[4] Group 4 - Caves

[Burter]

27. Krillin
28. Android 20
30. Zarbon

"The government was using us as guinea pigs," the chief told them as he settled into his chair. The three last members of group four listened in. "But we fought back. In the end, one thing led to another, and we escaped down here into the mountains. We've been a small society here for about three years."

"I don't get it though," The intelligent Dr. Gero spoke up. "Why did you end here? Wasn't there a war?"

"There was...something." The overweight chief looked down. "I can't bring myself to remember it all. But there was something else that happened. The scientists had figured out to bring back the dead, and with it came...horrors beyond imagination." He looked up. "My turn to ask questions. Why are you here?"

The three began to relay the story of how they ended up there. Once done, the chief leaned back, full of thought.

"Brim...hm. Leave me, please. We have feasts for dinner, feel free to enjoy. I must...think."

[Zarbon]

After the chief left, the entire group sat in silence for a few moments until a couple of guards came by to guide them to the feasting chambers. The team followed as soon as asked. They were lead out of the chief?s room and into the main area of the town hall. The entry hallway was magnificent in its beauty, with great scarlet cloth flags going from the floor, the marble pillars reaching up to the sky and carved into a roman style, the wonderful checkered floors, and fines polished oak doors all around them: quite fancy for a survivor?s town. Normally this would be very appealing to Zarbon, being a freak about design, but right now he was in deep thought over the village leader?s words.

?Its really strange, he was so?sorrowful.? The transformer thought forming his lips into a tight frown. ?It must have been horrible, that war.? After hearing what the chief said thus far, the mutant knew that this tournament was not the average one, and it was more then just the contest of wit and skill. It was?different. Much different. Zarbon was focused mostly on the way the leader had reacted to his group when they told him their story. The way he said Brim, it sounded as if he was sickened by the name. The transformer pondered in silence. He would have to bring his thoughts up amongst the team later, after he had more information on the subject. For now though, Zarbon had had enough food for thought, and now needed some food for his stomach. He was starving after all the work he had been doing in the tournament.

The guards lead them to the end of the hallway to the two biggest entrances there. The sentries split and went to both sides, standing tall and at attention, giving a salute to the group before saying their farewells and permitting them to go onward into the feasting room. Dr. Gero grabbed both doorknobs and pulled, wiping the doors open and revealing a great place beyond it. A table with the length of a giant was laid out with a fresh cooked meal put on it. Every sort of food was there for any time of day: from waffles to tacos, it was on the plates at that feast.

?It?s so beautiful?? Krillin said in amazement as a tear of happiness dripped from his eye. Clearly he was as hungry as Zarbon at that moment. The team went to the end of the table closest to them and grabbed dishes and scattered around the room, looking to devour some delicacies.

***

Soon after they were all seated in fine wooden chairs and everyone began to eat, including the locals who were around them. Zarbon thought they looked even happier then they did at bazaar. ?It must be the highlight of their day, enough to make a man feel pity. Too bad I?m not an ordinary man.? The mutant chuckled to himself. He sat beside Krillin and 20 in silence and watched them eat their meals. Krillin was munching down a drumstick, ripping off the meat like a barbarian. Gero on the other hand was helping himself to some foreign food. The transformer had a juicy steak and was sawing through it bite by bite, though very slowly.

?This stuff is great.? Zarbon said in pleasure as he looked to his friends.

?Agreed.? The robotic leader smiled back at him.

Krillin didn?t speak back at all; as he was busy eating, and soon the others got into it too. The meal was very well prepared, so it was hard to stop eating. Zarbon knew why it made the locals so happy now: it was the highlight of their day, but the transformer didn?t eat as rapidly as the others, he still thought of the chief?s sad tone. He knew there had to be something behind it, and he had to speak up to his group.

?Guys, don?t you find it weird how the village leader spoke of Brim??

?What do you mean?? The midget finally looked up from his meal. ?He sounded kind of low, but a lot of people are like that.?

?But he had to walk out of the room after, doesn?t that say something?? Zarbon looked at Krillin straight in the eye.

?I suppose, but we should ask more questions first.? 20 butted in at that moment with a grim voice. ?For now, let?s just enjoy the meal. We could use one.?

Krillin and Zarbon nodded and went back to their food in silence.

OOC: Kind of a hard one to write about. : (

[Burter]

EVENT

The chief stepped out, looking from his hut to the dinner table where the trio ate in silence. He opened his mouth to speak, but timing caught him bad.

An arrow sliced through his head. He dropped dead.

