[PLOT] That's no ordinary rabbit

[northrend]

Date & Time: All day Friday, December 14th and onward.
Location: Initiate Hold
Characters: All
Summary: The plague has taken hold and there are rampant, angry undead critters running around! Better get rid of them quick, before you attract the Scourge Horde.
Warnings: Undead attacks, localized around cute woodland critters.

[The death tolls of all the woodland animals had come around the same time. Some lasted longer than others, but for the most part, it appeared that most of the sickly animals had passed sometime in the middle of the night. The next morning, transports would awaken to find their furry friends looking...well, less than furry. Their eyes glow a sickly yellow, patches of fur fall off their body, and they continuously cry for help.

Help from whom? You?

Or the group of rampaging ghouls charging toward you?]


[ooc: Original plot post is here!. If you would like me to NPC ghoul attacks in your thread, please mark your subject line with three asterisks. (***) Otherwise, feel free to do it amongst yourselves! Please note that I won't be able to NPC threads until tomorrow afternoon.]

Comments

[leadthebeats]

[ Hearing about this place made Yuri curious. And you know how the saying goes: "curiosity killed the cat". And she probably came at the right time to investigate. ... Only to see that they are looking quite different than normal.

But if they try to attack her, she won't go down without a fight. It didn't matter if she was already dead or not. That didn't matter to her.

So bring it on. ]

*** open to all, particularly his military CR bros ;) feel free to do multiple threads or individual

[priad]

"For Ithaka!" Priad bellows, blasting away with his huge cannon of a hand weapon, sending mass-reactive explosive bolts downrange towards the swarming mass of zombies. "FOR THE EMPEROR!" he roars from his voxcaster, so loud that if anyone is in the immediate area their ears might hurt a bit. He's making a stand right outside the hold building, firing his bolter one-handed while his lighting claw crackles, ready smite any undead foe that dare close with him into smoking ruin.

He may be a Space Marine, Adeptus Astartes, unyielding and nearly unstoppable in battle, but he can't do it alone, not against this many. Dare you join him? Or, if infected, dare you face him?

Someone dares!

[demonbloodblade]

Priad may hear the sound of feet running towards him... from BEHIND. And into one of the open spaces in his arc of fire - on the lightning claw side, probably - someone drops from behind him, yelling a battle cry and splitting an undead in half with her sword, half from the momentum of having lept off the building, and half with the greenish aura around the sword, leaving the two halves hissing with acidic burns.

{Flashback: on hearing the news of the trouble, Meliantha looked out to the window to see the huge armored guy standing there fighting the oncoming horde. Rather than go out the stairs, she opened said window, put feet on the side of the building, and the boots' magics took hold. Then she ran down the building, and, well...}

"Those within are protected! In Helm's name, as long as I stand..." She pauses to cleave another one.

"I will stand to protect them."

Sorry this took so long, but I wanted to get this just right.

[asskickersunite]

Priad's massive metal form is certainly easy enough to spot from the sky. The sound of his bolter rounds echo heavily into the sky, giving Eddie guidance enough to find his ally. Descending from on high, Eddie brings his guitar to bear, beating his mighty wings to bring himself to hover above Priad.

With skin cast in a hellish red hue and glowing yellow eyes, Eddie is pretty much the very picture of the most metal thing Priad would have ever seen, aside from everything in the 40K universe ever. Eddie strums the instrument with mighty fury, creating plumes of fire that explode from beneath the masses of undead. The lucky ones are instantly incinerated, while the others are either picked off with lightning, or Eddie personally swooping in with his axe to deliver the killing blow.

[ofthegrey]

The explosions were enough like the sounds from the bombardment that at first Duncan wasn't sure whether approach or staying away was a better course of action. However, the bellowed words convinced him that whoever was responsible for the concussive sounds wasn't UE and likely needed help.

It took him a little time to zero in on the location, echoes from the buildings around throwing him off. As he rounded a final building, he saw what looked to him to be a golem surrounded by swarming dead. Swiftly and silently, he charged into the fray, a moving, slashing target too fast for the undead to seize or bite. He knew he had a better chance of surviving at the side of the one with all the firepower rather than somewhere in his line of sight.

