Chapter 30
General Black stoically stood at his window with his arms crossed behind his back. His secretary was, as always, by his side. They both calmly watched the procession of armoured vehicles disappearing in the distance.
As the last vehicle vanished from view, the Hyena let out a sigh with a rueful shake of his head, “ makes you wonder how that fool has survived to this ripe age.”
The secretary let out a small cough, “ well, Sir , it is because fools are ignorant of their own foolishness. As Shakespeare said [‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’] ”
“Indeed… It is quite pitiful to watch him volunteer to his own death. Those old coots manipulated him beautifully. Instead of directly sentencing him for his amoral actions, they are using him to kill two birds with one stone. And he didn’t even question why his request for the deployment of some of the Evolved Squad was rejected nor did he notice that those accompanying him were ‘associated’ with him in one way or another.” Black muttered humorously.
“I think that all his brain capacity is too preoccupied in trying to find means to cut the loose ends while displaying his ‘righteousness’ by volunteering himself; he doesn’t have spare brain cells to question the ‘why’ at this moment. Well, at least this will result in one less problem to manage and allow us to scope the strength of the HCIZ.” The secretary replied.
Black walked to his old sofa with his body imprint on it and sat down with a groan, “ ah, those old bones are not what they used to be. I am looking forward to the SITREP… If the operative does come back alive that is.”
“I believe that all will be well. After all, he is the sneaky little mouse that I personally trained.” The secretary surreptitiously vaunted while offering Black a cup of fragrant tea he had prepared.
Black’s only response was to give him an amused look with a ‘thank you’.
****
The fortress was buzzing with activities. Everyone was running around to carry out their orders. They had to prepare to stop the invading forces that were on their way after all. Veyn stood amongst the controlled chaos, calmly giving instructions like a maestro.
Riot came running and asked, “where is Alphonse? The army will reach the target point in approximately thirty minutes.”
Veyn hummed and glanced at the papers in his hands, “don’t worry he is on his way. He has already instructed the lower zombies for the ambush and the traps are already in place. ”
Riot sighed, “everything is in place but the leader still has to be on site to control some of those zombies with big egos! Even Steve is starting to get annoyed with them.”
“Ah, speaking of Alphonse, here he comes.” Veyn stated as he spied Alphonse coming through the crowd with Tsuki under one arm.
The latter was unusually silent and allowing himself to be carried bonelessly. Midori was following behind them with his arms crossed behind his head and an exasperated look on his face.
“Veyn, Riot.” Alphonse greeted as he reached them.
“Finally!” Riot exclaimed.
“ I was a little delayed because someone was a little anxious and I had to coax him.” Alphonse drawled.
Everyone’s eyes shifted to Tsuki who suspiciously twitched before going back to playing dead.
Midori let out a scoff before turning his head away to hide his smile.
Alphonse carefully put down Tsuki and crouched to his height to examine his face.
He let out a sigh at seeing pink tears brimming his eyes, “ why are you crying? Do you have so little faith in your partner?”
Tsuki pursed his lips before shaking his head, “ I know you are strong...but what if you get hurt? I can’t help but worry. Not just about you but the others too.”
Veyn let out a chuckle, “thank you for caring Tsuki. Don’t worry, we’ve all experienced fatal injuries before but we are still alive and kicking.”
Riot gave Tsuki a thumbs up, “yeah! Have some faith in us! We’ll go kick some ass then come back!”
Alphonse stood back up and placed a comforting hand on his head, “ I understand your worry. We’ll try our best to come back in one piece. In the mean time, you and Midori are going to man the fort here. Arrange the necessities needed for when we’ll come back. And be on your guard in case some enemies take advantage of our absence to infiltrate. Mercy will be staying with you both to provide support and show you the ropes.”
Tsuki wiped away his tears with a careless hand and cheered them up, “ then good luck to you guys! Defeat them and come back quickly!”
“That’s the spirit!” Alphonse said while giving his head one last pat. “Let us go then.” Alphonse addressed Veyn and Riot before taking off at a run.
Veyn immediately followed while Riot gave the two a wave before following.
They watched as their fellow zombies faded into the distance like two abandoned dunderheads.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“So...” Midori intoned, “where is the banshee?”
Tsuki looked at him in exasperation, “ why are the two of you always giving each other nicknames?! You know she’ll bonk your head if she hears you call her like that!”
Midori let out a huff, “ well, I don’t care!”
“You know what? I am starting to think that you both are Tsunderes. Maybe all those names are some weird kind of way to show that you two appreciate each other?” Tsuki let out nonchalantly.
Midori’s face turned red and he ran to Tsuki to kick him. The latter evaded with a mocking expression,” bleh! You’ll never catch me you Tsuntsun!!”
“Come back here! I am not a Tsundere and don’t call me that!”
All the other zombies on duty let out a sigh at hearing the shout echoing throughout the base.
A familiar stuttering zombie who was on cleaning duty let out a sigh as he said to his companion, “ It se..see..seems like it’s th..the lit..little lord’s play ti..time again.”
The other zombie leaned on his broom and mirrored his sigh, “ the nightmare of all the zombies. I hope master Alphonse comes back quickly. He is the only one who can stop the little lord’s mischief before it even starts. Man I hope he doesn’t try to teach those lower zombies how to dance again! I can still stumble on random body parts while strolling around! Some of the zombie never even found their arms!” The zombie clapped his hands in prayer, “ master Alphonse destroy the humans and come back quickly before the little lord comes up with one of his ‘fun’ ideas again!”
