A/N: Woo-Hoo, over one-thousand views :D. Thank you all so much, I'm impressed I get over one hundred views on my stories. Well they're all on my profile, so is some character bios that really need an update. Well on with the chapter, please do enjoy it and any constructive criticism is appreciated :)
Pete groaned as he watched the world fly by beneath him, whatever Zomboss had invented was beginning to slowly drive him insane with the pain and feeling of hopelessness. 'I failed them all, my son, my partner...my parents…' And the list seemed to go on and on as Pete listed off everyone he failed, no matter what he tried to do, that seemed to be the only thing he could think of, it was as if he was being consumed by it. After what felt like an eternity, Pete was dropped to the ground, the oppressive thoughts and pressure seemed to lift as he felt shackles lock themselves around his stem, pods and neck.
"You plants could have at least maintained this place, you're all worse than my nephew at keeping a place running. But I can still work with this...now where did I leave my spare keys." Pete looked up to find Zomboss looking through shattered pots in search of a key into his mansion, after a minute, he found them. "Haha, now then, let's see if this place still has power." With that, Zomboss unlocked the front door and entered the giant mansion. After a few seconds, the massive front room lit up as the chandelier was turned on.
"This isn't happening…" Pete mumbled as he was dragged into the dusty mansion, Zomboss seemed annoyed at how messy the room was.
"This was once a nice place, until you all let it fall into disrepair. I actually thought that bumbling idiot, Dave, would have moved in here-" Zomboss' monologuing angered Pete.
"HE ISN'T AN IDIOT! YOU ARE!" Zomboss stopped mid-sentence at the Peashooter's interruption. Zomboss slapped Pete multiple times.
"I saw the true potential of that serum, reanimating the dead so that we could all live eternally! All that bumbling buffoon wanted was a bunch of...sentient plants to keep him company because he was so lonely, bah, if only he would have taken my deal, seen the potential of this all, I could have found him a partner." Pete was shocked by Zomboss' revelation.
"Y-You mean…" Zomboss seemed surprised by Pete's stammering.
"He never told you? Oh this is getting better every second. Yes Pete, if it wasn't for me, you would be nothing but a little pea pod somewhere in the forests." Pete seemed so shocked by Zomboss' revealing of his past that Pete couldn't begin to believe it.
"N-No...it can't be." Zomboss laughed at the shocked Peashooter.
"I guess he never told you that he was responsible for the zombie outbreak. He never told you it was he who dropped the serum onto a grave and brung the dead back, he is the cause of my zombies existence, I'm the cause of yours." Pete's heart seemed to stop still, he couldn't comprehend it, 'It couldn't be true!' He kept convincing himself it wasn't, But he began to accept the fact that Zomboss was most likely right, not even someone as smart as he was could forge such a piece of information.
"Why did you bring me here?" Pete asked with a seething hatred in his voice, not only of Zomboss, but of the lovable, pan-wearing man affectionately named 'Crazy Dave', a part of Pete had died, one he had never expected and that was the reverence almost all plants had for Dave.
"Only to convert you to my side of course, you could be a very dangerous asset to me." Pete smiled at Zomboss' answer.
"Very well then, I accept." It was Zomboss' turn to stammer in shock.
"Y-You...what?! Did I hear that correctly?" Pete nodded.
"Indeed you did. If Dave can't trust in us enough, his first and only line of defence, to tell us of our past, then he clearly isn't someone to trust. I'll work for you, Edgar...For my family and the plants, we need to throw off the blind trust we have in that man." Pete felt strange as he spoke, as if every word he spoke was slowly ripping parts of him out and replacing them with blind hate.
"Good." That was all Zomboss said as he grabbed a lever and pulled it, a machine dropped from the ceiling, surprisingly still intact, and he pushed a few buttons. After a few seconds, a badge came out from the side of the machine and he handed it to Pete.
"Welcome to the dark side, commander Pete." The shackles around Pete fell to the ground as the Peashooter read the badge, it gave basic information, name, species, age, gender and title. Pete gasped slightly when he read his title, he was apparently the Commander of an entire division of zombies that were soon to be summoned and trained.
Corinth rolled forward onto the table, his assailant flipping over him as he rolled. Corinth felt the pressure around his neck disappear and he quickly pushed himself up and into a fighting position, his assailant doing the same.
"Just die, Sativum, make both our pitiful excuses of lives easier." Corinth leapt as his assailant as an answer to their request.
"What you don't know, is that I'm already dead." With that, Corinth placed a pod around the masked anthropomorphic creatures throat, one he presumed was a zombie, and quickly ripped their head straight from their shoulders with an unprecedented strength. Corinth dropped the rotting head to the ground and wiped the blood from his pods using the remains of a tattered towel. The sounds of a sword piercing flesh sounded out from down the alley and the Toxic Pea soon returned with a blood splattered sword, a cut running down their unmasked face.
"Where are the other two?" Asked Virulent with an aggravated voice.
"They disappeared in clouds of smoke after breaking their-" Corinth gestured at the corpses of the Human and the Toxic Brainz with his right pod. "-necks. The one on the table tried strangling me." Virulent nodded at Corinth before stabbing his sword into the corpse of the Toxic Brainz.
"Sorry about that, I've always wanted to do that." Virulent chuckled slightly before retrieving his sword. "I can't believe that lying, cheating, crime-lord bastard tried to kill us and take off with like… forty bucks?! What the fu-" Virulent was cut off when an explosion racked the alley, it seemed like his car had been blown up. "MY CAR! THAT'S IT! He has to pay."
"I agree. Mess with one Lathyrus, you mess with all of us. Let's go find a phone, I'm calling my family." Virulent gave Corinth a look that suggested the Peashooter was mad.
"I thought you were a Sativum...and you can't call a Lathyrus, one of them will throw me behind bars...or worse." Corinth frowned at Virulent's statements.
"Look, I may have been a Sativum, but I married into the Lathyrus family and changed...besides, I can convince my son, at the least, that you're alright." Virulent seemed unimpressed by Corinth's pleas.
"There's a bounty on my head." Corinth face-palmed.
"They're all financially secure...I made sure of that." Virulent narrowed his eyes as he fought with himself, get revenge against that backstabbing Toxic Chomper, or potentially get thrown behind bars by your…'friends' family.
"Fine then. Only because I want revenge." Corinth nodded and both Peashooter and Toxic Pea walked down the alley in search of a phone.