RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 3] - The Wrong side of the Deathbed

"Z-zombies?" Crane stuttered as Mitch landed. A moment later, before he could even process the zombie's moaning behind him, he felt the air from Vincent's bullet zip by his head. "What the... ?!" he shouted. Once he realized what was going on, he moved quickly to the others drawing his largest knife and turning to face outward. "Thanks, Vincent. I owe you one."

Jim yelled to Crane, "I'd use the flamethrower!!" And with that, Jim bolstered himself and held his flechette launcher with one arm. He ran towards an alleyway with a few zombies inside it. Jim held down the trigger and felt a few rounds leave the launcher and pin some of the zombies against the wall. He limped back towards the group that had gathered to fight off the reanimated corpses and said, "Now how the HELL is this happening?! Also, WHY?"

Vincent's shots from his twin hand-cannons had proven themselves by venting the Zombie's heads. He noticed that upon removing the head, they just dropped to the ground and faded to dust after a few seconds for some strange reason.

Luca had stood up from the wall and began to look around. He, and anyone who'd gotten a good look at the raiders would recognise that these zombies were of the raiders they just got rid of. He promptly drew the Lever-Action shotgun from his back and pointed it at a zombie that was a few steps away from him.
"I wouldn't have any idea!" Luca replied as he blasted the zombie's head to some faraway places, and pulled the lever on his shotgun to load a new cartridge in, "Maybe the company in that letter has something to do with 'em?"

Everyone was clustered in the centre of the village, the zombies that were surrounding the village had begun to move in, slowly and shambling. Moaning, groaning and creaking, some were burning a little too.
Mitch kept his machete out and kept on slashing through zombies coming in from the north of the village, occasionally drawing one of his pistols to dispatch another.
Mel was assisting Mitch by setting her rifle to "Burst Fire" and taking out one at a time, and staying close to him.
Luca seemed to be holding down the eastern part with his Shotgun, blasting them away with his shotgun when they got close enough, and giving them a slash when they got too close for comfort.

The southern part of the village was occupied by Laeliel, whose truck was being punched and slammed by the zombies unless she did something.
The western end was undefended...

At this stage, about three quarters of the shambling grotesqueries had been cut down.
"Some help please, guys!" Luca said as he tried to reload his shotgun, but almost got grappled by a zombie, making a sidestep to evade and kicking him away with his good leg.

Laeliel managed to keep herself from insulting the strange-talking, head-stocking fetishist as he spoke to her – her earlier outbursts seemed to have drained away most of her anger and left an unfriendly frown in its place instead – which turned out for the best when he apparently gave her the not to be frowned upon sum of 3000KS for seemingly no reason other than being there and laying down harsh words. Either way she’d believe the money existed when she saw it for herself.

When Jim came over Laeliel just glared daggers at him, she replied with a mumbled “and maybe next time I’ll just run you over and take your whole wallet” low enough not to hear as he turned his back. The events of a long day that started out seven lightyears away piling up like weights on top of her, Laeliel crossed her arms over the steering wheel in front of her and allowed her head to plop down on to them, content to let everyone else run around and exclaim over this and that discovery while she waited for her shaken-up reality to settle in whatever new form it was determined to take.

Her not entirely peaceful rest was soon shattered, as one of the shambling zombies she had been blissfully unaware of flailed itself at her vehicle with a loud bang of battle-battered flesh against metal. With a short but ear-splitting shriek of shock she sat bolt upright in her seat in an instant and mashed her foot down on the accelerator, achieving the rationally-predictable lack of motion as the engine roared freely in neutral.

As more zombies joined in on the mindless fun, Laeliel grabbed the gearstick and jammed it into first against the gearbox’s metallic protests, and once again the vehicle’s four wheels ripped up the ground and sent it sliding in a half-circle to the right and then again but to the left as the rear kicked out. Inside the cabin the steering wheel spun crazily as Laeliel ignored it and put both of her hands and all of her renewed energy into winding up her driver’s side window to keep out the re-animated foes.

"On my way, Luca!" Vincent was on his way to the western end of the village with the Junker when he heard his employer's call for help. Vincent lowered in altitude and crushed an unlucky zombie in the craft's jet-wash before moving towards Luca's position.

Luca could see a series of strobe lights scanning the ground, rapidly approaching as well...

"Of course, the flamethrower!" Crane exclaimed. He had forgotten about it before, but thinking out loud, he said "These zombies should make good targets."

