When he'd fallen, Cranky expected to feel blood gushing from his abdomen. Jake Cavanaugh had ripped the shotgun from his hands and aimed the barrel at him. Cranky had only a second to make peace with himself, to make sure that he didn't regret anything that had happened to him in his life - a life spent on the streets of Osaka city. It wasn't an easy thing to accept when you were only given a few seconds. Cranky expected the pain to take over his body completely, robbing his mind of any comprehensible thought.

The pain came, but not where he expected. It was his shoulder that felt like it had exploded when he hit the ground. He shot a quick glance at the wound, seeing a streak of torn skin and blood seeping out. Just a flesh wound, he hoped. But there was no time to test it out. Jake Cavanaugh the career criminal was just a few feet away, wrestling for control over the shotgun with Kenny.

Kenny ...

Cranky could've sworn he saw the barrel pointed straight at him. But it must've been Kenny that saved his life, distracting Jake, throwing his aim off. The teen was fighting a losing struggle with the much larger, much stronger career criminal but was somehow able to hold his own in such an unbalanced fight. Jake had the teen pinned to the ground with the shotgun against his throat, trying to suffocate him. To protect himself, Kenny had both of his hands on the gun, trying in vain to push upwards. There were no words spoken, only grunts of effort coming from both parties.

That was when Cranky charged. NOBODY touched his kid brother. Jake seemed to expect the oncoming charge and swiftly drew a combat knife hidden in his boot and performed a vicious slash. Cranky blocked the move with his forearm but tore it up in the process. It could've been worse though. The knife would've collided with his throat had Cranky not effectively blocked.

The air surrounding the immediate area began to grow heavy. Cranky couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was somehow finding it a little harder to breathe. He glanced quickly at one of the street lights left on - why, he didn't know either. The light was fading. Nothing uncommon in a completely trashed city overrun with the undead, he supposed, but something didn't feel right. Cranky's vision began fading as quickly as the light had. His limbs started losing strength as he was gradually forced to his knees, his legs too weak to keep his weight up. Cranky wasn't able to tell if it was his fading vision or not, but the area was starting to grow darker as well, as if the light from the very moon was being absorbed by ...

Then he saw Kenny, still struggling with Jake. Only this time, what Cranky saw nearly made his jaw drop. The teen was winning the struggle. He had pushed Jake upwards, giving himself enough room to gradually push himself to his feet. The look on Jake's face was priceless. He seemed unaffected by whatever had affected Cranky.

Shadow Technology.

It had kicked into action again. The realization made Cranky's heart sink. The last time he'd seen that technology inside of Kenny work was nine years ago, when they had first met. And now it was happening all over again. He could recognize it in a heartbeat. The technology inside Kenny's body worked by absorbing surrounding energy in any form and used it to sustain itself. Kenny's body itself absorbed the energy, even light, rendering everything black - even his own skin. The energy absorbed glowed from inside his body, showing from behind his eyes, making them look as if they were glowing. Jake was in serious trouble.

XXXXX

The career criminal couldn't quite figure what was going on. One minute he was about to suffocate the kid. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone just to get his hands on some ammunition, but he was beginning to turn into a real pain in the ass. The next minute, the kid had gotten an unexplained burst of energy, gaining the strength to push Jake off of him! It didn't make sense for such a light weight person to be able to produce that kind of strength! Jake suppressed the shock and concentrated on beating the teen, though by now, he was starting to sweat with the effort. Jake almost never sweat with effort. Most people in their right minds would never date mess with him. But here we was, struggling with a mere teenager!

The kid's pupils were practically gone, covered by a translucent white substance, making him look as if he'd completely lost them. This was a feature present in zombies but with the amount of strength Kenny was exerting, he was no zombie. His skin continued to darken to a shade of black – either that or the surrounding illumination was somehow fading. Dark green light shone from behind Kenny's eyes as the he threw a punch that connected with Jake's jaw, miraculously throwing the larger man off of him. Jake flew into the air and crashed into a parked car, denting its metal frame before crashing into the asphalt.

Kenny moved inhumanly fast and was upon Jake within two seconds, attacking the career criminal with a flurry of punches and kicks, his limbs moving so quickly that it was impossible to make them out. Cranky continued to gawk and stare in awe as he could only see Jake's head being thrown left and right by what seemed to be an invisible force, blood and spit spraying from his mouth with every movement.

"Kenny, stop!" Cranky ordered. But the youth wasn't listening and he should've figured just as much. As much as he felt the threat that Jake posed, he wasn't interested in having the career criminal killed. He was a powerful ally against the hordes of the undead, and they couldn't afford to have him die.

"What the fuck!" As if his prayers help had been answered, Cranky spun around in the direction of the new voices to see a pair of people standing just a few feet away, looking towards Kenny beating the daylights out of the career criminal. The woman stood about a head shorter than the man, dressed in a red cocktail dress and black stockings. Her bare arms were coated with sweat and dried blook – whether or not it was hers, Cranky couldn't tell. The man that was with her was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a comfortable looking cotton wife beater, drenched with sweat. They both shared Cranky's expression as they stared at Kenny.

"Stop him!" Cranky said. The two of them only noticed Cranky then, but didn't have to be told twice on what to do. They dashed for the kid, each one seizing him by the arms. Kenny howled in fury, like some sort of rabid animal, clearly startling the newcomers.

Nevertheless, the persevered, pulling him away from the career criminal, who collapsed to the ground with a thud, holding his ribs in pain. Cranky approached him and offered a helping hand, Jake looking up at him with a confused expression on his face.

