The world has ended, and 15 people can help it more than they think...
The end of the world. Zombies have infested all corners. A group of 15 survivors might have a way to get a cure for this deadly strain... Or they'll die trying...
A man sat with his back against the wall. He was quite young, couldn’t be older than nineteen. He seemed to be no more than six feet tall with dark brown, shaggy hair and light blue eyes. He was wearing dark blue military fatigues, the jacket on the ground beside him. Strapped across his chest was a pair of bandoliers in an X-fashion. The front was filled with different magazine clips, from 9mm to 12 gauge shell clips. He had on two under-arm holsters that each contained a Desert Eagle. On his back were three sheathes, well, more like two sheathes and a large holster. The large holster was diagonal on his back and tilted over his left shoulder so he could reach over and draw the 12 gauge AA-Warhammer Automatic Shotgun with one hand. The other two sheathes were sideways slanted down slightly on his lower back. They each contained a short sword, roughly the size of a Wakizashi, with which he was steadily gaining more experience using in combat.
He was writing in a journal that seemed well used and was more than half way through it when he started his current entry.
Day 47,
Our group has set up another safehouse for the survivors. I think we have finally succeeded in evacuating all the survivors in a fifteen mile radius and brought them all here. We have also been leaving notes around to point any new survivors that find their way here in the right direction.
Now that we have all of the survivors in the immediate area, we will start training the able-bodied ones. We’ll have to start with speed and endurance, so they can outrun them with more ease, but include some parkour should they still get cornered. After that, I guess we will begin the small arms and swords training. We won’t bother with unarmed combat as it is all but useless against the dead.
I’ll have to ask Rusty to make more of those laser sights for the new people; I swear that girl is like MacGyver’s descendant or something! Thankfully, we won’t have to go on another full-day gun run, it seems most of the new survivors had guns of their own and a couple of them even had their own swords! Wait, we have new survivors so… Ah, crap! We’ll have to go through the whole “New Names” thing all over again. That’s never fun.
Entry Over, Raven Smite
The now-named Raven sighed as he put his journal away, and then froze for a moment when he heard the sounds of footsteps slowly approaching from behind him. In a flash, he was up on his feet with both of his blades drawn and swinging horizontal to where the neck and waist usually are.
A loud clang sounded out as Raven’s Wakizashis made contact with the newcomer’s own blade. The blade itself was nearly equal in length to its wielder’s height. Raven’s eyes widened slightly at seeing that it wasn’t one of the Walkers, and then smirked when he saw who it actually was. “I thought I told you to stop trying to sneak up on me… Silver-nii.”
Silverwing the Adamant, or Silverwing Strong to anyone who didn’t really know him, was about 6’ in height with a build that was a bit above medium. He was wearing dark grey pants which were held on by a white belt and ankle wraps. His chest was bare, showing off his muscles, but it was adorned with some tattoos including a large flaming skull wearing sunglasses on his back. He was wearing the same dark sunglasses as the skull on his back, on his face. He had a sheath on his belt and was even wearing a cape that mirrored the tattoo on his back. Silver huffed and sheathed his sword with a pout. “I told you to call me Kamina! Why won’t you do that, Little Bro?”
Raven chuckled, “Nii-san, if I called you Kamina, that would make me Simon. Now besides the fact that I’m sure that breaks at least three international copyright laws, there is also the fact that it leaves Shadow to be Yoko…”
They both paused for a moment and then shuddered simultaneously. Silver laughed, “I did NOT need that mental image, Bro!”
There was a dull thwump next to them and they turned, blades drawn. “I didn’t need the picture either, thank you very much.” A new voice sounded out.
