Everyone scrambled when the alarm went off. Smash could see the dust cloud being kicked up in the early morning sun. He’d hoped that they would get another day or two to prepare but the preparations they’d devised would have to do. Standing out in front, he instructed the rest of the Misfits and Survivors as they came on to the field:

***You’ve Entered Raid Chat***

Smashit: Wait until they’ve reached me to trigger your abilities. We want to pull them into our defensive perimeter.

Holding Reaver aloft, Smash stood prepared to accept the first wave of attackers. He’d been training on increasing his defense by letting Thag shoot at him. The undead they fought in Scotland had prepared him for the horrors he would face on the battlefield today and most importantly his friends were right behind him. The raid stood ready and silently rehearsed their roles: Cheezus was to disappear into the undead mass and find their weaknesses, Thag was to provide fire support, Deathberry was still working on finalizing their last defense and would be coming out of the factory soon, Linca was to provide their main DPS with AOE healing and defense through her new scepter, and finally Seona had rallied the dwarves. Their sister guild had also been preparing for battle. Rygor stood by his side, ever the ready defender while Kantala was helping Deathberry with some last-minute engineering.

The first wave struck a minute later. Smash could see thousands of them on the horizon but this was the advance pack. Faster than any zombie should have a right to move these creatures came right at them, each as fast as a horse. Smash heard rather than saw everyone take a step back but now wasn’t the time to hesitate. “Hold the line raiders. It’s zombie killing time,” he said enthusiastically.

The first zombie reached him, its face hideous with pus and saggy flesh, eyes dead in their sockets. He batted it away contemptuously with Reaver and saw it do its magic for the first time: glowing white it sucked the life out of the creature and left it a dried husk. Seconds later he and Rygor were surrounded by an undead sea of ugly faces and bloody claws. He could hear the shouts of the raiders as they joined the fray and began to slay their enemy. As fast as these creatures were, they were no match for their guilds and they quickly smashed apart the attackers.

Just as they were about to completely disengage the next wave hit. Thousands of skeletal warriors marched straight towards them in tight formation. Having faced these disciplined undead before, Smash was not looking to repeat the experience. If they didn’t break up the line they would be crushed before it. “Thag, bring out the BFG,” Smash yelled over the fighting. Cheezus had already disappeared into their ranks, no doubt looking for any weakness they could exploit.

A moment later he saw the sand beneath her feet shift and a giant Gear emerged from below them. It was a turret with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top. One the Survivors started helping her load feed shells into the gun while Thag mowed down the right side of the skeleton phalanx. Smash ducked and covered his ears. Chunks of bone landed by his head as he lay in the sand where he could feel the ack, ack, ack, ack of the heavy caliber rounds tearing apart their foes. Any living enemy would have broken formation by now but the undead continued to advance. Smash’s notification windows popped up briefly but he swiped them away. If they survived he was sure they would gain several levels.

Behind the skeletal warriors were zombies larger and fatter than Smash had ever seen. Their bodies were comprised of smaller zombies, like a zombie jig-saw puzzle. One of the creatures had a smaller zombie head poking out of its belly, it’s face locked into a perpetual grimace. Another had just the feet sticking out at odd angles. These blobs of flesh didn’t so much walk forward as they oozed and Smash could even see flesh left behind in their massive tracks. The first round that hit a fat zombie just disappeared like the creature’s stomach had swallowed it whole.

As the fat zombies pushed into their defense barrier, Seona’s team of dwarves surged forward, mighty axes in hand, as stone hands reached out of the earth and held their enemies’ legs fast. Linca was a holy ball of light destroying all she touched with her scepter but she was not fast enough to keep one of the fat bastards from smashing the .50 caliber off its mounting and nearly beheading Thag in the process. She rolled to one side and stood by Smash for a moment before she pulled out her trusty shotgun and began blasting.

Rygor pointed to something ahead of them, “More warriors incoming,” he shouted above the gun blasts and sickening crunches of the fat zombies smashing into the dwarves. Smash glanced where Rygor had pointed and before them was another phalanx of the skeletal warriors. This was going to be more difficult without the .50 caliber. Where were Deathberry and Kantala?

Looking at their advancing enemy and weighing his options, Smash saw gunfire and a blade sever one of the commander’s heads. The warriors broke ranks to try to deal with Cheezus and that was their opportunity. “Linca, come with me,” he yelled. A moment later the two of them were blasting the skeletal warriors with holy energy. Reaver came down on another skeleton’s shoulder, cleaving the creature in two. Linca’s enhanced holy light spells, enhanced by her holy scepter, blasted two creatures at a time. Bone dust accumulated at their feet in giant piles that looked like snow had come to the Outback.

They were just finishing the skeletal warriors and the fat zombies when the next wave hit. First came the pterodactyl like skeletons, flying towards them. These were followed closely by disgusting zombie cats with mangled patches of fur and strange body parts glued on in places no cat would have. While the raid was busy trying to get a handle on that, zombie warriors wearing plate mail came charging in on skeletal horses and finally more fat zombies.