He rolled beneath a grappling attempt and popped up almost beside him, ichor coated blades bristling outward. "Never thought I'd say this to anyone with such an arsenal, but you look as though you could use a hand."

Open

[foolish_seal]

[First mutants, now zombies.]

[Minato had gotten warning of such already, but the attack did come as a surprise. Good thing he decided against the free pets, else he might have been among them.]

[Thankfully, that is not the case, so he is making rounds of the Hold, cleaning up what undead he come across and keeping an eye out for plague victims that could be healed.]

[...Or, more accurately, he himself isn't doing much, but Thanatos is flying around killing zombies. A Persona can't catch the plague, so it was the safest way for him to deal with things.]

[wilder]

[ Zelos was checking out the training center with zero intention of training when the attack happened. And now it seems that the place is filling up with-]

- Are those zombie rabbits? Seriously?!

[What the hell man. But he'll draw his sword, getting ready to defend himself from this undead foe. Want to help out, get some help, have a dramatic death scene with a guy you don't even know or maybe protest this soon to be mass killing of woodland creatures? Bring it!]

[heyitsdeadpool]

Don't worry, ma'am! I'll save you!

[Wade dives out of freakin' nowhere - actually from the rafters, which makes the landing not quite agree with his ankles - and stabs his katana directly through the head of one of the rabbits. As another jumps, he quickly draws a pistol and blows it out of the air.]

No need to thank me, miss, it's all part of being a total bada- [He finally looks at who he's talking to.] Whoa. Okay, you look way more like a lady from above.

[kumite]

[The last thing you want to do is interrupt Sakura's training.

She'd kept mostly to herself since arriving, preferring the solitude and figuring things out on her own for now. But when you have a bunch of rabid, disgusting rodents and other beasts trying to use you as beef jerky, there's little else you can do.

Her body tensed and went into a fighting stance, cautious and watching their movements, striking when they exposed themselves most. If this was going to be a fight, she'd need to conserve energy. But when her fist landed, she made sure it counted, swung as hard and quick, snapping back on impact. The last thing she needed was another vault locked down and eating everyone in it alive.]

Tch. What a waste.

[for Adam Park]

[oncearanger]

When Billy had received the news about the virus, he had set about preparing. Locking food away, preparing to boil water if necessary, and listening for any intrusion in the walls. He didn't consider himself the best combatant for actually doing the killing at the moment.

But he needed to secure a part. He ran to the junkyard, seizing a pipe, and retreated...but too late. He was already drawn into battle with a zombie rabbit, swiping at it---his tridents, while useful in many other ways, were not the best weapons for attacking rabbits. He really needed a gun or some other projectile weapon. What he wouldn't give for his old Blade Blaster right now.

Next project! If he lived, of course. For now, it was time to keep running and hoping.

sorry billy and bunny.

[kungfublackfrog]

If someone would've asked Adam a year ago about getting involved in anything involving zombies, he wouldn't have an answer. Then some strange timey wimey wibbly stuff decided to happen and somehow the undead of people he knew about came to life and tried to wipe everything out from the cities.

While he wasn't expecting to get any type of vacation being brought to this place, the undead creatures on his second day was not a good start. Just great, he thought he left his crappy luck back in Fortuna. Apparently not. He didn't know why he was even at the junkyard in the first place. Just...something was nagging at him like he could find something useful there. It took time but the man reached it without any fuss, but just in case, he morphed into his ranger form because it already has a weapon included with it.

Then he saw someone being chased by more of those undead rabbits...didn't he look familiar? It almost looks like-

"Billy?!"

No time to waste pondering if that is indeed his friend and fellow ranger. There will be one bunny being slammed into some junk aside due to a good hard kick from Adam.

"Zombie bunnies...that's a new one."

