(Anne Marshall belongs to AquaDestinysEmbrace. Kudos to Aqua for letting me use Anne!)
(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko, or any of the names or brands that appear. But I do own my OC's)
SMASH!
Daryl huffed with fury as he threw an empty wine bottle against the locked steel door that signaled the group's doom. This was the second bottle he had thrown at the door in less than five minutes, but obviously some dark-colored glass with a label on it wasn't going to break through the doors at all. Even the axe that Ulrich had used earlier didn't seem to have been even close to enough...
The angry redneck huffed and he furiously punched the doors with his fist, and then he turned to glare directly at Dr. Jenner. That motherfucker needed to open the doors! He needed to! Daryl had no intentions of dying locked in a dark room like a goddamn dog!
"OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!" Daryl demanded with a furious roar.
Jenner didn't answer Daryl nor did he dare to type in the codes to unlock the doors. Daryl was just getting more and more pissed off and was about to just beat the living shit out of Jenner until he opened the doors, but Daryl had to push those thoughts aside for a moment when he saw Shane, T-Dog and Miranda run past him with axes in their hands.
"Out of our way!" Shane shouted towards the redneck.
Both Daryl and everyone else in Shane, T-Dog and Miranda's path all got out of the way. Daryl grabbed another axe and he ran to join the three in trying to break through the doors, but despite all of them hitting them over and over again the doors showed no signs of breaking. Jenner understood that that many would still want to go out into the hell that was unfolding above them, but he hoped they would see his point of view soon. Death was a blessing these days, not a curse.
"You should have left well enough alone... It would've been so much easier." Jenner sighed with disappointment at the group's reactions.
"Easier? Are you fucking serious, doc?!" Miranda exclaimed with disbelief. "You locked us in here against all of our will and you're threatening to blow us all up!" she added.
"Who could this possibly be easy for, Jenner?!" Yumi added with a very angered and upset glare towards the doctor.
"All of you." Jenner reasoned to the Japanese teen. "You all know what's out there... a short, brutal life and an agonizing death." he again reasoned.
The group knew that there was much risk of being on the surface these days, but it certainly still beat being blown to smithereens down under the Center for Disease Control with Jenner! Jenner, however, truly believed that he was giving them all a blessing. He was saving them from years worth of suffering...
How long, for example, until Aelita or Alexandr gets eaten alive by a horde of walkers? How long until Verity, for instance, gets raped by a psychopath? How long until Ulrich witnesses Yumi be butchered right in front of his eyes? How long until Rebecca has to put down Dylan due to a walker bite? How long until everyone in the group just simply starves to death or dies of an ancient disease such as cholera or tuberculosis? All sorts of terrible things could and indeed would happen to them up there on the surface...
Jenner had to try and convince them to just relax and accept the fate that would come for them. He looked to his left and saw Robert was still quietly sitting in a chair, holding Amy's old dolphin pendant in his hand as he thought about her during this terrible time.
"Your sister... what was her name?" Jenner asked the teen in the chair.
"Amy... Her name was Amy Smith." Robert sadly sighed as he thought of his deceased sister.
Jenner knew exactly what kind of loss Robert was going through and he wouldn't wish it upon anyone. That was one of the reasons why he was keeping the group underground...
"Then you know exactly what this does, Robert. You've seen it." Jenner stated as if he was proving a point.
"Don't listen to that psychotic motherfucker, Rob. He's just trying to get in your head..." Odd reasoned to his friend while showing an expression of anger towards the doctor.
Robert simply lowered his head and decided not to answer either Odd or Jenner as he continued holding Amy's pendant in his hand. Jenner realized he wasn't getting anywhere with the teen and then he turned his attention to Rick, since Jenner knew he was the leader of the group.
"Is the horrors outside really what you want for your wife and son?" Jenner inquired straightforwardly.
"I don't want this!" Rick stated, as he was deeply worried about his wife and his son at the moment.
Jenner was about to speak again when he and the group heard some loud clanking noises on the floor. They saw that Daryl, Shane, T-Dog and Miranda had finally dropped their axes and gave up trying to break through the door with them.
"We can't even make a dent!" Miranda explained to the group with a tone of massive frustration.