He ran towards a lone zombie with the flamethrower and unleashed a searing burst of flames that practically incinerated the (un)dead flesh and bones of the zombie in front of him.

"What do you know?" he thought. "This is actually kinda fun. I wish I hadn't waited till now to use this thing." He looked around for a new target, but instead saw flashing lights approaching.

"Hey, what's that?" he asked loudly enough to be heard, while taking a few tentative steps towards the cover of a building and almost unconciously slashing an approaching zombie through the skull. He had become so used to using the knives that even combat with them seemed natural.

Jim ran towards Luca all the while firing clouds of needles onto the reanimated foes. "On my way Luca!" However, the next time he pulled the trigger, it didn't fire anything. "Shit! Out of ammo." With that, Jim ripped open a pouch and replaced the magazine in the launcher with a fresh one. He pulled the trigger again, but the needle simply slid out of the barrel and broke apart into its component needles on the ground.

"Of all the rotten luck!" Jim slung the launcher over his shoulder once more and drew his pistol. He cursed his wounded arm; it would have helped quite bit in this kind of brawl.

Hitori sliced the arms off of a couple zombies before they could grab her. She then heard Luca's call for help. Being unable to 'run out of ammo', she cut her way through the battle to his position. Stabbing one zombie in the forhead, she asked, "Need any help?" She smiled before removing the dagger and doing a wide kick to send that disabled zombie flying.

Seeing the staggering, burning dead was quite amusing. They just stood there and let the flames envelop them. They fell over and crumbled to dust just like their brethren did.

Luca was beginning to notice that everyone's combined efforts on Zombie Mashing were good, as there were only several of them left. The wound on his leg had begun to close up thanks to Yamataian hemosynthetics and a positive mood. His leg was a bit better for running and fighting.
He decided to put the boot into one zombie, who got knocked backward and into another, knocking him over too.

"There isn't long left for these mistakes!" Luca quipped, referring to the zombies as he gave another a good boot to the face, but then remembered that they were technically already dead, "...is there?"

Mitch's zombie-slashing seemed to be almost effortless, cutting down the last two in his area with one fell swipe. He threw the Machete into the air, rotating a few times and caught it at the handle. He then cleaned it with a rag without saying a word.

Then came strobe lights from above coming towards the camp, provided by Vincent's Shuttle.
"Vincent, what are you doing?" Luca asked as he squinted, "This is no time for rave parties!"

A zombie that was just about to give Jim a hug was distracted by said strobe lighting and gave the air a hug, then fell forward.
"Urrgh." It said.
The other zombies were quite disoriented by the lighting too.

"There's ALWAYS time for a rave, Luca!" Vincent said over the loudspeaker, opening the side door of the shuttle, then hanging from the bottom with one hand and shooting the heavy BAR with his other.

Jim's arm also was getting better, due to the hemosynth healing he possessed as well. As his flechette launcher was not functioning, Jim planted the butt of his gun into a nearby zombie's face, smashing it and the form to which it belonged. "We're nearly done guys!"

The time for a rave was pretty damn useful, because the zombies were increasingly disoriented, and Vincent's BAR blast had managed to remove all, but two zombies that were left.
Luca put his shotgun away, and put up his fists with a smile as one tried to stagger towards him.

"Put up yah dooks!" Luca mocked as he gave it a good punch in the face, making its jaw fly off and hit the dirt near Mel. She frowned a bit. "What's the matter. No fighting spirit?" Luca mocked again as he launched himself and gave it a kick in the guts, managing to break a few bones, and put it in half. "Y'aint half the man you used to be!!" Luca quipped again. He was feeling really cocky as he watched the zombie disintegrate.

The other zombie was near Mel, very confused. She looked at the butt of her rifle, then grinned fiendishly and slammed it side on in the head, knocking clean off, and into Jim's hands by accident.
Luca cleaned himself off, and now he wanted some answers as a question formed in his mind.

"How did these villagers know they were going to get attacked so precisely?" He voiced as he got his empty magazine from his gun and reloaded it bullet by bullet and slid it back in, making glances around the entries and exits of the village for any other zombies, which there were none.
He spun his pistol around his left index finger and holstered it, trying to think of some answers.

Crane walked towards Luca, knives sheathed and flamethrower at his side. "Well, that was certainly something you don't see every day," he said as he stretched out his hand with the flamethrower towards Luca. "Thanks for letting me borrow this."

Turning around to face the now quiet town, he asked, "So, I don't suppose anybody knows why or how those guys turned into zombies?"