[Open] Zombie!Mage /o/

[uncalled_for]

[OOC Note: Her death is pre-planned so please don't kill her or heal her. HAHAHA. That sorta throws things off. But she'd love to try and gnaw on someone. :) Also oops no zombie icons mah bad. D:]

To say she wasn't feeling like herself when she re-awoke was an understatement. Her whole body felt heavy and unattached from her, it was unnatural. It was a sort of tired she was unfamiliar with, even in her worst states. Yet her body felt inclined to move despite the exhaustion, or what appeared to be left of it. Her eyes held a murky haze over them but she could see, but what she could lay her eyes on horrified her. The small opening where she had been bitten on her hand, the fabric from her armor torn away, she could see the paleness of her skin. A slight blueish tint had taken over and where the bite had been remained as a purple bruise even though she had healed the wound before. All of her veins seemed visible with sickening clarity.

Despite the horror she felt, her body did nothing to respond to it. Instead it moved, the back of her mind being pinged to shift it in a direction she couldn't understand. She recognized the area, it was between the clinic and housing development, though she had managed to move herself away from the main route before collapsing. That hardly seemed to matter now, however, as her body slowly shuffled in the chosen direction, away from where she had been laying. Her staff was still on the ground where she had been and with effort she tried to turn herself. Picking up her staff was an instinct to her and she could never go without it, and yet her body ignored any attempts she made. She had no control.

[ofthegrey]

It had taken some time for Duncan to be aware anything was amiss. As he often found himself doing these days, he had been walking the streets of the city's underbelly, although it seemed hardly fair to make the distinction. There was nowhere he would consider "high class" when it came to the island. He had found some of the locals more talkative and cooperative than others, none he would consider connections. He knew such things took time and possibly the sort of currency he'd never have in a strange land, beyond coin or this new concept to him, credit.

His first inkling that something was amiss came when he noticed someone shambling and a small group of people moving away from the man with hurried steps and uncertain looks. His attempt to accost one earned him little more than a garbled answer about drugs and that he was free to ask the "freak" himself.

By the time he drew close enough to do so, it was clear the only answer he'd receive was violence. His daggers sliced through the corpse-like flesh with disturbing ease, and blood oozed instead of flowing. It wasn't the first time he had ever fought the undead. He hadn't thought that he would encounter them here, not like this.

His attempts to contact Fiona through the sometimes frustrating device had come to naught. He knew her well enough to know that at a time like this, she was most likely at the clinic or doing her best to help others find safety there. He checked the building itself first thing. It disturbed him to hear that she had been there a few times but no one had seen her lately.

He headed back out into the streets, systematically checking each in a search pattern that encompassed the blocks between the clinic and the housing complex. He had been forced to cut down a few more before spotting her. As he rounded a building a few feet away, he saw that she was walking away from her staff.

"Fiona!" he called as loudly as he dared. He didn't want to bring more attention from the shambling dead if he could help it.

*** open

[songofvalor]

[ Leliana is going RENEGADE VIGILANTE, MOTHERFUCKERS ]

[ She's stationed on top of a really high building with the door barred with several wooden planks. She has a bird's eye view of everything here, so she's taking down animals with her arrows one by one. Given her training, her arrows are not only swift, but also accurate. ]

[torchedhunt]

[Leliana will have company up there soon enough, if only for one simple reason: she would not risk her Sirene becoming infected. She has already lost too many to the Scourge.

While the door may be out, she has traveled rough terrain before and had to jump from rock to rock to cross mountains 'cause wind riders are expensive, so she is eventually able to get to Leliana with some effort. Sirene, being a dragonhawk, is of course able to get up there with ease because she can fly.

Of course, once she realizes there's someone else with the same idea, she...attempts to politely get Leliana's attention.] Staying with the scourge is out of the question, so I hope you do not mind company, miss.

[asskickersunite]

[Tonight, Leliana will be graced by what is perhaps the most metal thing she will ever see. Descending from on high is one Eddie Riggs, with skin hued a hellish red and glowing yellow eyes and a black guitar gripped firmly in his hands, flames seeming to erupt from the instrument itself before settling onto the body of the guitar, as if they had been painted on there. Guess who finally figured out what his guitar's ability was? Yeah, this guy.]

Alright motherfuckers, time to RIDE THE LIGHTNING!

[Strumming his instrument with mighty fury, the roadie calls down lightning from the sky, commanding the bolts to strike in the heaviest clusters of undead.]

closed to sharpe

[feyted]

( Mia had been paying attention in a half-minded way to the network today. Nothing of the dragon woman's word had reached her.