"A dent? Hell, we can't even make a scratch!" T-Dog added with exasperation and exhaustion.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher..." Jenner calmly explained to the people who tried to break down the door.
That did it. Daryl's anger was already threatening to boil over, but Jenner was not helping in this matter at all. Daryl walked back over to get his axe, and when he grabbed it he raised it over his head and began to rush towards Jenner to end that fucker's life once and for all!
"Well your head ain't!" Daryl angrily retorted as he approached the doctor.
"Daryl, no!" Yumi exclaimed as she saw what he was about to do.
The group immediately went wide eyed from shock at realizing Daryl was about to try and kill Jenner. Rick, Shane, Ulrich and Charles all ran straight to the redneck and grabbed him before he could harm Jenner. They needed him unharmed so they can get him to open the doors!
After several moments of struggle, Chase and Aelita ran over to yank the axe out of Daryl's hands and toss it aside. Rick, Shane, Ulrich and Charles all pushed Daryl away from them after this, and although Daryl was obviously infuriated by this he knew he couldn't try that again. As much as he hated to admit it, Jenner was worth more alive than dead at the moment...
"Back up! Just back the fuck up, Daryl!" Chase glared and put a hand on the handle of his gun which at the moment was still in its holster, as if he was threatening to use it against Daryl. As much as he despised Jenner, he couldn't let the bastard die before he could open the doors...
Daryl groaned with anger and pure exasperation before he grabbed his axe and went back to hitting the doors again. Glenn picked up the axe Miranda used and he went to join Daryl in desperately trying to break down the doors. As they resumed this hopeless task, Jenner looked back over towards Rick and sighed with despondency.
"You do want this." Jenner stated as if it was fact. "Last night, you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead." he revealed for the group to hear.
The group was taken aback by Jenner's revelation. Rick believed that they were all doomed to die? All of the bravado, heroism and bravery he has shown over the last few days was just a whole bunch of fallacies, untruths and delusions towards them?
"Is Jenner telling the truth?" Jeremie asked as if he simply couldn't believe what he had just heard.
"What? You really said that, Rick? After all your big talk?" Shane asked with exasperation towards his best friend for this revelation.
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" Rick defended to Shane, Jeremie and the rest of the group.
Jenner shook his head and stood up from his chair. Rick was right about everything he said to him last night. There was only death and despair that awaits the group if they would leave the CDC. Why can't they understand this...?
"There's no hope. There never was..." Jenner dismissed the group's protests to survive.
"There is always hope!" Aelita protested as she approached the doctor. "Maybe it will not be you who finds the cure, but somebody, somewhere might! Just because you have not found a cure does not mean that-"
"What part of 'everything is gone' do you not understand?" Andrea asked, interrupting the pink-haired super genius.
Aelita rolled her eyes with annoyance at Andrea's statement. Unlike her, Aelita was not ready to just lay down and die yet! Neither was the rest of the Lyoko Warriors...
"Listen to your friend, Aelita. She gets it." Jenner reasoned to the teen. "This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event..." he added.
"This isn't right! You can't just keep us in here!" Carol loudly sobbed as she held her daughter close to her.
Jenner's heart broke at the sight of Carol sobbing with Sophia. It was obvious she was panicking at the thought of her imminent death, but why couldn't she see that the fate he was willing to give her was far better than whatever fate awaited her and her child outside?
"One tiny moment... a millisecond. No pain..." Jenner softly said to try and convince her to relax and accept her upcoming death.
"None of us deserves to die like this!" Carol wailed and panicked with her daughter in her arms.
Shane finally had enough of this bullshit. There was still one sure-fire way to get Jenner to open those fucking doors... As the angry cop began walking back to his dufflebag, Jenner calmly sat down in his swivel chair and wheeled himself close to Carol so he could keep trying to get through to her.
"Wouldn't it be kinder and more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner softly reasoned to the mother, daughter and the rest of the group around them.
Suddenly, the group heard what sounded exactly like a shotgun being pumped. The group looked to see that Shane was now storming back towards the doctor, and alarmingly he had his loaded shotgun in his hands. He looked absolutely furious as well...
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Dylan exclaimed with alarm.
"Shane, put that bloody thing down before you get us all killed!" Rebecca demanded with shock at what she knew was about to happen.