"I dunno, but I'll bet it had something to do with the letter that Mel found on Godfrey." Vincent had climbed back into the Junker and now addressed his mind through a stereo system mounted on it, used for relaying messages and loudly.

"As for the villagers, no idea. Maybe they're some kind of agency?"

The head in Jim's hands grinned up at him with lifeless eyes. He tossed it over his shoulder and said, "You bring up a good point Luca. Perhaps this was a trap after all. Maybe we should question some of them." The head really hadn't fazed Jim at all. He was a medic after all.

"Let's ask them some questions - Good idea Jim..." Luca said as he gave a few knocks on the door of the homestead which few villagers there was were holed up in.
"Are them bandits gone?" Harley's voice asked.
"Yes - but we have a question!" Luca demanded.
He opened the door and looked at Luca, then saw the destruction around him. It was like he or the other villagers didn't hear a thing throughout the whole ordeal, "Whazzat?" Harley responded.
"Tell me - How did you lot know that you were going to be attacked?"
"Err - saw it using images from a satellite?" Harley lied.
Mel retorted, "What a load of croc!"

Luca turned to Mel, "Give me the letter." She handed it over. Luca then forked it over to Harley. "Someone wanted you dead - and you knew about it!"
Harley sighed as he took the letter, read it and turned away for a moment with a frown. He regretted not telling Luca and his crew the truth, "Those bastards wanted us back, and we refused."
Luca cocked his eyebrow, "What do you have to them that's so important?"

Some of the other villagers came up, and presented nametags to Luca. All of them had the Halogli Logo on them.
"Jarred Mason - Scientist"
"Mina Johnson - DNA Tester"
"Daryl Goodman - Scientist"
"Gordon Mancuso - Guard"
"Harley Johns - Leader, Z-Project"
He stared at the badges for a moment, and checked the faces of the people who gave them to him.
"You ... ran from them?"

Harley Johns, the Leader of the "Z-Project" nodded, and looked regretful, sighing a little.
"We did something that was horrid. My team and I felt so ashamed of what we created -" He paused, "No - unleashed."

"Unleashed? You mean to say that this Z-Project you've come up with is the zombies we just fought against, and that Godfrey character, and the raids, all tied into your little escape?" Vincent crossed massive, tree-trunk arms across his chest, covered by the bullet-proof vest.

Crane walked up to where Luca and Vincent were talking to the villiagers, brushing off a dirty cooking hat. Glancing at the nametags, he asked, "So why'd they want you back? Do they want you to do more research or are they just afraid the secret will get out?"

Crane turned to look at the place where Jim had thrown the zombie head. "I guess it's too late for that now," he said with a frown. Turning back to the villiagers, he asked, "So, if you hated your project so much, why'd you do it in the first place?"

"Sir," Harley addressed Crane hoarsely, "Having an egotistical, conceited bastard of a manager who keeps a .45 down his trousers, and threatens workers with it - does do some convincing."
Mina piped up: "He - shot - the guy - next to me because - he - wanted out..." She turned away and hid her face, sobbing to herself. Another one of the workers, Daryl comforted her with a pat on the shoulder.
Harley then looked over to Vincent, "They forced us to do this. We couldn't live with ourselves..."

"That manager sounds like a prick." Mel quipped.
"So they want you back so you can't warn the world about what's to come?" Luca observed.
"Pretty much - and probably to kill us so our work isn't given out - or a cure found to be destroyed."
"Yep - class A scumsuckers they are." Mel reiterated her previous statement.

"What do you want us to do about it?" Luca threw his hands out, questioning, "Charge in and give 'em hell?"
Gordon stepped out and put a hand on Luca's shoulder, "Y'know..." His voice was gruff with a crooked grin, "That would be satisfyin'!"

This sounded like a challenge to Luca, and he couldn't resist a good firefight, as per usual. He was also somewhat motivated to get rid of these poor scientist's suffering, or at least make things better for them so they wouldn't have too much to think about each night.
"Hmm..." Luca said, rubbing his chin. His eyebrow cocked, and he smirked, "Heh heh heh..."

Mel poked Luca and shook her head to him worryingly, Luca nodded keeping a fixated smirk. She blinked incredulously.
"You're right batty, y'know?"

"If it's a firefight you want, then we'll give it to them." Vincent seemed pleased with the possibility of lead and bloodshed.

"Where's the base? I'll take the Junker and scout it out."