XXXXX

Saying that Jake was confused was an understatement. His face hurt, his chest and arms hurt, but he could bear the pain. The most overpowering sensation was his bewilderment. Where in the world did that kid get all that strength from? Jake took his punishment well, and the strikes he endured hurt, but were more of an annoyance. The problem was the fact that they were coming at him so quickly, he had no time to react, no time to counter attack. He'd never seen anybody fight like that before. With a little bit of strength training, that kid could seriously kill somebody.

As he was struggling to readjust his vision, the first thing that came into focus was a hand, extended before his face. His gaze traveled up the hand, towards the forearm, the upper arm, up the shoulder, and came to rest at the face that looked back at him with a warm smile.

"W…why are you doing this?" Jake asked.

"I think you could help us with our little problem with the undead," Cranky replied simply. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be damned the day I get the shit beaten outta me by someone half my size," Jake spat bitterly.

"Then you can count today being the first of your damned life," Cranky said, half jokingly.

"Hey!" Jake retorted. "He didn't … I'm fine …" But he realized how silly he must've sounded.

"Graagh!" The Shadow Technology hadn't released Kenny from its grasp yet, as he ripped himself violently from the man and woman's grasps and made his way over to Jake.

"I'll take care of this," Cranky said, walking up to Kenny nonchalantly. He suddenly spun around, and swung his fist and Kenny, connecting with the kid's temple, effectively knocking him to the ground with one strike.

"What the hell!" The man with the wife beater said, suddenly aiming his handgun at Cranky.

"It's alright," Cranky said, quick to defend himself. "Kenny needs it to snap out of his little …" He was at a loss of words to describe his Shadow Technology induced state. "Just trust me. He'll be alright." The man opened his mouth to say something, but stopped as he spotted movement on the ground.

"What the hell," Kenny said, rubbing his head as he sat up.

Ada bent down to pick him up off the floor. "Are you hurt?" she asked, brows wrinkled in concern.

"Yeah, I'll be okay," he said, pushing her hand away lightly. He looked up at Cranky in confusion. "You bastard, that hurt!"

"Sorry," Cranky said, shrugging. "It happened again …"

"Oh …" Only the two friends understood what had just happened, everyone else looking around at each other wondering what kind of meaning was being exchanged between them at the subliminal level. "Billy, you can lower the gun now. It's fine, Cranky's cool."

"Well maybe you guys wanna explain what the fuck just happened?" Jake asked, furious that everything could've been forgiven so easily.

"I've got an extra pack of shotgun shells," Cranky offered. "Take it or leave it. But you can have a damn good share of our weapons if you'll join us."

Jake thought about Cranky's offer. And it took longer than a second. If he stuck with them, his chances of survival were guaranteed judging by the amount of ammunition Kenny had in his backpack, and with Jake's own skill in hand-to-hand combat and firearms. And they'd benefit from him too. But then he thought about his own mission which he'd momentarily forgotten in the pursuit for more ammo – to assassinate William Birkin, whoever that mad scientist was.

"Thanks, but I'll take the shotgun shells instead." Cranky headed for where the pack of shells had been dropped onto the cracked, bloody road, from when the fight first ensued.

"Take it, and leave us the hell alone," Cranky said, single-handedly tossing the heavy shoulder pack over with an arm. Jake swiped it out of the air and nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Looks like you folks can take care of yourselves well enough without me anyway," he said, before heading off into the distance.

"I don't understand that guy," Billy commented, watching Jake's massive form disappear into the darkness of the dead streets. "He's got some guts taking on this viral city by himself."

"Something tells me he's not gonna have a problem," Cranky replied turning around to face the trio of survivors.

"So you wanna tell us who this guy is?" Ada asked Kenny, motioning to his friend.

"I don't quite know what he's doing here," Kenny said, motioning towards his friend, "but this is Cranky. We've known each other since we were kids. Well … since I was a kid, anyway. He looked out for me on the streets of Osaka."

"I came here to pay you a surprise visit," Cranky said, "just wanted to see how my bro was doing." He ruffled Kenny's hair with his palm, who only scowled in return. "But I didn't figure it would be under these circumstances."

"Well it's nice to meet you, Mr. Cranky," Ada said, "but I'm afraid we have to get moving. I'm trying to get to the chemical plant nearby. My boyfriend, John works there and I need to know if he's alright. Are you going to come with us?"

"I'd love to …" Cranky began, but then he remembered Cindy. "But there's someone else I need to make sure is alright."

"What the hell?" Kenny asked. "You don't know anybody in this city besides me! Who else would you have to look out for?"

"See, I was at the bar today and I met …"

Kenny rolled his eyes. "Oh God, don't say anymore, I understand. Go off and find her. I'll be alright."

"Do me a favor and take care of him while I'm gone?" Cranky asked Billy, who only looked down at Kenny and smirked at the teen's reaction.

"He still thinks I'm six years old," he remarked. "Just go, Cranky, okay? We'll be fine. Just … make sure you and your friend escape this city."

"It's a deal."

"I'm not joking! I wanna see both of your assess outside the city or I'm gonna …" But Cranky was already far enough away to not have heard his friend. Either that or he'd gotten very good at blocking Kenny's rants.

"Come on," Ada said, putting her hand on the teen's shoulder. "Let's get out of here. I'm sure your friend will be able to take care of himself."

Cranky had already been long gone by the time the trio felt the ground tremble beneath their feet, and a giant worm from hell, complete with three razor sharp tusks at its mouth burst through the ground, throwing them off balance. Billy and Ada drew their weapons and began firing rapidly as the creature dove straight towards Kenny, its gaping mouth open as it moved in for the kill.