Shane didn't listen to either of the teens. Both Yumi and Ulrich tried to stop Shane from approaching Jenner, but he just roughly elbowed them both to the side and sent them straight to the ground as he kept walking. Naturally the Lyoko Warriors were infuriated with how Shane had just treated Yumi and Ulrich, but before anyone could act any further Shane was already aiming the barrel of his shotgun directly at Jenner's face!
"Open that door... or I'm gonna blow your head off! Do you hear me?!" Shane warned with a menacing growl.
Odd, Kyra and Alexandr all went to help Ulrich and Yumi off of the metal floors as Jenner simply stared up the barrel of Shane's shotgun. He was prepared to just end it all with a massive explosion... why would Shane think he'd be afraid of getting his head blown off?
"Brother, brother... this is not the way you do this... We will never get out of here!" Rick carefully tried to reason with his best friend as he approached him.
"Shane, for God's sake, listen to him!" Lori exclaimed with worry about how Shane may end up dooming them all.
"It's too late!" Shane protested as he kept aiming the shotgun.
"If you kill him then we're all gonna go with him! Put the fucking gun down!" Patrick pleaded from where he was standing.
His frustration and fury finally reaching a boiling point, Shane let out a loud and very-infuriated scream. The group fearfully ducked and Charles pulled Jenner to the floor to protect him as Shane began to unload round after round onto a few computer terminals on the other side of the room, causing sparks to fly everywhere as the monitors were obliterated.
Rick wasn't going to allow this situation to continue. He rushed to Shane and he quickly latched onto his shotgun from the side, causing a struggle between the two men as Shane fired off one more round at the monitors. The two men furiously growled at each other as they fought for the shotgun, but thankfully Rick managed to get the upper hand. He elbowed Shane in the gut and used the momentum to yank the shotgun out of his hands, and then without missing a beat he lifted it up and used the butt end to hit Shane right in the mouth.
Shane fell straight to the ground and he clutched his now-bloody mouth as Rick hovered over him, threateningly holding the shotgun almost as if he was ready to hit him with it again.
"Are you done now...? Are you done?!" Rick demanded to know as he held the shotgun like a club.
"Yeah, I guess we all are..." Shane smugly said to his best friend as he wiped some of the blood from his own mouth.
Rick glared down at Shane with annoyance before he lowered the shotgun. Rather than allow Shane to have it for the moment, Rick simply tossed the firearm over to Odd and let him hold onto it. Odd held the shotgun tightly in his hands as Jenner quietly went to sit back in his seat, waiting for the clock to go down and for the HIT's under them to explode.
The group had no idea what to do... Jenner wasn't going to open the doors for them. When that clock on the wall reaches zero, they'd all be killed.
Every single one of them was going to die.
The only sounds filling the room now was of Carol quietly crying with her daughter still in her arms. Everyone was beginning to lose hope that they would get out of the Center for Disease Control, but Rick wasn't ready to give up just yet. He noticed there was still a little under six minutes left on the clock. There was still at least a little time left to try and get Jenner to get those doors open...
"I think you're lying." Rick suddenly commented to the doctor.
Jenner raised his head and looked at Rick with a bit of surprise at his statement. He was going to die in just six minutes and that was gonna be among the last things he decides to say?
"What do you mean?" Jenner inquired out of curiosity.
"You're lying about there being no hope left. If that were true, you'd have bolted or taken the easy way out with the rest of the doctors. You didn't." Rick stated to the doctor.
"You chose the hard way. Days kept going by and by, and you still kept doing the hard tasks necessary here in this facility. But why...?" Jeremie questioned the doctor as well.
Jenner appeared to be a bit taken aback by the questions he was given. He didn't expect this... He just wanted to die, so why did they care how he came to make that decision?
"It doesn't matter..." Jenner muttered as a reply.
"It does matter." Rick protested with a frown. "It always matters. You stayed when others ran... Why?" he asked the doctor.
After a moment of silence the CDC doctor finally relented. Jenner stood up from his chair and looked Rick Grimes directly in the eyes. Rick could clearly see the feelings of regret and sadness that swelled in Jenner's.
"Not because I wanted to." Jenner replied with a saddened tone.
The group saw Jenner raise his arm and point directly up at the monitor which showed showed the TS-19 video a short time ago.
"I made a promise... to her. My wife..." Jenner explained for the entire group to hear.
