Day 403, 3:30 AM
After leaping over the beast once again, Ground Zero felt himself starting to get bored with the repeated process of dodging, firing, and repeating it—like he was stuck in a Groundhog Day loop or something. The beast wasn't putting up much of a fight and was simply blindly swinging its arms, desperately hoping he'd finally kill the survivor who kept blasting him in the back of the head with his AP shot.
Growling, the beast blindly reaches for some kind of weapon to use before freezing up suddenly.
Ground Zero lands on a tree beside him. "Thanks for standing still."
He aims, ready to blast the back of his head with more of his AP shot before his hands start to cramp. "Damn it, not now." He charges up his attack before letting off the first shot.
The beast ducks, almost like he sensed it before he fired.
"Okay, you want to play it that way? Fine, we'll play it that way." Ground Zero leaps off the branch and flies overhead before hovering to the ground, landing with a soft thud and carefully tiptoes around the beast as it scans the environment around him like a radar.
No good scanning if you got no eyes, beast.
He tiptoes around the beast and aims for the back of his head. "Say goodbye," he whispers carefully.
He fires.
The beast dodges and charges for Ground Zero. Ground Zero had to blast himself in the air to dodge it and only just manage to succeed. He freezes on top of a branch and hunkers down, keeping his weight balanced.
"Okay, gotta be faster," he whispers to himself. "He can sense every time I use my quirk."
The beast picks up a boulder.
Ground Zero gasps when the beast chucks the boulder at him like a baseball. Ground Zero just barely dodges in time and heads for another tree. Instead of chasing after him, the beast simply walks towards the tree Ground Zero just vacated and kicks it down. He pulled it from the roots and swung it like a bo staff, knocking several trees down.
Ground Zero leaps off, using his quirk to get to the trees on the other side of the road and lands on a branch. The beast ignores him and continues to club at the trees until they all tumbled over like a tent collapsing. Then he turned to the other trees and walked over.
The beast walks up to the tree Ground Zero resides on and swings at it, achieving the same results as with the other trees. Ground Zero leaps to the street beside the beast and aims for his head. The beast ignores him and continues to knock down the other trees.
It's changing tactics.
"AP SHOT!"
He fires an AP Shot at the beast. Without looking and its back still to him, the beast moves its head out of the way like a curious man tilting his head and the AP Shot cuts through several trees a few meters deep into the forest.
Once the beast finishes knocking out the immediate trees, it turns and looks at Ground Zero.
Ground Zero stays silent and moves out of the way, tiptoeing once more. Just head for more trees. Always have the high ground so you can recharge.
The beast stands there motionless, the tree club clutched in its hands like a man dangling onto a handle for dear life.
The beast suddenly snaps the branch in half over its knees and growls as it turns toward Ground Zero. Ground Zero freezes. If it weren't for the beast being blind, he was sure it would've charged for him right then and there.
The beast throws one piece of the tree at Ground Zero. Ground Zero had no choice but to use his quirk to dodge. The beast chucks the other half of the tee at Ground Zero mid-air, forcing him to use his quirk once more. Ground Zero lands on the other side of the beast. The beast turns to him and kicks a large boulder forward.
Ground Zero uses his quirk to dodge and launches himself into the pit of fallen trees. When he hits the trees and they crumble under his weight, that's when he realizes that his hands went numb on him. Wincing in pain, he realizes that he overused his quirk and that he can only manage a few short, non-powerful bursts at a time. He needed time to recharge, especially for the one last AP Shot he needed to break a hole in the beast's skullcap finally.
The beast roars at the top of its lungs before charging for Ground Zero.
Shit!
Ground Zero dives into the pit of branches left behind when the beast made the trees fall over and hides. The beast barrels through the fallen trees, leaving a walkway behind as it stops a few meters into the forest. It pauses and sniffs the air.
Shit, he was forcing me to overuse my quirk on purpose. But how was he able to tell my movements? He was able to tell my movements even when I wasn't using my quirk. He must be able to sniff me. Either that or a brainiac is hiding, directing the beast to kill me. Yeah, that must be it; a brainiac is hiding somewhere, guiding this beast into changing tactics because beasts aren't that smart.
