This one's rather apocryphal, as no such team-up actually happened the first night of the invasion. However, the image's clawed into my mind and
won't go away, so....
***
Tales of the Legendary: Horror Stories
"Green vs Grey"
The staccato sound of gunfire echoed across the Paragon skyline in Founder's Falls, an unfortunately all too common sound these days. What was
uncommon, however, was the dull moaning that the gunfire had to rise above, and the oppressive red skies despite the lack of any moonlight that hung over
Paragon City.
"So I think we can assume that these don't obey the usual rules," Sell-Sword noted as he put shot after shot through various zombies'
craniums, causing the creatures to stagger back momentarily, then continue moving forward. "This means we move to option number two."
"What's that?" Onyx asked, teleporting another garbage dumpster into position and chucking it into the shambling undead hordes advancing upon
their position. On the other side, tossing charred fallout and radioactive matter into the encroaching grey tide, Smouldering Decay similarly looked at the
armored mercenary.
"Very simple. If there's no way to quickly disable them, we do so the old fashioned way. Total destruction. Fall back," Sword ordered, the
two women following him as he hovered backwards, continuing to pick off zombie after zombie that got ahead of the main pack. The groaning hordes crawled
over their ventilated brethren, stumbling through walls of flames and gravitational snares. No matter what the three did, however, it did little more than
slow down the groaning zombies.
Backing quickly over one of Founders' larger bridges, Sword turned back, nodding to himself as the zombies, still slow and shambling, were left a
considerable distance away. "Wait here," he noted, vanishing via his cloaking device as Onyx began to protest before cutting off in irritation.
"He always does that!" she growled, getting an amused chuckle from her opposite number.
"Work with him often?"
"Yeah, actually," Onyx admitted. "He's the one that helped me get my liscense, and when he's not being an all-knowing, 'trust
me, I know what I'm doing' secret agent ripoff personality, he's actually fairly decent in a fight."
Decay smirked behind her improvised mask. "You two...." she trailed off, leaving the implication open as Onyx blanched.
"What?! No! No, it's nothing like that. He's just....actually someone who actually thinks like I do, sort of. We've got a few things in
common. That's all."
"Ah..."
They lapsed into silence, watching the approaching zombies until Sword appeared again. "There. Now we just need to hold them off."
"Hold them off?" Onyx said, dubiously looking at the seemingly endless swarm coming their way.
"Only long enough to get them into position," he said, whirring noises emitting from the servos in his arms and torso that Onyx knew meant that
his armor was locking into place so he could relax in a stationary position in it while keeping his gun trained on the oncoming foes.
From his stationary position, he spoke up again. "Get ready girls. On my signal, total lock down. Understood?"
Decay and Onyx both nodded, waiting as the zombies drew nearer, coming within thirty feet of the other side of the bridge.
"Now."
Onyx concentrated, as did Decay, and all across the other side of the bridge, zombies stuck in place, surrounded by fire that lapped and latched on, or
held in place by gravitic anomalies that lifted them off the ground. The entire front row froze in place, blocking the other zombies behind them from
progressing. Sword nodded mentally. "Decay, release your pets," he noted as he opened fire, shredding the trapped zombies behind the frozen front
line with automatic fire before dropping a grenade into their midst that sent necrotized flesh flying everywhere.
Decay snapped her fingers, flames leaping into being and taking on the form of fiery imps of vaguely humanoid form. Before she could really tell them to do
anything, all three let out high pitched cackling noises and sprang forward, running at high speed towards the zombies. Their insane giggling added an
eerie edge to their violent actions as the living embodiments of flame clawed, bounced, and torched their way through the moaning mass.
Onyx blinked as the insane, high pitched cackling echoed around them. "When did they start doing that?" she asked.
Decay shook her head. "Hell if I know. Though other than them making noises, they're about as aggressive as ever."
"Probably exposure to whatever magic's been summoning these creatures," Sword said, triggering another grenade as the zombie horde came
within ten feet of the bridge. But as much as the two women attempted to hold the zombies, more pushed their way through, some bearing horrific burn
scarring from the imps still gleefully causing high temperature carnage amongst their ranks. Their low pitched moans vibrated through the air, causing Onyx
to shiver as Sword raised a hand. "Alright, stop holding them, but prep to do so again when I say," he said.
The duo complied, the zombies surging(well, relative to their previous snail's pace, anyway) ahead, walking onto the bridge as Sword continued firing
into the mass. The zombies simply stepped over their destroyed numbers, coming closer, both women's hands clenching as they waited for the word....and
then it came.
"Now."
Decay and Onyx's powers reached out, seizing the front rank in place, just as a zombie shambled across a laser trip wire ten feet away from the exit
side of the bridge. It didn't notice the flat tone as the mine decloaked and triggered, nor the other mines planted along the bridge that triggered in
a cascade.
