AN: I'll admit I haven't really played a whole lot of Resident Evil, so I took a few liberties. I did some basic research and I thought it turned out pretty good.
On a side note, I recently discovered an audio recording from a youtube channel called "Chiling Tales for Dark Nights" (not endorsing). It's to a reboot of the "Jeff the Killer" story. The written version is on the wiki called "Jeff the Killer 2015" by K Banning Kellum. It's really awesome and I hope to incorporate some of that story into his. It's honestly a much better retelling of the classic creepypasta and goes on an in-depth viewpoint that makes him seem a lot different and feels a lot cooler.
Anyway, just thought you'd like to know!
I own nothing!
-Crow
P.S. A huge "Thank You" to everyone who's stuck with this story so far. I'm happy to say there's a little… "surprise" at the end.
Harry walked into the basement training room that afternoon, BRVR trotting along beside him.
Jeff was at the hanging punching bag aggressively whacking at the poor sandbag and hopping back and forth on his feet. He'd offered Harry boxing lessons once, but Harry's muscles were a lot leaner, letting him slip around for fluid, flexible movements so his punches weren't too effective. Jeff was a slim build, but since he was older and had more muscle mass, he had a lot more power to his punch.
Laughing Jack had left one of the dummies after practice, so things like thumb tacks were inserted precisely around the "face" forming an agonized expression pattern.
That expression was shortly explained with the several knives, knitting needles, and a stapler still stuck in the "groin" region. If Harry had to guess, he'd say the unfortunate dummy was probably 'male'.
"Harry." The boy looked up and saw Tim wearing his mask on the other side of the gym. He was motioned over and saw Brian in the background like usual, but also Nick and Adrian standing behind the more vocal Proxy. Nick was looking at a throwing knife left around while Adrian stood with his scythe resting on his shoulder.
"Glad you could make it, kid." Tim said. Harry's nose reflexively scrunched as the wave of cigarette smoke rolled off the older man. "Okay, Nick, Ay, this is Harry. He's going to help me with the weapons demonstration."
Nick nodded while Adrian muttered out the nickname under his breath, mouth tilted to the side in annoyance.
Masky went on, "Harry here is a short-range attacker, but he's got a few tricks up his sleeves, too. Harry?" He motioned towards the ward who nodded and pulled out two, large alligator clip jumper cables that snaked to a small backpack, "Now, Harry's cables aren't attached to a battery, nor are they attached to Harry directly. The backpack helps keep a bare spot on the wires up against Harry's spine through his hoodie and clothes."
In response, Harry shrugged off the backpack showing that the backpack had an exposed area to it where the black plastic layer of the wire was flayed off, revealing shiny metal inside. Masky nodded and asked him for a demonstration.
Harry pulled the backpack on and activated the clips. Immediately, blue-white bolts of electricity sparked between the clips themselves and the ground, making his unruly hair stand on end.
"Harry can channel a sort of energy from his body through the clips as electricity. With it, he can stun or kill in close range, even against heavier or larger opponents." Harry charged at a dummy of an adult at least twice his height and plunged the two clips against the chest. The dummy shuddered before Harry pulled away, revealing two black circle imprints with an intricate black lightning pattern between them, smoking ominously.
Masky smirked at the two new wards' faces. Nick was openly gaping while Adrian, despite his stone-like composure, was noticeably wide-eyed as the tiny figure became a blur before frying something in a way that would almost definitely kill a normal human. "As you can see, it's pretty effective. But, we almost never deal with just ordinary, unarmed people. Even moving as fast as he does, a well-aimed bullet would nullify his advantages.
"That's why Harry's got a second." Harry pulled out five slim knives from his pocket and fanned them out between his fingers. "These knives work well in case he's pinned down or in close range and can't use his cords for whatever reason, but they're primarily aerodynamic and he's pretty good at throwing them."
Harry and Masky shared a nod and the younger whipped his arm out. A whistling noise sailed through the air and a blade impacted a dummy's "heart" barely a second later.
"Harry's got a little helper, too." Masky continued. He knelt down and motioned for BRVR who trotted along. Adrian and Nick had already seen the creature over the few months they'd been there, but Nick couldn't suppress a smile as the inner six-year-old in him wouldn't stop enthusing over the real, live Pokemon in front of him.
"This is BRVR, he's a lot like BEN where he's a living, solid computer program, but he's Harry's personal pet. Harry and BRVR can tag-team to amplify the power of the normal attack or even create an arcing long-range attack."
The Pikachu hopped on Harry's backpack, cheeks sparking as he clung to the material. Harry briefly clapped the two clips together, making a shower of sparks and pulled them apart causing arcs of yellow electricity to hop between the two. He took his stance again facing the dummy and combined the two clips together. The metal started glowing as electricity looped through It, building up in a short-circuit.
Then, Harry separated the two, one clip moving backwards and the other jabbing out towards the dummy. A yellow bolt shot from the lower and jumped to the outstretched clip before flying outwards at the dummy.
