applesaucedream | We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

Current Music: September 29th/30th, 2013

We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

photo zombie dream party_zpsbb0hfksu.jpg

The city has been abandoned.

Its infrastructure has been slowly deteriorating for quite some time, now. Traffic has long since ground to a permanent halt, taxis and trucks rusting by the curbs or abandoned mid-intersection. Most of the ground-floor windows have been shattered. Electricity is spotty, if it can be found at all. The eerie silence is broken only by the wind, the calls of crows, or the gentle collapse of some structure or other. And, of course, the occasional screams.

The city has been abandoned, but it is not empty.

What caused the various outbreaks hardly matters. Viral infection, fungal infection, some new or ancient bacterium suddenly released into the general populace - who knows? What does matter is that the city has become home to thousands if zombies, some slow, some fast, some mindless, some retaining a savage kind of intelligence. And they are all so, so hungry.

There are weapons to be found or improvised, and places to hide if you're lucky enough to come across someplace well-fortified and otherwise empty. Others have clearly had the same idea, leaving hastily constructed barricades in some places. You might even take those as a blessing, if the conspicuous absence of the original builders doesn't bother you. ~~They're probably living on a nice farm somewhere.~~

One thing is certain: if you don't want to succumb to whatever plagues have ravaged this place, you will have to fight for your survival.

[OOC: usual dream party rules apply; all are welcome to participate, and characters can remember or forget at the players' discretion. Also, usual zombie rules apply: if you get bitten, you'll be turned into the sort of zombie that bit you. Whether your characters deal with comically dim shamblers or the terrifying sprinty variety is up to you.

Finally, let's just go ahead and say tw: violence and gore for the post as a whole, because it's gonna get messy, folks.]

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The piercing clang snaps her attention over, hand raised defensively, but it's not one of them, it's - is that-?

"Greta?!" She staggers slightly and then hauls ass over and up the fire escape. As she comes up she takes in the boot, the combat trousers and the body armor, all this gear. Is that really her?

She clambers up and rights herself, panting softly, looking up at her unmistakable face, her expression strange and foreign. Cold. Distant.

"Greta?" she says again, her voice trembling a little. How long has it been, how much has this changed her? She lifts her organic hand, reaching out to touch her.

There's that name again, close enough to her own to be a bit jarring. More than a bit, when accompanied by the way the woman's looking at her. Rita steps back to admit her, recovering her side-arm as she goes.

Then, in a smooth, practiced motion, she swings it up to point right between the woman's eyes.

"Have you been bitten?" she asks tersely. It's not immediately apparent; she's covered in blood, and her behavior doesn't scream 'stable.' This could be early stages.

She manages to limit her reaction to a flinch and a startled blink before narrowing her eyes slightly. This isn't Greta. Somehow. It can't be.

"No, I have not," she says, and lifts her other hand to gently push the gun down. "I have protective shielding, generated by this." She wiggles her fingers. "Who are you?"

A muscle in her jaw twitches when the woman pushes her gun down, but she withdraws, holstering the weapon. It was too measured a reaction for a plague victim, for all that was still arguably insane. (And really, who is she to judge?)

There are worse allies to have than the kind of woman who punches the enemy to actual death with a mechanical arm - one that can also, apparently, generate 'protective shielding.' What kind of tech is she working with? She eyes the arm, then lifts her gaze back to the other woman's face.

"Rita Vrataski." She's guessing her name won't be recognized, this time. What a goddamn treat. "You?"

'Rita' is so close to 'Greta', but she's just not the same person at all. Iman regards her uneasily for a moment before answering, "Iman Asadi. I'm looking for a woman who looks exactly you."

Blunt, but to the point.

She steps around Rita gingerly and wanders into her proverbial lair, just to have a look around. "So I won't be staying."

"Greta," she says, faintly skeptical in a who-honestly-names-their-kid-that-anymore kind of way. Her apparent resemblance to the other woman isn't too hard to believe, given Asadi's initial reaction to her, but it still seems... weird. As if today wasn't weird enough.

She watches Asadi explore the flat, though there isn't much to see. There's a thick layer of dust over almost everything, save the furniture she moved to barricade the door, and the patterns of disturbance make it clear enough that she's spent most of her time hovering by the window. Waiting. For nothing in particular, which might make this the best shot at making some progress that she's going to get.

