"It's...I wish I wasn't reading..."

He looked at Karkat again, looking as though something had just occurred to him, but then lowered his head, shaking it slightly. "I...I shouldn't...I should go find...somewhere else. I'm sorry. Thank you but...it's...I should go."

Karkat - No One Likes Losers

OH, COME ON, Karkat said, standing up to block Cole's way. SO YOU'RE JUST GONNA MOPE AROUND INSTEAD OF DOING SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE? EVEN IF YOU DON'T GO BE FRIENDS WITH BEN AGAIN OR WHATEVER, WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING APOCALYPSE, SO THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS HELP US FIGHT OFF THE IMPENDING ZOMBIE HOARD. I HAD A FRIEND NAMED TAVROS WHO WOULD NEVER DO SHIT. WE ALWAYS HAD TO PUSH HIM AROUND SO HE WOULDN'T BE TOTALLY FUCKING USELESS, BUT HE REFUSED TO CHANGE. AND YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? HE DIED. HE GOT STABBED THROUGH THE CHEST WITH HIS OWN GODDAMN WEAPON AND LEFT FOR DEAD. AND IF YOU JUST LIE AROUND FEELING DUMB AND USELESS, YOU'RE GONNA END UP THE SAME WAY; CRIPPLED AND BLOODY AND DEAD. SO WHAT'S IT GONNA BE?

(holds pool noodle threateningly) Do you want to know what we do to artists?

"I've already died four times. Once before I ever came here," Cole said softly, keeping his gaze down. "We just come back."

Karkat - Running Out of Ideas

DON'T GIVE ME THAT BULLSHIT. WHERE I COME FROM, EVEN IF YOU DIE, YOU'RE STILL GOING TO COME BACK, EITHER THROUGH GOD TIERS OR DREAM SELVES OR ALTERNATE TIMELINES OR WHATEVER BULLSHIT PARADOX SPACE THROWS AT YOU. EVEN IF YOU DIE, YOU'RE STILL ALIVE. SO YOU KEEP GOING. BECAUSE YOU AREN'T ACTUALLY DEAD. SO YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS. EITHER YOU GO OUT THERE AND TRY TO GET BEN TO LIKE YOU AGAIN, OR YOU STAY HERE AND HELP THE REST OF US SURVIVE, BECAUSE I'M SURE AS HELL NOT GONNA LET YOU LIE HERE AND FEEL SORRY FOR YOURSELF.

(holds pool noodle threateningly) Do you want to know what we do to artists?

"I didn't intend to lie here. I was going to find a better place to stay out of the way because I'm not sure how much good I would be in a fight. ...please don't do this. Other people need you to help them more."

Karkat - Library

Karkat paused. He hadn't really payed attention to Cole's physical state. In fact, now that he looked, Cole was a mess. I GET IT, YOU'RE TIRED, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT. GO HELP THE OTHER USELESS GUYS WITH FOOD OR WATER OR SOMETHING. I CAN HANDLE THE ZOMBIES WITH EVERYBODY ELSE, JUST—DON'T BE COMPLETELY USELESS. PLEASE.

(holds pool noodle threateningly) Do you want to know what we do to artists?

Cole sighed again, rubbing at his face. "I...will see what they will let me do." He paused for a moment before turning away, then looked over his shoulder. "Candy tastes the same no matter what color it is. I think it's the same for most things. Changing their color doesn't change what they are."

That little bomb dropped, Cole abruptly seemed to evaporate in a green mist in front of Karkat's eyes, vanishing from sight in a moment.

edited 29th Jun '16 4:48:39 PM by ColeMinor

Karkat - Knight of Candy

Karkat's eyes widened as he watched Cole disappear in a puff of green smoke. Candy? What did he mean by that? He hadn't bled since he got here. He looked down at his shirt. It was still ripped thanks to the zombie from earlier, but it didn't hit his skin, so no blood was present. So how did Cole know? Did he read his mind? Can he seriously do that? The thought of having another Vriska problem sent a shiver down his spine. He had to be careful.

Candy tastes the same no matter what color it is.

Maybe he was overreacting. For all he knows, Cole could've been talking about all trolls in general. But then, how would he know about—

He pushed Cole and his weird cerulean blood powers out of his mind. He looked around for something to do, pulling out his sickle for good measure. Tonight was gonna be fun...