The bolt seared through the air and struck the dummy, splitting between the head and chest. A moment later, the flash subsided along with the blue spots in their eyes. The dummy was completely blackened and sizzling as dark smoke was drifting off of it.
Clearly, it was a very dead dummy.
Nick whistled low, "That never happened in the anime. Ash would've kicked everyone's butts in the Elite Four instead of sucking at the very end battles of each region."
"If he wasn't burnt charcoal, himself," Adrian added absentmindedly.
Masky motioned them to another, clean dummy and started lining it up with a different dummy in front of it. "Hey, Jeff, get over here!"
The killer took a break from beating dents into the sandbag and walked over. "I want you to show 'em your knife trick."
The sociopathic teen nodded and whipped out a knife from somewhere in his sleeve. He walked to where he was in line with the two dummies, one hidden behind the other. He experimentally fiddled with the blade before throwing it directly at the first dummy.
Nick and Adrian watched it glide directly towards the first dummy before suddenly curving like the dummy had a magnetic field around it. Then, instead of going straight, the knife curved back to its original trajectory and hit the dummy behind hilt-deep in the chest.
"Cool party trick," Nick commented, "Why are you showing us this?"
Brian soundlessly walked to Jeff's position and raised a Glock pistol at the first dummy. A loud bang erupted from the weapon and a small impact was heard on the back dummy.
"Uh, kay?" Nick said awkwardly. Adrian's eyes were narrowed, trying to decipher what just happened as well.
Masky nodded, "Yeah, let's watch instant replay." He pointed to a camera mounted above the area and a small TV installed behind them. Taking out a small remote, he turned on the device and rewound to a point just before the gun firing.
They watched the top view of the bullet in slow-motion, Matrix-style. A cone of ripples in the air trailed behind the small projectile as it curved around the first dummy and impacted the dummy behind it.
"Cool." Nick murmured, watching the video replay. Brian was silent and still, but Harry noted he somehow seemed a bit pleased at the praise.
Jeff smirked, "Yeah, straight out of 'Wanted', but with less Angelina Jolie."
"We're here to test and see if you have any surprises, too." Masky said. "Now, Harry can't even though he's got a lot going for him, so not everyone does, but it still pays to check."
The two new recruits took turns using throwing knives and firing guns for the next half hour. Nick proved a pretty decent shot and explained it on his dad's BB gun lessons when he was younger. Adrian couldn't use either terribly well, but was more comfortable with his scythe anyways. Neither could curve the bullet no matter how much "incentive" Masky gave.
"I swear you're a psychopath." Nick muttered angrily as Tim pulled the gun from his sweat-coated forehead.
Masky shrugged, "You'll find that true for most of us. Plus, you're dead, even if I pulled the trigger you'd get right back up."
"Just like 'Wanted'." Jeff commented, laughing.
"I am sincerely glad you're at least enjoying yourself." Nick deadpanned. The older teen's slashed grin widened and he raised his waterbottle in mock toast before taking a sip.
"Timothy, when I said you could provide 'incentive' for recruits, I didn't mean hold them at gunpoint."
They turned and found Slender walking towards them, a manila folder tucked under his arm. He turned to Masky, "I've looked over the file and taken a trip to scout the location. I believe it's a perfect opportunity for Nikolaus and Adrian to get experience in the field."
"Wait, what?" Nick exclaimed, excited, "You mean, we're being deployed? Like, Call of Duty sent out on a mission and stuff?"
"I'm unfamiliar with 'Call of Duty' aside from it being one of BEN's games, but yes you are going on a mission. An easy one as well." Slender replied.
"Awesome!"
"Hey, hang on!"
The crowd turned to an indignant Harry crossing his arms with the clips sparking dangerously in his hands. "I didn't have my first official mission for almost a year! And the first one on my birthday doesn't count because you wouldn't assign me one afterwards."
"And your mental state was questionable at best, yes," Slender agreed. "We allowed you along because it was an easy mission, you were excited and arguably unstable, I was too stressed and confused at the time to fully oppose it, and it was your birthday."
Harry grumbled, "So you let the new guys in on this after 2 months."
"Harry, enough!" The entity asserted authoritatively. Harry's wires stopped sparking and he clipped them to his belt, resigned. "If you weren't so impatient, I'd go on to tell you to shadow them on this job and ensure it goes well. You and Jeffery."
Harry's features lit up drastically and Jeff stretched his back, popping some joints, "Eh, sure. I needed some action this week. Where're we going?"
Slender looked down at the dossier, "It looks like a simple reanimation virus outbreak-"
"Wait, reanimation?!" Nick interrupted, hopping on his feet, "Like, zombies?! Real, snarling, flesh-craving, decomposing zombies?" His grin widened with each adjective.
"Well, depending upon the outbreak strain, yes. Sometimes they are similar to Hollywood's Night of the Living Dead, but other times they are simply men and women with a mindless craving for human flesh and violence… like rabies." Slender reasoned.
"Sweet!" He cheered.