The three heroes, however, DID notice, as the bridge erupted in a fireball, incinerating all the zombies on top of it and dropping the entire stone
construction into the canal below, seperating the heroes from their zombie nemeses by a long, empty span of water. Onyx whirled on Sword, scowling.
"You had to go invisible just to do that? You couldn't have just let us see it so we knew the damn plan?! Why do you have to be so damn
dramatic?!"
Sword raised a hand, silencing her as he pointed, Onyx's eyes widening as the zombies spilled over the burnt edge of their side of the former bridge,
stumbling into the canal. Some sank entirely, weighed down by whatever they had on hand, but others, still mechanically attempting to walk forward, began
floating towards their side, as more and more joined them in the water. Soon, there was the beginnings of a bridge of moaning grey flesh, other zombies
walking atop each other to get closer to the other side of the bridge. Sword fired a few rounds into them, but it failed to accomplish much as the dead
corpses simply created more stable surfaces for the zombies to crawl over. Decay shivered, stepping back before Sword chuckled.
"Excellent. Just as planned."
"Just as planned?" she asked, cutting off another rant from Onyx who was scowling deeply.
"Mm-hmm," Sword said, pulling out a detonator as the last of the zombies spilled over the edge into the canal. "Now they're right where
I wanted them."
***
Enynn looked up from where she'd just decapitated a zombie as an explosion broke the evening air. She floated out of reach as she realized
someone'd blown up a small dam on one end of Founder's, a torrent of water shooting out of it and flooding the canals.
***
Onyx kicked a zombie back down into the water, before sending a trash can hurtling into another's face, when she heard the oncoming roar. Not of an
enormous beast or some kind of super zombie, but the rushing sound of several tons of water flowing down the canals at high speed. She looked over just as
the vibrating movement temporarily attracted the zombies' attention, before the overflowing wave pouring down the canal hit the undead bridge and swept
the entire thing away, decaying flesh and bone pulverised into specks and powder by the impact.
Decay looked down the canal, not seeing any zombies climbing out of it, before looking back at Sword, who was merely watching the scene impassively behind
his helmet. "You blew up the dam?"
"Only after whittling down their numbers sufficiently that they'd waste the rest crawling into this canal," he explained. "Now,
let's get moving."
"You expect more escaped?" Onyx asked, getting a chuckle and a shake of the head from the mercenary.
"No. I just don't want to be around here for them to potentially attempt to bill me for the damages. You'd think annihilating an undead horde
would be covered in their insurance, but no...."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
won't go away, so....
***
Tales of the Legendary: Horror Stories
"Green vs Grey"
The staccato sound of gunfire echoed across the Paragon skyline in Founder's Falls, an unfortunately all too common sound these days. What was
uncommon, however, was the dull moaning that the gunfire had to rise above, and the oppressive red skies despite the lack of any moonlight that hung over
Paragon City.
"So I think we can assume that these don't obey the usual rules," Sell-Sword noted as he put shot after shot through various zombies'
craniums, causing the creatures to stagger back momentarily, then continue moving forward. "This means we move to option number two."
"What's that?" Onyx asked, teleporting another garbage dumpster into position and chucking it into the shambling undead hordes advancing upon
their position. On the other side, tossing charred fallout and radioactive matter into the encroaching grey tide, Smouldering Decay similarly looked at the
armored mercenary.
"Very simple. If there's no way to quickly disable them, we do so the old fashioned way. Total destruction. Fall back," Sword ordered, the
two women following him as he hovered backwards, continuing to pick off zombie after zombie that got ahead of the main pack. The groaning hordes crawled
over their ventilated brethren, stumbling through walls of flames and gravitational snares. No matter what the three did, however, it did little more than
slow down the groaning zombies.
Backing quickly over one of Founders' larger bridges, Sword turned back, nodding to himself as the zombies, still slow and shambling, were left a
considerable distance away. "Wait here," he noted, vanishing via his cloaking device as Onyx began to protest before cutting off in irritation.
"He always does that!" she growled, getting an amused chuckle from her opposite number.
"Work with him often?"
"Yeah, actually," Onyx admitted. "He's the one that helped me get my liscense, and when he's not being an all-knowing, 'trust
me, I know what I'm doing' secret agent ripoff personality, he's actually fairly decent in a fight."
Decay smirked behind her improvised mask. "You two...." she trailed off, leaving the implication open as Onyx blanched.
"What?! No! No, it's nothing like that. He's just....actually someone who actually thinks like I do, sort of. We've got a few things in
common. That's all."
"Ah..."
They lapsed into silence, watching the approaching zombies until Sword appeared again. "There. Now we just need to hold them off."
"Hold them off?" Onyx said, dubiously looking at the seemingly endless swarm coming their way.
"Only long enough to get them into position," he said, whirring noises emitting from the servos in his arms and torso that Onyx knew meant that
his armor was locking into place so he could relax in a stationary position in it while keeping his gun trained on the oncoming foes.
