revivalproject | Obsolete

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Obsolete

WHO: Tony and open!
WHERE: The university, the mine hole...?, the beach caves
WHAT: Fixing the zombie problem
WHEN: Through the October biohazard event
WARNINGS: Gore, probably! Zombie stuff.

a. the beach
It was quiet, like the sand and the fog that hung so densely over the water cushioned any sound. Even Tony's footsteps, which had been so trudgingly heavy to Tony's ears on the road, were deadened as he reached the beach, and the creak and rattle of his armor as he moved was softened to static, like the hush of the waves. The fog was thick enough here that he had to pause and squint through it as he broke through the treeline, trying to spot the shape of the radio tower that should have been a clear landmark. It was leaning, precariously. If anyone not yet accounted for had made their way down here, and Tony suspected they had, to keep the water to one side and away from where the zombies must have been congregating around the sounds and lights of the city, the tower might not have been working for them. Tony hissed, and started a jog toward the caves, slowed by the heavy metal, and the regular ring of the scabbard at his side bouncing into his armored thigh.

It was only as he was hauling the weight of the metal up the rocks that he heard it. He had to stop, sweat from the effort quickly chilling in the cool air to raise goosebumps along his skin as he listened. A slap-slap-slap, like someone running, barefoot across the stones, echoing in the caves. Not the shamble of the zombies struggling to animate their limbs. Tony took a breath, could feel the call at the back of his throat, and it came out as a sigh when he realized it wasn't just one set of footsteps. Slap-slap-slap-slap.

The fog didn't seem so smothering as Tony turned to climb quickly, the clanking of his armor like an alarm and every rattling breath a siren.

b. the mine
Littering the city with as many posters as possible to draw people to the safety of the university was only really effective if the entire zombie horde didn't descend on the same building. And it was temporary, armor against a battering that had to be redirected. On a small scale, that was easy; Tony could spot movement in the fog, and shout, "Hey, come and get it!," or bang a metal fist against a concrete wall to ring like a dinner bell. Any sound, any movement, and they'd come lurching after him, immediately distracted from whatever had been driving their struggling brains a moment ago. As a mass, though, they were formidable.

The bigger problem was, even Tony's fireworks had been confiscated. The more complex devices, with controlled chemical reactions, timers, pressurizers, remote controls and kill switches, all of those were all his, and all immediately useless in the dead city. What their alien babysitter recognized as more computer, or less immediately as explosive, suddenly didn't work like the systems Tony built were sensitive to the whims of the weather. And what he needed, something that just blew up if he threw it hard enough, had to be built again, against the hope that whoever was keeping his toys away from him wouldn't notice for long enough.

The top of the greenhouse provided a clear vantage point over the gaping void that was the hole in the earth where he was supposed to die. Making a quick explosion, that was easy; Tony could assemble a grenade with his eyes completely unfocused, staring into the darkness all the while, until he had the mass drawn back by his shoulder in a slingshot to send in a perfect arc toward that emptiness. Most of them exploded before they reached the mine; some hit the wall a few feet deep, and rained fire into the depths of it, a silent lightshow at this distance. They were all as effective as Tony thought, drawing huddled groups of zombies toward the commotion, managing to lure a few of them over the edge. As a mass, though...

There had to be some way to set up a show.

c. the university
D.A.T.A.'s aperture looked dull and still. Watching over the grounds would be his job right now, if he wasn't in Tony's lap, his motherboard exposed to search fruitlessly for some loosened wire, sign of discharge, warped board, that could be fixed to bring him back to life. Instead, it was Tony that glanced up occasionally, his muttered apologies long since fallen silent, peering out into the dark through the narrow gap at the top of the window's reinforcement. The view was always the same. A dense carpet of fog, swirled by slow, jerky movements, and a brilliant ceiling of stars. The thunder continued to rumble, like it came from the fog itself, the stormclouds clinging to the earth. Tony barely heard it anymore, like the occasional pop from the candles flickering around the foyer. His busy hands slowed as he watched the stars with longing.

