Day 403, 2:30

"What?" Chargebolt could barely utter a word upon seeing the beast emerging and slowly stomping toward him. The beast is slow and doesn't bother charging until it is certain of its target and Chargebolt knew that. Chargebolt recalls the time during the first day of the apocalypse when he and the original members of the Kamisquad (minus Mineta) were at Isamu Academy and the students turned into zombies. He recalled one of them named Katsuya had turned into a beast and for as long as he could remember, had been hunting down Chargebolt because the electric boy was the one survivor who kept getting away, no matter what. He fluctuated between calling him the Katsuya Beast and the Hunter Beast.

This beast was not the Katsuya/Hunter beast; Chargebolt could tell, even in this dimlighting and the fact that this beast wasn't charging for him headfirst with a murderous blood lust proved that he wasn't his undead archenemy.

"Oh shit!" Thin Ice and Low Light scream upon finding the beast.

"Tank," Webby shouts. "Leaps, Thin Ice, Low Light! We got a fucking tank!"

Low Light is the only one to suppress his screams. "Usual protocol!"

Thin Ice fires a beam of ice at the beast's face, freezing it in place. The beast claws at the ice and begins breaking free.

Almost as if muscle memory kicked in, the three survivors on the ground activated their quirks and used them to get the hell out of dodge while Low Light stayed behind in the trees.

Chargebolt revs up his bike and follows after them.

Once the beast breaks free of the ice, it spots the four survivors trailing down the road, each one using their quirk. It growls and chases after them, aiming for those who dare to use their quirks to escape.

Thin Ice uses his ice quirk to create an ice path for him to traverse like Ice Man from X-Men: The Official Game while Webby uses her webs to swing like Spider-Man and Leaps leaping like a frog from tree to tree. Chargebolt simply rides his dirtbike.

"Come on, hurry up!" Webby orders as he swings from tree to tree, barely keeping up with Thin Ice. "Hurry, faster!"

Chargebolt looks over his shoulder at the beast. "Just like old times."

The further they got down the road, the less dense of a zombie horde that surrounded them. Good, less obstacles to ride around for Chargebolt.

Leaps is at the back of the line and the closest to being caught by the beast as it sprints after them like a football player. Leaps narrows his eyes and jumps to the top of a tree thirty feet in the air before leaping out, far out of the beast's reach. He stays at this height as he hops from branch to branch, from tree to tree again, barely keeping up with his fellow companions.

Webby fires webs at the beast to blind it. Thin Ice turns and fires a beam of ice from his free hand at the beast. He hits him in the shins and makes him topple over. The beast flops on its front but smashes free of the ice and pulls the webs from its face without skipping a beat. It chases after them. They try the same attack again except Webby aims for the shins and Thin Ice aims for the shins.

This time, when the beast trips, it falls to its knees and smashes its fists into the ice blocking his face. That's when the opportunity presented itself. As soon as the beast's hands touched the ice, Thin Ice fired more ice at the beast, freezing its hands in place. Webby swings over and sprays the beast in a thick line of webbing akin to that of a spider catching a fly. Webby swings around the beast counter-clockwise, continuously spraying more webs to wrap around the undead monster before Thin Ice uses his quirk to freeze the webs in place.

Once the ten-foot beast is completely covered in webbing from head to toe, Thin Ice completely covers the creature in thick ice and watches it topple over on its front. Webby adds another layer of webbing to the grounded beast before Thin Ice finishes off the process with another layer of ice.

"Yes," Webby exclaims. She dances around, doing the splits and breakdancing.

"Still got it," Thin Ice chuckles. "Man, we are unstoppable; we are the fucking kings of the world."

Charebolt rides up to Thin Ice and Webby who stand twenty feet away from the trapped beast. "Wow, that was so cool. Is... is it dead?"

"No, it's not dead," Thin Ice answers. "We've never killed one of these things before so trapping them will do. Webby's webs are extremely thick and are hard to pull off."

Webby wags a finger at him. "To be precise, my webs are easier to pull off if they're in contact with a non-sticky surface but webs that are in contact with more of my webs are almost impossible to pull off so the more layers I add, the harder it is to break free."