The owner of the voice stepped forward, revealing a smirking man. He was about 6’2” with shaggy black hair and light brown eyes. He was wearing combat style, military steel-toed boots and faded jeans. Attached to his shins there were two sheathes for swords. The swords in question were a pair of Iberian Falcata, which he claimed were a family heirloom, and had a small amount of training with them. On his belt at either side was an UMP .45 pistol with some magazine cartridges in quick-release slots on the rest of the belt, except for the space which held a walkie-talkie. He had on a red shirt and over it all a black trench coat. On his back, under the trench coat, was a custom-fitted holster for an RPK with extended ammunition magazines and a deployable bipod.
“Well talk about your rude welcoming.” The man pouted.
With a sigh, Raven and Silver both sheathed their weapons and Raven spoke up. “Why must you always do that, Shadow?! I know you are essentially a ninja but do you always have to act the part?”
Shadow laughed, “Maybe not, but what would be the fun of that, Bro?”
Raven walked up to him and smacked him on the back of the head. “Shut up. Let’s go meet the new survivors…”
************************
A crowd of about four hundred people were standing in an area that they had designated for meetings, at the front was a stage set up with a microphone on it. Off to the side, Silver, Shadow, and Raven were standing and sizing up the crowd. Shadow gave a low whistle, “Damn, that’s a crowd… Well, good luck Raven!”
He turned to his brothers, “Why do I have to do it again?”
Because you are the leader, you know the speech by heart, you were the most prepared among all of us for this, and you’re the only one out of all of us that ever took an Oral Communications class in high school.” Silver replied, counting off his fingers as he went.
“Yeah, but I’m also the only one with a crippling fear of speaking to large crowds!” Raven objected.
“Then what better way to get over your fear than to face it?”
Raven paused for a moment, his mouth open, ready to form a counter-argument. Then he slowly shut it, “… Ugh, damn you and your logic. Fine, let’s go.”
The crowd fell silent in a wave as the three walked on to the stage. Raven approached the microphone.
“Hello everyone,” he started, “My name is now Raven Smite and these are my honorary brothers, Silverwing the Adamant and Shadow Breeze. We are basically the leaders of this group, though we don’t really have a name. The reason we were chosen as the leaders is because we always knew something like this would happen; so we planned; we trained; we prepared, and when it happened, we were ready. Now, as you came here, you probably saw the wall? Well, we set that up, it surrounds us and it is probably about two and a half miles in diameter. We use that to keep the undead out, so we can sleep safely at night.
“Now, we have certain Classes set up here to keep this place running smoothly. We have Snipers set up along the wall to keep the dead back by about a block or two, and we have some Ground Patrols in case a few somehow make it past them. We have Medics to help heal anything from scrapped knees to broken bones. We also have anyone with a background in Chemistry working on finding out whatever it is that causes the dead to rise. We have those with experience in weaponry training any who wish to help. Every week or so, a group of Scouts head out to find any useable or salvageable items. This brings me to one of our rules here. There are no drugs or alcohol allowed here. If you want to get high, join the Scouts and get high on adrenaline.
“If you are good with physics, I recommend being a Sniper. Nurses, doctors, interns and the like; please head to the Medic tent if you wish to help there. If you can go fast and stay fast, look for some small arms training so you can help out the scouts. Also, one more thing; the old world has ended. This is the beginning of the start – the Beta run if you will – of a new world, a new chance. As such, if you are 16 years or older, you can change your name if you so wish. It can be whatever you want it to be, but we recommend you choose it as something unique and special to you. If you want to change your name, simply register with it as so, and put in your new name. Are there any questions not related to Class jobs?” One person raised their hand, “What about our children’s educations?”
Raven smiled, “Ah, thank you. I had almost forgotten about that. If you are or ever were a teacher, I would really wish you to help on this. We do have some schools within this area and anyone under 16 will need to attend them. Once you reach 16 years, you have the option to join one of the Classes. You will then spend the following two years as an Apprentice to one of the people in those Classes. After two years, you will then be considered an Independent Master of that specific Class. Once you have spent six months as an Independent Master, you will be required to take on at least one Apprentice for two years and then you will go back to being an Independent Master; which you may stay as, or take another Apprentice when the time comes around.
