Jules had been reflecting on the implications of his stats when he had heard the sound of footsteps coming from the forest. Without a second thought, he ran to hide behind some nearby trees. The footsteps could very well belong to someone investigating what had happened there previously. After all, a zombie threat was something the city could not afford to ignore. Luckily thanks to Xena’s perception buff Jules had plenty of time to find a nice hiding position. He hid within a bush that allowed him to have a nice view of the clearing while remaining undetected.

As the seconds went past the footsteps progressively got louder and clearer. Jules could tell from the sound that the person was rather heavy and exhausted due to their unstable pace. Within a few more seconds he could hear loud puffs as a short and bald chubby man emerged from the tree line. Jules instantly recognized him to be Todd! His blood suddenly started to boil at the thought of revenge. However, he forced himself to calm down, he had to be cautious, after all, Todd had a gun and Jules clearly knew what it was capable of. With this thought, Jules decided to remain hidden a little longer to look for a good opportunity.

After bursting into the clearing, Todd stopped to take a look around and then ran towards the area where the corpses of a man and a zombie lied. As soon as he got there he dropped on his knees and began to frantically search for something within the grass. After a few minutes, the short man stood back up with a bright smile on his face. However, that did not last long as he noticed something seemed to be amiss within the clearing.

“Damn, if he realizes I’m not dead then I’ll lose the advantage of surprise.” Jules whispered quietly.

However, an opportunity quickly arose. Todd had just realized that Anne’s corpse was no longer there causing him to freeze in shock for a moment. This was enough time for Jules to sneak behind him thanks to his superior physical abilities.

Without a second thought he said:

“Well, well, well. Who do we have here?” In a cruel voice that did not hide his intent to kill Todd.

This sentence had the desired effect as Todd’s face instantly turned pale and proceeded to slowly turn around. An expression of fear revealed itself to Jules as the man’s face slowly came into view. On the other side, the bald man took a couple of seconds to understand what he was seeing. Anne was alive despite her wounds. ‘Could it be she survived her wound?’ the chubby man though. However, upon closer inspection he could tell her blood was black and she was not bleeding.

“Z-z-zombie! You became a zombie!” He shouted in fear.

“Get away from me!” He exclaimed as he took a few steps backward.

As he was retreating, his attention was solely focussed on Jules and he failed to notice the tree root behind his feet. As he took a step back his foot hit the root and he fell on his rear. Having realized that this would make him unable to escape he tried to take his pistol out. However, it was too late, Jules filled with hatred had already thrown himself at him. Out of control he tried to rip out Todd’s throat with his own mouth but was blocked by his left arm.

As Jules was biting down furiously on Todd’s left arm, the short man held his gun resolutely in his right hand and aimed it at Jules. As he was about the pull the trigger his arm was violently swatted away by Jules who had noticed his attempt, sending the gun flying. This created an opening for Jules as he swiftly let go of Todd’s left arm and bit down on his throat.

The bald man screamed in agony and blood endlessly gushed out of his wound, pouring into Jules’ mouth. Jules had fully lost control at this point as was drinking the blood in large amounts as it sprayed everywhere. The previous wounds on Jules’ body were starting to close at a rapid pace. Soon enough the bite mark on his new body had disappeared and his bullet wounds were partially closed.

Within seconds Todd had stopped moving as life left his eyes. Felling that he had defeated his opponent and enacted his revenge, Jules looked up at the sky and let out a huge roar that echoes within the woods at the top of his lungs.

In a weird twist of fate, the root Todd had tripped on happened to be the same that caused Anne to fall in her struggle against the zombie.

After a few minutes of panting, Jules slowly regained his consciousness.

‘What the hell have I just done! I killed him and drank his blood!’ Jules couldn’t help but feel ashamed at what he had done. This behavior was completely inhumane. However, upon deeper reflection Jules did not feel troubled by his actions, it felt natural to do this for him.

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‘Could it be because I’m a zombie and that’s just what zombies do?’ Putting these thoughts aside the thing that bothered him most was that he had lost control, if he wanted to survive in this world it was imperative for him to remain clear headed. This was a fatal flaw that if not remedied would probably cause him much trouble in the future.

Meanwhile, as Jules was deep in thoughts, he felt a sudden stream of energy entering his body. The energy went into every cell in his body and began to revitalize and strengthen them. Jules was extremely surprised as the pleasant sensation spread throughout his body but seemingly concentrating in his head and heart.