"And my ice works to freeze the webs in place and harden them."

Chargebolt smiles behind his mask. "Fascinating." Remembering why he was here, Chargebolt shakes his head. "Wait, the fire. As I was saying, the fire. Listen, ice guy or whatever your name is, if you get on the back of my dirtbike, I'll take you into the forest. From there, you can use your quirk to put out some flames. Your friends could swing or jump you in there using the trees, sure, but the trees are burning and the more they use their quirks, the more likely zombies will come to us. And my bike doesn't require any quirk usage so we keep our quirk usage to the bare minimum. Whaddya say?"

Thin Ice turns to Webby and Leaps. "I'm up for it."

Chargebolt nods. "Yeah. And there's another group of survivors in a sem of some kind. You should go see if they need some help."

Thin Ice salutes. "Right on. I'll see you guys later."

"Be careful." Webby grabs his hand. "I swear to god if you die-"

"Yeah, yeah, you'll come back to haunt me, I know." Thin Ice climbs on the back of the dirtbike and pats the rider. "Okay, let's do this."

Chargebolt rides off into the forest while Webby and Leaps make a break for it.

Thin Ice ponders for a bit. "Hey, what was your name again?"

"Chargebolt."

"Ahh, Chargebolt. Based on the name, I'm going to assume you're some kind of electrical bastard, right?"

"Right."

"Nice. Let me guess: you were an electrician?"

"Nope. And... would I be wrong in assuming you were... some kind of... ice cream parlor worker?"

Thin Ice chuckles. "No, I did not work in an ice cream shop."

"Shame. Because if we knew each other back then, you could've given us some good discounts on ice cream."

"If we met before the apocalypse, we wouldn't have known each other."

"True. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

"What seatbelts?"

"Oh right, sorry."

Chargebolt rides over a ditch that launches them in the air. Landing on the ground, he maneuvers around several trees and Thin Ice fires streams of ice over Chargebolt's head. He puts out the first few fires and clears a path for Chargebolt to ride through. The deeper they got into the thick of the ire, the more Chargebolt felt himself sweating up a storm. Despite Thin Ice putting out the fires at the edge of the wildfire, the fires were stronger and deeper within. The flames melt the ice quicker, forcing Thin Ice to reapply. Even so, he still manages to put out some flames and Chargebolt isn't sweating too badly.

But it's times like this when he wished he had some deodorant because if there's one thing he hates, it's his armpits smelling like diced onions... and he was wearing a mask; that's how bad his body odor was.

Then again, Thin Ice wasn't faring so well either.

As Earphone Jack plugs her jacks into her speakers, ready to get to work on sending soundwaves into the trees, three survivors appear at the front of the trailer's doorway.

Phantom Thief grabs the lantern to illuminate them. "Well, what do we have here?"

"Figured you guys could use a hand," Low Light shrugs. "need us to do anything?"

Phantom Thief looks back. "Well, one of us was making a bomb that's supposed to make a big splash, and... we need someone to jump into the forest to drop the bomb. In case you hadn't noticed, we are just barely and literally scratching the surface of this wildfire. We need to dig into the forest to put it out."

Leaps nod. "Okay. Good. I can jump from tree to tree and drop the water bomb or whatever."

BtB stands up. "Good. The first bomb is ready. The second bomb should take me no more than fifteen minutes to craft." He juggles a handheld pipe with plastic explosives at both ends.

"We need faster results," Mayday demands.

BtB shrugs. "Hey, if you can get me more materials, I can make these bombs twice as fast."

Phantom Thief recalls Rule. "One of our survivors is already on the road; we can have her help out. Just... just tell us what to get."

BtB hands him a paper. "Here's a list."

Phantom Thief reads it off. "Perfect... this is nothing but water."

"I have all the manmade materials I need, now... I just need the natural resources to make more bombs."

"Roger that. And... as luck would have it... our dear friend has two giant buckets of water."

"Perfect." He tosses the bomb to Leaps. "It's a very simple bomb. Just pull the red string at the top, and launch it as high as you can in the air for at least five seconds. Don't worry about it exploding prematurely; it will only explode upon impact."

