Chapter 18: Around the same time as the end of Chapter 17, but in a different location

The real difficulty of herding zombies was finding the right balance between staying at a safe distance, but also staying close enough that they stayed interested. Leading a herd of 51 zombies through the subdivision was difficult. Perona had to stay on active shouting duty to keep their attention, because if they started wandering off, it would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise. Franky was glad to pull out onto a clear, open, main road and was also glad to see the cluster following after them. Perona could finally stop screaming, which both Franky and Law were grateful for. Law, a little bit more outwardly grateful than Franky.

When the dead were clustered in the main road, Franky pulled ahead a fair distance, then swerved in the middle of the street, turning the Frankystein around to face the horde head on.

"Y'know what I miss?" He asked his passengers.

"... What?" Perona asked after it became clear Law wouldn't.

"Bowling," he flashed that crazy smile to both of them.

It took a minute for the two of them to realize what he was suggesting. "Nnnnno," Law protested. "You can't be serious."

"Super serious!" Franky gripped the steering wheel, psyching himself up. And then he relaxed a little. "Actually… Maybe one of you should do it. I can't have all the fun to myself. Law, what's your score?"

Law rolled his eyes. "Should we really be worried about that right now?! I don't play the stupid game anyway."

"Mine's 487!" Perona said.

Franky looked shocked. "That's all?! Get up here, kiddo, we're doing something about that!"

Perona squealed with delight as Franky shifted to the passenger seat and helped her climb to the front. When they were situated, he reminded them to buckle up. "Safety first. Especially since you're gonna wanna floor it to get the right speed."

Perona bounced giddily in her seat, while Law braced himself for takeoff. "Is this safe?! This can't be safe!" He said.

"Nah, I've done it before! We'll be fine!"

Perona and the tires both squealed as she slammed on the accelerator. The jeep lurched forward with its usual sluggishness, but built up speed before long. Law closed his eyes and braced himself for impact while Franky cheered Perona on. They made contact with the sound of wet splattering and ragged groans. Chunks of zombie splattered onto the windshield and intestines flew as several zombies were impaled on the spikes. Perona carved a beautiful chunk out of their numbers, and when Perona slammed on the brakes, the Frankystein fishtailed like it was on ice, due to all the blood on the wheels.

"THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN!" Perona shrieked. "Again, again! I wanna do it again!"

Law, shivering in the background, allowed his eyes to open when he felt he was clear of danger. He was paralyzed in the backseat, willing his body to move. "I want to get off Mr. Franky's Wild Ride…" he muttered.

"Great work, P! Come on, if we hurry back, we can probably lure another big chunk away!" Franky said.

"Yeah! Assuming everyone is still alive!" Law reminded them.

Back at Little Garden, we still had Krieg, Vergo, and Monet hanging out up on the balcony. Now, they had done shit-all to help clear the outpost, but it's not like our heroes would've really been glad to see them help anyway. The important thing was that all of the gunfire around Zoro and Bonney's place meant the area around the entrance was starting to clear up, as zombies shuffled their way to the source of the noise.

The RV was pretty much toast, but the jeep with the minigun was still functional. "Alright, let's move on out!" Krieg said once he was confident they could make it. They scaled the ladder and snuck across the road to the center of the cul-de-sac. The only two who could've seen them were Sanji and Baby, and they were preoccupied with the zombies swarming their van. They weren't paying attention.

In fact, the duo didn't notice until Krieg and his men had actually made it to the jeep and piled in. Krieg hopped behind the wheel, Vergo in the passenger seat, and Monet operating the now-depleted turret. "OH THOSE SONS OF BITCHES! THEY'RE STILL ALIVE!" Sanji roared. He opened fire on them, but the shots went wide. The zombies trying to feast on them were rocking the van too much to get a clear shot on the target.

Krieg started the jeep and laughed maniacally. "AHAHAHA! SO LONG, IDJITS! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!" He pulled off a perfect three-point turn as bullets flew past and he headed for the entrance.

As they pulled out past the gate, Sanji cursed and pounded the roof of the car. "Shit! Fucking SHIT he's getting away!" The van continued shaking and Sanji reluctantly turned his attention back to the zombies.