Pushing her hair back over her shoulder, Mia stepped out into the dreary grays of the open street. Rain falls in a steady beat on the sidewalks, drumming down on the top of her umbrella as she steps out in her galoshes.

She doesn't notice the streets over here are quieter than usual. While the Transports talk to each other, the Initiative also acts, redirecting people away from an area growing increasingly unstable. They don't want unnecessary attention.

Shambling corpses are unnecessary attention.

Stepping off the curb and crossing the street, Mia looks both ways, failing to note the joggers coming her way are not, in fact, joggers. They are ghouls.

And that is a terrible thing. )

LMAO oh mia. oh *mia*....

[sharpe]

[ Talking to each other is for the higher officers to do. Sharpe hasn't got much attention to pay to people who keep talking and talking, especially not when there seems to be an army of corpses walking around where they shouldn't be.

There's powder burns on his face by now as he goes through the zombies. Best solution seems to be shooting them in the head. The splatter's a bit annoying, but Sharpe's been covered in blood and the insides of a man plenty enough, and he barely feels it. It's only a little bit inconvenient when shards of bone flies around, or blood threatens to fall into his eyes, but a quick wipe of the hand will do it. Or the rain.

He's been walking around the city. Thing he's noticed about this place, there's plenty of civilians without a lick of ability to defend themselves- and speak of the devil. (Not literally, Christ, there's a man who claims to be the Devil here.) Sharpe stares for a moment at the woman crossing the street, entirely unaware.

One, two, three, four, five- six. That'll take two minutes. Sharpe ducks underneath an awning. The rifle's loaded, and he shoots. The sound of the gunshot rips through the air, but Sharpe barely notices. Reload, butt on shoulder, fire. Reload, butt on shoulder, fire. He can feel his shoulder starting to bruise, but the bone's used to this abuse. Reload, butt on shoulder, fire.

The other two's a little distance away. Sharpe swipes the power away from his face. ]

Get yerself away from here, ma'am! [ The gunshot's probably been warning enough, but Sharpe isn't much for trusting the intelligence of civilians to run. They freeze up often.

He ducks under the awning again. Load, butt on shoulder, and there's just one more of them left. ]

Open;

[kamenriderkabuto]

[The thicker armor of his rider form was ideal for handling these things, since biting alone is never going to get through the plating. Wielding his sidearm in it's bladed axe like form, he cuts through the zombies left and right; however, his top priority here isn't slaughtering everything he sees. Mostly, he's out to keep an eye out for people who might need help, but failing that he'll just keep cutting down the infected. To him, they're a lost cause.]

[charming_jerk]

[There's a guy out here fighting zombies who's looking like he's having the time of his life. He is, however, unarmored, and fighting off zombies with a lead pipe. He's also getting a bit cornered but a lot of them and could probably use some help, even though he'd never ask.]

Ya think you can bite me, assholes? Keep tryin'!

For ALLEN and ZELOS. sup roomies

[blossomgale]

[ Tiger Festival the rabbit is sure looking different and very ugly today with patches of fur falling out and glowing eyes. The little undead creature is hopping about in the apartment, trying to flee outside, and from Sophie. Unfortunately, all means of escape for the undead rabbit are closed off and all these two are doing are making a mess of the apartment. ]

No! Tiger Festival! Let me help you! [ ...Somehow. She's not sure really. She doesn't have a clue that if she keeps him any longer in the apartment, she'll be attracting more undead in the area. ]

[debtor]

[As soon as Allen heard that the adorable fluffy critters that had appeared weren't what they seemed, he'd come rushing back to the apartment. There's no time to spare! It'd been a few days since Sophie had brought that rabbit home, and who knows what state it might be in now.

And so he soon bursts inside the apartment, dramatically!!]

Sophie!?

locked to arthas

[lovesgod]

It was all about finding the right method of transmission, really. Lucifer had no doubt that Dean would have somehow established that he was using a small group of farm animals and murdered them all, heartless bastard and general scum of the Earth that he was, but apparently the confused hero of the apocalypse had no such ideas with other undead lords. The whole plan really was fantastic. It took something to impressed the devil.