"Makes sense," Adrian muttered. Nick looked at him, eyebrow raised. "If a zombie virus exists, then, logically, it would have different strains like any viral mutation. Like how the flu mutates every season."
"Correct, Adrian. Now, this strain is… somewhat peculiar, but nothing I'm sure we can't handle. It's a fairly isolated population with a low infection rate."
Jeff tossed the knife in the air before it vanished in his sleeve, "So, what small-town's gunna have us busting down the door?"
The entity re-read the document.
"Just some small city in Missouri."
A small copse of trees rustled in a non-existent wind and four figures suddenly appeared without a sound in a flurry of dead leaves.
The smallest one murmured to something in his backpack before setting a dark mask over his face. The eyes glowed battery-acid green as he removed two oversized wire clips from his belt.
The two taller figures stood at attention, taking in the details around them. One fingering his knife up his sleeve, ready to whip it out at a moment's notice, the other leaning his scythe against his shoulder, swiveling the blade back and forth behind his head.
"So- mph!"
The middle-sized figure spoke, but was silenced by the figure with the knife, clamping his hand over the other's mouth. The older figure raised a finger to his lips before slowly turning in a circle. He motioned to the smaller figure who murmured to his backpack again. A small, furry creature popped its head out of the backpack and scampered up one of the taller trees.
The figure jumped between the tree branches agilely before jumping back down. "Pika pi!"
"BRVR says it's okay." Harry announced. The four relaxed.
Nick shoved Jeff's hand off his face angrily, "Okay, first off, gross; second off, rude; and third off, why'd you clamp my mouth shut in the first place?"
Jeff growled, "I know this is your first mission, kid, but you've gotta pull your head out of your ass if you don't want to get mauled by a horde. When we arrive at a situation like an outbreak, we stay quiet. We scope out the place first in case anyone or anything is too close for comfort that might attract a couple of its friends."
Nick looked down apologetically. Adrian kept his hood up and was scanning the rest of the area. "Something's over there." He pointed towards a building they could barely make out in the night.
They made their way over to the structure. It turned out to be an old gas station. There weren't any lights on in the place and the small convenience store was completely devoid of people.
Harry walked in the store, silently checking the back rooms, bathrooms, and behind the counter. Jeff followed behind, knife ready. Harry hopped out of the back room, "Looks clear!"
"Sweet. Maybe we can loot some snacks on the way home." Jeff commented, eyeing some of the soda bottles in the dead fridges. They left the empty station, finding a map to town on the wall behind the counter and walking down the road.
They eventually reached the city. The buildings looked like something out of Small-Town USA from the 50s. A few industrial plants were in the distance, their columns and smokestacks rising above the skyline, but overall the town was pretty reclusive and tiny. The power was still on, though, so a couple lights were on.
As they got further towards the center, they started seeing more damage. What looked like a pub or grill was burnt with a few embers quietly sizzling and wafting the smell of burnt burgers and oil in the air. They kept walking down Main Street, passing a pawn shop, a few boutiques with mannequins posing in the window, and a barber complete with a red, white, and blue pole.
Jeff sniffed at the air and held up his hand for silence, "You guys here that?"
They stopped moving, listening intently before Nick spoke, "Hear what?"
"Exactly," Harry answered, "No screams, no panic, no fire alarms or police sirens, nothing. The main question is; where is everyone?"
"And where are the zombies," Adrian added, looking around the desolate town.
Nick took out the Glock he was given and turned off the safety. "Sooo… good or bad?"
"Depends," Harry admitted.
"But in this case, Slendy said it was a simple job. In and out." Jeff muttered, "There should be people. There should be at least someone here. They can't have all left, zombies don't move that fast, if at all."
"The dossier did say it was a new strain," Adrian reminded him.
They kept going, walking down the empty streets-
"Psst!"
They turned and found Nick frantically gesturing with his gun. They looked down the alleyway and found a woman kneeling over another person laying on the ground. Even from there, they could hear the faint munch and crunch of meat.
"That's more like it," Jeff said, taking out his knife.
The group slowly walked towards the woman. From the faint light of a back porch, they could see the woman had a floral dress and a large mess of curly, dirty-blonde hair. Her hands were bloody and she was definitely reaching into the guy's chest cavity-
*clang-ng-ng-ng!*
Jeff turned mutinous eyes towards Nick who was cringing away from a trash can lid rattling and ringing on the ground. The undead teen mouthed 'sorry' before his eyes flickered to the creature.
The woman noticed. She immediately abandoned the dead meal, having found new meat instead. Its eyes were white with a filmy layer and the skin was cracked and gray except for the mouth which was coated in blood and various bits of gore.
Her jaw opened and she let out a loud wail before a loud *bang!* was heard, followed shortly by her head lurching back with a new hole. They turned to Nick, still holding the Glock. "What? 'Aim for the head'. Zombie 101."
Jeff smirked and nodded before picking up a heavy rod of metal from the dumpster nearby. He approached the woman and nudged her still form. She didn't move.