Everyone was taken aback with shock by what they heard Jenner say to them. That person on the video... the person who turned into a walker and had their brains blown out was Jenner's own wife? No wonder he wanted to kill himself... No wonder he gave up hope.
"Test Subject 19 was your wife?" Alexandr inquired with a noticeable tone of surprise.
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could... How could I say no?" Jenner mournfully explained. "She was dying... It should've been me on that table. I certainly wouldn't have mattered to anybody... But she was a loss to the world."
The only noises that were breaking the silence in the room was the jarring metal-to-metal contact of Daryl's axe hitting the locked doors over and over again. It was causing some scratches on the metal here and there, but the axe wasn't even making a dent... As Daryl kept hitting the doors, Jenner morbidly chuckled and approached Rick and Aelita. The look of exhaustion, shame and pure heartbreak on his face was something neither they nor anyone else in the group would forget anytime soon...
"Hell, she ran this place!" Jenner admitted with dejection. "I worked here under her! In our field of work, she was literally an Einstein... but me? I'm just... I'm just Edwin Jenner..."
"But you're a lot more than that, Dr. Jenner. You never gave up despite everything that happened..." Anne assured the doctor in a reassuring tone.
Jenner scoffed at this and he turned to look away from Rick, Aelita and the rest of the group. Broken and accepting of his imminent demise, Jenner simply walked over to his computer terminal and he leaned against it, shutting his eyes as he thought about his late wife.
"She could have done something about this... Not me..." Jenner reasoned to the group.
"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do." Rick stated to the doctor as he walked to stand a few paces behind him. "That's all we want, Jenner... a choice... a chance..." he pleaded.
The CDC doctor seemed to be affected by this as he cautiously turned to look back at Rick and the rest of the group. Jenner could see the looks of panic and pure fear plastered upon much of the group's faces. He knew he was doing them a favor by keeping them locked up, but... did he have the right to decide that for them, no matter how good his intentions are?
"Just let us keep trying to survive for as long as we can...please, doctor... Just set us free." Yumi pleaded to the doctor from where she was standing.
Dr. Jenner's face finally fell and what little willpower he had left completely broke apart as he realized something...
He was wrong.
He was absolutely wrong.
No matter how bad the outside world was getting and no matter how much he thought he was trying to save these people from a horrible and miserable death, Jenner knew that he couldn't keep them in there with him anymore. The death he was going to bring upon himself was instant and completely painless, but if they didn't want to endure this with him then it was their choice no matter how much he disagreed.
It was finally time to let everyone out of Zone Five...
With a sigh, Jenner turned back to his workstation and he began to type something down on his keyboard. Just a few moments later, the group heard the beautiful sound of the hardened steel doors being unlocked and opened. There was only four minutes left on the clock until the HITs detonated, but if they hurried then they might still have a chance of escaping with their lives.
"I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those..." Jenner warned Rick and Aelita, as he simply couldn't directly open the front doors due to the loss of power.
The rest of the group scrambled to gather their belongings and to escape while they had the chance. They had to leave now before those fucking explosives would go off under them! Daryl ran to grab his bag and then he immediately turned and headed straight for the now-opened doors, very relieved that he had a chance to live now.
"COME ON!" Daryl shouted to the group behind him.
Aelita turned her head and noticed Jeremie, Dylan and Chase all running up to her out of grave concern for her safety. She assured her boyfriend and her brothers that she had absolutely no intentions of taking too long to leave Zone Five before its detonation, but she and Rick both had to speak with Jenner just one final time.
"There's your chance. Take it..." Jenner said with a vanquished and saddened smile.
"Thank you for opening the doors, doctor. We are all grateful..." Aelita assured, holding out her hand to shake his.
Absolutely dejected and completely ready to face his demise, Jenner continued to smile as he shook the pink-haired teen's hand as his goodbye.
"The day will come when you won't be..." Jenner darkly assured the super genius.
After she shook his hand, the pink-haired teen quickly ran off with her boyfriend and her two brothers to gather her belongings. As she did this, Jenner shook Rick's hand and pulled him close so he could quietly whisper something into his ear. No one else heard what Jenner wanted to say to Rick, but Rick's eyes slowly began to widen in pure shock as he listened to what Jenner was telling him. After Jenner pulled away, Rick seemed to be so shocked that he actually kept standing near Jenner for several more moments before Glenn ran up to him and shook him out of the trance he seemed to be stuck in.