(holds pool noodle threateningly) Do you want to know what we do to artists?

Juri, Library

"Juri," Juri said to Viola. However, when she heard the sound of wind, Juri glanced outside the window and tried to glance out of it with her artificial eye. When others confirmed what she had feared, her eyes widened.

"Damn!" Juri exclaimed, balling her hands into fists. She then checked with Miss Tairee, "Will the Library be able to hold up against a horde of zombies like that?"

After all, there would be no point in rescuing people if the Library could not hold up against a zombie horde.

Wizard Needs Food Badly

Viola I Library I Planning Phase

... That doesn't sound good. I could hear the distinct sounds of droning from far-off. At first, I thought that it would be another sandstorm, but the commotion that everyone is currently making states otherwise. Instead of another sandstorm, a huge horde of zombies are coming, and they're coming very soon.

"Tch." Looks like further introduction with Juri will have to wait. Something far more urgent came up. Everyone here had better be prepared to fend off the impending horde but if worse comes to worse, I could always hole myself up at the top-most floor. Or find a way to escape, should the entire library be completely overrun and hope for the best.

"I really hope so," I spoke after hearing Juri's question, waiting for Miss Tairee's response. "Unless anyone else has any alternative plan they wish to share, the Library is the only line of defense keeping us safe from dying horribly out there."

edited 29th Jun '16 7:40:55 PM by JustSomeGuy732

"A post per day keeps the GMs away!"

Gon, starting an ammo count

"Hey guys!" Gon called out for the attention of the militiamen (and women, he's not that discriminate against them).

"How much ammo you guys have for your weapons?"

The assassin did an ammo count on his 12 gauge shotgun shells.

City streets, the rooftop

Anyone nearby would probably be able to see the lanky octogenarian and his grandson making their way along the roofs, possibly overhearing snatches of conversation.

"W-what happened to going back to the lab, huh?"

"You don't hear that, Morty? That *urp* big ass moan? That's the sound of the actual zombie horde comin' up. All this stuff? This was just the, the, prelup- the prega- the, the preamble. The preamble to the real zombie apocalypse."

"Aw jeez. Isn't there, like, an anti-zombie chemical... thing you could make? Or something?"

"Against a... a *urp* a billion zombies from a thousand different universes? Yeah, sure, and then I'll raise Jerry's IQ by twelve points."

"Okay, okay, it was just a thought."

edited 29th Jun '16 8:28:19 PM by Locoman

Library

"I hope he knows what he's doing" Rachel thought out loud, watching as Ben left the library.

"What, on its own? Of course not" Miss Tairee said to Juri, looking at her. "Only if the people in here can hold them off. I don't think you'll find many better alternatives though, because the entire city is going to be flooded with the things when they arrive" the librarian explained to her.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Wells looked at Rex and lowered his eyebrows. "If that's an attempt at being cheeky boy, now is not the time! Do what you can and then get back here!" Lieutenant Wells yelled over the barricade at him. Gon's question to the rest of the militia got his attention, as they gave various responses that for the most part equated to a few magazines. "Miss librarian?" the soldier said, looking over at Miss Tairee.

"I can make more ammo, but I can't make it too easy for you. It'll appear here" Miss Tairee answered him, easily figuring what the question was going to be, and pressed her fingertip on her desk to emphasize it.

"We'll need dedicated ammo runners. Anyone not taking part in the fighting itself who can move quickly" Lieutenant Wells thought aloud.

You are reading this.

Skies above the streets

Caro blushed at Sans' praise of her abilities. "Um ... Thank you. But really, I got Fate, Nanoha and everyone at Riot 6 to thank for that. They taught me and gave the strenght and power to fight for what I believe and to protect what is dear to me. I may seem strong, but compared to some of them ..."

Then in reply to what he said about when they first met, "Well, maybe, but it would take a lot more than that for me to seriously consider just attacking someone who actually hadn't attacked me or anyone else first. Fried looked like he might have if you gone any farther though, didn't he? But anyway, the only thing that we could have done to deal real damage would have been with Fried's fire, which I wouldn't have considered unless things got really serious. Aside from that, even with my shooting spell, the most I would have done would have been knocking you out. Like I said before, most of my magic is designed so that it can't normally serious hurt, let alone kill someone."