From his stationary position, he spoke up again. "Get ready girls. On my signal, total lock down. Understood?"
Decay and Onyx both nodded, waiting as the zombies drew nearer, coming within thirty feet of the other side of the bridge.
"Now."
Onyx concentrated, as did Decay, and all across the other side of the bridge, zombies stuck in place, surrounded by fire that lapped and latched on, or
held in place by gravitic anomalies that lifted them off the ground. The entire front row froze in place, blocking the other zombies behind them from
progressing. Sword nodded mentally. "Decay, release your pets," he noted as he opened fire, shredding the trapped zombies behind the frozen front
line with automatic fire before dropping a grenade into their midst that sent necrotized flesh flying everywhere.
Decay snapped her fingers, flames leaping into being and taking on the form of fiery imps of vaguely humanoid form. Before she could really tell them to do
anything, all three let out high pitched cackling noises and sprang forward, running at high speed towards the zombies. Their insane giggling added an
eerie edge to their violent actions as the living embodiments of flame clawed, bounced, and torched their way through the moaning mass.
Onyx blinked as the insane, high pitched cackling echoed around them. "When did they start doing that?" she asked.
Decay shook her head. "Hell if I know. Though other than them making noises, they're about as aggressive as ever."
"Probably exposure to whatever magic's been summoning these creatures," Sword said, triggering another grenade as the zombie horde came
within ten feet of the bridge. But as much as the two women attempted to hold the zombies, more pushed their way through, some bearing horrific burn
scarring from the imps still gleefully causing high temperature carnage amongst their ranks. Their low pitched moans vibrated through the air, causing Onyx
to shiver as Sword raised a hand. "Alright, stop holding them, but prep to do so again when I say," he said.
The duo complied, the zombies surging(well, relative to their previous snail's pace, anyway) ahead, walking onto the bridge as Sword continued firing
into the mass. The zombies simply stepped over their destroyed numbers, coming closer, both women's hands clenching as they waited for the word....and
then it came.
"Now."
Decay and Onyx's powers reached out, seizing the front rank in place, just as a zombie shambled across a laser trip wire ten feet away from the exit
side of the bridge. It didn't notice the flat tone as the mine decloaked and triggered, nor the other mines planted along the bridge that triggered in
a cascade.
The three heroes, however, DID notice, as the bridge erupted in a fireball, incinerating all the zombies on top of it and dropping the entire stone
construction into the canal below, seperating the heroes from their zombie nemeses by a long, empty span of water. Onyx whirled on Sword, scowling.
"You had to go invisible just to do that? You couldn't have just let us see it so we knew the damn plan?! Why do you have to be so damn
dramatic?!"
Sword raised a hand, silencing her as he pointed, Onyx's eyes widening as the zombies spilled over the burnt edge of their side of the former bridge,
stumbling into the canal. Some sank entirely, weighed down by whatever they had on hand, but others, still mechanically attempting to walk forward, began
floating towards their side, as more and more joined them in the water. Soon, there was the beginnings of a bridge of moaning grey flesh, other zombies
walking atop each other to get closer to the other side of the bridge. Sword fired a few rounds into them, but it failed to accomplish much as the dead
corpses simply created more stable surfaces for the zombies to crawl over. Decay shivered, stepping back before Sword chuckled.
"Excellent. Just as planned."
"Just as planned?" she asked, cutting off another rant from Onyx who was scowling deeply.
"Mm-hmm," Sword said, pulling out a detonator as the last of the zombies spilled over the edge into the canal. "Now they're right where
I wanted them."
***
Enynn looked up from where she'd just decapitated a zombie as an explosion broke the evening air. She floated out of reach as she realized
someone'd blown up a small dam on one end of Founder's, a torrent of water shooting out of it and flooding the canals.
***
Onyx kicked a zombie back down into the water, before sending a trash can hurtling into another's face, when she heard the oncoming roar. Not of an
enormous beast or some kind of super zombie, but the rushing sound of several tons of water flowing down the canals at high speed. She looked over just as
the vibrating movement temporarily attracted the zombies' attention, before the overflowing wave pouring down the canal hit the undead bridge and swept
the entire thing away, decaying flesh and bone pulverised into specks and powder by the impact.
Decay looked down the canal, not seeing any zombies climbing out of it, before looking back at Sword, who was merely watching the scene impassively behind
his helmet. "You blew up the dam?"
"Only after whittling down their numbers sufficiently that they'd waste the rest crawling into this canal," he explained. "Now,
let's get moving."
"You expect more escaped?" Onyx asked, getting a chuckle and a shake of the head from the mercenary.
"No. I just don't want to be around here for them to potentially attempt to bill me for the damages. You'd think annihilating an undead horde
would be covered in their insurance, but no...."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."