On the battle field, the ambush was a success and a good chunk of the invading enemies was taken out. Alphonse paused in mid step as a shudder passed through him.
Steve punched a soldier with a fist enveloped with electricity and asked as he saw that, “ what’s wrong?”
“ I just felt something disturbing...Maybe someone is talking about me?....Or maybe Tsuki did something again and some poor soul is cursing me to come back?”
Steve evaded an attack while muttering, “well, given his track record, it wouldn’t be strange to go back to the fortress and find it half collapsed and the zombies around all on their knees, praying for you like a cult summoning their ‘saviour’.”
Alphonse gave him an amused glance, “I sure hope not. Anyway, I think it’s time to hunt down the cockroach trying to run away. I’ll leave you in charge here.”
Years of cooperation made it so that Steve didn’t even need to answer. Alphonse was well aware of the capabilities of his teammates. So he could leave them and take care of other things in good conscience.
Alphonse used his speed to disappear in place and Steve skilfully used his tank/enforcer nature to push back all the humans that tried to vainly pass through him.
Riot, who was providing support as a sniper from a distance, shot a human trying to sneak up on Steve all while encouraging the zombies with him to throw boulders down on the army vehicles.
Veyn was moving quietly through the crowd like an assassin. Everywhere he passed, bodies fell down. He was mainly in charge of the traps and instructing the lower zombies to carry the fresh downed soldier to the vehicle for later transportation. But that didn’t stop him from whittling down those who mocked them in the past. His grudgeful eye pinpointed every face on his blacklist while his hands cut everyone of them down.
“Steve.” Vey called out, eyeing the human he just killed.
“What?” Steve yelled back.
“Don’t you think it’s strange to see so many familiar faces here? In fact, most of them were colluding with the cockroach in one way or another.”
Steve stopped the punch he was delivering to quickly glance at the faces around him, “......now that you mention it...”
Veyn stoically kicked away an enemy soldier, “...those bastards are using us to clean their mess!”
Steve hummed, “ it would seem like so. Well in a way it’s an advantage for us. We can get rid of all those involved in one fell swoop and we can now be certain that the higher ups were not in collusion with them. After all, they have sent all of those trash as a ‘peace offering.”
Veyn huffed snottily, “ doesn’t mean we’ll let them off that easily.”
“ Of course not.” Was Steve’s reply.
A roar suddenly pierced through the noise. Veyn and Steve looked towards the origin of the roar.
Veyn: “ Ah! It seems like the battle will end earlier than we thought. Alphonse already caught the big cockroach. He must be having some fun right now. We should step up our game to wrap up quickly too.”
Steve nodded and delivered a concentrated punch of electricity, killing all the soldiers in his vicinity.
Riot whistled admiringly as he observed the light show produced by Steve. “The others are getting serious!” He turned and addressed the other zombies around him, “hey guys it seems like we are nearly finished! Speed up so you can enjoy your food while they are still fresh!”
They roared an affirmative before raining down boulders with monstrous strength, as if they were injected with an energy booster.
A thin zombie who casually threw down a massive boulder wiped his drooling mouth, “ thank fuck we are nearly finished! Do you know how hard it is to ignore those fresh bloody corpses falling all around?!”
His beautiful partner with a face as lovely as a doll, daintily smashed a piece off a boulder before throwing it like a bullet. She watched it pierce the bodies below before laughing sweetly, “ you little foodie! When has it not been hard for you to resist food? Don’t worry sweetie, you’ll soon get to fill your belly. I have to say that I am getting a bit peckish too.” She finished saying with a lick to her lips all while eyeing a downed soldier that was still breathing.
Alphonse dragged the broken body of Colonel Rochi (aka The cockroach) towards Steve and Veyn.
“ Veyn, we are done here. We already have a few cars full with fresh meat. So the rest will be left to the lower zombies. I’ll call a tide over to take care of the rest. Have the others retreat back to base. Oh and take that with you too.” Alphonse ordered while casually throwing the pathetic Rochi at him.
Veyn comically avoided the dead weight like one would avoid a flying cockroach before throwing a look of disgust towards Alphonse, “could you give a warning before throwing dirty stuff at me?! And I don’t want to touch that thing! He has always repulsed me to the core.”
Alphonse smirked, “I know. Your reaction was funny.”
“Tsuki was right about you! You are a big stinky zombie!” Veyn screeched before running towards Alphonse to kick him.
The latter evaded before cackling while running away. Veyn did not give up and followed after him while cursing.
Poor Steve was the one who had to relay the orders and drag Colonel Rochi away. Riot joined Steve after a while, watching him truss up The cockroach like a turkey.
“Nice work! Kinda hardcore but nice.” He complimented.
Steve lips curved up a little, “thx. Years of experience as you know. Even though he was beaten to a pulp, it’s better to tie him up just to be safe.”
Riot let out a huff of laughter, “ dude there’s no way he is getting out of those knots. This looks like a bdsm scene gone wrong.”
Steve casually ignored the remark. He tied one last knot and threw the body in the boot. With that done, he made his way to the front of the car before getting into the driver seat. Riot scrambled to get inside too, “ hey aren’t we waiting for Alphonse and Veyn?”
Steve pressed on the accelerator unhesitatingly, “no need. They are busy playing. They can catch up on their own.”
Riot blinked at him before bursting into laughter, “ you are one big troll, you know that?”
His only answer was an amused hum.