"HEY! We got four minutes left!WE GOTTA GO!" Glenn yelled directly in Rick's face to let him know that they had to leave immediately.
Rick blinked at Glenn's statement before he finally caught himself from his shock. Determined to escape with his life, Rick nodded and he proceeded to run with Glenn straight towards the opened doors, where the rest of the group was anxiously waiting for them. The group watched Rick and Glenn approach and then they all began to run down the hallway which led to the stairs, but Jacqui suddenly yanked her hand out of T-Dog's, causing him to look at her with surprise.
"I'm staying!" Jacqui suddenly announced to him and to the rest of the group.
The group collectively stopped and turned to look back at Jacqui with shock and pure horror. What?! Jacqui wanted to stay down here with Jenner?! Has she lost her freaking mind?!
"I'm staying, sweetie..." Jacqui said in a gentle tone to T-Dog.
"But that's insane!" T-Dog exclaimed at the older woman with nothing short of bafflement.
"No! It's completely sane! For the first time in a long time!" Jacqui dismissed to him and to the others, tears beginning to roll down the sides of her face. "I'm not ending up like Jim, or Amy, or Amy Smith..."
Even Jenner stood up out of his chair as he overheard what was happening. One of the members of the group actually wanted to stay down here with him? One wanted to die painlessly as well...? Jacqui herself began to openly cry as she went a few steps back from the shocked group almost as if to illustrate her seriousness.
"There's no time to argue and no point, not if you all want to get out alive..." Jacqui tearfully reasoned, seeing that there was now less than three minutes on the clock until the CDC explodes.
T-Dog obviously did not want his friend to die by any means, so he began to approach Jacqui to try and convince her to leave with them. However, the older woman yanked her hand away when T-Dog tried to grab it, and then she even pushed him back over to the group.
"Get out! GET OUT!" Jacqui exclaimed, mentally praying that T-Dog and the rest of the group would somehow survive up there on the surface.
T-Dog appeared to be emotionally devastated by Jacqui's choice to die, but he relented and forced himself to accept her choice. With a saddened expression, T-Dog allowed Glenn and Charles to pull him back to the group and soon nearly everyone began resuming their run out of Zone Five. All except one, however... The group stopped once more as they noticed Andrea was standing near Jacqui. The blonde woman had her arms crossed and she also had a depressed look on her face. She had made her choice like how Jacqui did...
"I'm staying too..." Andrea announced to the group.
The group was now absolutely horrified. Two of them wished to stay behind and die inside the CDC?! Were Jacqui and Andrea losing their minds?! Dale walked up to Andrea and he tried to convince her to press on with him and the others, but again she refused. Dale looked back up at the clock and was horrified to see there was only three minutes and twenty seconds left until the detonation, so he looked back at the group and waved them off.
"Just go! GO!"Dale shouted at them, not daring to leave with them until he had convinced Andrea to come with.
The others knew they had no more time to wait around for Jacqui, Andrea or Dale. They had to get out of here as fast as they could! The group gathered their belongings and they immediately bolted straight through the opened doors and down the hallway towards the stairs.
They were NOT going to die down here without a fight!
After leaving Jacqui, Dale and Andrea down in Zone Five with Dr. Jenner, the group ran as fast as they could up the stairwell which led back to the main lobby on the surface. Some of the group members had synced their watches to the clock in Zone Five so they could see how much time was left before the HITs would explode, but they knew that they needed to be far quicker if they had any chance to escape. The Lyoko Warriors in particular were worried that they wouldn't make it...
Carl and Sophia were both horrified at the situation they were in. The same could be said for the entire group, but the two children were much, much more terrified than any of the others. Both of them were sure that they were going to die very soon...
"I can't believe we just left them back there! Jacqui, Andrea and Dale?! What the hell could they be thinking?!" Ulrich exclaimed to the others with disbelief as they ran.
"If that's what Jacqui and Andrea wanted then we can't waste what little time we have trying to save them!" Patrick hurriedly replied. "And if Dale wants to risk his life to get Andrea out then we can't stop him! We've only got a few minutes before we explode!"