As quietly as possible, Ground Zero crawls over to a fallen tree leaking sap and resin like a juice box. He slathers himself in sap and resin as quickly as possible, covering every inch of his exposed skin while leaving circles around his eyes.
He presses his back on the ground in a prone position as he feels the beast stomping towards him, the vibration of his steps echoing in the ground as he presses his head down.
Quiet, stay quiet.
The beast sniffed the air, moving its head desperately and frantically, trying to sniff out the sweet smell of human flesh that was destined to be torn apart by yours truly. Where could that human be? And that smell lingering in the air... it didn't care where it came from, the smell of resin and tree sap. No, tree sap and resin weren't its goal; human flesh was.
Ground Zero closes his eyes, steadies his breathing, and stays as still as possible as the beast stands only five feet away. The beast lets out soft hissing sounds like a velociraptor for a few seconds before turning and heading back towards the main road.
In the forest, watching from a distance, is a brainiac leaning against a tree, watching the encounter with its very eyes. It's very dead eyes. It squints to try and get a look for its prey to give his beast companion a hand. He saw the survivor dive into the pit of fallen trees before vanishing from sight. Curse its sight because if he were alive, he would have better vision. No, bainiacs don't have good vision, the same with the other zombie types, but it was more comrphensible with sights before it. It can see, analyze, and process information better. All it had to do was scan and seek out this survivor and have him killed. As soon as he spotted his target, he would sic the beast on him and have him killed.
Before the beast can do anything and give more orders to the brute, the tip of a blade finds its way into its temple, and it falls to the ground.
Chargebolt pries the knife out of the brainiac's temple and looks forward.
Oh man, Ground Zero, you shouldn't have overused your quirk. The more you overuse your quik, the more you burn out, especially when it comes to beasts. Okay then, I gotta buy Ground Zero some time. But what?
He looks behind him and climbs on his bike. "I can't believe I'm doing this again." He revs up his bike as loud as possible, catching the attention of the beast, who now wanders like a confused child. "Hey, over here!"
The beast snaps in Chargebolt's direction before running. It trips over the fallen trees it knocked over earlier and lands flat on its face. Chargebolt shuts off his bike.
Okay then, this should distract the beast long enough for Ground Zero to recharge. I can do this. Just... just turn on and off the bike every few seconds in different directions. Okay, yeah, I can do this.
He moves up a few feet before starting up his bike again. The beast climbs to its feet and stumbles over the fallen trees. Chargebolt cuts off his bike, causing the beast to freeze up.
Groudn Zero pulls himself out of the rubble before climbing to his feet. Recognizing the sound of the engine, he carefully frees himself from the fallen trees and stops at the edge of the road. The beast pays no attention to him with its back turned to Ground Zero.
Chargebolt moves a few feet behind him and starts up the bike before cutting it of seconds later. The beast steps forward again. Ground Zero follows after him.
Chargebolt gasps upon seeing the beast get closer, the beast only ten meters away. The beast clears the fallen trees, and it is now on unbattered ground. If I start the bike up, there won't be any fallen trees to trip him up. I gotta be fast about this. If I start up my bike, I gotta be ready to take off if he charges for me.
He hops on his bike like he's going to ride it and revs it up.
The beast freezes and turns his head to Chargebolt. Chargebolt was sure that if it had eyes, it would be piercing into his soul. He quickly shuts it off, regretting it almost instantly when the beast continues to face his direction.
Ground Zero takes another step forward. You idiot. If you rev up your bike, it's going to hear you don't shut it off. What happens if he decides to take a break for you? Moron. He flexed his fingers to ease the cramping a bit. Just a few more seconds, and I should be recharged. Good enough for just one AP Shot to tear into the beast's skull cap. If I'm lucky, I can destroy his skull cap and his brain in one go.
Chargebolt revs up the bike. This time, the beast takes action. Chargebolt yelps andtwists the throttle, riding out of the way just as the beast barrels through the trees and cuts several of them down. Chargebolt carefully navigates the forest with unease, going fast enough to keep away from he beast and slow enoguht o not cash into any trees. He makes a sharp turn to the right and heads for the street. He stops and rides down until he is at Ground Zero's location.