"But anyway, I think the best thing for us to do right now is quickly circle around the city, warning everyone to best of our ability, until we actually find people in trouble with those things. We won't have time to do it afterwards, because you would take us straight back to the library and we may not have time to do another run after we get there," She pointed out.

Accordingly, Fried began fly in a wide circle, while Caro then began to repeatdly try to call out to people below them, warning them about the wave of creatures that was about to come and telling them to head to the fortified library.

Then finally, after they had been at it for a while, she finally spotted something. Closeby, there was a group of four people struggling with various enemies around them. Two appeared to have been human once, but now were rotten corpses walking shabbling around, mindlessly attacking people. Above everyone else were two of the flying conical shadowy creatures from before, casting spells that the people were desperately trying to dodge, along with another flying creature, this one having jagged wings and claws as well as sharp tooth and those unsettling glowing yellow eyes. Finally, there was another shadowy creature on ground, this one wearing robes and carrying a large book.

Caro knew what she had to. She immediately began cast her spell and made chains appeared from the ground and from the walls from the surrounding buildings, attempting to grab every creature, even the flying ones. However the creature with the large book then casted a spell, which made barriers around all the other creatures and prevented the chains from hitting them.

While redirecting some chains to try to stop the barrier casting creature, she said , "Sans, see if you can do something about that one. I guess we will have to take that out before we can hit anything else."

edited 29th Jun '16 10:23:59 PM by JamesShields

Slightly Next To The Library, HnK In the awkward silence that Yoshika had inadvertently created, she had plenty of time to think about what she was going to say to Seiga. It had begun with thinking, "Seiga, I came here and met some people and they helped me get back," but it had eventually, through slow and purposeful thought, morphed into, "Seiga, you killed me and then I got attacked by zombies, it didn't really cause me any harm but I'm still cross about it". Reaching the barricade, she had been practicing exactly the miniature speech she had come up with for this matter.

Seiga was near one of the doors, pacing back and forth when she heard a familiar voice call out to her, "Seiga, I'm here!" The hermit immediately ran outside, and flinged Yoshika over the barrier with one dramatic swipe of the hand, bringing her towards her. The jiangshi was bruised and scratched at this point, but compared to just a while ago was in much better shape. Yoshika looked a bit cross about something, but Seiga didn't particularly care as she hugged her servant tightly. "Oh, my Yoshika! It's worked!" She was genuinely smiling as she gripped Yoshika close, the jiangshi's look of consternation quickly melting as she managed to completely forget about what she was going to say.

"Yoshika, we're immortal now! The eternal secret of alchemy, and we've achieved it by doing absolutely nothing!" Yoshika pulled herself away as she looked at her master, asking "Weren't we already kinda immortal?" Seiga freed her from her grasp as she held a wagging finger, looking quite smug. "No, Yoshika, this is real immortality. We could die before, but as long as we're here, we're golden!" Yoshika scratched her head. "Okay...why?"

And so, Seiga spent quite a while thoroughly explaining what she had learned to her servant. Considering the amount of questions and clarifications made, it was a miracle they finished before midnight.

"...Okay, so, if he made the library, and he didn't make the people, why does he hire a secretary instead of just making all the books pop out whenever you wanted them?" This long line of questioning ended with a final "Yoshika, I have no clue." Seiga's throat felt parched from the constant explaining, and she didn't have any real desire to continue answering these insipid questions, so she moved onto the next big bombshell. "Right before you walked in, a friendly fellow informed us that we've got a bit of an issue up ahead. I'm guessing that these scratches are from the undead, yes?" Yoshika inspected herself for a moment before nodding eagerly. "There's a lot more coming this way. A lot. From the sounds of it, it's just the slow kind you've already seen." Lieutenant Wells called out for help with hauling, and Seiga stopped with her explanation to turn to him.

"The two of us would be well suited for that," she said as she walked up to him. "They can't touch us in the air, and she's strong enough to lift entire crates of ammunition by herself."

edited 29th Jun '16 9:02:01 PM by wikkit

Sophie blinked at the gerbil and hat that had been placed in her hands. She then looked up at Rex and nodded like a child that had been given a menial task made to sound important.

