charles thought about how the serum worked to heal a necrolyzer's injuries. It simply enhanced the regenerative capabilities of a necrolyzer's; if the undead came with a weak regeneration system, the serum wouldn't work well.

But the serum worked last night! Charles argued in his mind. There's nothing wrong with my- Suddenly, he remembered what he had learnt about necrolyzers' lifespan. Without a renewal therapy, these reanimated corpses couldn't live for more than seventy-two hours. Their body system started to fail during the final day of their life.

"My body system is failing," he concluded, looking down with a crumpled face. From what he learnt during his days as a Millennion scientist, a necrolyzed animal lived longer than a necrolyzed human. "I can't fight those dogs any longer!" Charles yelled, standing up. He then felled the lamp post beside him with an elbow strike. "Nobody's gonna provide me a renewal therapy and extend my lifespan!"

His mind returned to the root of everything. "Beyond the Grave! It's all your fault!" Returning the vial of serum to his pants pocket, Charles picked up the anti-necrolyze rifle, pulled its pump handle, and sprinted away from the messy street. "Your legs aren't enough to pay for all the troubles you've caused!"

His rage soon dissipated, clearing his clouded mind. Walking more slowly now, he wondered what would happen if he attacked Grave inside Millennion Tower now. A barrage of anti-necrolyze bullets would greet him and turn him into a beehive. Yesterday, if a pack of hellhounds hadn't chomped down a few Millennion agents in the team and distracted the remaining men, he wouldn't have come out unscathed with an anti-necrolyze rifle.

I need help. With that half-full vial of necrolyzation serum, he could still convert someone into a necrolyzer - an imperfect one, unfortunately. But who wanted to be that thing? Civilians of Billion despised everything related to necrolyzation, as those abominations had terrorized them for thirteen years. But wait. Maybe he could ask his colleagues for help. Most of them had to take low-paying jobs thanks to Grave, so there had to be at least one person who bore a grudge against that darn necrolyzer.

Excited, Charles ran down the desolate pavement. Every step of his emitted a boom and cracked the ground, shattering the stillness of the night.

An intersection shortly came into his sight, with a few cars and motorbikes staying behind the zebra cross. However, neither screams nor blaring horns resounded as Charles sprinted across the road. He glanced at the waiting vehicles, and fearful faces of the drivers' greeted him. Well, as long as they didn't bother him, he wouldn't flip their cars.

He simply continued his journey to the residential area, looking left and right as he walked. The passageways around contained no trace of hellhounds; all garbage cans still stood upright with cockroaches creeping around them. But soon, an oddity upon a two-story house came into his sight. A crevice - large enough for a necrolyzed dog but not an ogre like him to go through - on a brick wall beside him caught his attention.

Charles approached the opening. Broken bricks with bite marks lay on the ground before and beyond the cleft. Those rascals... A deep growl escaped from his gritted teeth as he sprang forward and smashed through the hole.

A pair of red eyes gleamed in the dark room, which grew larger and larger as a scamper of many paws echoed. When they were close enough to Charles, the faint beam of light leaking through the crevice revealed their owner - a hellhound.

Charles quickly pointed the anti-necrolyze rifle at it and fired. The bullet only grazed the incoming dog's scalp. As he slid the pump handle, the hound jumped at him with its mouth wide open. He slammed it back shut with a downward strike from his rifle, and the hellhound plummeted to the ground.

Glaring at the recuperating beast, Charles aimed at the dog's head and pulled the trigger. But a click came out instead of a bullet.

Oh, well. I'm not good with guns anyway. As the dog rose again, he hurled the massive rifle at it and knocked it down with the impact. A leap followed the stunning blow, and his feet demolished both bones and ceramic alike. Stickiness plagued his soles afterwards.

Walking around the house, Charles scanned the surroundings for a light switch. When he found one and pushed it, the sudden flood of luminescence showed him what the hellhound had left in the house. Wrecked furniture and shredded rats littered the living room. Nothing interesting.