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Krieg actually wasn't getting away. He didn't get very far past the gate before being forced to stop. Perona had rounded the corner first, in the Frankystein, and now the two were facing off, both at opposite ends of the street.

Franky glared at the other jeep. Krieg was frozen in uncertainty. The Frankystein was blocking the road, no way of driving around it. Krieg's jeep was also blocking the entrance. No way to drive around it.

"Floor it," Franky said, leaning toward Perona.

"What?" She asked.

"What?!" Law asked, a little louder.

"Floor it. Trust me, we'll win."

Perona hesitated for a second, then shrugged her shoulders. "If you say so!" She slammed on the gas and tore down the street, squealing tires like a battlecry. Krieg watched in horror as the armored, spiked version of his own vehicle charged him like a bull seeing red. (Actually that's a misnomer, bulls are drawn by the motion of the cape, not the color red)

Fumbling with the gearshift for a moment, he threw the jeep in reverse. He tried backing into the safety of the cul-de-sac, where he'd have more room to maneuver, but it was too late. Just as he was starting to back up, the Frankystein made contact. The weaker jeep crumpled underneath the superior strength of the Frankystein. The front was pierced by the spikes, and the few zombies still skewered were absolutely pancaked. Both jeeps suffered damage, but Frankystein won this round handily.

Krieg and his men bounced around like ragdolls from the impact and subsequent push back through the gates. No one got it worse than Monet, who was flung from the minigun and landed flat on her back, on the hard pavement. She groaned in pain and found herself unable to stand. Krieg and Vergo were in a daze, suffering from whiplash among other things.

"And that, kids, is why you always wear your seatbelt," said Franky. "Now, could you pass me that toolbox back there, Law?" Leaning over the seat, he gestured underneath it, to a red metallic toolbox that sat on the floor of the jeep.

"Planning on fixing it up now?" Law said like a smartass, handing him the box.

Franky shook his head. "Not exactly! I'm fixing something, though. Fixing to kick some ass!" Toolbox in hand, he climbed out of the Frankystein and strolled over to Krieg's side of the jeep. Still recovering, Krieg could barely fight back as Franky opened the door and hauled him out, tossing him to the ground along with Monet. He did the same with Vergo, leaving all three groaning on the ground.

Franky motioned for Perona and Law to join him, occasionally glancing over at the carnage happening across the way. The gunfire and zombie groans were still providing the worst kind of background music for the scene. He needed to hurry, or he'd miss the action… "C'mon! You two watch these guys, make sure they don't do anything dumb!"

Reluctantly, the duo climbed out and shuffled to their new captives. Franky rifled through the toolbox and handed Law a rubber mallet, and Perona a claw hammer. "They try anything, eh… smack 'em around." He armed himself with a heavy-duty pipe wrench. "I super got some work to do myself."

Law and Perona were more than happy to guard the wounded individuals than throw themselves unprotected into the zombie fray. They let Franky go off to be a hero like the others while they stayed back.

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While Franky and the others took care of Krieg's men, zombie disposal was going swimmingly. Robin and Luffy arrived through the back door and Robin unloaded more of the guns and ammo she brought with her. With everyone properly loaded, the "heavy hitters" cleared back outside, if for no other reason than to keep the house from becoming even more of a nightmare festival.

Zoro, Bonney, and Robin all retreated back outside, only this time circling around to the front of the house instead of running to someone else's property. Luffy helped Nami stay on her feet by wrapping her arm over his shoulders and lifting her up. Coby and Vivi, now armed with guns themselves, no longer had to wait for zombies to claw at the open window to dispose of them. The four had the world's most morbid double date inside the house while the others fought outside.

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Okay so to be honest, none of them were really at all ready for living enemies. Humans could plan and strategize and prepare options. But zombies, they could deal with, no problem. Once Robin, Zoro, Bonney, and Franky regrouped around Zoro's front yard, Sanji and Baby felt comfortable enough to slide off the roof of the van and join them. The six of them left the crowd huddled around the balcony to the four inside and got to work clearing out the stragglers still scattered around the rest of Little Garden. They moved as a single unit, watching each other's backs, ensuring no angle was uncovered.