Ground Zero stops in front of him. He climbs on the back of the bike. "You idiot, what were you doing?!"
"Saving your life!"
"Thank you. Now step on it."
Chargebolt revs up the bike and takes off just as the beast barrels through the trees. It trips over the same patch of fallen trees from earlier and takes a tumble like a football player.
"Make a sharp turn here and turn off your bike."
Chargebolt obeys and cuts into the trees, cutting off his bike. "Done."
"Listen here, moron, I still need at least one more minute to recharge my AP shot. After that, I should only be good for about one hit. You're going to..." He pauses as his eyes widen. "Wait. Wait a minute." He looks in the direction of the beast and spots the wildfire several hundred meters down. "The walkway from earlier. Of course." He grins. "Cargebolt, change of plans. You're going to lead the beast into the forest."
"W-what, why?"
"We need a clear pathway for trucks to come and go, right? The beast is going to clear a pathway for us. Deku said something about a firetruck. I we make a path, we can use the hose to make our job easier."
"You're telling me to be live bait, man?"
"You've escaped from a beast on a dirtbike before, right? And this one is blind."
"Yeah, but I'll be riding towards the fires."
"You will be. But once you're done and out of the way, I'll blast the beast in the head with my AP Shot. It'll be dead, and we'll have ourselves a driveway for the firetruck. Got it?"
Chargebolt gulps. "Y-yeah, but, I-"
"Good. If you need the extra speed, I'll do what I can.
Chargebolt swallows again. "Damn it. Damn you, Gound Zero." Chargebolt revs up his bike again. "I swear to god, if I die, I'm coming back to haunt you."
"And I'll be waiting to send you back to the afterlife."
Chargebolt revs up his bike once more and heads for the beast. Ground Zero clings to him.
The beast swings at the bike just as it passes him, missing it by inches. It picks up the scent of Chargebolt and sprints after him. It trips over the path of fallen trees Ground Zero was hiding under before, giving Chargebolt a headstart by a few seconds.
Chargebolt kicks up speed, manvuering around the forest, clearing the trees and anything that might be a haphazard. The beast leaps to its free and charges for the bike, ramming through several trees, cutting them through like baseball bat shattering after hitting a homerun. It keeps up speed with the bike but was still behind by about twenty to thirty meters.
But it was catching up.
"Ground Zero," Chargebolt gulps. "What's the plan, man?"
Ground Zero looks behind him, keeping watch on the beast. "I'm going to jump off. That way, I'll be behind it to finish off my AP Shot to the back of its skull."
"You're going to leave me?!"
"You can do a motocross dirtbike trick over the fire if you want."
"You bastard!" Chargebolt spots the fire, and his eyes harden. "Ninety meters away!"
Ground Zero keeps track of the beast. "Twenty-five meters to intercept."
"Eighty meters to destination."
Ground Zero feels his knuckles and palms sweat. Good.
"Seventy..."
"Sixty..."
"Fifty..."
"I'm getting ready to jump." Gound Zero swings his left leg over the bike, sitting on the bike like a chair with both legs dangling over the right, and prepares to jump. "Cover yourself in electricity to keep the beast drawn to you."
"Damn you. Forty meters!"
As they get closer to the fire, Chargebolt feels his forehead drenched, and he smells something that reminds him of s'mores. Burning wood to make a campfire never left his sense of smell, and strangely, he embraced it. Even if it wasn't roasting marshmallows to make s'mores, he enjoyed the strong fumes of barks of wood burning to crisps.
One thing he didn't enjoy was how it felt like a sauna the closer he got to the towering fire. The sudden hit of humidity was enough to make him sweat in the armpits again, and wearing that jacket of his wasn't doing him any favors. Damn it.
Twenty meters away, Ground Zero prepares to leap off. He flexes his hands again. He pats Chargebolt.
"Jumping off!" He leaps off the bike, performing a roll similar to the rolls that Chargebolt does when he leaps from a great height onto the ground.