It was the strange light that darted between them, fizzing like lightning, that snapped his focus down to an unfamiliar movement outside by the gates. It wasn't loping or shambling, but moved with awareness. Intent. D.A.T.A. bounced as he hit the ground and Tony vaulted himself off of the ladder he was perched on to see over the barrier, then went sliding to a stop on the polished floors in front of the lever that he had to haul up and over to crank the doors open. They groaned, and thundered like the fog as they reluctantly parted, pouring light out into the night. Tony cut through it like a shadow, and could feel all of the hungry attention snap toward the signs of life. He didn't hesitate, winding back and pitching something into the sky, where it popped with a shriek and a flare of light, exposing him just long enough to wave impatiently to the figure in the dark while the zombies tracked the noise with their dead eyes.

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Once again, it looked more convincing than it turned out to be, and Tony had even rocked back to lift up the chicken to his shoulder where she could catch Cayde's performance in all its glory. Hopefully, she wasn't too judgmental, but Tony was hissing with the pain of watching the bottle pitch back down to the ground, at the mercy of gravity still so far from its target. At least there wasn't much between them and the hole to burn down.

"Maybe more of a shotput method?" he suggested, voice light with feigned optimism after that discouraging performance, and used the Colonel to demonstrate a good swing from side to side. With the added length of the slingshot, that could build up some respectable momentum.

Colonel tolerated the lifting, but gave a very quiet but indignant cluck at being swung, pecking Tony's hand lightly as though this were her version of a hand-slap.

"Ooh! Maybe!" At least Cayde seemed more enthusiastic about the suggestion, pulling out another bottle as his other hand was held out for the lighter, fingers flexing in a 'gimmee-gimmee' motion. But if Tony insisted on being the official fire person, he wasn't going to argue.

Once the flames began working their way along the rag, the Exo set the bottle into position again, unhooking one side of the sling to hold between his fingers as he let the rest of the strap hang down with its load.

"I've always wanted to try this!" did not sound a bit encouraging, but Cayde set to spinning the thing over his head, the ring of flame steady until he let the loose end of the sling go. Off it flew, a promising arc, that while still a couple meters from its mark was still much better than the previous attempt.

Tony would insist, because he about to have his lighter pocketed by Cayde's nimble fingers in the middle of a zombie outbreak. He had to back away quickly then to give Cayde the room to swing with enthusiasm, patting the Colonel with an apologetic coo for all of the rough handling while Cayde was effectively distracted.

It was a short-lived apology; when the bottle kept flying, Tony bounced with a celebratory whoop, freeing a hand for a high five even as the flames burst across the road. By then, a group of zombies had been drawn to the first cocktail, circling around it as their ragged clothes and drying strips of dead flesh caught the jumping sparks, and fire crawled its way up their bodies. One even peeled off to pursue the new sound of shattering glass and rush of flame, colliding with another to spread the heat.

It was a high-five that was enthusiastically reciprocated, Cayde's other hand with the sling pumping towards the sky.

"...hmm. Should we worried about that?" he wondered, watching the slow spread of walking pyres. "But if we get 'em all in the hole it shouldn't be a problem, right?" Then they'd just have a big ol' zombie barbecue in there!

He reached for another bottle to load up.

The whole city burning down was suddenly a clear and present enough danger that Tony was accounting for the nearest natural firebreaks, so he didn't sound unworried as he agreed, "Just don't let them come this way, no problem." It felt like a problem.

Rallying, he announced, "Positive trend. All data indicates that this is going to be your best one yet," and it might have sounded more like a demand than encouragement. While he spoke, he was diving down to his own bag that he had been assembling his artillery from. This bottle had to go out loud, to ensure it drew as much attention as possible and kept the flaming zombies congregating around the hole. He returned with an impatient wave for Cayde to present the bottle, and with the Colonel hiked up against his shoulder to free his hands to work quickly. In rows along the glass, he pressed strips of yellow crumbs that powdered easily under his smoothing fingers, then nodded his approval when the stain was sufficiently spread.

"Well then, who am I to disappoint?" Cayde said, not seeming to share in the concerns just yet. He held the bottle out, grinning lopsidedly as Colonel easily settled onto her new perch, not the least bit flustered about all this fireplay around her.

"Still keeping all the fun stuff secret," he noted as he watched Tony work, but his grin was still in place once things were done. "Light'er up!"

Because as soon as that was ready to go, he was set to slinging again. He felt he was really getting the hang of this! Maybe he should invest in a sling in the case that he ran out of bullets...