“How the actual schooling will work is children will be allowed to start at six years old and most of the school courses will focus on the things you’ll need regardless of what Class you want to go into. The basic education will go on until they complete the fifth grade, then the schooling will start to deviate a bit. From sixth grade onward, they can choose their selected courses from the general areas of Nursing/Medicinal; Physics; Physical Conditioning; Chemistry; Agriculture/Carpentry; and other courses that will help with whichever Class they choose once they get out of school.” Another voice called out, “How do we know that this won’t turn in to some sort of a cult or that you won’t go mad with power or something like that?”
Raven just chuckled and pointed behind him at Shadow and Silver. “My brothers. If I – or either one of them – become a bit mad with the power we have, then they will always have the other two around to give him a well-needed whack on the back of the head until he stops being stupid. This is also how we choose our second-in-commands. We have a list of certain criteria generated by experience we have in the general chain of power and research from some social experiments that we will use to find and train our choices for the next leaders of this community.
“Now, if there are no other questions… If you wish to change your name, please walk over to that table and give them your new name, or – if you do not wish to change it – give them your current name. And may I just give you all a warm welcome here!”
The crowd started applauding and a few even cheered as Raven, Silver, and Shadow walked off the stage. Silver laughed and ruffled Raven’s hair, “Told you that you could do it, Bro! What did we tell you? Always listen to your older Brothers!”
Raven growled and swatted at the hand that dared try to ruin his hair. Silver just laughed again as Raven jumped at him and they started trying to pin each other on the ground. Shadow just sighed and shook his head, then he grinned; the world had ended, and Silver and Raven were still able to just goof off like nothing had changed.
“Alright you two.” He spoke up, “If you’re so eager to fight, then go spar instead.”
The two brothers stopped and looked at the third. A mischievous grin spread across their faces. Shadow saw the grins his brothers wore and groaned, “I’ll go get a stand-by Medic…”
************************
The sparring area was nothing particularly special. When they had started building the area, there had been a high school near it with a basement fitness center. In it, there had been a large, fenced-off circle that had exercise machines and weights for lifting. They had moved the machines to outside the circle and decided to use it as a sparring area. This they had lovingly designated “The Pit.”
Raven made his way to The Pit while Silver went to get combat ready. When he arrived, he saw someone sitting at one of the bench presses, working on it with a wrench. “Hey, Rusty!” Raven called out.
The person turned, hearing his name. Rusty was the Lead Mechanic of his Class. He was also one of Raven’s oldest friends, prior to the apocalypse. Rusty stood up to greet them. He was about Raven’s height at 6’1”, with dark hazel eyes and shock-orange hair. He wore a black shirt with a graphic on it of a glass pyramid-shaped prism that had light going in through one end and a rainbow coming out the other, and a pair of grease-stained pants. On his arms, going halfway to the elbow, were a myriad of arm bands. From “A Cure for Breast Cancer” to “Heavy Metal”, Rusty never wore the same combination of bracelets two days in a row. He was a genius with machines, he was a great friend, and – as Raven had just found out – he had a mean uppercut.
“Owww…” Raven groaned from the floor, “Why am I now looking at the ceiling?”
“Because I’ve told you time and again that my name is Curtis! Stop calling me Rusty just because I’m Lead Mechanic! Or, if you absolutely insist on giving me a new name, at least give me something that isn’t so obviously cliché!”
Silver shook his head as he entered The Pit. He had changed into proper combat attire for the spar. It consisted of a black trench coat with a Barret .50 caliber sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. He had on a silver shirt with black pants, and he had goggles on his forehead so blood wouldn’t get into his eyes when he fought the Hordes. On his left hand was a single red, fingerless glove, with an emblem of a golden shield with a silver feather stitched on to the back of it. He had two leather straps across his chest which held two Makarov .9 millimeter pistols low on his sides and five extra clips for each gun higher on the straps for quick reloading. The trench coat itself was armored and weighed about 150 lbs, so he gained quite the speed boost when he shed it in battle. He wore a pair of black boots that had easily detachable weights on the soles to either provide extra defense, or extra speed. In each boot was a long, serrated-edged dagger that he usually used if he didn’t have the room to fight with his sword, holding them in a reverse-grip.