"They've gotta leave! They just have to!" Kyra exclaimed, horrified at the thought that all three of them may actually die with Jenner in just a short time.
The group and the Lyoko Warriors all continued to run up the stairwell very quickly, almost stumbling over each other from how fast they were going. Aelita in particular was running up the stairs so fast that she accidentally dropped Mister Puck from her backpack, but thankfully Charles was further down the stairs and he managed to catch it for her as they ran. After a few more moments the group made it the rest of the way up the stairwell and they all ran out into the ground floor of the building. They all hurried out into the lobby of the CDC and saw that the gates were indeed still locked shut, much to their collective horror.
"Get those doors open!" Odd shouted to the group.
Glenn and Anne both ran straight through the metal detectors to the locked door gates to see if any of them were loose or even opened in any way. Unfortunately Jenner was right, as despite a few seconds of hard pulls from both of them the gates remained locked down tight.
"FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckshitfuckfuckfuckfuckingfuckFUCKITYFUCK!" Anne exclaimed with panic as she knew they were close to exploding.
Rick, Daryl and Ulrich all grabbed the woodcutter axes and ran straight to the windows that surrounded the lobby. They had to break through them if the doors were locked! The group saw as Rick, Daryl and Ulrich hit the axe blades over and over again against the glass, but alas they weren't even making a dent. The glass was definitely damage resistant...
As the three kept hitting the glass with the axes, some of the others were beginning to panic. Kyra for example was getting so desperate to stay alive that she was even picking up a small office chair and throwing it over and over again against the glass, continuing to do so even though she wasn't even causing a scratch. Yumi and Odd both grabbed a pair of metal control stanchions from a nearby security area and they began despairingly hitting another section of the glass, but again they weren't doing any damage to the glass whatsoever.
"Y'ALL, GET DOWN! GET DOWN!" the group heard Shane exclaim.
The group looked to see Shane had gotten his shotgun back. They also saw that he finished loading some shells into it... Everyone immediately ran or dived out of the way as Shane cocked his shotgun and aimed it straight at the glass. He fired a shell and then another, but much to his anger he and the others saw that the glass was bulletproof as well!
"Are you kidding me?! It's bulletproof, too?!" Alexandr exclaimed with shock and fury.
"The glass won't break?!" Sophia asked, literally trembling with fear.
If the windows couldn't be broken... then the group was going to die. Everyone knew this, and everyone was absolutely terrified that this would be how their story ends. No survival, no escape. Just the walking dead dying together in a painless fire. However, one of the people in the room still had something that might actually break the windows enough to escape.
"Rick, wait! I might have something that can help!" Carol announced as she began rummaging in her bag.
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it..." Shane retorted, his voice dripping with annoyance and sarcasm.
Carol ignored Shane's statement as she pulled something out of her bag. The others couldn't see it yet, but it looked like some sort of a small metal ball. What on earth was she holding...?
"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform for you? I found this in your pocket." Carol announced to the former cop as a reminder.
The group watched as Carol held out her hand towards Rick to show him what she was holding. Everyone was stunned when they realized that the small metal ball in her hand was actually a hand grenade. A hand grenade still with the pin on it and still ready to be used. Honestly, if a literal hand grenade couldn't break through the glass then nothing else possibly would...
Rick nodded in gratitude to Carol before he took the hand grenade from her. He looked down at the grenade for a moment, but then he took a deep breath to summon up some courage and then he walked straight to the glass. Almost immediately the group began to run for cover.
"GET DOWN AND HIDE BEHIND SOMETHING!" Odd shouted to the others as he dived behind the reception desk.
"EVERYONE GET THE FUCK DOWN!" Charles added as he ran to hide behind a pillar on the far side of the room.
After everyone had gotten far enough away and into cover Rick cautiously placed the grenade down against one of the window panes. He then quickly pulled the pin out of the grenade, causing his heart to skip a beat as he realized what was about to happen.
...Holy shit.
...Holy shit!
...HOLY FUCKING SHIT!
"Oh shit!" Rick exclaimed as he immediately stood up and began running as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the grenade.
Rick made it far from the windows, but the explosion created by the grenade made sure that he was thrown several more feet away. The rest of the group continued staying in cover for another moment or two before each of them slowly looked to see what had happened to the glass. To their collective relief, the glass had completely shattered in that spot thanks to the grenade. They had their way out now!