He walked over to the man's corpse. The figure lunged upward despite having barely any torso left and Jeff quickly slammed the bar over its head, killing it.
"Okay, so these are the undead guys, Harry." He commented cheerfully.
Harry's clips sparked with his excitement, "Sweet! No pulling punches!" Their celebration was cut off by a loud growl from down the alleyway. "Sounds like company."
Five more zombies were at the end of the alley, backlight by the theater's marquis. Two were in torn business suits. One was a woman in jeans and a close-fitting tee. Another was something too decayed to make out much besides rotted rags of clothes with no hair on his gray and cracked head.
The final guy was interesting though. He stood at least 7 feet with enough bulky muscle to make Schwarzenegger envious. Though, another feature to him was the bloodied butcher's smock and a ridiculously large cleaver in his meaty right hand.
"I gotta find out who makes those knives," Jeff commented, eyeing the weapon excitedly.
"Probably custom," Harry commented. "So, any takers? Dibs on the bald guy."
Adrian stepped forward, "I'll take the businessmen."
Nick interrupted, "Wait! Hang on! I can't kill a chick! And like Hell I'm taking on big, tall, and bloody, there."
Adrian sighed, "Fine, I'll take the woman, you take a businessman and I'll get the other one. Deal?" Nick nodded.
"I'll take Mr. Butcher here," Jeff said happily, "I want that knife."
Harry was the first to charge forward, taking the decayed zombie aback. Before it could retaliate, the younger boy's wire clips were at the sides of its head and deep frying whatever gray matter was between. He stopped when smoke started pouring out of its ears and it stopped twitching.
Nick just aimed at the businessman, taking a few shots to finally peg the forehead. It fell instantly without the cerebral matter holding it up.
Adrian charged between the remaining businessman and woman and, with one swipe of the sharpened scythe, lobbed off the cranial caps, exposing half of a brain in each portion. They collapsed, too.
Jeff took a direct approach and flew at the bigger guy, raising the bar above his head. It clanged against the zombie's thicker-than-normal skull, but managed to disorient it. Jeff took another few whacks at the creature before it tumbled backwards out of the alleyway and into the street.
Jeff took the incentive and rushed to one of the partially-destroyed power poles. A pretty good kick caused the weakened base to give way and electrified cables fell down on the larger foe, sparking and flailing. The pole itself landed right on the figure's downed form, but the cables caused it to twitch spastically as remaining electricity coursed through its body, killing it.
"Had to steal your trick, Harry," He said, brandishing his own knife, "A knife's no good against bone."
He kicked the oversized blade out of the giant's grasp and held it up, admiring it in the firelight of a burning building. He set it by a bench for later.
Two more groans directed their attention to the end of the street. A blonde zombie in a lab coat and a zombie wearing full SWAT protection armor shambled along the street towards them.
Nick's bullet made quick work of the unprotected scientist, but couldn't get through the soldier's armor. Harry nodded to BRVR, still in his pack, and sparked the two clips together before creating a large arc of lightning straight at the figure. A loud crash sounded and the tendrils flailed around, shorting out the power grid and making several buildings go dark along with several bursting lightbulbs. The figure collapsed, smoking.
Nick fist-pumped the air, "Woo! That wasn't so hard."
"Well, the report did say it was just a small zombie outbreak." Harry reminded him, clipping the wires to his belt.
"Hold on," Adrian said quietly, walking towards the downed figures. He quickly found the zombie's ID on both figures and pulled them off of the lanyard. "This doesn't seem right."
"Waddaya mean?" Harry asked.
"Gotta pay attention, Harry," Jeff said, "He's right. What's a lab coat and soldier doing out here? No pharmacy really requires a lab coat and the military wouldn't have responded this fast."
"Plus, they're together," Adrian added, handing them the badges. Both had a small icon stamped on them looking like some red and white pinwheel. Underneath the simple logo was "Umbrella Corps" in normal font. Below that was the individuals' names and information.
"Umbrella…" Jeff trailed off. "We need to report this to Slendy-"
"Hang on," Harry interrupted, "Why don't we follow the trail? There's got to be something out that way about this place. These guys came down this road, I bet we'll find more about this there."
Jeff looked down the dirt road out of town to the mountain regions and nodded, "Sure. More to add to the report, I guess."
They packed up, Nick reloading a new clip into his gun, and moved down the road the last two zombies shambled down.
They walked through the wooded area, going further and further from the main city until they just got to a dirt road with heavy tire tread marks leading down it. Finally, they found a large, iron fence with razor wire circling the top. A small sign held the company logo with a 'Private Property' warning underneath.
"Huh, somebody does not want visitors." Jeff commented. He looked at the gate and found it was already broken open. He pushed the rusty gate open more and they filed through it.
"Notice something?" Harry asked the two.
Adrian nodded, "No guards."
"Exactly."
A huge facility loomed in front of them, just behind the fence. Anything this big had to be a pretty big deal. No one would leave it abandoned and, even then, there'd be sentry guards around to keep the place secure.
