Ch 10 Apocalypse Now
"The genius. The genius." I muttered to myself.
The next week, I gathered a few of the battle hardened soldiers from Zaofu and the united republics.
"Here's my plan. We go deep into enemy lines, and just kill the zombies. We kill until one party dies. They will be the first." I said.
"Why don't we just stay here at republic city? They'll come after us." A soldier said.
"That's the reason we're launching a first strike. Months were spent to prepare the defenses of Zaofu, and the zombies overran the city in less than a week. The same will happen here, on a much lethal scale." I said.
Only 5,000 soldiers wanted to go with me. I wanted a small and fast unit. So I had to scale it back even more, down to 600 soldiers. We were to be fast and vicious. We spent the next few weeks to prepare for going into the earth kingdom.
2 months later
Gunfire was heard around me.
"Ezra, we need to get to that ridge!" Lasky shouted, pointing to the ridge behind our position.
"You guys go! I'll hold them off!" I shouted, inserting a new magazine in my AK-12 rifle. I stood up, and hosed the zombies with gunfire, taking a few of them down. I threw a grenade towards the mass of zombies and ran away from them, using my airbending to enhance it.
On the ridge, we set up positions, waiting for the zombies. I walked to Lin, giving her my AK rifle.
"Give me your sniper rifle." I said.
Lin gave me her Mosin Nagant sniper rifle, along with the razor sharp bayonet.
"I'd hate to be the bastard on the opposite side of this." I said, attaching the bayonet.
The zombies didn't attack us, but we needed to get back to our base. The scouting party had run into a shit load of zombies, and we repelled their attack.
Back at republic city, things were going bad.
"This is the 10th attack by the zombies." Su said, wishing her sister was here leading the police force, not with her husband in the godforsaken earth kingdom.
"We're losing more people to zombies than we're killing zombies. We need Ezra. He's the expert on killing zombies." Korra said.
"And how do you expect to find him? He could be dead for all we know." Mako said.
They looked out over the fields outside republic city. The air-force was carpet bombing the area with napalm and other weapons. But it was only a temporary solution.
"I have an idea. Me, Korra, Bolin, and Opal head into the earth kingdom, find Ezra, and convince him to return to republic city. It's the only chance we have of finding him." Asami said.
"Alright. You got the green light. Bring him and his soldiers back to us. If he's still out there." Raiko said.
"Korra, my office." Raiko said.
Raiko shut the door and locked it.
"Korra, Ezra has spent 10 months fighting zombies, almost a year. He's one of the few who knows this stuff like the back of his hand. Bring him back. We need his expertise, or we'll fall, just like Zaofu." Raiko said.
"I understand. I'll bring the colonel back." Korra said.
Raiko set a thick folder in front of Korra.
"Details of our Colonel Jackson. Some of it is military, others personal. It's more of a psychological profile, based on his character in combat, and peacetime. This is your scripture concerning him." Raiko said.
"I'll read it." Korra said.
Quickly loading supplies onto a jeep, they left republic city, and into the zombie filled continent.
2 days passed, and the group ran into the first evidence of Jackson and his guerrilla fighters. A big pile of zombie corpses littered the field. A stone, which appeared out of place in the ground, had the hammer and sickle engraved in it.
"I guess the hammer and sickle is the emblem of Ezra's fighters." Opal said.
"Lets get moving." Korra said.
As they drove, they ran into more piles of dead zombies, and more hammer and sickle emblems. One night, Korra opened the folder the president gave her.
Profile of Colonel Ezra Jackson. Combat pilot/sniper of republic city air-force.
I thought I knew everything about Ezra. Guess I was wrong. Combat decorations for service in the military. Logged more hours in the cockpit than most pilots in the air-force. How the hell he handled the constant stress? Or was flying a stress reliever for him?
Impressive career. Too impressive. After the red lotus, he was offered to be some rear-echelon officer, high ranking, the perks, and everything. He turned it down, serving in Kuvira's army for two years. When he came back, he applied for sniper school, but was turned down 3 times. Finally excepted after he threatened to stick with Kuvira.
Hell of a shot. Almost always carried a bolt-action sniper rifle, into a fight. Must be a pro with them. Rumored from former Chief of police, Lin Beifong, Ezra scavenged half the shotguns and bolt-action rifles captured from busting triads and other criminals. Goddamn. He must have been prepared for this war. Probably armed half his army with the guns he stockpiled.
Here's his personal file. Odd, was an understatement. He was into the BDSM scene, and got Lin hooked onto it. After that, he stuck with it, and got wilder with it, though stayed with Lin. The two got depraved real quick. Christ. The things the two of them did. I could never do such things to Asami.
Next morning was quiet.
"Where are the zombies?" Bolin asked.
"I don't want to know. We're leaving." Asami said, climbing into the jeep.
One night, they came across a large river. Korra used her waterbending and got them across. Touching the ground, they heard many gunshots, and eerie music playing.
"Stay here. I'll go and look." Korra said.
Korra walked up a small hill and jumped into a trench. The music and gunfire was more pronounced.
"You think you so bad huh?! You think you so bad biter!?" someone yelled, firing a burst of gunfire.
"Who's in charge here?" Korra asked, but was drowned out by the noise.
"I think he's dead." The machine gunner said.
"Hell no. There's one biter still out there." The person next to him said.
"What are you shooting at, soldier?" Korra asked.
"Avatar, I think there are some biters out there. But I got them." The gunner said.