The group immediately gathered their belongings once more and one by one they poured out of the broken windows. Their vehicles were still in the parking lot, but a new problem was that there was still a bunch of walkers in the area. Rick's group, Charles, Kyra, Yumi and Robert were the first to make it out of the building, and then the rest of the Lyoko Warriors and Anne followed them out as fast as they could.
Everyone ran straight towards their vehicles in the parking lot, but several of the corpses on the ground began to stand up once they heard the noises the group was making. Shane shot the head off of one with his shotgun, and both Jeremie and Aelita used their handguns to shoot another pair that got too close for comfort, but alas the group could see many more walkers were beginning to arrive from the streets that led further into Atlanta. If the Lyoko Warriors didn't get to the vehicles soon then they'd definitely get cut off...
"Push through them! We've gotta get the hell out of here!" Patrick shouted to the group as he shot a distant walker, nicking it in the neck before he fired another round that hit it in the head.
"No shit, Sherlock!" Chase snapped as a reply, stabbing a walker directly in its skull as he and the others ran as fast as they could.
Rick's group, Kyra, Charles, Yumi and Robert all made it to the vehicles first. The four Lyoko Warriors began gesturing and screaming at their friends to hurry, but unfortunately Charles checked his watch and saw there was only seconds left before the detonation. The others wouldn't make it to the vehicles before then.
"EVERYONE GET THE FUCK DOWN NOW! THE BLOODY BUILDING'S ABOUT TO BLOW!" Charles screamed to the others before he ducked for cover inside the RV.
"ULRICH!" Yumi exclaimed with horror as she saw her boyfriend was in the blast zone.
Yumi was about to run out of the RV to help Ulrich get to cover before Kyra suddenly grabbed her by her shirt collar and yanked her back in. Before Yumi could do anything the Canadian teen had already dived on top of her to protect her from the blast. Robert noticed Andrea and Dale running out of the CDC lobby together through the hole in the glass that Rick created with the grenade. Although relieved to see that Dale had succeeded in saving Andrea, Robert had to focus on staying alive, so he dived into the RV's bathroom and tucked into a ball with his hands on the back of his neck for his own safety. Hopefully those two and his fellow Lyoko Warriors out there would find somewhere to hide...
Charles hid under the RV's dinner table and tilted it over so it would be a shield against the direction the blast would come from. He checked his wristwatch once more and he gulped with fear when he saw how much time was left before detonation.
0:00:05
0:00:04
0:00:03
0:00:02
0:00:01
0:00:00
The next thing Anne knew was that she was laying on the pavement under her. Her ears were ringing endlessly due to the massive blastwave that threw her several feet, and she couldn't see much since her vision was doubled after she hit her head hard on the ground. Anne's instinct for survival made herself find the strength to sit up, and after this she groggily looked around. She was very much shell-shocked due to the blast.
Anne looked to her left and saw that even more walkers were pouring in from the streets that led towards Atlanta. The group would be enveloped within minutes... She also noticed that most of the Lyoko Warriors were either unconscious, groggily stirring or were laying hurt on the ground. Ulrich had already unsheathed his sword and was using it to hold off walkers, although he had a nasty gash on his left arm from the explosion and his blood dripped down from the arm onto the asphalt below.
Aelita was groggily stumbling as she stood up from the ground in a similar form of shell-shock, although she fell back down onto her wobbly hands and knees moments later. Jeremie had a trickle of blood pouring down from his forehead as he sat up from the ground and began blindly looking around for his glasses which fell off of his face due to the shockwave. Odd was also trying to get himself back up on his feet, but an injury to one of his kneecaps caused him to exclaim in agony and fall back down to the ground.
Rebecca was cradling Dylan's unconscious head in her lap and tears were running down the sides of her face as she pleaded for him to wake up. Both Miranda and Chase were running around and calling out for Jennifer as they had absolutely no clue where she had ended up. There was so much smoke that Anne couldn't see where all of the others were or even if they were still alive...