"What else can that do?" she asks with a pointed nod towards the mechanical prosthetic.

"Yep." Iman follows the obvious steps to the window, looking out from Rita's vantage point. At the question she looks down at her arm. "Pretty much anything," she says. "I use it to generate energy fields, disruptions, alter the state of matter around me. I have to conserve that energy where I can. It also makes a pretty damn good bludgeon. That only runs out when I do."

She turns to size Rita up. "You got any bullets in that thing?" She nods toward the holstered sidearm.

That sounds... like bullshit, frankly. She's spent enough time with Dr. Carter to recognize science-based chatter that goes well above her paygrade, but this isn't just technical, it's impossible. 'Alter the state of matter'? Seriously?

"Wouldn't be carrying it otherwise," she deadpans, resting her hands on her hips. "But my real weapon is out there." She inclines her head towards the window, then lets her gaze fall back to Asadi's arm. "Can that thing seriously generate energy?" Like, say... recharge a battery?

"What," Iman peers out the window for a moment until her eyes fall on what looks like a metal suit, "that?" She turns back to assess Rita, which is weird, looking at her is weird, she's so... different, but so hot. This is the worst.

"Yes, it can. You want me to give it a jump?" She wastes no time stepping past Rita and hefting herself back onto the fire escape. "Honestly it looks like it'd just slow you down, but if that's what you got, then I'll see what I can do." She's nice like that. Looks like wherever Rita's from they're miles behind Iman's universe on prosthetic and robotic technologies, but what else is new.

Rita follows her out, her gaze hardening a little at Asadi's dismissive assessment of the suit. No point in correcting her; if she really can boost the batteries, she'll see what it can do soon enough. If not, Rita's no worse off than she was before Asadi showed up.

"Batteries are dead," she explains, stepping lightly down onto the pavement. "Primary and spare." A press of a button drops the spare out of its slot and into her palm, and she passes it over with a slightly arched eyebrow.

And it runs on batteries. How immensely impractical. Iman frowns, folding her arms as she gives the thing a once-over.

"This might take a lot out of me," she says. "It'll recharge - no batteries here, it comes out of me, just - I can't exactly stop for a breather, here." Well, maybe they can trade off. She reaches out to take the battery. "Here goes nothing."

She reaches into the battery's inner workings - like riding a bike, even if it feels strangely unfamiliar, like she hasn't done it in a while - and tells it to wake up.

"And you should be good for another..." she slips it back into its slot, "however long these things last."

The suit whirrs back into ready mode, and Rita actually smiles. Her ammo might be limited - and already on the low side - but as long as the suit itself is functioning... hell, she can do plenty of damage just with her sword, not to mention the punishing edges of the suit itself.

She gives Asadi a reassessing once-over - looks like she's found her new best friend - and then unholsters her sidearm, offering it to the other woman. If she's draining herself just to power the suit, it's probably the least Rita can do. "Here. This might help tide you over for a bit."

Once Asadi's relieved her of the gun, Rita steps into the suit, shifting her weight as it settles around her with a series of hydraulic hisses. God, that is just... so much better. She takes an experimental step or two, making sure everything feels as it should. Whatever weird trick Asadi did with the battery, the suit can't seem to tell the difference. She rolls her shoulders, then stoops to retrieve her sword.

"We should leave the island," she says, shifting back around to face Asadi. "But I'm guessing you're not going anywhere without my doppelgänger."

Edited 2015-08-01 19:30 (UTC)

"Correct," she says, taking the sidearm with a grateful nod and trying very hard not to think about how good she looks like this. This is a total stranger who happens to look exactly like the woman she loves, no big deal, right? This body just looks really good covered in scrapes and grime and robot suit. Not that Greta would look good like that, that would be awful. Oh dear god get a hold of yourself.

"But more to the point," she says, "we can't leave the island. No one leaves the island."

She about-faces, scanning the area for any immediate danger. Rita cleaned this place out pretty good. "We find Greta and then find a place to hole up for as long as we can." And that's the end of that.

Either she's missing something, or Asadi's got an even grimmer general outlook than she does. It's hard to say which is more likely. But there's not much point in arguing right now. They find this 'Greta' person - that's step one no matter how the final plan shakes out - and then they can decide what to do next. The thought of holing up again gnaws at her, but if push comes to shove, she might be able to convince Asadi to give her gear one last boost before striking back out on her own.