They soon got to the entrance of the building. It seemed like a standard industrial facility, save for a large set of reinforced steel doors wrapped in chains and boarded haphazardly.
"Three guesses what's in there," Nick commented, readying the weapon. Harry rolled his eyes and readied the alligator clips.
*Boom!*
The doors quivered with an impact. The chains rattled ominously and a few boards creaked.
*Boom!*
The jarred doors opened a bit further, exposing a glimpse of the inside.
"Jeff, Slendy said this was an easy one, right?" The youngest asked, eyeing the door.
*Boom!*
The makeshift barricade began cracking under the stress.
Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a long-distance communicator. "Slendy? Anybody? This is Harry… uh… About the zombie case, I think we need a bigger gun."
The radio crackled with Tim's voice agreeing before going dead.
Harry steeled himself, readying his clips, he could feel BRVR charging itself in his pack.
"Listen, I know we're facing imminent death… probably… but what does a bigger gun have to do with anything?"
"They're American; it's their solution to everything!"
Harry mentally told them to shut up or be productive and refocused on the doors creaking and moaning under the pressure.
*Boom! Crack!*
The door split open and the horde rushed out.
Tim ran downstairs to find Slendy at the table surrounded with papers. The entity looked up, "Ah, Timothy, wha-?"
"We have trouble."
Twenty minutes later and the group had barely made a dent.
Where one fell, twelve more shambling things in lab coats, hospital gowns, or business suits took its place. Each wave brought new surprises, too.
The first wave was standard, moaning zombies. Then, the next few waves became more and more decayed.
"How does dying give you tentacle-mouths?!" Nick shouted over the din, shooting another decayed demon-dog thing that barreled out of the entryway.
"To be honest, mutated zombies are new." Harry admitted, frying another on the way.
The four were steadily pushed back by the sheer number of creatures crawling through the facility. Jeff was slashing left and right, trying to fend off the horde.
"Fall back! We need a better vantage point!" He shouted.
The group ran from the massive wave of the undead, running down the dirt road back to town. They stopped when a smaller, but still dense wave of the other town citizens started shuffling towards them.
"Oh, come on! Where did these assholes come from!" Jeff shouted in disbelief.
"No time! The fire escape!" Adrian shouted over the moans. They climbed the fire ladders of the nearby buildings to the rooftop. The creatures stalked towards it, but Harry pulled the ladder up as the first ones started reaching it.
The crowd of zombies just started congregating around the building, clawing at the walls. A few had even started crushing the ones underfoot at the base of the wall and were slowly making a mound of zombified bodies and ascending up the building's wall.
"Well, I can honestly say this is one of the ways I figured I'd die… er, die again." Nick said solemnly. "Zombie apocalypse, meteor impact, or massive heart failure from poor diet."
"You weren't an optimist, were you?" Adrian commented dryly.
"Harry, you've got the longest range. Try taking some out." Jeff called over at the edge. Harry nodded, sparking the two wire clips together.
Adrian grinned with an idea. "Hey, will this help?" He kicked at one of the pipes along the rooftop and it began sprinkling water at the crowd. Harry nodded eagerly and began charging the clips with BRVR. The metal started to glow with electricity buildup before he shot out a loud thunderbolt. The initial bolt branched into thousands of tendrils, but the main one followed the electrical current in the water and left a large area of smoking corpses which were rapidly walked over by the oncoming horde.
Harry ran to the other side and repeated the action, less effective without the water. Three more bolts shot out before he leaned over, panting. BRVR popped its head out and moaned 'Pika' tiredly. "W- *huff* We can't… *wheeze*…"
"Harry's down for the count," Jeff announced. He took out his own Glock (something he didn't like using often) and began shooting uselessly at the massive horde, taking down enemies one at a time.
"I'm out of bullets," Nick said, returning the gun to his pocket. "And my wasps won't do squat against zombies."
"Try it!" Nick beat against his chest like he was trying to relieve heartburn before opening his mouth wide and releasing a buzzing swarm of wasps. He could control them enough to move the social swarm in a general direction. The cloud of insects moved amongst the thousands of zombies, stinging at random, but effectively doing nothing. After a few minutes, they wound up infected with the virus and, being incompatible with it, dropped dead and didn't get back up.
Nick bemoaned their fate (and the loss of Totally Awesome Zombie Wasps) later when he found out.
Adrian took the barbed wire in both hands and began trying to whip downwards at the pyramids climbing the wall, but the effort couldn't hold up to the massive swarm slowly climbing to replace the fallen.
It was not looking good. The building was only two stories and the zombies had already piled on top of each other to the point where they could reach the lowest fire escape rung. Adrian had to use his heated wires to practically weld off the iron supports holding the fire escape.
It fell into the crowd, crushing the ones unfortunate enough to be underneath.
"Shit. This is not how I wanted today to go." Jeff cursed. He was already on the radio trying to get a hold of Masky. "Masky, you son of a bitch, where the f*ck are you!"