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Smash finished off one of the strange cat creatures that had hissed and spit at him while it died. His armor was covered in zombie guts and he smelled the sickly-sweet odor of dead cat. It was like hot garbage mixed with body odor. Yuck. The dwarven ranks had been greatly diminished while fighting the fat zombies and he saw Seona fighting with tears in her eyes, her hands bloody as she set about her grim task. Linca’s mana was running low and she used her healing AOEs sparingly now as they fight wore on. Rygor wasn’t looking too hot either and Cheezus was nowhere to be found. Hopefully, he hadn’t gone up against something he couldn’t handle.

He was about to order a retreat to the cave entrance when he saw a metal construct coming out of the cave. It was a gundum like Deathberry had made before; however, this time it was absolutely massive – probably about the size of a bus turned on its end. He and Kantala were standing on top of the giant gundam with big grins on their faces. Had these two been playing around while the rest of them were getting their butt’s kicked?

***You’ve Entered Raid Chat***

Smashit: Tell me that thing is worth getting our faces pounded in for.

Deathberry: Wait and see.

Kantala: You might want to duck.

With that said, the giant robot lifted both arms towards their enemies and launched a series of rockets which exploded into the undead. Smash and the other raiders had hit the deck as instructed and now chunks of bone and rotting flesh clanked off his armor as their enemies died a second time. Smash stood up looking at the smoky craters that that gundam had left in the undead’s front lines. About half of them had been wiped out. It looked like the robot was out of missiles though so it would be up to the rest of the raid to clean up the rest.

Smash had worked his way towards one of the larger fat zombies and was just about to hack it apart when a giant skeletal warrior stepped forward, larger than any he’d seen previously. It was wearing a viking helmet and wore a well-polished breastplate. Above the creature’s head read Commander Drak – Level 90. It looks like the fight was just getting started.

About a minute later, Smash rested his head on the ground for just a bit and tried to catch his breath. Despite the amount of damage, he should be doing with Reaver the creature in front of him showed little signs of slowing down. If anything, he was the one struggling, hence being doubled over on the ground. Checking his stats, he saw he was down to less than a third of his health. Worse yet, the rest of the raid hadn’t been able to catch up to him after he’d pushed into the enemy front lines and he was facing what was probably a raid boss alone.

A wicked laugh interrupted his self-pity. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” the giant skeleton said, with a toothy grin.

Smash looked at the creature again with a blank look. He’d seen a lot of undead but he’d never seen this particular one.

“Such a pity Sean,” it brought a massive ax down towards his head and he had no time to think about how this creature knew his name for several agonizing breaths as he fought to keep the double headed cleaver from beheading him. Whoever this creature was how the hell did it know his real name? Was this the monster leading this undead army who had been plaguing them for the last month? At that point he brought forth his rage ability and attacked in earnest. Wild with bloodlust he set upon the skeletal commander. Shards of bone flew in every direction as he hacked wildly with his sword, trying to close the distance and keep the wicked ax it held from beheading him.

Finally, he was exhausted and slumped upon the hilt of his sword, gulping in air. He’d managed to whittle down about 30% of its health with his wild attacks but he knew that it was toying with him. It hadn’t made a serious attack upon him the entire time.

“Now you understand that you cannot defeat me,” it said. “I will enjoy smashing your bones and then killing the rest of the Misfits.” Its red eyes glowed with hate that seemed to invade Smash’s senses and he gripped Reaver tightly preparing to make his final stand against this enemy that reeked of anger and death.

The commander advanced towards him and he readied himself. “Good. You haven’t given up yet. I was going to be disappointed,” it gloated.

Smash didn’t have the breath to tell it to go to hell. Clearly, the creature was born from hell anyway so telling it to return would do little good. The next few minutes were a blur as he defended himself against the bosses’ onslaught as best he could. He blew through his cooldowns in rapid succession trying to stave off the inevitable; however, eventually his health was at less than 10%.

“Goodbye my mortal enemy,” it said. Smash waited for the killing blow that never came. He saw a blur of blades and Cheezus’ confident smile. Second later he heard the report of shotgun fire. The raid had caught up. Second later he felt a healing warmth throughout his body and knew that Linca or Seona was there to support him as well.

Deathberry and Kantala jumped off the gundam as it charged in and locked arms with the commander. Even its massive strength only managed to push the massive skeletal creature back a few steps but the Misfits pressed their new-found advantage.

“Not so cocky, now are you?” Smash said. He had found a third wind he didn’t know existed.

The advantage didn’t last long though as the rest of the enemy turned and surrounded the Misfits. The gundam was soon under pressure as it fought not only the commander but also four other fat zombies. It was being smashed under all the pressure of their combined weight.

The raiders rallied to Smash’s side and they pressed the attack against the commander. His health bar started to finally show some signs of wear as they blasted him with shotgun shells, fireballs, enhanced holy blasts and Reaver’s holy cuts. Despite all of this, the commander’s grin never left its horrid face. Its empty sockets filled with red orbs of pulsing hatred.

Finally, he stepped back to recover and said, “You think you’ve won but actually you’ve fallen for my trap.” With that his hand went forth and he chanted an arcane but unholy language that sounded like the whispers of spiders skittering through a dark tunnel.

Smash found that he couldn’t move a muscle. His eyes scanned the area frantically and he noticed that the other Misfits were similarly frozen. It must have been the spell that the commander cast. Looking at his health bar Smash saw a yellow status box with a person trying to move. They’d been paralyzed.

“Now you understand how foolish you were to try to defeat me,” the commander said. After that Smash’s vision faded into oblivion.