"Right," she says, hefting the sword up onto her shoulder. Even with the living population drastically reduced as it is, it's not going to be easy to locate one specific person in all of Manhattan. And that's assuming - perhaps too charitably - that Greta hasn't already joined the horde. "Well, you know her best. Where would she go?"

That might be too charitable, too. Asadi's initial charge up the street had been purposeful, but not especially well-reasoned. Rita's not joining her on a directionless slog of unmitigated desperation. They pick a target, then they head out.

Iman chews her lip, hating the question as much as she knows it's necessary. She's already scouted out Greta's building and neighborhood, which was a fucking bust. The city was still pretty new to her.

"She's not exactly from this time period," she says. "I mean, she's from like, fucking medieval ages. This isn't comfortable territory for her."

She realizes how unlikely this makes it sound that she's even still alive.

But she refuses to consider that outcome. No matter how unscientific, how inadvisable, how selfish - she just can't. This is the only reason she's still working so damn hard and that doesn't make her proud but it's what it is.

"I think the park is the only viable option," she says finally. "But she wouldn't just be wandering, she'll be hiding somewhere, trying to stay safe. Not sure where that could be."

She sets off toward the park anyway. It's a start. It's a direction. That's all she needs.

Oh. The new best friend is clinically insane. That's good to know.

Rita doesn't follow for a few moments. Instead, she considers whether the odds of finding Greta alive would be any higher if she was or wasn't imaginary. If Asadi's actually telling the truth about where (or when) Greta comes from, Rita can't imagine she would have lasted that long. Even in the park, where there's less good cover to counterbalance the smaller population density.

Then again, if Greta's origins were a bit more believable, would that really make this less of a wild goose chase?

Probably not.

She shifts to look back over her shoulder. The Queensboro Bridge is close.

The park isn't that much farther.

God. Fine. She'll get Asadi to the park; she owes her more than a sidearm for the battery.

There's a quiet sigh, and then rhythmic whirring as she sets off after Asadi. "So," she says once she's caught up, "what makes you so certain she's still alive?" It's not a nice question, but this isn't a nice situation. One of them has to be practical.

Oh, we're already doing that, are we. Lovely. Iman frowns tightly and weighs the pros and cons of just not answering.

"I'm not," she says at last. "Thank you."

She could offer more explanation but she won't, 'cause seriously? Fuck that. This woman might be Greta's ~~extremely hot~~ doppelganger but she is no Greta Baker.

Rita lapses into a silence that is only somewhat satisfied and definitely doesn't qualify as 'companionable.' But silence is better than talking for plenty of reasons, and at least now she knows Asadi's head isn't entirely in the sand.

They make it to Park without incident, but the avenue is too wide and unobstructed for them to escape the notice of a ragged cluster of zombies a few blocks away. "Company," Rita says with a nod. And they're runners, too - that's just perfect.

Rita doesn't wait to meet them. She charges forward, the suit elongating her stride, and swings her sword in a vicious arc, cleaving the frontrunner in half. No resets, no fuck-ups, no option but to get the job done. She rounds on another, using her own momentum to send the blade straight through the putrified remains of its abdomen, severing its spine. It still claws at her blindly; she lifts a fist to its head and spares a short burst of gunfire at point-blank range, shredding its skull into an unrecognizable, pulpy mess. Still gotta conserve ammo.

But hey, the suit's working. And this is vastly preferable to sitting in some random flat.

Iman raises her arm, ready to fire a blast, but then Rita just takes off. Holy shit, she can move in that thing. She must be strong as all hell. Iman ends up slowing and stopping completely, just watching as Rita rains down hell on the horde. That sword. Her fucking gymnastic grace.

"Fuck me," she announces to no one before recovering herself and charging forward. As if she's gonna let Rita have all the fun.

She slams her arm through a creature that's coming up behind Rita, swings and knocks another down with it, and then fires an unforgiving pulse of rippling energy, the pressure alternately crushing and ripping them apart. That was a big one, all right. With that and the battery recharge she's gonna need to wait a bit. Which is fine, cause she can sure as fuck still punch.

She draws the sidearm too, and gets several clean headshots in a row.

All right, playing field leveled. Now she can just break some faces.

She does not think about how cathartic this is.