"*crrtch* Language Jeff. Slendy spent two years on that. *crrtch*"
"I'll fix my f*cking "language" when I'm not knee deep in f*cking zombies ready to tear me a new-"
"*crrtch* Jeff don't finish that sentence. *crrtch*"
"And why the Hell not?"
"'Cuz Slendy's here." Masky's voice came clearly from behind them.
The group turned and saw Slendy standing, tentacles out and ready with several Proxies holding various ranged weaponry.
Hoodie ran to the edge and lifted his mask briefly to pull the pin on a grenade with his mouth before sending it straight into the crowd. The blast took out a good number. He and another girl ran over with what looked like a large, portable machine gun. She excitedly cackled as she fired it at the horde while Hoodie fed a long chain of bullets into the machine.
Slendy teleported right into the fray. He spun with his tentacles to clear a circle around him before impaling the creatures through the head methodically. He repeated the procedure throughout the mass, teleporting to dense locations and taking them out, thinning the horde.
The game-changer came when Toby showed up. He pulled down his goggles and had his fireproof mask, but the mask's grinning appearance matched his own. He was hauling a huge tank on his back and had a two, long, black sticks in both hands with tubes connecting them to the tank.
The end of the sticks had a tiny flame over an opening.
Slendy quickly cleared a space before teleporting the Proxy into the middle of it. A second later, twin columns of fire erupted from the clearing, burning through the army of the undead like matchsticks. He clearly was enjoying himself as he cackled, walking through and circling around to burn away the masses.
"Adrian."
The scythe-weilder turned to the faceless entity who wordlessly (or possibly telepathically) pointed to the flames. Adrian nodded and looked down at the mass of burning corpses in Toby's wake. He took a breath and began raising his arms before lowering them and raising them again. Harry noticed the flames' dance mimicked his movements.
Up. Flare.
Down. Fade.
Up. Flare.
Down. Fade.
Suddenly, he jolted his arms to the left and the fire responded, moving like some kind of snake towards the unburned undead. He repeated the action in different directions, taking out more and more of them.
Beads of sweat started to form on his head and his eyes started to glow coal red. He grunted with the effort, his arms started shaking and the fire started spreading more wildly out of control.
"Stop! Adrian, Stop!" Slendy's mental voice cried out.
Harry saw the massive tendrils of fire flaring and fanning through the crowd, but also towards Toby who had abandoned using the flamethrowers and was running through the crowd against the wall of fire coming towards him.
Slender vanished in a cloud of black smoke before reappearing in front of Toby, taking his hand and then teleporting back, unaware of the visitor.
Toby and Slender reappeared on the rooftop before Toby suddenly cried out in surprise as a zombie had latched itself onto his shoulder. He couldn't feel it, so who knew how long it had been there. A quick bullet from Hoodie's gun ended it and one of the other Proxies started moving to clean the wound.
Harry noticed a zombie starting to crawl an arm over the precipice just behind Nick as he was fumbling with one of the guns. "Look out!"
The zombie latched onto Nick's leg and he stumbled backwards, staring at the gaping maw. Suddenly, a whistle flew through the air and a tiny, throwing knife impacted the zombie's forehead. It fell backwards with a moan as another Proxy took up Toby's flamethrower and roasted the pyramid formed below.
Nick sent a grateful nod to Harry and assembled his weapon faster.
Slendy telepathically shouted over the moans, "This is no use! We have to use the Omega Protocol! Fall back to me!"
Nick and Adrian didn't know what "Omega Protocol" meant, but from how the Proxies abandoned everything and ran up to the entity, they followed suit. Each grabbed a tentacle and Slendy confirmed they were all there.
They teleported to a clearing far from the location, Slendy did a quick head count and confirmed everyone was there before suddenly disappearing.
Slenderman reappeared in a street in the center of the town.
He took out a small, stone with a symbol engraved in it. He sent a pulse of energy into the stone itself and the glyph glowed red.
The entity set it down and quickly vanished in black smoke.
The glyph pulsed and flashed red.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
FlashFlashFlashFlashFlashFla-
It erupted in light.
The entity reappeared before the group of Proxies and wards and looked back in the direction of the town.
A bright light in the center of the city exploded in the night sky followed by a deep 'whump' sound making a shockwave across everything to the mountain range. The light faded and became a dark, black shadowy mass crackling with an ominous red lightning.
Then, the town imploded.
Houses, trees, ground, streets, everything slowly crumbled and fell into the center of the black cloud. Buildings were ripped from foundations and floated towards the center, making a slow swirl before breaking apart and debris flew closer to the center. Telephone poles and power lines sparked as they were ripped from each other. The burning buildings and out-of-control fires were pulled like a physical entity into the center in an incredible swirl of orange flame.
The area of effect reached the "Umbrella Corporation" building and the entire building was pulled from the inside-out with chairs, papers, and debris flying out the entryway until eventually the entire facility was ripped from the ground (and all of its underground levels too) and pulled into the phenomenon. Thousands more zombies were seen before being pulled in and vanishing in the cloud.