Leaps juggle with the bomb. "Roger that." He turns. "Come on, Webby."

The two take off. Low Light climbs into the truck. "Nice semi, by the way."

Leaping from tree to tree with Webby in tow, Leaps stops at a branch about forty feet in the air, where he resides in a tree that has almost the entire front burnt off. He was about a kilometer or so into the forest and the flames were starting to get to him, making his skin smell like fried chicken and making him feel like he was stuck in an oven. Remembering the instructions of BtB, he quickly pulls the red string at the top of the bomb before reeling his hand back to throw it.

"Mind the trees." Webby grabs the bomb. "Here, let me."

She takes the bomb and uses her webs to send it flying into the air to give it more time to hover above the ground or whatever its function was. Their eyes glue to the falling bomb as it plunges to the ground, into the fire, and-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The pipe bomb ignites with a flame that quickly evaporates into a cloud of water like some kind of fireworks. Leaps and Webby cover their faces but once their vision clears, they look at the explosion to see that a stream of water generated from where the pipe bomb touched the ground now floods the forest with about tens of gallons of water, more than enough to put out some flames for about a kilometer or does and it doesn't stop for about thirty seconds.

"Holy shit," Leaps laughs. "Check that out."

"A waterbomb. Man." Webby laughs weakly. "Just like a water balloon."

"Definately."

1:00 AM

Now that everyone is gathered around and ready to work, Kendo goes over the plan once more to the survivors on the school bus. "Okay, remember, this is nothing more than a simple plan. Two teams, one leads the horde away, and the other deals with the stragglers inside. No quirk usage, we don't need any more zombies coming our way and if we attract a beast or a brainiac, we're done for."

She looks at the seven survivors in the school bus with a serious look. "Hagakure, Pony, Awase, Mashirao, the four of you will infiltrate the community while the rest of us will stay behind in the bus and lead the zombies away. If the worst happens to us, we need our quirks to be able to escape. Try and kill every straggler left behind without using your quirk, you got that?"

Mashirao nods. "Yeah, we got it."

Hagakure makes a fist. "This is going to be easy; my quirk is perfect for sneaking up on zombies."

"They could probably still smell you," Awase points out.

"なぜ私が後ろに残らなければならなかったのですか?" Pony says in English.

"Hey guys," Kendo speaks up, "I get it, you're scared, but Hatsume was kind enough to give us her homemade nail guns just in case. Remember, we should be leading most of the herd away so it shouldn't be too bad. And if you need help, just... just call us, okay?"

The straggler team nods with worried expressions.

After the plan was discussed a third time just in case and the survivors put on their masks, Kendo took the wheel and started up the bus. The school bus was parked at the edge of the road about half a kilometer away from the gated community where zombies pour in from all sides, blocking the road. The night hides the bus, allowing the straggler team to get off quietly after they arm themselves. Refraction Girl picks up her walkie-talkie, switches channels, and then yeets the walkie-talkie as far as she can as a baseball pitcher. It lands in the crowd, bouncing off a runner's head but the runner pays no attention to it.

Inside, Spiral switches channels before pulling out the phone Earphone Jack left for them for this very mission. With no Wifi or service, all it was good for was playing sounds the punk rock girl downloaded before the apocalypse and the only time it charges is when Chargebolt uses his quirk during times when they're completely isolated from zombies. After putting on a random song, he puts the speaker on the walkie-talkie.

The walkie-talkie left behind in the herd blares Japanese music at the undead's feet, drawing their attention. They growl and snarl at the device with their attention to the gates of the community all but forgotten and focusing entirely on the sound.

The walkie-talkie landed just barely outside the gate and the zombies on the road quickly huddled over to try and attack whatever was making that sound.

Once the road cleared up a bit, Battle Fist shifted gears with her one hand before driving through the opening between zombies. Spiral stops playing the music when they pass through the horde and hides behind a seat with Froppy and Vine beside him. "You guys good to go?"

"Ready," Vine answers. "Time to lead this poor flock away."

"Ready as I'll ever be, ribbit."