Franky, Robin, and Zoro got to work hacking and bashing anything in sight. Franky had the shortest range out of all of them, but he made up for it by having bite-proof arms. In fact, he laughed when a zombie managed to get a hold of his wrist and pull it towards its mouth. "Yeah, super nice try, buddy!" He chuckled before swinging the pipe wrench hard enough to take its skullcap off.

Baby and Sanji remained as close as they could be, back to back as they fired upon the zombies off in the distance. "Hell of a date, right? Like you said?" Sanji said to her.

"Oh I think this date's far from over, Sanji~ When this is over, I have a few ideas~" she said back to him.

He chanced a glance over his shoulder to make sure he was hearing her right. "It uh… Sounds to me like… You're getting a little hot over all this carnage."

"Are you saying you aren't? Oh, Sanji, let me tell you what all this bloodshed makes me want to do!"

Fortunately, Franky, Zoro, and Bonney didn't understand French, so all of this was lost on them. Robin did, though, and while beheading a zombie, she allowed herself to glare over at them. "Please, for all our sakes, keep it together until the bodies are all stationary."

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The pile of bodies on the front porch was getting a little ridiculous. More and more zombies were actually starting to claw at the front door, rather than trying to climb over their fallen comrades and the four inside the house gave each other wary looks as they realized what they would have to do to continue the extermination. Well, Nami, Vivi, and Coby looked wary. Luffy looked excited.

He carefully helped Nami lean against a wall, a fair distance away from the door. Coby and Vivi stood with her, all within perfect eyesight of the front door. Luffy moved the chair away from it and leaned against it in the chair's place. The door was already rattling from the zombies leaning and clawing at it. He braced himself, turned the handle, and swung it open. Zombies lurched forward and he immediately got to work, bringing his knife down into one, two, three, as they filtered in like the worst kind of funnel. When they got too overwhelming for just one kid, he backed himself up toward the others and traded the knife for the pistol.

Four people with guns could easily take care of the zombies coming through the door. It was like target practice. Even if one of them missed, there were three more to pick up the slack. In fact, they were all confident enough in their ability to succeed that Coby could exhale sharply and say "So, let's maybe talk about what you just said?"

"We will! Later! Right now is really not a good time!" Vivi shouted back.

"Well, when WILL be a good time?! I'm starting to think you like making me stew like this! Is this the talk you wanted to have when we first got here?!"

"Can we deal with these first?!"

Luffy leaned toward Nami. "Hey, what are they talking about?"

Letting out a disgruntled sigh, Nami said "Nothing. Let's never have kids, alright?"

He gave her a confused look, but just said "Okay."

With both groups working together like this, the zombie numbers depleted down to 0 just as the sun was starting to set. After so many hours with snarling and groaning, the outpost now seemed eerily quiet. The four in the house headed outside to regroup with the others and the current state of their outpost was a shock. The ground was littered with corpses, splatters of blood and gore and organs littered the streets and yards. It felt like everything was coated in a fine, greasy layer of red. If this were any other context, the twelve of them would be immediately gunned down as culprits of the most horrific mass-murder in history. But their victims were all just zombies so who cared.

"This is gonna be a fuckin' bitch to clean up…" Bonney huffed as she surveyed the damage. Aside from body disposal, they also had some structural damage to the houses. The gate that had been keeping them safe still lay on the ground instead of in its rollers like it should, and there were wrecked vehicles in the middle of the street. And of course, there was still the matter of what to do with Krieg and his hooligans.

The three of them were sitting up, still under the guard of Law and Perona. After being flung around in a car wreck, they weren't eager to start running anytime soon anyway. But just to be extra-careful, the other ten members of Little Garden trained their weapons on the prisoners.

Krieg cleared his throat and looked up at everyone else. "Y'know, in a way… I'm the victim here."

"How the SHIT are you the victim?!" Sanji yelled.

"I didn't get what I wanted."

In the end, Little Garden decided that straight up executing someone while they were on their knees is a little too distasteful. However, ironic punishment was totally fair game. The plan would be to drive these three back to the three other morons presumably still handcuffed to each other back at Krieg's camp, loot all of their stuff save for one of the RVs, and send them on their way.

For good measure, they would be left with the busted-ass RV. Which, despite everything, was still operational. It was technically operational in the same way that the Virtual Boy was technically a portable device, but that just made it all the more of a punishment.