Silver laughed at his brother’s misfortune. “Are you alright, Bro? That knock to your head make you unable to spar?”
Raven glared at his older brother’s mocking and simply growled out, “Cage, spar, now!”
Silver grinned at Raven as they made their way into the cage, “Ah, that blow to the skull did affect you! See, you aren’t even able to speak in complete sentences!”
Raven just growled again and unsheathed his wakizashis. Silver’s grin widened and even took on a slightly feral look as he took out his own o-katana. Raven looked to Curtis, who nodded, understanding what his friend and leader wanted.
“Ready?” Curtis started, “This spar will be full contact, and swords are the only weapons allowed. The use of hand-to-hand is permitted. Good? HAJIME!”
“Ikuzo!” Raven roared, dashing forward.
“Bring it on, Little Brother!” Silver taunted, getting into a defensive stance.
Silver, Raven, and Curtis turned towards the voice, which was attached to Shadow, who was running towards them.
“What’s up, Bro? Why are you interrupting our spar?” Raven asked.
“While I do enjoy watching the two of you attempt to beat the crap out of each other, right now I believe your skills can be better utilized elsewhere.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we have a very large Horde heading for the Main Gate right now. The Snipers can’t hold them off, there’s too many.”
Raven and Silver tensed, “But Hordes never come this close to the Gate!” The youngest said, “Why would there be so many?”
“Come see for yourself.” The elder brother replied, “Curtis, you coming?”
“I’ll be along in a minute. I might have something that could be quite helpful in this situation.” The mechanic answered as he started walking off.
The group arrived at the towers near the Wall, although they were actually just some old condo buildings. When they were building the Wall, they didn’t want to position the Snipers on the Wall itself, in the possible event that it should fall. Instead, they had used the abundance of tightly-packed condominiums as a sort of Sniper Towers, which went quite a bit higher than the Wall to provide for a better vantage point for the Snipers. The Wall itself was three layers thick of concrete highway dividers with cement filled in between and old trucks and cars braced sideways against the inside. It stood nearly twenty five feet high and was about ten feet thick. It was a very good wall…
The group of three entered the first condo and headed for the elevator. Two minutes later, the brothers stepped out of the elevator on the seventeenth floor and headed for the stairs to the roof. Raven really had to hand it to Curtis, he was a total genius when it came to building things. He had made some serious modifications to the elevator. He had made the motor stronger and faster. It went three times faster and only stopped at the ground floor and top floor. After the doors closed on the top floor, if the button to the bottom floor wasn’t pressed within five minutes, the line would automatically go slack and the elevator would go into freefall. To keep anything from getting broken, he had the elevator chute widened; put the elevator itself on a rail track to keep it from scraping against the sides; sealed the elevator and the basement doors to be waterproof; put a pyramid point on the bottom of the elevator; and filled the bottom of the chute with water. So, the elevator doors would close and, if no one was inside it, it would drop along the track into the water – with the point on the bottom preventing it from crumpling on impact – and then when someone pressed the button to call it, it would be pulled out of the water to whichever floor it was called to.
The brothers emerged on the roof and Raven approached a man wearing a white shirt and a beret. “Boone; sit-rep.”
The man turned on his heel and gave a sharp salute, which Raven and his brothers returned. “We’ve been keeping track of the Horde since this morning. One of the Spotters noticed it at around 0700. We monitored it until about 1600, when it started moving, fast. After briefly losing it behind a building for about a minute, it reappeared, except now it was chasing someone, several someones, to be precise. We noticed the group of twelve people, two of them carrying another, at the head of the Horde.
“We kept tracking them, giving them some help from the few that got a bit too close after they had come into range. They got surrounded about a block out. What do you want to do?”