The gerbil cradled gently, but securely in one arm, she approached one of the large windows that had been blocked off by bookcases. At the very top was a crawlspace large enough for any remaining civilians to be pulled in, as well as offering anyone inside a clear view of the exterior to return fire. With impressive fluidity, she leaped upward towards it, grabbing the edge with her free hand, before hoisting herself through and dropping inside with record speed.

"Is Miss Tie-reeh here?" she immediately asked whoever was nearby, as if what she had just did was not unusual for someone like her.

edited 29th Jun '16 9:59:46 PM by Demovere

Peace. Pace. Sanity. Check out my DeviantArt! ^_^

Cole hadn't gone too far...he didn't have the capacity to for the moment. His body still hurt, his leg was better, but he still felt strangely weak, and he still couldn't quite figure out why. He assumed it was just the injuries of being in the sandstorm and being stabbed by the monster and bleeding for so long.

There wasn't any magic to fix that, nothing to be done but to be put to bed and rest until you recovered. He'd seen it enough with soldiers back home. There wasn't a bed here, so he figured just getting out of the way was good enough.

He had only slept in a bed once in his life. He didn't want to think about that right now.

He didn't really want to think about anything right now. He felt too tired to.

Cole figured this corner was far enough away that he wouldn't bother anyone. He should be able to know if he had to get up and help fight, or do anything else. He came back into sight with another wisp of green mist, just curling up on the floor and hiding his face behind an arm, going as still as he could, trying to just rest while he could.

Skies - if only she knew

Caro still didn't know about Sans' exact state, so she couldn't have known that even something as "feeble" as Fried's fire would probably be enough to turn Sans to ashes, or just dust. Either way, he didn't really have much to add but it was good to enough who helped Caro get to the point she is if nothing else.

Sans assisted Caro in calling out to everyone as best as he could, although he was still being somewhat quiet compared to her, it just wasn't like him to yell much. Once they ran into another enemy group though, Caro immediately began preparing the combo only for her chains to be blocked, those things were getting smarter huh?

She then asked him to deal with the one making the barriers and so, Sans was quick to attempt to grab the creature's soul with his magic and throw it as far as he could so it wouldn't get in the way of dealing with the other ones.

"all right, caro. pin them down but keep an eye open to see if there's anything trying to ambush us," said Sans as he himself tried to play close attention to his surroundings.

Skies - Back on track

Fortunately, Sans managed to grab the creature with his power and throw it away. For good measure, it seemed that its book had been left behind and this seemed to have stunned it even further.

With that taken care of, Caro finished with getting the chains wrapped around the creatures. She brought them all close together, ready for Sans to take them out.

edited 29th Jun '16 10:20:37 PM by JamesShields

Skies - same old story

With the support sent flying, Sans summoned the blasters once more and proceeded to shoot at all the trapped creatures like he had done many times that day already.

"it's almost uncanny how well our abilities work along with each other," he commented, with a chuckle.

Viola I Library I Help Wanted

"I can help with that," I volunteered myself to Lieutenant Wells' request for 'ammo' carriers. "It's better than sitting around and doing nothing, at least. And I'm quite confident that I can outrun some shambling corpses."

That, and I could also observe the firefight between the militias and the undead at the same time. As if the hunting rifle in my own world wasn't powerful enough, I wonder just how terrifying these weapons would be.

"A post per day keeps the GMs away!"

Library

"You'll just be running between the barricades at the edges of the room and that desk. If all goes well you won't have any zombies to deal with, because they won't be getting in" Lieutenant Wells said to Seiga and Viola, then muttered to himself, "if all goes well..." The distance in question was still almost fifty meters, so making repeated round trips still might not be a cake walk even if no shambling undead made their way to them. "At this point I can't be saying no to help, so by all means" the solder added to the girls, then gave them a bow and headed off to coordinate some of the militia volunteers on the barricade.

Meanwhile, a militia member glanced over at Sophie as she asked her question. "I'm pretty sure it's pronounced 'mystery'" the militia member told her.^note It wasn't exactly, but he didn't know that. "She's over there" he continued, pointing to Miss Tairee at the central desks.

You are reading this.

Outside

Jack raised an eyebrow at the teen's joking mention of Santa, and smirked. "Who, North? He'd be back on my... well, world I guess. Most likely working his yetis hard to get ready for Christmas." His smile weakened a bit. "Actually, having North here right now would be great. He'd know how to make the most of this all..."