"Shit!" Zarbon was up immediately, backing up with his friends. They looked up to see a human in a cloak, raising a bow and arrow. It's hood was down, revealed it's dead, worm invested skull of a head.

"Zombies!"

From every cavern came the onslaught of death to remove the living from the world. The rebel forces inside in the town moved quickly to defend their honor, village, and lives.

(Thought you could use some zombie lovin' ^_^)

[Ruhiel]

Doctor Gero had been politely nibbling at some of the food they had before them, making sure to follow proper etiquette for a gentleman. This may be an underground village in a reality TV show, but that was no reason to forsake his manners. Glancing over, he tried to stifle a laugh as Krillin was gnawing viciously on a chicken leg, his whole mouth trying to cover it.

As he returned to look at his own plate, he noticed the chieftain poking his head out of his hut. It looked as if he were about to say something to the three of them, so Gero sat at full attention. However, no words came. Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a burst of blood, bones and brains splattering out of the chief's skull as an arrow shot through it.

"Shit!" came the voice of Zarbon nearby, as the three of them jumped out of their seats.

The culprit was standing several hundred feet away, wielding a bow and arrow. It wore a robe, but its hood was down, revealing a maggot infested, decaying skull.

"What the... it looks... dead? But that can't be possible! It's got to be a disguise for a common assassin." Gero quickly reasoned in his head.

"Oh shit. Gero... you're not gonna like this." came the voice of Android 20.

"Not right now, I'm trying to sense the echo of life coming from this murderer." Gero muttered to himself.

"Look around you, Gero." Android 20 echoed, his voice quaking slightly.

The android's steely grey eyes slowly looked away from the figure of the seemingly undead assassin. Swarming into the cavern was a sea of robed figures, each of them... not among the living. Gero could now feel the absence of life within this soulless corpses, a feeling he had only felt while taking in the feeling of planetary death on Earth-sei.

Screams escaped the lungs of the villagers, as they too noticed the zombies that were flowing into their hidden city beneath the mountains. Chaos erupted across the village, as they scrambled for their weapons and armor from years past.

While seeing the "living dead" an oxymoron in itself, was quite nerve-racking, the old android knew that they had to quickly mount a defense. And there wasn't much time to do so, considering the undead were almost inside the village. Turning to Zarbon and Krillin, he quickly called out a battle plan.

"Zarbon, Krillin! Come here, quickly!" Gero yelled to his comrades, beckoning them to hurry.

"We don't have much time, but here's the battle plan: Krillin, I'm going to need you to rally a large number of villagers who are willing to fight, and lead them to confront the advancing undead head-on. Now don't think this to be completely impossible, I'll be leading a group that will force these creatures into a bottleneck, so that you can easily take them out. Now go, hurry!" Gero said, giving Krillin his assignment.

Turning to Zarbon, who now had a look on his face that looked like "you forgot me! What will I get to do?"

"Zarbon, you've got the most important task here. I'm going to need you to sneak around behind the zombies, with or without detection, and somehow seal off all of the entryways that the undead can enter here. I don't think there's an end to these monstrosities, so we've got to stop any more from coming in. Hurry! Time is of the essence!" the android ordered, as he quickly unleashed a translucent white aura and rocketed off, trying to organize some villagers out of the chaos.

OOC: Meh, kinda fast moving, but I've divvied up assignments. Krillin, you'll be leading a large group of villagers that you can rally together to confront the undead head-on, I'm going to be flanking them, and create a bottleneck, and Zarbon will be sealing off the entryways. Have fun
Or, if you don't feel like listening to Gero's instructions, you can just do whatever you feel like.

[Zarbon]

?I always get the hard jobs!? Zarbon shouted, though the sound of his voice was lost amongst the chaos around him. Villagers were scattering from place to place in a hope to escape from the monsters that had came into their beloved colony. ?Then again, the midget has it worse.? The transformer cracked a smile as he looked at senseless faces of the townsfolk as they ran to and fro. The mutant raced into the streets and through the swarming crowds of people: dead or alive.

The transformer hadn?t gone on long until the smell of rotten flesh captivated him. Zarbon ducked into an alleyway and covered his nose from the disgusting stink that filled his nostrils. ? The chief wasn?t kidding when he said they brought back the dead! I have to get this over with quick, or I am going to die here.? Zarbon thought unpleasantly and looked around the corner. A whole crowd of zombies were walking slowly and awkwardly his way. The mutant wanted to avoid confrontation at all costs so he could fight off these guys without them being replaced in five seconds by another crowd of mindless freaks.