After passing through the zombies, Battle Fist honks the horn twice. "Hey, deadhead, you hungry! Come eat us!"

Spiral heads to the back of the bus and kicks it open. He plays one more song on Earphone Jack's phone and draws their attention. Once the zombies realize they're survivors and not some kind of speakers playing mediocre music, their aggression surges and they put everything they can into taking down the bus. The bus moves at a slow pace to make sure the walkers can keep up but the runners are the first to catch up.

"As expected." Spiral takes his nail gun and aims for the runners, hitting them right between the eyes before reloading. He nails five runners before missing one.

Vine steps forward. "Remember, don't worry about the walkers, focus only on the runners."

"I got it," Spirale nods. "Keep an eye out for any runners on the side; you know what to do."

"Yeah." Vine removes a knife from her pocket and tosses it to Froppy. "Watch the right side of the bus."

"I'm on it, ribbit."

Froppy pulls all the windows down on the right side of the bus while Vine does the same on the left side. Some runners manage to catch up to the bus on the left and right side of the bus. If they're out of range, they use their nail guns to take them out. Otherwise, if they're clinging to the window, they'll use their knives to put them down once and for all.

Battle Fist keeps this bus going at the same speed and wishes that she brought something to read because according to the Mister Donuts map, they still had at least 8 kilometers to go before they reached a road that took them to the cliff behind the gated community from earlier... then another half kilometer before they reached the cliff. After that, they would soon figure out what to do from there.

Battle Fist narrows her eyes. We may have to sacrifice the bus. If the walkers see the bus go over the cliff, they may go over the cliff as well. But at the same time, this school bus is the only vehicle that can carry all of us and we may still need it just in case. Okay, so, say we decide to keep the school bus; how? We're going to need to somehow lure the horde over the cliff.

She clenches her knuckles. I think I have an idea; it is time-consuming, but it may be worth it because the sooner I get results, the sooner I can come up with a plan. But at the same time, I need everyone on the bus with me to take care of any runners and there's no cruise control. Huh. What would Momo Yaoyorozu do?

With The Straggler Team

After waiting about five minutes behind trees and boulders, the horde thins out around the gate. With about a hundred or so zombies following after the bus, the straggler team decided now was the time for them to strike.

Tail Man and Refraction Girl lead the charge armed with knives and nail guns with Rocketti and Welder close behind. A straggler walker at the gate spots them and growls. Tail Man charges into the walker and stabs him in the brain before tossing him aside. "Come on," he whispers.

They squeeze through the gate and scan the area. The gaged community was just as they left it with only about two to three dozen zombies left behind and more than half of them were walkers. They took out their nail gun.

"Let's frame your head," Refraction Girl snarks before nailing two runners. She pauses and checks for more. Tail Man and Welder put down two more runners, leaving Rocketti as the only one with a full magazine of nails.

"Guys," Tail Man begins, "they're starting to surround us. Drop them in the path of others."

Rocketti aims at a group of four and shoots the two walkers in the front, making the two in the back tripping over the bodies. Tail Man and Welder quickly run to stab them in the back of the head before stepping back. They stay together as a group of four with Rocketii and Refraction Girl specifically aiming for zombies that could trip the zombies behind them and allow the boys to finish the job."

"Ahh man," Welder smirks, "this is going to be so easy."

They put down about a dozen zombies before the zombies begin to swarm the quartet. They quickly take off in opposite directions to break up the horde and regroup on the other side. As they run through some houses, they encounter more zombies. They decide to not risk it and use the nail gun to put them down. Once they regroup on the other side of the horde, they call out to them.

"Hey, deadheads!" Welder shouts. "Not hungry?"

The zombies turn and limp towards them. They repeat the same technique and when they slowly start to get surrounded, they split up, cut through the houses, and regroup on the opposite side of the zombies. After this, they finally put down all the zombies.

With nothing but the chirping of crickets to listen to and the smell of something akin to a rotting apple, the survivors look at each other.

"See anymore?" Welder does a 360-degree scan. "I got nothing."