Eventually, the phenomenon stopped spreading and retreated back into itself, bringing in debris and dirt and crumbling into the focal point. The center glowed purple and then flashed a bright blue-white before stopping completely.
The group looked on in awe at the massive crater that once held an entire city.
"S-so that's Project Omega?" Adrian asked with an uncharacteristic stutter.
"Omega Protocol," Slender corrected, "As the name suggests, it is the final option in the event of a world-ending catastrophe. It's actually the reason Atlantis won't be found. The stones are rare, so it is only used in extraordinary cases, but given the scale of this unusual infestation, we couldn't afford to have it spread. Still, the Omega Protocol hasn't had to be used in almost two centuries."
"I can see why," Nick said awestruck.
"Crap!" Jeff exclaimed. The group turned to him, concerned. "I left the freaking butcher's knife back in the city! Oh, man! I really wanted that…"
The group rolled their eyes (or with Slender, just facepalmed), before the entity spoke, "I need to get Toby back to Eyeless Jack and I need to take the others. Afterwards, I need to file this incident and the Omega Protocol usage with the Council, also possibly get this "Umbrella Corporation" looked into properly. Jeff, could you escort Harry, Nikolaus, and Adrian back to the Port?"
Jeff nodded. "Sure thing, Slendy." He gestured for the others to follow as the entity and Proxies vanished in smoke.
Harry clipped his wires to his belt again and pulled off the mask. "Soooo, any reason in particular why you'd willingly take us back?"
"Yeah," Jeff snickered, "More arms to help loot that gas station."
The group sat at the cement car stops to one of the parking spots at the gas station. They'd made a pretty decent haul of snacks and sodas and put Harry's backpack to good use. BRVR was content walking outside of it and chewing a piece of beef jerky.
Harry took a bite out of the Halloween-themed candy. "Oh, hey, I just realized; it's Halloween."
"Yeah, Trick or Treat," Jeff said, motioning to the sack of stolen goods. He took another swig of Coke, somehow still not letting it leak through his cheek slashes.
Nick spoke, "Hey, Harry, thanks for the save."
"No trouble, really." The boy replied, "Though that was clever, Adrian, using the water pipe like that."
"Thank you. I just noticed the "water out" painted on and broke it."
"Huh, well don't expect me to be all buddy-buddy," Jeff announced, taking a potato chip.
"Aw, come on," Nick whined, "What better way to cement friendship than facing eminent death together."
He reached out and pulled Harry and Adrian into an awkward group hug. Harry matched the undead teen's grin with BRVR on his shoulder while Adrian looked nonplussed, but somewhat amused by the random action.
"Well, we'd better get going," Jeff announced, turning to get up, "Also," He spun on the spot, "hug me and I'll rip your arms off." That stopped Nick from any further attempts.
Dave drove recklessly on the only road out of the town/facility. He was a pizza delivery guy, er, former pizza delivery guy. He knew how to drive a car anywhere within 30 minutes or less. And boy was he grateful for that.
After he quit Freddy Fazbear's, he contacted a brainy cousin of his who had some connections to Umbrella Corps. He was always saying they needed lab assistants there, so after stalling at dead-end part time jobs for a while, Dave sent out an application and slowly worked around the various facilities over the months. This last one was pretty well hidden and definitely had a higher security requirement for most cases. Overall, he'd just work in a sealed, guarded room cleaning beakers and prepping petri dishes.
Then, of course, the zombie outbreak happened. He didn't know how it happened and, frankly, he didn't care. He bolted it out of the labs as scientists and military guards rushed through the facility hallways to contain the sudden outbreak.
At the exit point, a few soldiers were fighting the undead creatures and a few managed to get out of the perimeter fences. He could hear the screams and the alarm sirens in the city. He knew they were all Umbrella Corporation employees, but it still worried him.
"You there!" A military superior shouted at him. He nervously looked at the man and then looked around, praying for someone behind or around him. He was suddenly grabbed by the shirt and pulled into the man's face, "Pick up a gun and start shooting, Poindexter. Now's not the time for biology class!"
He shoved a semi-automatic rifle in Dave's hand and went back to shooting the horde. Dave backed away, gun still in his arms.
Seconds later, the military officer was overrun by zombies and being eaten.
Dave ran to one of the military jeeps and thanked every deity in existence that the keys were still in the ignition.
"Grawgh!"
He did not 'shriek'. He let out a manly yelp of surprise. But either way, he did accidentally pull the trigger and shoot the zombie square in the face, making it fall back in the passenger seat, bits of brain and blood spattering the car interior behind it. He squirmed in disgust and kicked the zombie out the door before putting the car in drive and flooring it out of there.
As he was driving away, he looked back in the mirror and saw the entire facility, no the entire town collapse into some kind of black hole. The safety manuals didn't go over something like that.
He kept flooring down the stretch of road and away from that nuthouse Umbrella Corporation.