He spent five minutes exploring the house. The first floor had nothing but junk. Only a broken cleaver and a piece of half-eaten raw steak in the kitchen - which hinted a struggle against the hellhound - drew his attention. Finding no corpse in his investigation, he suspected that somebody was still alive and hiding somewhere in this house.

Charles then decided to ascend the staircase, but the second level had neither necrolyzed dogs nor signs of life. No noise existed in the dark hallway. However, Charles would check the rooms as well.

A locked door met him first. Unlike downstairs, this door didn't instantly turn into a doormat after he kicked it. Something blocks it, Charles thought. After taking a few steps back, he charged. The door fell as soon as his body hit it, and his ears registered a cacophony of sounds produced by wooden objects slamming against the ceramic floor.

"Necrolyzer!" a man's voice echoed in the darkness. "Go away!"

Charles scanned the nearby wall and pushed the light switch there. With the lights on, he could see a black-haired man in pajamas sitting on a chair beside a bed. A four-pronged cane lay in his hands, and the man held it as though it was a bat.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Charles smirked, hopping over the pile of fallen tables and chairs.

"I'll crack y-your skull open if you c-come any closer!" Despite his best efforts, the man couldn't hide the fear in his voice as Charles came closer him.

"Give me your best shot then."

The cane slipped out of the man's hands as he raised his arms. "Why do you necrolyzers exist? Dealing with the Mafia is already more than enough."

"The Mafia? Millennion?"

The man nodded. "Those guys shot me in the knee and stole some valuables. They said it was a punishment for hurting their people."

"Their people?"

"You know that big hole leading into my living room? A white-haired necrolyzer created it last night. I stepped on his wounds and took his wallet, but then, those mobsters came."

At this, Charles saw an opportunity to befriend this man. "Ah, I know that necrolyzer. Grave... He's just that irritating. You want to teach him a lesson, don't you?"

"Of course," the man answered, "but he is under the protection of the Mafia."

"Then let's fight together." Charles reached out his massive green hand. "That necrolyzer also ruined my life."

The man lowered his arms. "I'll only trust you if you can get rid of the big black dog down there. I've been locking myself in here because of it."

"That rascal? Destroyed it." Charles laughed, pointing at his bloodstained feet. "If you wanna see its bloody corpse, just go downstairs."

"What?" The man exclaimed in disbelief, rising from his seat. With his cane in his grasp, he limped past Charles and out of the room.

"Don't be so hasty!" But a series of loud thuds answered Charles, prompting him to dash out of the bedroom. That crippled man might have fallen from a flight of stairs; if Charles didn't act fast enough, he would surely lose the chance to necrolyze him. The necrolyzation serum wouldn't revive someone with an inactive digestive system.

Outside, he jumped down the long, straightforward staircase. His rough touchdown sent chunks of ceramic into the air and carved a huge crater on the floor. Turning around, he found the man sprawled across the ground, bleeding from his head and nose. He was breathing quickly with his eyes closed.

Crouching almost in an instant, he called out, "Hey, wake up!" He received no response, so he smacked the man's shoulders lightly. "You hear me?"

The man opened his eyes, his breath remained fast and light. "My leg... I wish I could beat up that white-haired necrolyzer."

That's the spirit! Instead of grinning mischievously, though, Charles only smiled slightly. "I can help you."

"Impossible."

Charles took a vial of necrolyzation serum out of his pants pocket. "Drink this, and you'll become a necrolyzer like me."

The man remained silent for a moment, but soon, he told Charles, "Give me that. I want to get my revenge done."

Removing the cap from the vial, Charles said, "Don't worry. I'll feed you, Mister-"

"Gilbert."

"Ah, yes, Gilbert." With a hand, Charles bent Gilbert's head forward so that he could pour the green liquid into the man's mouth. "When you've become a necrolyzer, let's discuss our plan. Grave needs a lesson."