"There's still one out there." The other soldier said.
"Go get the roach!" the gunner said.
"Who's in charge here?" Korra asked.
"Ain't you!?" the gunner asked Korra, wide eyed, and scared.
The 'Roach' came to the group, holding a grenade launcher. He turned off the radio and opened the breech of his launcher, inserting a grenade.
"You need a flare?" the gunner asked.
"No. He's close, man. I can feel it." Roach said.
Roach aimed his grenade launcher upwards, while hearing the screaming of the zombie still alive. He pulled the trigger, and waited.
An explosion was heard, and the zombie was dead.
"Motherfucker." Roach said, slinging his launcher.
"Roach, you know who's in charge here?" Korra asked.
"Yeah." Roach said, turning around and walking to where he laid before.
With no answers to Ezra's location, Korra and her group continued moving east. They heard the roar of a jet engine, and saw a MiG-29 scream overhead.
"Fighter jet. He's got to be close." Bolin said.
Korra quickly gunned it and followed the jet was much as she could. She approached a good sized air-base, and watched the MiG land on the tarmac, on the far side of the base.
"Hey! Stay there! Stay there!" a guard shouted, aiming his rifle at them.
Asami stepped on the brakes, and watched as Varrick appeared.
"Varrick!?" Asami shouted.
"My friends, welcome to the end of the fucking world!" Varrick shouted.
Asami walked out of the jeep and approached Varrick. She was quickly surrounded by armed soldiers, wearing ragged earth kingdom clothing. Asami understood the symbolism, and practicality. The chakra of the earth kingdom was pure survival. Ezra and his soldiers were reduced to pure survival. Nothing of civilization existed among them.
"I want to talk to Colonel Ezra Jackson." Asami said, her hands raised.
Varrick led Asami thru the base, and to Ezra's quarters.
"You don't talk to the Colonel. He talks to you. He's a great man. And I'm, I'm a little man. But he's a great man! He led us thru many fights with the zombies, and created this base. He's a great man. You know, he'll just look at you in the eyes, and he'll say 'Do you know, that if you speak bullshit to someone enough times, they'll accept it as truth?' He's a genius." Varrick said.
"I'm sure he is." Asami sarcastically said. But she had to wonder. These people looked to be on their last wits, yet Asami saw 4 Su-34 bombers accelerating down the tarmac and lift into the sky.
"By the way. He's in here." Varrick said.
Asami walked into Ezra's quarters, and saw him practice yoga with Lin, completely naked. Yep. The war has taken its toll.
"Ezra?" Asami asked.
"In a minute." I said, going thru one more pose with Lin.
Putting our clothes on, I motioned for Asami to come in, and Lin pulls out a submachine gun, and racks the bolt.
"I've seen horrors, Asami. The same you've seen. The same any live human on the continent has seen. You have a right to kill me, or to take me back to the united republics, or fire nation, or wherever you came from. But you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and apathy are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies." I said.
"I understand, Ezra, but…" Asami started.
"Zaofu. That was when I realized something. When the city fell, when I saw a zombie eat a live victim in front of me, that changed me. Haunted me. And I thought: My God, the genius of that. The genius! The will to do that: perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than me, because they could stand it. They were monsters, yes. And I realized that in order to win against such monsters, we had to become monsters as well. If I had ten divisions of men who could fight like the zombies, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment. Without judgment! Because it's judgment that defeats us." I said.
"I don't understand." Asami said.
"Here's the thing. I thought that we could hold against the zombies, if we maintained fortress cities like Zaofu, Republic City, Ba Sing Se. When Zaofu fell, it changed my mind. We couldn't win against them fighting a 'clean' war. We had to become dirty as they could. Read this." I said to Asami, handing her a piece of paper.
"Drop the bomb, kill them all." Asami said.
"Yes. The spirit vines in republic city contain vast power. If I had a squadron's worth of spirit vine bombs, war's over. All the zombies are dead. And if there are any survivors, the radiation is so bad, they won't last long." I said.
"But Korra won't harvest the vines." Asami said.
"It's judgment like that, that will bring the downfall of the united republics, the last bastion on the continent." I said.
I wrote on a piece of paper, and handed it to a soldier. I talked to her, and gave her directions.
"I'm sending a message to your group. If they attempt to come inside the base, they will be killed. You can go anywhere you want on the base, but if you run, you will be killed." I said, standing up and walking away.
Lin soon left, and Varrick visited Asami.
"Do you know that the man really likes you? He likes you. He really likes you. Otherwise, you'd be dead already. But he's got something in mind for you. Aren't you curious about that? I'm curious. I'm very curious. Are you curious? There's something happening out here, man. You know something, man? I know something you that you don't know. That's right, Jack. The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. Oh, yeah. He's dying, I think. He hates all this. He hates it! But the man's a... He likes you because you're still alive. He's got plans for you. No, I'm not gonna help you. You're gonna help him, man. You're gonna help him. I mean, what are they gonna say when he's gone? 'Cause he dies when it dies, when it dies, he dies! What are they gonna say about him? He was a kind man? He was a wise man? He had plans? He had wisdom? Bullshit, man! And am I gonna be the one that's gonna set them straight? Look at me! Look at me! Look at us! This is the way the fucking world ends. Look at this fucking shit we're in man. Not with a bang, but with a whimper! I'm not going to set the record straight! Wrong! You!" Varrick said, pointing to Asami.
This was going to be a long day.