He really needed a new job.
In the back of the jeep, a jar containing what looked like a gross, white tapeworm suspended in yellowish ooze rattled against several others.
The four arrived at the mansion's Port and walked up to the porch. Jeff made a harsh sound and motioned to them from by a bush. He put the bag of snacks hidden in the bush and they followed suit. He explained the plan to come back down later to hide them in one of the rooms upstairs without Slendy noticing.
The goods hidden, they walked in the front door. "Hey, Slendy, we're ho~ome!" Harry called out.
They walked to the living room and found the Sally lying on the floor on her stomach, writing in a child's puzzle book. Eyeless Jack was there, too, reading a printout of some new medical journal with a steaming plate of braised lung next to him. But the main source of attention was Toby.
He was walking around the room with his arms and fingers ramrod straight and walked stiffly with his knees locked. He moaned on occasion.
"Uh, Toby? What's up?" Jeff asked.
"I… bitten… craving… brroooowwwnnnniiiieeeesss!" Toby moaned out disjointedly.
Sally giggled and looked up from her booklet. "Aren't you supposed to crave brains?"
"Ew! Gross." Toby interjected, breaking character, "I'd take a brownie any day. Brains are just gross and squishy."
"Don't knock it 'till you try it." EJ commented, taking another bite of lung.
Nick eyed Toby warily as he continued to stumble through the furniture-filled room, "Shouldn't we… I dunno… quarantine him or something? Isn't that what they do in movies?"
"Good sense of caution, but not needed." Slendy walked in silently through the doorway, "Toby has been with us long enough that the virus is dead the minute it reaches his bloodstream. We ran tests to be sure and the virus is dead. Toby isn't a zombie and won't be any time soon.
"It's actually why we are typically tasked with viral contaminants and biohazards. They don't tend to affect us from Sigma exposure."
"Grrr! Fire! Bad! Me am zombie!" Toby grunted out, still stiffly walking around.
"That's too Frankenstein, Toby." Sally commented, still giggling. In response, Toby shifted to hunching himself over one leg bent, the other with a noticeably fake limp. He bent his arms and put them out "Thriller"-style.
"That's better." Sally commented happily as he continued moaning and groaning about brownies.
Months later, Slenderman was at breakfast. Harry and Nick were joking about some video game while Adrian just smirked on occasion and rolled his eyes at the cruder jokes. The two new wards bonded quickly as friends, despite the apparent age differences, over jobs, events, games, and other childish material and it seemed to do them good in integrating with the rest of the tenants.
He calmly sipped his tea with steady hands, reminiscing that Harry's 11th Birthday was approaching rapidly.
He didn't show it (if he had any facial features to begin with), but he couldn't shake the ominous feeling of impending doom as July 31st got closer with each day.
The hurricane was outside.
The door would open soon.
11:58 at night.
And nobody was asleep.
A large group of people were gathered around a table, waiting through the tense silence. They kept looking up at the clock on the wall anxiously.
"This is highly irregular-"
"But necessary, we must see with our own eyes. Trust me."
That left them silent in the darkness, illuminated by a few simple candles scattered around the room.
11:59.
In precisely 60 seconds the fate of the world could be re-written in an instant.
Hands were being rung, nails chewed, sweat formed, and a few fearful tears shed.
…
…
…
12:00.
The ruby quill levitated and moved to a large stack of parchment. It dipped itself in an everlasting green ink pot and set itself onto the first page to write:
"Ms. H. Abbot, The North Bedroom on the Second Story, 26, Dove Street, Worchester, England."
It finished the address and another paper from a different stack flew into the first as it folded itself into an envelope. A small pot floating over a candle levitated over the pages and poured bright violet wax over the fold and a stamp rose and fell hard into the cooling wax, producing a bold imprinted crest.
The quill continued as anxious faces peered at its meticulous progress.
"Ms. S. Bones, …"
And so it continued for the next few minutes as it narrowed down.
"Ms. P. Parkinson"
"Ms. P. Patil"
"Ms. P. Patil"
"Ms. S. Perks"
…
"Mr. H. Potter"
Albus Dumbledore, surrounded by Hogwarts' professors watched the quill continue. Relief filled everyone's faces, save for the old man's.
His eyes twinkled in the candlelight, tracking the quill's movements.
Soon.
His Weapon would come to him.
AN: Behold.
At long last;
Our patience is rewarded.
…
Adrian's power was inspired by Fire Bending. It's not perfect, so it's not OP.
The Omega Protocol is meant to be a rarely used thing, so it probably won't come up again. It's pretty OP. I wanted something similar to the nuke in the Resident Evil franchise, but I got this "black hole" thing in my head and I had to write it down.
Jeff has a bit of a potty mouth in stressful situations... also in general, but Slendy spent 2 years conditioning it out of him... which essentially means he does it whenever Masky, Hoodie, or Slendy are out of earshot. (And he kept it in check when he was with younger Harry)
I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Sincerely,
The Smiling Crow