Krieg, Monet, and Vergo were stripped of everything barring the clothes on their backs and unceremoniously tossed into the RV for transport. Baby drove, while Robin and Zoro stayed on guard duty in the back. Sanji stayed behind because, and I quote "I don't really care to see Krieg and Gin off on their next stupid voyage, and I don't know any of the others. I just want this shit over with."

They arrived at Krieg's former camp to find it pretty much undisturbed. Helmeppo. Gin, and Caribou were still handcuffed to each other inside the RV. Helmeppo burst into tears of gratitude when the door swung open and Baby stepped inside. "OH THANK GOD! PLEASE LET US GO! I've had to pee for like three hours!"

Baby sneered at him and whistled for Zoro to escort him away to deal with that. In the meantime, she and Robin transferred the prisoners to the shit RV. They didn't bother explaining what was going on just yet because it had been a long day and they really weren't interested in it yet. Instead, they shoved the five (and then six when Helmeppo got back) of them into the back bedroom of the RV while Baby sat in the front and kept guard. There was enough distance between her and the prisoners that if any of them did try to make some kind of move, she'd have ample time to put them down. "You see," she said, staring pointedly at Gin from across the way, "I am not close to you, so you cannot try to trick and incapacitate me. It is, how you say, zhe smart zhing to do."

They sat in silence while Zoro and Robin ran back and forth, loading up whatever supplies were around. Baby sat there bouncing her leg and idly toying with the pistol in her hand. She barely took the time out of staring at them to even blink. When the sun had solidly passed beyond the horizon and the stars were the only light available, Robin opened the door and leaned in. We're all loaded up here. It's time."

At that point, the two ladies dragged their prisoners back outside and lined them up along the RV, so they could see what had happened. It didn't take long to realize all of their gear was missing, packed up on another RV. That didn't bother Krieg, though. What did bother him was seeing someone behind the wheel of his Eldorado. Zoro honked the horn and grinned a smug grin at him.

Baby snapped her fingers and drew his attention again. There they were, lined up side by side with their wrists bound behind their back and she was like a drill sergeant in a frilly skirt. "If it is not obvious already, we are robbing you. We are taking your zhings because you attacked us and destroyed our gate and led a fuckton of zombies into our home. So we are stranding you here wizh nozhing, because zhat is what you did to my Sanji all zhose years ago."

"Uh- I-I don't mean to interrupt, miss-!" Helmeppo stammered like a coward. "B-but I wasn't, ah, there for that!"

"Me neither! I had no part in that! I joined up while they were traveling!" Caribou said, laughing awkwardly.

Baby pursed her lips. "I am aware of zhat. Only zhese two were part of zhat group," she said, gesturing to Krieg and Gin with her pistol. She faced them, really eyeing them up and down. "And yet, after everyzhing, Sanji is willing to spare you. Is zhat not interesting?"

The glare she was giving Krieg would have made him feel guilty, if he were actually capable of feeling that.

"You see, my Sanji… He is a good. Man."

Krieg started to say something, but shut his mouth when Baby pressed the barrel of her pistol against his forehead. "I am neizher of zhose zhings."

Bang and then bang. Krieg and Gin were dead before anyone had any time to react. When their bodies hit the ground, the other four prisoners recoiled in legitimate terror. "AS FOR ZHE REST OF YOU!" She snapped and they all recoiled even more. "Go on. Get out of here. Never come back to zhis place. Never bozher us again."

"Yeah! No problem! Wh-whatever you say, miss!" Helmeppo squeaked, sweat pouring from his forehead.

"Yep! We will take that offer and we will be on our way!" Monet quickly added. "Oh and by the way, uh what you said earlier? You're definitely the hotter, more threatening one."

Baby and Robin ushered the four survivors into the RV and tossed the keys in afterwards. Eventually the RV shuddered to life and groaned its way out onto the street. The trio watched it go and once its tail lights were no longer visible, Robin cleared her throat and gestured to the bodies. "So."

Baby rolled her eyes. "What? Are you telling me you have an issue wizh zhat?"

"It was a sweet gesture, you doing Sanji a favor like that," Robin said, shaking her head in bemused disbelief.

Zoro shrugged from inside the Eldorado, still grinning. "You are pretty cool, Baby 5."