After dealing with mimics, there's almost no contest. Close-range combat is their only option and the only time they pose a real threat, their movements are comparatively slow and predictable as hell. This feels less like real combat and more like an unnecessarily messy training exercise as Rita methodically slices her way through the horde, no longer bothering with guns or grenades because she doesn't need to. The sword is enough.

It helps that she has back-up. Asadi does some more weird science with her arm, causing two of them to crumple like a pair of beer cans, then lapses into neatly executed headshots and a hell of a lot of punching. Shit, imagine what she could do if she had a suit.

Most of the zombies have been downed, but there's one more straggler approaching. Rita charges forward and cuts it down, planting a boot in its face as she skids down the pavement, leaving a wet smear behind her.

Okay. That was fun.

She walks back to Asadi, breathing heavily but in better spirits than she was before. "Okay?" she asks, looking her over for obvious wounds.

"For all intents and purposes," says Iman, looking up at her with a small, sharp grin. "That was pretty badass."

She straightens up and wipes herself off, more or less. "All right then. Shall we?"

The journey to the park is slightly less fraught, a miraculously clear shot. The park itself is a mostly flat fucking surface crawling with scattered clusters of undead. The procession is slow and stubborn, lit with scattered slicing and punching.

"Look," she's snapping after an uncertain amount of exploration. "If you want to try getting off this rock you are welcome, I'm just saying, and it's not cynicism, it's not going to-"

She cuts herself off as her eyes drift over the horizon and land on - is that a castle?

"Okay," she says, and points to it. "That's where we're going. Happy?"

"Thrilled," Rita deadpans as a shambler reels out of a neighboring shrub. She dispatches it absently with the flat of her sword. The park had been a more manageable search area than 'the entire island,' but it's still pretty goddamn huge. A more specific target is a welcome change. The fact that it's a castle is... yeah, probably fitting. If Greta really is from some medieval era - or just a little too into that kind of thing - sure, that's probably where she'd go. It looks fortified, at least from here, so they might even find her alive.

The castle itself isn't very big, which becomes more apparent the closer they draw to it. Most of the windows appear to have been smashed, though many have been hastily recovered with wood and formica. There's something flying from one of the tower windows, though - a mostly-white scrap of cloth, twisting in the intermittent breeze like a flag of surrender. Rita squints at it, and the thinner ties streaming off the main square of fabric. "Is that an apron?"

"Where?" Iman looks up sharply, follows Rita's point, and breaks into a huge, relieved grin. "That's her. That's her!"

Thank fuck. She picks up the pace, just barely avoiding breaking into a run. She knows this isn't the end of it. There is still a solid chance Greta was there and... isn't, anymore... but she can't think about that. Can't, won't.

"She's a baker!" she shouts over her shoulder, and neatly clotheslines another zombie as it jumps up out of a shrubbery.

Step one almost - fucking finally - completed. Rita breaks into a lope, swinging at any zombies that have the poor fortune to come after them. The short iron fence between the first pavilion on the rest of the park bears a few signs of fortification, but either it wasn't enough, or the fortifiers realized they were wasting their time and pulled back. Now, most of it lies flattened. Rita steps over it and crosses the pavilion in a few long strides, ignoring the corpses already stretched across the stones.

The arched doorway leading into the lower level of the building is shut, but riddled with sizable holes. Rita approaches it sidelong, and shouts, "Anyone alive in there?"

Nothing. No movement.

Rita glances at Asadi, then shoulders the door open and steps inside.

It used to be a children's museum, from the looks of things. Most of the tables and chairs are now covering the windows, but there's a large fake tree covered in model birds. Rita tromps past it, looking for the stairs.

Iman passes her easily - Rita's fast when she needs to be, but not exactly nimble in that thing - and darts up the stairs as soon as she spots them. She has a rough idea of where the apron-marked window is and she has to get to it as fast as possible.

"Greta?" she calls recklessly. "Greta, are you there?"

The place is actually pretty small given how it looks from outside. She swerves into what would ordinarily be an adorable little tower room, though it's currently more of an unnervingly cramped space, and there - there she is, there she is, still alive, fighting one of them back with a push broom.

"Greta!" She grabs the thing, punches it once for good measure and hurls it aside for Rita to take care of if her punch didn't do the job. She turns and throws her arms around Greta without hesitation, pulling her close and holding on tight. "Thank god you're okay," she whispers, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

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oh boy violence and gore

more gore and weird shit, gun violence, etc

and so, dear reader, they continued to slaughter the undead

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