Finally, the rising sound that the winter spirit had unconsciously tuned out made itself known to him. Brow furrowed, Jack looked off down the street. What was that? He rose into the air, shooting up above the buildings to get a good view of the city. What he saw shook him, fear and horror flooding through his body. A writhing blob that encircled the city, far in the distance.

Jack gazed out over the horizon, turning on the spot to take in the wave of bodies slowly making their way towards the city; Towards countless people still trapped and hiding. The spirit's mind jumped back to that final fight against Pitch, as his nightmare sand engulfed the city. But, this time, they weren't just bad dreams. They'd do more than give someone trouble sleeping. Not fearing them wouldn't turn away this wave. Unnoticed, his grip on his staff had become almost painful, his knuckles even whiter than his already pale skin from the tension.

He... didn't know what to do. He was far out of his element. His powers were weak and fleeting in this weather. His ice and snow melting from the moment he made it. The wind was useless. His powers useless. He had never faced something like this.

Despair filled Jack. For the first time in his long life, he had the chance to actually help people directly. Do more than just throw snowballs, ice paths or drop snow down shirts. Spirit of Winter. Capable of making blizzards and bringing snow and winter to the world. Guardian of Fun. Tasked with protecting the children of the world, in any way he could. And there was little he could do to protect them from this.

But, he was still going to try.

Face set, Jack willed the wind to carry him towards the edge of the city. He had to get people moving towards the library. As he passed over the streets and buildings, Jack screamed down in hopes of anyone hearing him. "Move towards the building in the center of the city! It's not going to be safe here for long! Please hurry!"

He kept his message brief. He had a lot of area to cover in little time. Hopefully people would listen.

Down below under a small awning, he spotted a small group of disturbingly square-looking zombies in identical outfits smashing their arms against the entrance to a building. Swooping down, Jack zipped along the street towards them at head-height, Twinetender held out to his side. As he shot past, the caught the closest zombie around the neck with the crook, dragging it forcefully into the other few and bowling them over. Spinning in mid-air and stopping on a dime, Jack swung his staff several times. The end result being the zombies stuck together in a block of very solid and heavy ice. He watched in disturbed awe as the exposed parts of the green-skinned undead burst into flames suddenly. Shaking it off, he turned to the building they had been assaulting. "Hello? If there's anyone in there, you need to start heading for the center of the city! There's...there's a massive horde making it's way towards the city, and it won't be safe here! Please, there will be people there that can help you! You can't stay here!"

Jack wasn't sure if he had been heard, though he swore he saw a curtain move, but his earlier run-ins today taught him how some people felt about him bursting into buildings.

Having done the best he could on limited time, the spirit shot up into the air and started his pattern again, shouting down below as he slowly made his way outwards.

edited 30th Jun '16 4:39:20 AM by Alleydodger

Library-Hurray for writer's block!

After the sandstorm subsided, Susan realised that she was really, really tired. Having been woken up at midnight by gunfire, then spending the morning guarding against the undead, she had gotten little sleep, and took the opportunity to do so, falling onto a nearby couch.

The thrum made itself known slowly. It began as a background hum in her dream (which involved for some reason, Jade, the troll she hadn't seen since school dressed in five blankets, and Binky in a truly ridiculous top hat with a sign tucked into the band that she couldn't quite see) before becoming harder to ignore. Then people began to yell, and she woke up somewhat disgruntled.

What she saw was concerning. The miltia were mobilising and it felt like something big was about to happen. Checking that she still had her weapons, she moved towards the barricades, attempting to spot what might be coming. Her hair was also feeling the tension, and it sprung from its usual neat bun into a plait, then a ponytail, then back to a bun, and settled on a braid, as if deciding what hairstyle best suited the oncoming storm.

[TOP SECRET]

The Library

X stepped forward towards Lt. Wells, he could recognize military individuals anywhere, partially because of his experience, the way they carried themselves for one.

"Is there a problem? I could be of assistance," X asked as he stepped forward. He had overheard the talk of a growing horde, it never changed. He checked his systems and the VWS, he had quite the selection, he didn't recall adding these to his system at all.

"I am a walking arsenal if that counts for anything."