“Give me the binoculars.” Raven said, holding out his hand.
Boone handed over the binoculars and Raven directed his gaze to where he pointed. He saw what Boone was talking about.
There, surrounded by what seemed to be an endless sea of zombies, was a small group of people, standing in a circle, holding off the Horde. Raven moved his vision to the center of the circle and saw that one of the survivors seemed to have a broken leg, and was being supported by two others of the group. Doing a quick head count revealed something off, though.
“Boone,” Raven started, “You said twelve. I only count eleven.”
Boone picked up another pair of binoculars and scanned the Horde. He stopped near the front and smirked, then pointed. “There’s your twelfth.” He said.
There, amidst the large crowd of zombies, a single figure was weaving between them. Several of the dead made numerous attempts to grab and bit the person, but they successfully evaded every one of them, swaying in an almost drunken manner all the way. The person eventually broke free of the Horde and rushed towards the Gate, their drunken gait abandoned.
Raven had seen enough, “Shadow, Silver, we need to help them. Boone, can you go get some Tanks and a few Field Medics and tell them they have five minutes to get to the Main Gate; Code Blue 37. Silver, I need you to be on Long Distance Support and keep any dead from getting too close to any of us. Shadow, get your RPK and let’s go!”
***********************
The battle was quick, due to the impeccable teamwork from both sides. Shadow and Raven had mowed down a line in front, with Curtis, who had arrived with a flamethrower and he, along with a team of Scouts and Tanks, had held open the gap to allow the brothers through. Any stragglers were met with a .50 caliber round exploderizing their head, courtesy of Silver and the other Snipers.
Eventually, they reached the group of people, and formed a circle around the tired survivors and started moving back towards the Gate. It was times like these that Raven was most thankful for the training, as nobody was bitten or killed. The group made it safely through the Gate, and they collapsed in exhaustion, with Medics rushing to help the wounded survivor.
Raven stepped back to look over the survivors that they had just saved. The group was of twelve people, with the girl who had broken off earlier rejoining her friends. There were two women, who looked to be sisters, and the leaders of the group, they seemed to be in their late 20’s. One was wearing a white combat uniform, although it was covered in many a blood stain. The other was wearing the same uniform, but in a dark indigo color instead of white. The weapons the carried were unorthodox, to say the least. The women in white seemed to only carry a whip that had a circular blade on the end, while her sister carried a bow and several arrows.
Going from that, the rest of the group was girls around his age, and two guys, one of which who seemed in his mid 20’s, the other looked to be about seventeen. The boy was wearing a light purple shirt and khaki pants, and he had green hair and golden eyes. He carried a bat with several nails driven through the end. He was standing next to a girl with purple hair and a pink streak and wearing a purple blouse. She carried a pistol in a waist holster and an M-16 military assault rifle slung over her shoulder. Following, the other girls after all had a pistol and some form of rifle, mostly M-16’s and Glocks. He turned and saw the Medics carrying the injured girl into the tent, and some strange curiosity in him bid him to follow.
“Shadow, can you give the speech to them? I’m going to go check on their injured friend.”
Shadow peered at his brother, and then nodded. He turned to the group and began explaining the basics of their “community”.
Raven arrived at the Medic Tent to find her asleep on the bed. Whether it was because of the antiseptics or the day’s exhaustion catching up to her, Raven didn’t know. After asking, the doctor informed him that she had a broken leg, but they had set it and casted it so it should heal correctly, given time. Raven sat down in a chair next to the bed and took the time to look at the girl in front of him.
She had long blonde hair, probably went down to her waist, maybe a bit further. Her skin was tanned well, and she was wearing farmer’s work clothes. On the table was a revolver and some reloads that the doctors had taken off of her, and propped up against the wall was a combat shotgun. What really drew Raven’s attention was hanging on one of the bed posts.
“Sweet! A Stetson!” Raven reached for the hat, and was about to pick it up, when he heard the click of a hammer being pulled back, and a voice with a light southern accent spoke up.
