The Zombie Force: Chapter 1

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WARNING: CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND COARSE LANGUAGE INCLUDING SWEARING

1.

MIST AND NIX

Zathract Mist slowly backed away, daggers raised in his gloved hands while his glare intensified. Nixion Strange stood behind him, a machete held tight in his hands.

“Are you going to answer my question?” he asked Nixion.

“About what?” he snarled back.

“About how the hell you managed to get us into another zombie infested mess when you were supposed to be getting recruits!”

“That isn’t important, Mist!” Nixion replied angrily and said nothing more.

“But it is, Nix.” Zathract said, nodding angrily. “It is, because this is exactly the thing I told you not to do!” the zombies drew slowly nearer to the two and they continued to slowly back further away from them as the night dragged on relentlessly.

“Since when did I take orders from you?!” Nixion yelled incredulously. “Never! I don’t obey you! You aren’t my master! And if it wasn’t for me you’d be dead already!”

“You were supposed to start taking orders from me when I founded the team we should have had by now if you hadn’t got yourself attacked by more fucking zombies!” Zathract yelled. “And if it wasn’t for me then you’d be dead three times by now!”

“Two!” Nixion insisted, his glare intensifying. “Two times! I would have taken the damn vampire’s head off even if you hadn’t swooped in and saved the day!”

“You weren’t ever going to do anything, you were on the ground with the vampire about to kill you!” retorted Zathract.

“No!” Nixion yelled, absent minded waving his machete around wildly. “No, it’s ribs were broken and I already had by damn machete to its neck! I was going to kill it but then you had to-”

“For god’s sake, can we just focus on the fucking problem at hand?” Zathract interrupted, losing his patience.

“And what’s the fucking problem at hand?” Nixion asked, practically growling in anger.

“What do you mean the fucking problem at hand?!” Zathract yelled. “The fucking army of zombies in front of us you dim witted-”
Nixion blurred forwards before Zathract could finish, knocking his shoulder on the way and sending his ally staggering to the side. By the time Zathract had spun around to face Nixion again, he was already pounding his fists into the arms, stomachs and heads of the zombies before him. Muttering something about the stupidity of his ally darkly, Zathract ran forwards to join Nixion, summersaulted over the first wave of zombies and spun around, bringing his hands up as he did so, now directed at the zombies facing away from him. He felt the energy between his hands and the zombies and the instant he splayed his finger, the zombies shot away from him and landed in a crumpled heap on the road. Zathract quickly looked around for Nixion and instantly staggered back again as the person he was looking for flew into him. Without apologizing, Nixion leaped up and drove his machete into the zombie that had shoved him away. Zathract growled at Nixion, shook his head wretchedly and jumped into the air again, spun and drove a knee into the closest zombie’s neck. It staggered backwards but did not actually seem injured. Undiscouraged, Zathract spun again quickly and bought his dagger flying upwards. It made contact and the zombie fell backwards, its head hanging on by a thread. However, though one fell, three more instantly took its place.

“Why?!” Zathract asked loudly to no one, his temper snapping. “Why is it that the zombies that always have an army are the ones powerful and the ones with tiny little hordes are the weaker ones? Why can’t it be the other way around?!” he didn’t get an answer. Instead he got four fists blurring towards him and though he parried three, the last hit him in the ribs and Zathract doubled over. Using this to his advantage, Zathract dived low and took out four zombies sending them spinning to the ground. The moment they fell Zathract leaped up and latched out a fist that made a zombie stumble backwards clutching his nose.

A fair way away, Nixion had somehow gotten himself surrounded by zombies and though he continued to deliver fists crashing down on his enemies, more and more seemed to take their place every time one fell. Already stifling with anger at another argument with Zathract and his injuries, Nixion’s temper was close to snapping. All it would take, he knew, would be one more punch, one last injury to add to his fury and he would be driven into a rage he would not be able to control. And then a zombie hit his chin sending Nixion staggering sideways. For a few moments he and the zombies remained mobile, Nixion crouched over slightly in the position of pain he no longer felt. Now he was numb. And then his insides flared. A glare leaped to his face and he blurred, lashing out violently, his mind no longer in use and his vision white with fury. Fists collided with skulls causing them to burst, his machete drove its way through zombie cheats brutally and it brought more and more guts flying out with it each time Nixion pulled it backwards. His hair fell over his eyes as he continued to blur but he ignored it. His hand flew to a zombie’s head and he savagely tore out its eyes. Face and clothes now covered with disgusting bits of dead blood and rotting guts, Nixion roared in fury once more and both his hands flew to the side, his machete flung aside carelessly and took out another zombie’s head unintentionally. His hands met the last two zombies close to him and his energy blasted outwards. The zombie’s bones gave loud cracks as each of the snapped brutally all at once and they fell to the ground, bones sticking out unnervingly from random bits of their bodies.