As soon as Chargebolt felt his companion leave the bike, he covered his body in electricity. He ups the voltage to make sure the beast doesn't miss it as he runs past Ground Zero, ignoring him as if he were an ant on the ground.
Chargebolt revs up the bike and aims for the wildfire pit before him, the beast only ten behind him by a mere ten meters.
Ground Zero stands up and fires an AP Shot at a tree in front of Chargebolt, hitting it square in the trunk and causing it to topple over.
I can't leave Chargebolt. No, that's now what a hero does.
The tree tumbles over, and Charebolt aims for the tree that now leans over at a 45-degree angle. Chargebolt rides up the tree and takes off like the motocross expert he is, soaring through the air before landing on the other side of a pit of fire, flames ablaze in every direction. He makes a sharp U-turn.
Ground Zero forces every ounce of his body to produce one more AP Shot. He only had enough energy in him for one shot, and he wasted it on the tree to save Chargebolt. But he doesn't regret it, even with what's about to happen next.
Go beyond. He aims. Plus Ultra.
He fires the last of his AP Shot and hits the beast just as it runs through the wall of fire, the fore of his speed enough to clear a brief pathway. The AP Shot hits the beast in the back of the head, and it tumbles to the ground. Chargebolt quickly rides through the opening in the fire the beast left behind and gets back on the other side. He turns off his electric quirk.
The beast falls headfirst into a pit of fire on the ground and jumps to a standing position. It growls and heads for the direction it saw the survivors take off running through the wall of fire, ready to trample over the survivor before it stops suddenly.
The beast lets out a soft growl before falling back, tumbling like the trees it collapsed earlier, and lands flat on its back into the wall fo fire, the flames consuming its corpse.
Ground Zero lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "The fires melted his brain."
Chargebolt sighs happily. "We're alive. Thank god we're alive. Oh god, we're alive... we're alive." He puts a hand on his chest. "Holy cow, man, you killed a fucking beast."
"No, Chargebolt, we killed a beast." He turns behind him, observing the pathway the beast cleared when it bulldozed through the forest. "And now we got a pathway for our vehicles to drive through. Come on, let's go." He climbs on the dirtbike.
Chargebolt revs up the bike and takes off.
3:45 AM
With Douser
After retreating and leaving the last of his three firefighters behind, he runs for the firetruck that Stamp and H20 were supposed to have returned with. As he stops as the firetruck, Deku intercepts him.
"Hey, firefighter!" He flags him down. He stops ten feet away from him, catching his breath. "It's Backdraft, he's..."
"Save it for later, kid. Right now, we need to get this firetruck into the forest, and we need the hose, now."
The familiar sound of Chargebolt's dirtbike fills the air, catching the full attention of both survivors.
Ground Zero climbs off. "Hey, idiot, extra, we got good news. There's a pathway. We killed a beast and cleared a pathway for us to use for the firetruck."
"You killed a what? And ahat now?" Douser pants.
"A beast. We killed a beast. You know, one of those big fucking zombies. And we cleared a pathway for us to use."
"You killed a beast," Deku smiles behind his mask. Good job, Ground Zero."
Douser ignored the compliments this green-haired bastard was giving this angry, exposive boy before climbing in the firetuck, freezing at the sight of his dead, unrecognizable companions on the ground. Holding back tears, he quickly climbs to the driver's seat and sits down.
Outside, as Deku, Ground Zero, and CHagebolt wait for the others, they spot someone coming at them from the distance. Now that the zombies were lured away earlier by several other survivors, they were able to let their guard down just a bit, but the second they saw a silhouette in the shadows, they became on guard again, and that's what happened when they saw this person running at them.
"Guys, help," the survivor shouts. It was a firefighter. "I need help. I... my friends... they..."
A second firefighter follows after the first one, holding a bloody hand against his neck before collapsing to his knees only a few feet behind the first one. Deku and the others race to help him but they stop halfway when they hear the familiar pitter-patter sounds of a four-legged creature.
Bloodhounds.