Anne shakily stood up from the ground and her ears kept ringing loudly as she suddenly heard a loud scream that finally shook her out of her trance. Anne turned to her right and gasped when she saw Patrick was laying down inches away from her with a piece of rebar sticking out from his stomach. Patrick also had half of his face covered in his own blood, probably due to some sort of fragments sent flying his way due to the explosion. Anne then noticed Verity then stumbled out of the smoke, coughing into her hand as she searched for her boyfriend. A part of her hair was singed and she appeared to have a few scrapes on her elbows and her left arm, but otherwise she was unharmed from the blast. Much to her shock, she saw how he appeared on the ground by Anne. She could only scream when she saw him in such a state...
"PATRICK!" Verity gasped with horror as she broke out running towards them.
The walkers on the street heard the screaming and all of the other noises, and they all immediately began to head straight towards the Lyoko Warriors. Ulrich kept trying to hold off as many as he could and Odd began to help out by leaning against a jersey barrier and shooting at walkers, but alas there was definitely too many to fight. Verity crouched next to Patrick and made him hold still as she examined his wounds. The stomach wound was serious, and so was the one on his face. Patrick definitely took at least one fragment into his right eyeball...
"AGGHHH! OH GOD IT HURTS! IT HUUUURTS! UGGGGGGHHHH! FUUUUUUUUCK!" Patrick screamed and wailed in pure agony due to his painful wounds.
"No,no,no,no,no! You're going to be fine, baby! You're going to be fine!" Verity promised as she tightly grabbed one of his hands, horrified and deeply worried about his condition.
The group finally noticed Jennifer and Alexandr run through the smoke over to them. They both looked pretty banged up and had a few cuts and bruises, but other than that they seemed okay. Unfortunately a new problem emerged when the walkers finally cut them all off from the rest of the group at the vehicles. In their present state they couldn't hope to fight through them, so the only options left were to either die or run for their lives.
Jeremie had found his glasses and he helped Aelita back up onto her feet. Ulrich sheathed his sword and began using his pistol to take down the approaching walkers as he and Chase helped Odd up, wrapping his arms around their necks so they could help him walk. Miranda and Rebecca simply grabbed Dylan by his arms and legs and began hauling him away from the walkers. All that remained was Patrick, but Verity simply grabbed him by the hands and took a deep breath before she lifted him up.
"RAAAAAAAGH!" Patrick exclaimed with even more pain, followed by an agonized scream after she had helped him up to his feet.
Verity didn't have much medical training so she had no clue what to do about the piece of rebar sticking out of him. Would it be far more beneficial or far more harmful to pull it out of him? She decided to simply leave it in for now since she dreaded the thought of the boy she loved dying from blood loss. She wrapped his arm around her neck, and she began hurrying him away from the walkers.
As the Lyoko Warriors and Anne got back up on their feet or were given help to stand, Yumi kept trying to run out of the RV to get to Ulrich. However, Charles, Robert and Kyra were all holding her back since they knew she would be killed if she dared tried to run through the horde that separated them from their friends.
"LET GO OF ME! I NEED TO GET TO ULRICH!" Yumi furiously demanded as she struggled to get out of their grip
Ulrich noticed Yumi trying to escape from Kyra, Robert and Charles. Ulrich was completely aware of the situation and he obviously didn't want Yumi to die trying to get to him. They were going to have to be separated, but he'll be damned if he loses her forever. Somehow they'll find each other again...
"YUMI, STAY THERE! I PROMISE I'LL FIND YOU, DO YOU HEAR ME?! I'LL FIND YOU! I'LL FIND YOU!" Ulrich shouted to his girlfriend as he shot another walker's head.
Unfortunately he never got an answer. Due to the gunshots and the growls the walkers were making, it was very difficult if not impossible to hear her through it all or to even see if the three teens successfully pulled Yumi back into the RV or not. Ulrich growled and cursed to himself and shot another walker before he and Chase hurried Odd back over towards the other Lyoko Warriors. They all hoped that Yumi, Charles, Robert and Kyra were going to be safe...
The Lyoko Warriors and Anne proceeded to run as fast as they could from the burning ruins of the CDC and into a nearby forest, away from the rest of the group. Aelita turned her head and noticed that the group's vehicles were already back on the roads and were driving away from the scene to save themselves. It was a horrible sight but she knew that their own safety was a priority. They could try to look for them later if they survived in the next few days.
Aelita prayed that she would see them all again...