He'd recognized the plague from those warhouse. Arthas, right? He cast a quick spell to trace the dark magic - patterns all across the land, though this one was distinct from all the others, which had a slightly different cast to it. So it was the unique one that he followed, until he came across the overdramatic undead creature.

"The cute forest animals was a really good idea," he said, appearing with the sound of wingbeats and displaced air at the death knight's side. "Especially given there's no regulating body to that kind of thing in this universe. Me, I transmitted my plague via vaccine, which is a whole different set of circumstances. You can really brew up a nasty disease, you know? Do you have some sort of potion, or is it some kind of biproduct of the flashy armor and the flashier sword, or is it a spell? You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."

[northrend]

Lucifer would find Frostmourne turned upon him the moment he appeared too close, pointed directly where is soul would have been housed (if he even had one). It becomes frightfully clear that he doesn't appreciate people sneaking up on him in that moment, regardless of where he is. Thankfully, he had been away from his small fortress, where he had been hiding Jaina Proudmoore, so the defensive reaction was merely a threat.

He remembers this one's voice, so all he gets is a small glare of displeasure before Arthas lowers his weapon to stare instead. He couldn't quite figure him out, perhaps due to what he was. The impasse sort of way that he accepted his misdeeds never went unnoticed, and he could appreciate someone being fond of his work, but that didn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things, did it?

"Its a bit more complicated than that," he replies, voice drawn out with the echo of undeath.

OPEN (action or prose, up to you!)

[ladyspitfire]

Elissa was no stranger to monsters, not since she'd become a Warden and made fighting darkspawn her mission. She'd destroyed demons just the same, too, and their ilk were not unknown to her either. She had even fought the living dead before, corpses brought to life by blood mages who had managed to summon them. No matter how often she encountered them, it still sent a shiver of discomfort through her, the process unnatural and frightening.

She cut through the monsters she encountered with some semblance of ease, never slowing as she made her way through the small clusters of creatures. She could hardly tell if what came from them was blood or ichor, and she did not dare to stop to wonder. Her mind was focused on the battle and little else, though she had a passing twinge of remorse for the animals she was cutting into. She'd never seen them used before, only dead people, and they are no less horrifying with their dead eyes and the hideous twist to their features.

When she finally faced the undead, the humans, she could not stop herself from feeling sick, though she did not let it show on her features. Instead, one sword blazed to life with fire, the other remaining outwardly unchanged. "Come, then," she murmured to no one, and set into them with the same force as she had with the animals, steely-eyed.

[ofthegrey]

Duncan had been moving through the throngs of undead with a singular driving purpose ever since his encounter with Fiona, to try to find those for whom he felt responsible. He had cut down enemies as a secondary goal. They were in his way.

Fiona's staff felt strange against his back, hastily secured in his belt because he had nowhere else to put it. Periodically, he would knock his head against it. It was that or have it trip him up, a choice of a lesser of two evils.

He saw the flame of the sword before he saw who wielded it. He cut in toward her to take down some of those besieging her from the flank. He fought with uncharacteristic fury, at last coming face to face. "I'm alive," he said immediately, unsure of how easy that might be to tell with him covered in gore.

[OPEN to action or prose] Streets of Exsilium

[ofthegrey]

How long he has been out in this nightmarish stream over never ending undead attacks he can't say. He returned to his quarters only once, to put away something he couldn't keep in his possession without endangering himself. Night has fallen, but he doesn't fear the shadows.

He's blood coated and grim, seeking out survivors who might be surrounded or trapped and looking to get to safety. As he moves through the streets, he remains watchful. He doesn't wish to mistake friend for foe, nor to be mistaken for one of the creatures himself.

[strategic_guile]

Night time wasn't the best time to be out and Blaine was heading back towards the relative safety of the apartments. He had lost track of Gordon some time ago and had moved further away from the center of town to avoid possibly shooting someone who wasn't a zombie. Now he was making his way back and moving silently through the streets, avoiding any groups of zombies if they were too big for him to pick off in a rush. He was running low on bullets as well, which was even more a reason to go back than the darkness was. He stopped, spotting a long figure, but he didn't shoot yet. He stepped out, peering closer and lifting his gun so he could pop off a shot if it turned out to be the undead.