Zathract tore his dagger out of the chest of another zombie and dodged the guts that flew out with it. He yelled out as a zombie grabbed his arm and he threw out a fist and the zombie released him when its nose cracked.

Another zombie lunged at him and Zathract ducked and came back up quickly, his dagger slicing through the zombie’s head and taking out its eye ball. He pushed the zombie away and it fell to the ground. Zathract’s kick made a satisfying crack sound as it broke the ribs of another zombie and the remaining twenty of them roared their displeasure. Then the zombies charged forwards, attacking with brutal combinations. Swearing loudly, Zathract ducked under the fist of one and slammed his own into the stomach of the zombie before exclaiming in disgust when it burst out the other side. He spun and kicked it away, his glove and sleeve now covered in zombie guts. He hurled a dagger into another’s head before pulling it out again and kicking it away. There were around seventeen zombies left and all of them were closing in on Zathract. Calmly, he placed his daggers back inside his jacket and snapped his fingers together, flame leaping suddenly to his hand. Next second his hand blurred and the ball of fire shot forwards towards the first zombie. Just before impact the zombie staggered forwards and another’s much louder screams were added to the zombies.

Zathract swore loudly as Nixion staggered around, flame engulfing him. At once he waved his hand and the fire died from Nixion and he fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath, now drenched in water. Zathract walked forwards calmly towards Nixion while the zombies screamed around him, burning in flame before rotting and collapsing, quite dead.

Zathract was an elemental, Nixion was an adept. While Zathract had control over all four elements, he had invested most of his time into gaining more and more control over the element of fire. As he progressed, he uncovered more and more ways to use the element and uses a multitude of different abilities with his fire that many other sorcerers can’t. Manipulating it so it leaps from one object already burning to other things nearby is one of the things Zathract can do with his power.

Nixion had been kidnapped at a young age. He never liked to talk about it but he had filled Zathract in briefly on the condition that he stopped annoying him about it. Nixion had been taken by a man and had been taught the brutal adept discipline of bone breaking. At a touch, Nixion could break apart every bone in the body of his victim causing them a sudden but very painful death. He had been tortured and brainwashed by a man he never saw for the year he was imprisoned. He was released abruptly after a year and never saw the man again, but had now devoted himself to magic and the brainwashing prevented him from changing his adept discipline. He had attempted to fight it which caused him to become uncontrollably violent at times. The tortue had also snapped his mind somewhere along the line which now causes him to have sudden mood swings.

Both of these things combined caused Nixion to become unstable for a long time. He committed many crimes while practically insane and soon became wanted all over Australia. After a few years one of Zathract’s cases lead him to Nixion and after conveniently saving him from a large horde of zombies, Zathract managed to stabilize Nixion enough for him to regain sanity and, although many sorcerers disagreed whole-heartedly, Zathract managed to convince the Elder Council that Nixion could not be held accountable for his actions. Nixion was free to leave. Unfortunately for the two of them, after that they seemed to be destined to cross each other’s paths far too often. The two did not hate each other but were not far from it and although Zathract did not believe Nixion was responsible for his actions, he did not like the person and nor, it seemed, did Nixion him. The two argued constantly and after a year of trying to rid each selves of the times of seeing each other, they simply accepted that they seemed destined to be together and Nixion started to help Zathract on his cases from time to time. A month ago a large zombie infestation started spreading over Australia. Zathract caught on to it quickly, as usual, and soon contacted Nixion once he realized that the population of the zombies numbered over three thousand and were not the basic zombies he regularly battled. Though they continued to argue, Zathract and Nixion quickly devised a plan which involved recruiting several advanced fighters from all over the country in order to combat the zombies. Nixion had gone out that morning to recruit the first person, Gabriel Colbat, a known symbols professional to Zathract, and somehow had alerted himself to the zombies leading to the battle they had just ended. However, only a tiny part of the massive zombie army that had formed had been destroyed by them.

Zathract knelt beside Nixion and watched him pant. He silently considered many funny things he could say while he knelt there.

“You look terrible.” He decided, a grin coming to his face.

“I’m…going to…kill…you…” Nixion panted heavily.

“I know.” Zathract replied and he helped Nixion up.

“Get off me.” He groaned before half collapsing and Zathract helped him limp away from the area.