“Don’t. Touch. My. Hat.” Raven sat there, frozen with his hands in mid reach.
“That’s a good boy. Now, you just sit back slowly and start by telling me who you are and where I am.” She said.
Raven sat back in the chair and faced the girl once again. Now that she was awake, he could see that her eyes were the color of melted chocolate, and they were glaring angrily at him. Raven sighed and then launched into his speech about the community.
When he finished his explanation, the girl took on a sheepish look and took the gun away from his face. “Sorry,” she said, “I guess I overreacted a bit there.”
Raven just gave her a smile, “So, would you like to change your name?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “Applejack… I’ll change my name to Applejack.”
“Okay,” Raven said, “Mind if I ask why?”
Applejack shrugged, “I worked on an apple orchard growing up, and my old name was Jackie.”
Raven nodded as she sat up on the bed. “Careful as you try to stand up, the doctors were able to cleanly set your leg, but it will still take a while to fully heal. Until then, we have a pair of crutches to help you get around.” He finished, handing her a pair of crutches as she got up from the bed.
“What about the rest of my group?” Applejack questioned.
“They’re outside. Shall we?” he answered with a mocking flourish as he held the tent flap open.
“My, what a gentleman!” she remarked sarcastically.
Outside, they met with the group she had arrived with, and new introductions were made, as the entire group had apparently decided to get new names. After Applejack had introduced herself, the girl with purple hair and the pink streak through it was Twilight Sparkle, then going down the line was the boy with the nailed bat who called himself Spike. A girl in a white dress and perfectly styled purple hair vainly introduced herself as Rarity. A girl with a yellow shirt and pink hair, very quietly named herself as Fluttershy. An athletic one, wearing a light blue track suit and fingerless gloves, elbow guards, and knee guards – all with short spikes on them for close combat – and brilliantly prismatic hair presented herself as Rainbow Dash. Next was a human-shaped figure of solid pink, who claimed to be Pinkie Pie. Another girl of pink – with thankfully more than just pink, though – and a man wearing white and blue, gave the names of Cadence and Shining Armor. The girl that Raven remembered as the one who had been weaving through the Horde earlier said she was called Derpy, and Raven noticed her eyes seemed a bit crossed. The two women who were the leaders of the group said they would like to be called Celestia and Luna.
After introductions were done, Raven sent them with Shadow to the registrations so they would be in the records. Raven looked to the side as his brother stepped up next to him, looking after the newest addition to their community. “I’m not sure how, but I feel like things are going to get very interesting with those twelve around here.”
“Oh?” Raven raised an eyebrow, smirking at his elder brother, “Does my Nii-San have a crush on one of the new arrivals?”
Silver scowled and punched Raven in the arm, “Shut up!”
“Ow! That was mean, Nii-San! Why is everybody hitting me today?” Raven winced, rubbing his arm.
Silver just shrugged, “It’s your own fault, really. You’re just easy to hit and you do have a habit of pissing people off with your words.”
Raven turned to his brother, a dark grin on his face and a violent gleam in his eye. “You know; it occurs to me that we never did get to even start our spar from earlier… Shall we go do that?”
Silver grinned to match his brother and nodded, “Let’s go!”
“Allons-y!” Raven agreed as they once again headed off toward The Pit.
************************
They arrived at The Pit to the sounds of metal clashing against metal and the scent of sweat permeating the air. The sight that greeted them as the sparring area came into view was one that they were quite familiar with by now. Locked in combat were the two people who were responsible for most of the combat training in the community.
On one side, wielding a pair of white Kamas like he was born with the damn things in his hands was a man in all white, including boots and gloves. He had black hair and always wore sunglasses. Barely anything was known about the guy. When he had joined, he didn’t say anything, he simply handed them a slip of paper with a single word written on it: Stig.
