Closer and closer the Rombie army crept. At one end of the forest was Slade, sleeping oddly peacefully for a well trained warrior. An unholy army of zombie woodland creatures slowly formed a circle around his tiny base of operations which consisted of a tree stump, a tent, and his laptop. At the other end of the forest sat a similar mass of the undead, circled around rose and Cyborg. As the armies reached mere feet away from their targets, they halted, to await the order to strike. The leader of the army around rose, called strike force alpha, was the first creature that Solomon Bunny had created. The zombified skunk. The skunk had taken to calling itself Skrundy. He spoke softly into his two way wristwatch communicator. "Master, we await your command. Strike force alpha is at position. " "Good," replied the leader of the zombie army, "I will give the order to strike once I have heard from strike force Beta." "Yes, Master," responded Skrundy.
Solomon Bunny sat patiently in his lair. He had taken the garden of his rebirth, and transformed it into an abomination of gardens everywhere. He sat upon a throne made of dead animal bones, piled high on a pyramid of rotting vegetables, and rotting flesh. He sat content with himself. He had orchestrated his plan perfectly. With Alpha checking in as ready, he knew his victory was almost completely assured. Soon, Strike force Beta would check in as ready too. And with the uttering of a single word, end the wretched life of both of the Wilsons. And with that thought, his wrist communicator suddenly beeped at him. He had an incoming communication. His wristwatch shrilly beeped up at him. As he heard this, a smug grin overcame his deformed face. He tapped his watch with what was left of his right hand, and brought it to his lips. "Yes?" "Sir, this is the Red Hare. I and Strike Force Beta are in position around target. We await our orders." Solomon's heart rate quickened, and his muscles tightened. With another tap of his wrist communicator he turned on the three way call feature, and said confidently, "Engage."
Both teams of undead lurched forward toward their respective targets. Rose was up within seconds of the first rotting foot setting foot above her home. She glanced rapidly for her weapons, and grabbed them hastily. Then she ran down her hole towards her emergency escape hatch, only to find that it was jammed. Little did she know that it was jammed with festering raccoons. Reluctantly, she headed toward the main exit, and leaped out of it. While in midair she spun and identified all of her targets. There was a somewhat large gaggle of zombies around her. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the moon. Instead of landing upon the forest ground, she dove back into her shelter. There, she affixed her infrared goggles to her eyes. Then, she leaped again, in the same spinning movement, and saw the zombies that she was against. It numbered in the hundreds. This time, she did not dive back in, but instead landed on the ground in a fighting chance, and drew her carrot blades. The shimmering carrot metal reflected the disgusting faces of her undead adversaries. Soon the orange blade would be stained with woodland creature blood.
Meanwhile, Slade was not in nearly as much danger as his estranged daughter. The team had moved in to where his body seemingly lied, but in reality, Slade slept high above the trees, and was watching them attack his base, and attempt to kill him, though it was really only a decoy made of leaves and squirrel skin. The Red Hare howled as he, made the realization that his target was not here. He howled into the night sky, up at the moon. As he looked up, he saw the outline of slade, bathed in moonlight. "There," he shouted to his minions and pointed his clawed digit at Slade. The zombies began climbing the trees toward slade, and slade began to search for a branch or vine with which to jump from tree to tree. Seeing none, Slade sighed to himself, and began top climb upwards as well.
A wall of zombies assaulted Rose and she spun her sword ferociously until a circle of injured, but still living zombies fell around her. She shrieked as the corpses clutched at her ankles and scratched at her legs and feet. One of them leaned forward in an attempt to bite her toe off. She sliced the head that held the offending mouth off of it's body. Suddenly it lied still. She had found a weakness. She looked up from her first kill in the fight with a new confidence in her gaze. She lunged toward her closest enemy and sliced his head off in one clean movement. His body fell and lay still while the head rolled to her feet. She laughed with a girlish glee and rushed through her opponents, slicing heads off left and right until she had broken through the mass, and gotten into clear forestry. It is at that point, that from the trees fell Skrundy, with nun chucks in his hands.
Slade was climbing as fast as he could, and could hear the moans of over 300 zombies climbing up his tree, and up all the surrounding trees. As he approached the top of the oak tree he was climbing, he sighed to himself, and looked down one last time before reaching in to his bandolier, and pulling out his grenade. It was a last ditch effort that he had wanted to avoid, but at this point saw no other method of escape. "And I liked this place," he thought to himself. He grabbed the pin with his teeth and pulled it out, and threw the grenade straight down. As it fell, every zombie turned its head downward to watch the falling explosive drop. As Slade saw their head's turn, he used every last ounce of his strength to leap away from his tree. He got about twenty feet away, when suddenly he was assaulted with heat and noise, and blown even farther away. Burning and bruised, he landed another forty feet away, unconscious.
The zombies all around them stopped to witness their leader fight. Rose immediately lunged at Skrundy with her carrot blade but he dodged and pounced upon her with his num chucks spinning wildly. One hit her hard in the face and she hit the ground. He went for a second blow but she rolled away and sat up to defend herself from another swing at her face. As the chain neared her body she sliced upwards and cut the num chuck in half. Skrundy jumped backwards several feet in shock. He held up his half num chuck in front of his face for a moment, before snarling at Rose and lunging again with his remaining weapon. She dodged and sliced again and again until Skrundy was left with only his bare hands to work with. Seeing an advantage, Rose sliced off Skrundy's left hand. Skrundy fell to his knees, and tears began rolling down his sweat caked face. Feeling merciful, Rose decided to spare his pitiful life. She reached down to the ground and picked up his decapitated hand and put it in her pocket. "It is mine now," she said to him. She then took her sword from his neck and sheathed it once more. With that, she ran. The zombies began to follow, but their decaying limbs could not easily match pace with hers, and she was soon gone from their view.
Rose ran far, until her legs could no longer carry her. When she stopped, she was in the city adjacent to the forest she had been in just hours before. The sign on the road ahead of her read, "Welcome to Bludhaven." She took a more leisurely pace as she began to walk down the road. "This must be the outer reaches," she thought to herself. It was too dark to be less than a mile from the real city. As she walked, she heard a ringing from her pocket. Confused, she reached in to pull out Skrundy's decapitated hand, with his wristwatch communicator still attached to it. She tapped the red button on the side and a dry low voice came out of it.
"We have your father, and your robot friend as well. If you ever want to see them alive again, you will come back to the garden where we first met. You have Seventy two hours, before I slaughter both of them."
Rose did not know what he had meant by her "robot friend," but the safety of her father was of the utmost importance to her. But invading the garden alone to rescue her father alone was simply not an option. She would need help. And she knew just who to ask. She resumed her course into Bludhaven ,at a quickened pace, for now, she had precious little time left, before her father was no more.