revivalproject | Zombies from all parts of the city

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Zombies from all parts of the city

WHO: Sephiroth and everyone
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: Zombie fights
WHEN: October
WARNINGS: Zombies, emotional distress at having to kill zombies that look like loved ones

I Don’t Give a Damn Because I’m Stone Cold Already

Sephiroth is less than thrilled when the storms increase. His powers are going haywire, just as he was warned, and so are the weapons. Bad enough he doesn’t have the Masamune. Now he doesn’t have reliable guns, either. He’s had to go searching for any non-electric weapon he can find and has probably ended up with what to him is a very short sword.

He finds one just in time to confront the first batch of zombies. These happen to be zombie Agrii. As soon as he gets over his initial shock, he makes short work of them. That . . . was not good. He’s sure there’s more where those came from. He’ll have to make sure everyone else is okay. . . .

Another zombie comes out of the mist. Sephiroth stares, falling back in horror. It’s rare to ever catch him like this, visibly shaken, but the sight of this zombie, when he’s already afraid the real person is dead back home and that it’s Sephiroth’s fault, is just too much.

Oh my God ...

“Zack ...”

The zombie comes closer. Sephiroth grips the sword tighter. He knows what he’s been told about the storms and seeing people you love in them. Is that what that is? He doesn’t have much choice but to hope and believe that’s what this is. He steels himself and strikes.

He falls to one knee, stabbing the sword into the ground as he trembles. These sadistic aliens.... Whoever it is doing this.... How can they know to make perfect images of people from back home? They’ve never seen Zack.

He pushes himself up and starts through the fog. No doubt others are going to be in trouble from this. He’ll have to find them.

One female zombie, she won’t behave

Sephiroth soon finds other residents in need of help. The hotel, the diner, the hospital ... zombies are everywhere! Who is it he’s trying to rescue? You? He lunges from behind, attacking the zombies as they reach for the unfortunate person. One tries to bite his wing, but he makes short work of it before it can do anything. He is a master swordsman and he shows it when several come at him at once. It’s a good thing he’s on your side.

“Are you alright?” he asks when they fall.

I’m headed for a breakdown

After days, weeks of this, he’s growing weary beyond belief. He can’t count the number of times he’s killed Zack. Even Cloud sometimes. It’s not really them, but ... when it looks like them, there’s only so many times he can do it before it really takes a toll on him.

Outwardly he is always the same—nerves of steel, determined, the hero of old. He kills zombies, he protects the living, and when he can, he tries to help search for a cure for those who have been bitten. He rarely sleeps.

Killing one more Zack zombie is the last straw. He finally just sinks down on a box, wherever he is, and covers his face with a hand. All his wings are drooping to the floor. There are no zombies here, so he’s safe, but perhaps you find him?

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Sephiroth, being over-powered in general, already found it hard to adjust to his powers being toned down here. Having them gone altogether was honestly frightening. He had never felt so vulnerable. But he did the best he could with what he had. He didn't have much choice.

"This one is even worse than what I was told they're normally like," he said in aggravation. Haunted by ghosts of loved ones wasn't nearly as horrible as being forced to kill them over and over.

"Yeah..." Keith took a deep breath, trying to steady his breathing a bit more now that there seemed to be a slight lull in the waves. "Seeing multiples of the same person... or, for that matter, having them be... zombies? Those are new." His snarky tone indicated what he thought about this new "feature" of this month's storm. It wasn't favorable.

He slid his hand under the visor of his helmet for a second to rub at his face in exhaustion.

"Is this your first?"

"Let's hope it's just someone's demented idea of celebrating Halloween instead of it being the new normal," Sephiroth said with heavy sarcasm. It seemed like it would be Halloween season going by normal 24 hour days.

He nodded tiredly. "I just arrived here several weeks ago."

"Hmph. Yeah." Keith looked mildly annoyed at that. The downside of having a birthday so close to Halloween, he supposed... "Weird shit like this happens around this time every year." How many times had Lance tried to cheer him up with a birthday thing, only to have something like this mess it up? Many. Many times.

"Well... welcome to Agra 10." Again, the sarcasm was obvious. Keith was fully aware that this was the worst kind of welcoming party one could have.

“How irritating,” Sephiroth grunted.

“Heh.” A dark smirk. “Thank you.”

Actually, Keith’s welcome is more welcoming than some he has received.

“You’ve been here quite a while, I take it.”

"Since the first 'He Rows' were brought in," he said. But it had been more than even that for him and Lance. They'd been in Drift Fleet, too, and for several years. The last time they'd gotten anything new from home was... it was a long time ago. Quite a few years now. Or 'ticks'... as the Agrii called them. Altean 'ticks' were more like seconds. Too many different ways to track time.

Keith made his way over to a bench and flopped on it. Yeah, he was exhausted.

"That sounds exhausting," Sephiroth said. "That's been several years, I understand?"

He sat down as well, spreading his wings a bit.

Keith nodded.

"Yeah... and it's been even longer since I was actually 'home'," he said. He shrugged. "We've made something of a home here for ourselves, but... it's still... I don't know. I don't know if I could go back, but I do know that there are people I'd like to see again."

He glanced off into the foggy distance.

"Just... not as zombies or ghosts."

Sephiroth hoped he would never come to feel that perhaps he couldn't go home again. He still wanted to be home.

He nodded slowly. "I can't imagine anyone would enjoy seeing loved ones in those states.

"You say 'we.' Do you have someone from your world here?"

Keith quirked an eyebrow, but it more sympathetic than anything else. But then he nodded.