Up against the Stig, was a person who had joined the community with him. She stood at a little under six feet in height and had blonde, shoulder-length hair. She had the most fighting experience out of anyone in the entire community, except for maybe Stig. She also always wore something red. Whether it was a shirt, blouse, dress, or jacket, there was always red in her outfit. Her name was Alice, and she was currently in a very extreme battle, both Kukuri knives out, locked against the Stig.
“…”
“Yes, I am trying to win!” Alice shouted.
That was another thing. The Stig, while he rarely actually spoke, was still able to tell people what he wanted conveyed, but Alice was the only one who always understood what he was saying, even when others did not.
“…?”
“Well it’s hard to defeat someone that I’m evenly matched against!”
“…”
“What do you mean, ‘not evenly matched’?!”
Stig proceeded to show what he meant by extending his arms, pushing out of the deadlock and dropping down to one knee, then using the hook-like weapon in his right hand to pull Alice’s feet out from under her.
“Ugh!” The blonde woman exclaimed as the air rushed out of her lungs.
When she had caught her breath, Stig offered her a hand up, which she accepted. She glared at him, “How long have you been holding on to that move?”
“…”
“Bullshit! There is no way you just ‘thought it up on the spot’!”
“…”
“Well I don’t believe you! There is no way that someone could perfectly execute a move they had just thought up five seconds-“
“…”
“Fine, three seconds prior to pulling off said move and coming out of it completely unscathed!”
“…” Stig pointed to the sleeve on his left arm, where there was a large rip in it.
“Okay, so maybe not completely unscathed. Fine, I’ll concede the victory to you. That makes the current score, what, 70 to 72? Damn it, now I have to really catch up.” Alice grumbled.
“Even as it stands, I doubt you could ever hold a total victory over Stig.” Silver decided to make the brothers’ presence known, “You’re the only one out of all of us who can even gain a single victory over him, and not even you can hold that victory for more than one spar.”
“Shut up, you.” She growled, taking a swing at Silver, who ducked, “Hey Raven.”
“Hey Alice. Hey Stig.” Stig just nodded back, “Still as quiet as ever, eh? We just came down here to spar and caught the tail end of yours.”
Alice gave a light laugh, “One of you pissed off the other, didn’t you?”
Raven gave a sheepish grin, “Yeah, originally, Silver pissed me off, but our spar was interrupted.”
“I heard about that,” Alice said with a nod, “There was something about a Horde at the Gate, right?”
“Yes,” Raven confirmed, “But that isn’t the entire part of it. There were survivors in the Horde.”
Stig raised an eyebrow behind his sunglasses. “…?”
“I’d say it was about a 6.3 on the SiB scale.”
“6.3?!” Alice gasped, “And you mean to tell me that there were survivors in that?”
Raven nodded again, “Yep. They were successfully holding them off with two of them carrying an injured third, and one of them was able to navigate her way through the Horde without getting bit, to reach the Gates and ask for help. It was at around that point that we decided to step in and help them out. Actually, that reminds me. Stig, I’d like you to test them, individually and as a team. Cover all the areas of hand-to-hand and offensive weaponry, sans the firearms.”
“…” Stig nodded his confirmation.
“Thanks. Now, if you two would excuse us, we’d like to get started with trying to kill each other.”
“Alright, we’ll leave you two to that.” Alice said as she and Stig left The Pit, “I think I’m going to go meet these new arrivals of ours.”
Raven smirked and opened the gate, gesturing to Silver, “Get in, unless you wish to not get your ass kicked?”
“You wish,” Silver snorted, unsheathing his O-Katana as he walked in, “Shall we begin, my smaller and younger brethren?”
Raven unsheathed his Wakizashis, his face one of mock shock, “Doth thou mock thine own sibling?! Surely thou doth jest?”
Silver scowled, “Shut up. You know I hate that ‘Ye Olde English’ crap. Let’s just fight.” And after a moment’s thought added, “And don’t call me Shirley!”
“Fine,” Raven pouted, “Ruin my fun, will you? Well, I’ll show you!” And once again, he charged.