Zarbon had the perfect plan too. He whipped out his cosmetic mirror and make-up and got ready to play ?Halloween.? The mutant took out a black lipstick tube to start, smearing it on the edges of his mouth slowly to give him a fine lifeless look in them; even in the slightest indent was filled in. After he was done with the lips, he powdered his face with a grey make-up to make him seem undead. Messing up his head and putting some dust in it, he admired his finished product in his mirror.

?Well, I don?t like it.? The transformer sneered. ?But I do look like a zombie. The things I do to save people. Christ?I?m getting too light-hearted.? Zarbon leaned to his side and checked around the corner again. The zombies were close now, almost to the point of passing by him. The mutant burst out of his hiding place and went straight into a slow stride with his arms in front of him: the classic zombie walk. He made his way passed without the undead noticing him at all. Zarbon let out a slight sigh of relief and as soon as his enemies past, he burst into a sprint towards the next turn to make up for lost time.

As soon as he arrived at the corner he pressed his back to the wall and looked at his next challenge. A barricade. The hostile forces gathered a part of their army at that point to block the pass above them: the way the transformer and his group had entered the city: a crack in the ceiling. Undead were pouring in through it and going into the village to terrorize innocent people as they ran screaming from their homes. This was Zarbon?s first target. He went around the turn and prayed they wouldn?t notice him sealing the pass.

The mutant slowly approached the blockade in his ?zombie walk? and attempted to pass the undead without any trouble, but unlucky for the transformer, two brutish zombies grabbed him and swore in their infernal language as they dragged him to the barricade?s leader, a tall rotting corpse who stood at the center nodding and pointing at undead to move in one direction or the other, leading them into battle. The guards put the mutant in front of the zombie leader.

?Wharyo?? The corpse said quickly. Zarbon tried to figure out what he meant, and guessed that it was ?who are you?? after thinking about how the word would be spelt. Their tongue was just a bunch of jumbled English words together.

?I am a zombie. I want brains.? The transformer said in a dull voice. His eyes darted from side to side as the undead leader eyed him closely. The undead leader pressed his ear against the mutant?s chest. It felt very cold and disgusting, making Zarbon shiver slightly.

Thump, thump, thump.

That is what the zombie heard. He let out a squeal that made Zarbon gulp. ?This is not going to end well.? He thought intently and got ready to hammer anyone who came close. One of the guards who brought him over attacked first. He leapt on the transformer?s back and began to pounding on his head to crush his skull. Zarbon quickly threw him off and gave the whoreson what he deserved: a face full of fist. He slammed his hand into the brute?s face and pulled it back, noticing a few rotten teeth had stuck into it.

?Ewww.?

Zarbon turned and looked around him. The monstrous beings were surrounding him, showing off their mouths filled with strange sticky black goo that ran down their face in their hunger for the mutant?s big juicy brain. They charged, rebounding off the ground to jump on Zarbon and get their mouthful of grub. The mutant hadn?t the time to do a Cone Spin, so he pulled his signature move without thinking. His palm shot forward and filled with Ki, ready for the teal and white beam that was soon to come, and come with force.

The blast came forth and turned the first zombie into dust, and soon after the second. Zarbon held his arm tight and dashed in a circle to quickly destroy all of the beasts, ending in a skid. They were all gone: for now. The mutant needed to seal that hole before more came.

?But how the hell am I going to do it?? That was the only question on the transformer?s mind. ?I can?t exactly meld it all together. The crack is far too wide. I need something to hold it, something that can stay there and hold. Something like glue, but stronger. Maybe?? Zarbon looked back at the black stuff dripping from the zombies? mouths. ?The zombies can defeat themselves.? The transformer smirked and grabbed some of the strange substance, mixing it with a bit of sand to harden it more. He got to work, and soon it looked fine, though it was a bit of a quick job.

?That should keep them together.? Zarbon looked at his handywork. ?At least for now. They will probably get their arms ripped off from the stickyness and give up?Now?? The transformer turned towards the next corner. ?I wonder how many more entrances there are??

[Zarbon]

A punch broke through the air, crashing into a body nearby. The undead creature gasped and spat out his final incomprehensible words. The corpse?s final squeal of pain. The monstrosity hit the ground hard, grabbing his stomach just as he turned into what he was meant to be. What all of them were meant to be at one time of another: dead. Left to rot in the soils they were once buried in. Zarbon smiled at the mangled body in delight, flipping his hair before turning away into the streets, ready to strike at more undead foolish enough to approach his beautiful being.