"Didn't want to compete with your natural charm," Tony replied as he clapped his hands as clean as he could get them, and more carefully produced the lighter. As the flame was slung around, it already danced along the surface of the bottle, catching the litharge and making it crackle like a building applause for Cayde's upcoming feat. By the time the cocktail flew, it was popping and screeching in the air, and Tony followed anxiously to the edge of the building to watch its path with the Colonel's feathers smoothed anxiously under his quick hands. When the bottle finally burst on the rocks, it was not only with the shatter of glass and the great exhale of flame, but a great crashing sound like a waterfall as the litharge was lit all at once and burst upward in a halo of sparks. That was bound to draw some zombie attention.

"I am pretty charming," Cayde agreed.

That was a lot more punch than he was expecting from a bit of powder, and he couldn't help but let out a whoop that was thankfully muted by the noise the resulting explosion had brought.

"Now it's a party!" he crowed.

Despite the concerned furrow of Tony's brow, Cayde's excitement encouraged a laugh with a wry smile. That would have been a fantastically successful production, if it didn't feel like spitting on a furnace. Something even bigger, and more importantly sustained would have been better, to keep the zombies occupied while they solved the cause of the problem. With a sharp breath to refocus, Tony announced, "You call it now," and lifted the Colonel up to trade for the sling. "How many of them do you think you can clear?" There was quite a group gathering by the hole then, several on fire like they were worth extra points.

The Exo passed the sling over, setting the Colonel on his left shoulder as he pulled out his hand cannon, checking that it was fully loaded. Squinting out at the shuffling shapes in the distance he grins, snapping the chamber back into place.

"Get it close enough behind that straggler just back there and I can probably get all twenty," he said, giving Tony a wink.

Tony had to stifle the lopsided grin that inspired as he swung down to gather one of his bombs and notch it into the reassembled sling. Less like a carnival barker and more purred like a midnight chat host, he roused, "Twenty for the big prize! Show me twenty." Unlike Cayde, he had the advantage of some practice before the Exo joined him, and aimed with confidence down the sling, realigning subtly as he watched how the wind caught the billowing smoke.

Cayde might admit that when it came to slingshots, they were not quite his forte. Tony did look like a professional as he took aim, but the Hunter figured looking like one was the easy part until it got to the launch, and he doubted his buddy would fumble it.

He held out his Ace of Spades, finger caressing the trigger as he waited for his target to be launched. Master of the sling he may not be, but put a gun in his hand and Cayde would take on the world.

The grenade flew in such a promising arc that Tony slouched back from its launch to primly fix his hair, and gave a confident lift of his chin with a sidelong look Cayde's way to boast, "It's a math problem. Just have to get the math right."

Cayde tracked it, leveling his gun to steadily lead the grenade, wearing a smirk at Tony's words.

"Math this."

He squeezed the trigger, the bullet unseen as it flew towards its target. Tony's launch was good, the endpoint of the parabola clear enough to estimate, two forces meeting a good two feet from the ground. And then the explosion.

It was a fairly spectacular one, still carrying enough momentum to launch a few of the nearest zombies upward to Tony's appreciative whistle, cartwheeling freely with their boneless limbs flailing them into the dark of the hole. It was only after the breeze of the blast had reached them, shaking more glass free from its tenuous hold in the wreckage on the ground below, and the echoes of it had died, that Tony asked, "What was that, was it supposed to be an insult? A challenge? 'Math this', is that an invitation?"

The Hunter's whoop in celebration barely carried over the dying sound of the explosion, his grin bright and amber-lit as he watched bodies fly and fall. He gave his hand cannon an expert twirl like a sharp shooter from the Old West, a pointless backwards then forwards spin before he jammed it back into the holster.

"All of the above?" he answered as he glanced back at Tony. "It sounded good at the time!"

"I'm not saying it didn't sound good in the moment, Hot Stuff, of course it did, I'm just wondering, you know, you don't usually start at the meaningless catchphrase stage, you usually have to work up to it," Tony was saying, though it wasn't obvious how aware he was that his mouth was even moving as he scoured where he had been sitting to shove everything he had brought back into his bag. He was already practically down the road when he said, "Come on, we're going to have to stock up if we're going to do that bigger." And the noise must have bought them some time to scavenge, until the zombies repopulated. No time to waste.

"Ah, don't worry about that, I doubt I'll ever have to repeat that one," Cayde smirked, going along with it all the same.

With Colonel tucked back in with his stash of remaining cocktails, he followed along after Tony without further prompting. He was all for a bigger show, and the more zombies they took down, the better.

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