They caught up to the retreating firefighters and tackled the second one to the ground before they bit into the screaming man. The first firefighter runs off while Deku and Ground Zero arm up their quirks now that they've had a few minutes to recharge. The first firefighter hides behind the two teens.
"Get on," CHargebolt orders, "let's go."
The firefighter climbs on the back, and they ride off down the street.
The bloodhounds make a meal out of the second firefighter before Ground Zero blasts them to hell with his quirk. There were two bloodhounds, and both were destroyed almost instantly. The third and fourth bloodhounds show up and split up to take on both survivors. Deku kicks the first dog before getting on top of it and stabs it through the skull. Ground Zero kicks his bloodhound across the snout so hard it goes flying to the side. The dog recovers and, after smelling someone in the firetruck, it runs inside and leaps through the open doors.
Douser doesn't stand a chance when the bloodhound sinks its fangs into his neck and draws him to the ground. Ground Zero quickly rushes in, pries the dog off, and stomps on its head, covering his eyes when he feels blood splatter on the walls.
Douser sits up, coughing up blood while holding a hand to his neck. "Oh fuck," he gulps, "no, oh shit."
Ground Zero turns. "Hang in there, buddy."
"Fuck," Douser grumbles. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Deliriously, he picks himself up and walks towards the back of the firetruck, and hops out. He continues to clutch his wound, shoving Ground Zero away when he feels his touch and steps into the path of a fifth bloodhound. He doesn't put up a fight as the bloodhound tears into him.
Ground Zero lets out one final blast that blows up both Douser and the bloodhound.
Deku turns up, looking a little exhausted after putting in the energy to kill a bloodhound. "What happened?"
"Walked straight to his death." Ground Zero looks at the driver's seat and pays no attention to the skeletons on the ground. "Climb in, man, come on." He heads for the driver's seat and starts it up after hearing Deku close the back door. He turns on the headlights. "Let's do this." He shifts gears and drives off.
Chagebolt comes back with his dirtbike and the firefighter on the back. They quickly follow after the firetruck.
"You okay, man?"
The firefighter pants. "pH, that's my name. The guy behind me... his name was Foam. And we lost the thid guy in the woods to those dogs. His name... his name was Alert."
"pH, Foam, and Alert. I won't forget your names; none of us will."
pH sighs. "Thank you."
And with the firetruck in our possession, and now that we had a pathway to drive into the forest, we were able to unleash the hoses on the fires as much as possible. It wasn't before too long we managed to get the fires under control. It was still going to be an all-night job and it was almost four o'clock in the morning but we were determined.
With a little teamwork with all these survivors and Comicman, Tsukiyomi, and Dark Shadow keeping the fires contained by putting out the ones ont he edge of the forest, we wee able to make swift work of the fires.
Thanks to Rule going back and getting water repeatedly, we had a near endless source of water and with Vantablack keeping the other zombies at bay by luring them away and then vanishing, we had less zombies ont he road to deal with. We were on our way to finally clearing out the wildfire. Just a few more minutes. And from what I gathered that night, Kendo and her team would be on their way soon. Good, more people to help us.
Character Cards
Shin "pH" Sugibayashi
Quirk: Taste Test (He can detect the pH levels in any liquid he consumes)
Occupation: Firefighter.
Age: 29
Birthday: September 2nd
Height: 172 cm.
Blood: AB
Likes: Capes
Dislikes: Goats
Other Facts: Built his own go-cart when he was 13.
Zombie Kills: 71
Human Kills: 4
Ryuu "Foam" Kobayashi
Quirk: Irrelevant
Occupation: Firefighter
Age: 30
Birthday: September 2nd
Height: 159 cm.
Blood: A
Likes: Money
Dislikes: Politics
Other Facts: Studied microbiology in college.
Zombie Kills: 26
Human Kills: 3
Kichiro "Alert" Niimi
Quirk: Irrelevant
Occupation: Firefighter
Age: 40
Birthday: August 2nd
Height: 177 cm.
Blood: B
Likes: Naruto
Dislikes: Technology
Other Facts: Vegeterian
Zombie Kills: 31
Human Kills: 3