?Only one more area to check.? The transformer smirked lightly as he went on. He had sealed three entrances so far, and had only one more sector of the city to look over. Then he would be done and he could get back to the resistance, hopefully before they were all overwhelmed by the monsters that had caught them off guard when they attacked their fair town. Zarbon was putting up a good fight though; pounding any one of the devilish beasts that dared touch his ?perfection? and making them pay with their artificial lives, though the mutant couldn?t help anyone else. He hoped 20 and Krillin were doing alright while he was gone.

Zarbon stopped and pressed his back like usual before turning his final bend of the village. It had become routine for him. He quickly checked his make-up. It had been smeared and ruined over the course of all the battles he had fought thus far: he looked nothing like a zombie anymore, more like a homeless person who hadn?t tasted nourishment in days. The mutant seemed poor and beaten, and he didn?t like it, but knew he had to deal with it. He ran out of cosmetics awhile back when he tried to sneak through another blockade. His attempt had failed sadly, and the zombies had thrashed him pretty badly that round: though the transformer made them pay dearly for it.

When Zarbon thought he was finally prepared to make the turn, he stepped away from the wall and looked around. Another barricade was there, but this one was a bit stronger then the others: though the mutant wasn?t very impressed. Wooden boxes had been piled up to make a wall to shield the undead from attacks. Zombies were mounted on the barrier with Ki rifles they must have found when raiding the city. A couple of troops handled the place quite well.

?Pathetic.? The transformer smiled at how easy it was. Zarbon knew it was a roughly made outpost, but it had to be attacked. The undead thought it was enough to hold the final entryway to town, which just proved how mindless they were. It was the most heavily guarded place in the city though, and it was the final entrance. The mutant walked out of hiding and paced towards the blockade with confidence, pointing a gun-shaped hand forward to take out any zombies that came forward.

And boy they came.

One of the beasts screeched at the first sight of Zarbon, and the others turned to see. They all readied themselves for defence. Three of the monstrosities perched themselves on the walls and the rest rushed over the blockade?s walls, leaping like toads and moving like a flood of water to get a taste of flesh. The transformer reacted quickly shooting a sniper down off his stand before leaping into the air for a Cone Spin, going into his whirl of power and slaying all the beasts within five feet of him. That gave him some breathing room.

With his newfound space, the mutant outstretched his arm and put his palm towards the weapon wielding zombies standing on their defensive walls. He shouted the name of his signature attack and the teal and white beam came forth, crashing into the ground and eliminating some of the foul creatures from the picture, then raising back up into the sky to destroy the zombies? poorly made barricade. The snipers were flung off by the force and hit the ground, their body parts splitting apart and being thrown across the floor.

Zarbon now turned to the flooding beasts that crowded around him. Fifteen surrounded his person and were ready to charge and rip the mutant to bits. Three came first, jumping at the transformer?s arm, but got forced to the side by a solid kick. They tumbled to the floor: dead. The rest now came forth, showing their fangs and screaming wildly like hungry animals. Zarbon put his palm forth yet again and smiled, firing his beam and dashing in and turning slowly to disintegrate the undead beings. Once they were all gone, he sighed in relief.

?Peace of cake?? He panted lightly and dug into his pocket as he looked at the crack above him. He had taken some of the mysterious substance off of the zombies before and had stored it for further use at all entrances. It was now time for it to be used again. He slapped the smile onto the hole and smeared it across, letting the stickyness of it fill in the crack cleanly. After he was done he looked yet again at his handywork.

?And I?m done.? Zarbon smiled slightly. ?Time to get back to 20 and see how he is doing. Pray he is doing well sorting out the men to kill those whoresons.? The transformer raced back down the street and headed towards where he last saw his robotic leader, keeping a steady pace and making sure to avoid all of the zombies.

He needed some to kill later.

OOC: Post Three done.

[Burter]

END OF ROUND

Zarbon appeared behind Android 20, leaping up and kicking the zombie in the chin to put it down. The cyborg spun to see his companion, then punching both of the undead warriors backwards. "Good to see you decided to show up," Twenty joked.

"Looks like I'm not the only one..." Zarbon backed up a bit, looking forwards, a hand across his companions chest to make sure he was there. They were looking up at a sight they both never forget.

A horned demon, moving forward, covered in the blood of many. The fallen warrior, Krillin, had been his latest victim, as was seen by the head on top of the ogre's spear.

"No..." Twenty stepped forward. "NO!"

Both vanished before they could react.

27. Krillin - DEAD