"Neither do I." Tail Man takes out his walkie-talkie. "Battle Fist, this is Tail Man. We've taken out most of the zombies out in the open. We're going to go house to house to clear out the rest of the zombies."

"Roger that, keep me updated."

The four of them huddle together in a square as they tiptoe around the community, keeping all directions covered for any possible leftover zombie.

"Wait," Welder begins, "there's something that doesn't seem right about Reiko Yanagi's death. According to Kaminari, the paramedics extracted her body from the gated community and took her away. What about the zombies?"

Tail man considers his confusion for a second. "If I had to guess, I'd say they did something similar to what we did. I mean, one of them was riding Kaminair's bike. Maybe one of them used the van to draw out the horde, the other snuck in, found Yanagi and Kaminari's dirtbike, then used the bike to escape."

"And the zombies waddled back in?"

"Yeah."

Refraction Girl looks around. "Wait, remember what Shiozaki said about Sero? He said that he somehow got infected and that he became a zombie. She said that he opened a door, which means..."

"He became a brainiac," Tail man finishes.

"But what about Shoji?"

"Let's hope that he didn't become a zombie."

Refraction Girl freezes. "What if he became a beast? I mean, Shishida became a beast so maybe Shoji did too, right?"

"I don't want to think about it."

"And Shoda," Welder panics, "remember Shoda? He wasn't with us when we escaped and he wasn't with the paramedics. Maybe he's still around."

"Right. Keep a watch for Shoda and Sero. If Sero became a brainiac, we gotta put him down immediately, understand?"

After a few minutes of searching the two and putting down a few more zombies, the survivors stumble across a corpse in the middle of the road, one they knew wasn't there when they first arrived and didn't belong to a zombie.

The corpse lies in the middle of the road, its flesh completely torn off, its clothing in tears and tatters, only an eyeball remaining and its intestines hanging out. Its body ribcage was exposed with several bitemarks left behind and a pool of dried blood surrounding it."

Welder gasps and almost loses the grip on his knife but instincts tell him to hold onto the knife. "Oh my god. That's... that's... that's Shoda."

The others snap towards him, looking at the corpse with desperation. "How do you know?" Tail Man demands.

Welder points at the corpse. "His shoulders... I can tell by the size and shape of his shoulders."

"No," Rocektti gasps, "no, it can't be."

Unknown to the students, the beast that the Kamisquad tricked into falling over the cliff the night before slowly scales the wall, the Shoji that he once was completely gone and only the instinct to kill was all that was of the beast. Just a few more meters and it would be back on top where it can hopefully kill more survivors.

With the Bus Team

Vine rips the knife out of a runner's body before pulling away from the window. She takes a moment to catch her breath before looking out of the bus. No more runners seemed to be coming at them but she knew better than to let her guard down. With her head out the window like a prairie dog, she turns to the horde of walkers slowly trailing after the bus about fifteen feet away.

One zombie stands out for some reason and after her eyes adjust... she realizes why.

Sero.

Character Cards

Yori "Ice Pick" Soeno

Quirk: Irrelevant

Occupation: Restroom attendant (Formerly); member of First Gen.

Age: 20

Birthday: May 12th

Height: 170 cm.

Blood: A

Likes: Ambient sounds.

Dislikes: String cheese.

Other Facts: Born with Xerostomia.

Zombie Kills: 68

Human Kills: 8

Jurou "Piton" Soeno

Quirk: Irrelevant

Occupation: Flight attendant (Formerly); member of First Gen

Age: 22

Birthday: February 23rd

Height: 181 cm.

Blood: A

Likes: Marbles.

Dislikes: Caricatures.

Other Facts: Xerosis

Zombie Kills: 71

Human Kills: 12

Koji "BtB" Saitō

Quirk: Capsule (He can apply extraordinary abilities to mundane objects)

Occupation: Delivery driver; gadgeteer for First Gen.

Age: 24

Birthday: December 2nd.

Height: 155 cm.

Blood: B

Likes: Etch-a-sketches.

Dislikes: Technology.

Other Facts: Conservative.

Prison Record: 3 counts of petty theft - Probation plus time served.

Zombie Kills: 22

Human Kills: 4