"Yeah. We had more of us for a while, but it's just me and Lance now." He crossed his arms over each other, leaning them on the propped up board he'd been using as a weapon, the end with the nails hammered into it resting on the ground. He leaned forward a bit, almost resting his chin on his arms.

"What about you? Anyone you know here? Like, for real?" Not a zombie or ghost?

“It must be nice to have someone. I don’t, not really. There is someone who knows an alternate version of me, but not me.”

And that was highly disturbing, considering what he’d been told about the other him.

Keith nodded.

"I've seen that," he said. "There are a lot of realities out there. Worlds that are completely different from our own, or ones that are similar with similar people, but not the same." He'd seen another version of his own as it was... one where Allura hadn't been put in cryosleep by her father before the destruction of Altea, and how her need for vengeance had changed the Altean philosophy on crime and how they treated enemies completely into something twisted.

He also remembered how hurt Allura had been to see that had been the outcome if things had been different for her. But, he also had the feeling that it wasn't the only other option out there for them... and that other realities even beyond that probably existed.

"Who's here? Have you met another version of them back home?"

He nodded. "I've heard theories about such places, but I have never seen one. I doubt I would want to visit the one I was told about.

"His name is Reeve. I have never met him back home, but that doesn't mean there isn't one there. He informed me that this other me tried to destroy their world." He looked sickened. "I have never tried to do such a thing."

Although he wondered if some people would actually think him capable of it. He was extremely powerful back home. His heart was strong enough to even command the forces of darkness, even though he chose not to. He had been a hero in the past but no longer claimed to be one and many rumors flew about him.

"I know of Reeve." Keith had talked to him a few times. He looked thoughtful, though.

"I haven't heard any stories about myself from any other realities," he said. "So, I don't know. Maybe I'm just lucky not knowing." He shrugged.

"He seems to be very productive in bettering this city, from what people have said," Sephiroth said.

He gave a dark smirk. "I would imagine you are better off not knowing."

"Yeah... I've gotten that impression..." Keith nodded slightly. He then took a deep breath at the next statement, though.

"I can't really disagree..." he said softly. Sure, he was curious, but he'd already seen how it could go when you heard about yourself being a worse person with what happened to Allura. Honestly, sometimes Keith wondered where that could end up going for him. He definitely tried his best to do what he thought was the right thing, the good thing. But he was no angel. He'd been in his share of trouble for sure.

Edited 2024-10-22 22:03 (UTC)

Sephiroth studied him a moment. "You sound as though you have heard unpleasant things, even if not about yourself," he observed. He doubted what he had revealed about the other him would cause such a reaction when they'd barely met. Of course, if Keith didn't want to talk about it, Sephiroth would not pry.

"Yeah..." Keith shrugged. Granted, it wasn't really his story to tell. It was Allura's... "I just... it was about a friend. And we heard about what her other self had done." He shook his head. "It really shook her up."

He glanced over at the other guy for a moment, and then blanked for a second. Keith knew he was bad at names, but... had they even given them, yet? He couldn't remember offhand.

"What's your name again?"

Sephiroth nodded. "I can completely understand." He was still horrified by what he'd been told.

"Sephiroth," he said. "And you?"

"Keith."

He nodded in greeting. Okay, so that was done. And, considering the guy asked his name, Keith assumed that meant they hadn't actually introduced themselves to each other, yet. So now he didn't feel so bad.

But, also, they weren't alone anymore... there was that weird snarling gurgle that indicated some incoming zombies that was getting closer to them from the fog. Keith was pretty sure it was closer than he normally would have heard it by, so he pushed down his fatigue and stood quickly, readying his makeshift weapon as he tried to figure out where the noises were coming from.

Sephiroth nodded in acknowledgment and then tensed, hearing the sounds too. He clutched the short sword he found (probably a normal-length sword by anyone else's standards) and looked around. Then he struck out in the fog, hitting an approaching zombie.

More were coming from other angles as well. Sephiroth again became a flurry of feathers as he attacked as many as he could. But of course he couldn't get to them all.

"Shit..." Keith didn't have his normal blade, but his board with nails was doing a fair job of things. He moved pretty quickly, all things considered, and he was determined to keep going. But he was also tired. They were going to have to support each other on this.

Keith shifted so that they were more back to back and able to defend each other's blind spots. He wasn't used to fighting with someone who had wings though, so sorry, Seph... he might bump into you a few times.

Hopefully Keith wouldn't trip. The two lower wings hung practically all the way to the ground unless they were being lifted up.

Sephiroth appreciated the backup and did what he could to support Keith. He can see the other is tiring. Sephiroth had high endurance, but when his powers faded out that likely zapped some of that as well. But he pushed himself to keep going, slicing zombies in front of him and to the side. He managed to get one that was about to get Keith, but that distracted him from one coming at him.

Thankfully, Sephiroth was close enough that Keith wasn't completely off balance worrying about wings and stepping on them. Even with his senses dulled more than usual, he was aware enough to compensate for that. And, after a few bumps, he pushed hard to get some space between them in order to not keep knocking into each other.

But that did leave a bit of a gap for some of the zombies to get between them... hence Sephiroth needing to take out one heading for Keith. But that one got close on the other side, and Keith heard the snarl in time to spin and take it out, knocking it to the ground before smashing the end of his board into it's skull with a sick crack.

Sephiroth also appreciated when the bumping stopped. He had also tried to move to keep that from continuing to happen.

He looked back with a start when he realized the zombie was close. He gave a nod of acknowledgment that Keith had taken it out in just time.

He continued to fight, taking out what zombies he could and then pausing to listen. Would there be more?

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