After the sensation had ceased Jules, feeling invigorated, asked Xena to bring up his stats.

‘[Beep! Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength - 1.6, Vitality – 0.1, Agility – 1.5. Mind statistics: Intelligence – 1.3, Perception – 1.0 (2.7).]’

It seemed that this energy had increased all of his body statistics and his perception by 0.1! Moreover, it seemed his vitality was no longer 0. This meant that he would no longer have to worry about his body rotting. If he focused hard enough, he could actually feel a very faint heartbeat originating from within his chest. He no longer had to fear decay!

Despite being overjoyed by these new, Jules still felt uneasy. ‘What could have caused this sudden energy rush?’ he asked himself.

Without warning a shadow appeared behind him and made a grunting noise that startled him, immediately causing him to get his guard up ready to fight. He turned around only see Todd staring at him with a weird expression. He looked pale and lifeless, his eyes were glossing and didn’t seem to have any life behind them. It was as in he had lost all intelligence. He couldn’t even stand properly and was clearly struggling to move. Upon looking at Todd, Jules immediately felt a connection with the creature establish within his mind.

This gave him an instant comprehension of what had just happened. It seemed that Todd had turned into a zombie. Jules’ zombie to be more precise! Jules could clearly feel many of his bacteria currently residing within Todd. It seemed that for some reason, gaining a new zombie caused an amount of energy originating from that zombie would make its way to Jules’ body. Though at this point, Jules had no real ideas as of why. One thing was clear to him however, the more zombies he got, the stronger he would get.

Jules also felt that through his connection he could see and hear all that Todd does as well as give him orders. It seemed that these orders did not even need to be thoughts, a simple intention for them to do something would cause the zombies to act. This made them extremely convenient and easy to use. It was almost as if they were an extension of Jules himself. Jules was pulled out of his curious thought when a familiar voice appeared.

‘[Beep! New connection to the host’s mind detected. Beginning analysis!] … [Beep! Analysis complete. Connection determined to be a link to an auxiliary body. Scan of auxiliary body possible. Proceed (Y/N)?]’

‘Yes.’ Jules replied curiously.

‘[Beep! Beginning auxiliary body scan!] … [Beep! Scan complete! Auxiliary body analyzed. Displaying auxiliary body stats.] [Name: Todd Rodfield. Species: Zombie (Auxiliary body). Body statistics: Strength - 1.2, Vitality – 0.0, Agility – 1.0. Mind statistics: Intelligence – 0.2, Perception – 0.6.]’

Jules silently noted that Todd’s zombie did seem capable of independent reasoning, albeit at rudimentary levels. Overall the zombie was weaker that Jules was when he first became one. ‘Could this be dues to the fact that I am the core zombie and not an auxiliary body?’ he thought. However, Xena interrupted him once more.

‘[Beep! Auxiliary body brain structure fully analyzed. Memory extraction is possible. Proceed (Y/N)?]’

‘Of course.’ Jules eagerly thought, any opportunity to get more information in this situation was worth gold.

‘[Beep! Beginning extraction!] … [Beep! Extraction complete! Beginning memory transfer.]’

Jules felt the memories slowly enter his head. However, when compared to Anne’s memories these were significantly less chaotic and did not merge with him. They only became accessible to him. Within minutes Jules had looked at all of the important information within Todd’s memories. If he knew what had happened to him, Jules was sure Todd would be livid.

Jules was now aware of every dirty deal Todd had been involved in. On top of this, he had managed to get access to some more detailed information about zombies! Apparently, zombies followed a weird system to get stronger. They would infect individuals and upon reaching a certain threshold some distinct change in their physic would occur, making them even stronger. It seemed that the first threshold was reached after a strand had gathered 10 zombies. This would cause the core zombie to develop a ‘plague heart’ that allowed them to spread their plague through the air in a small area near them. Although Todd’s memories were not really clear on what would happen next, it was clear enough to Jules that the more zombies he would get at this stage the stronger the plague heart would become.

Having gained all of this new information Jules promptly decided to leave the clearing. After all, Todd was an important person within Largen. As soon as it was discovered that he went missing, there would be individuals investigating his disappearance. At that time Jules hoped that he would be long gone because he knew for a fact that once the zombie corpses were discovered, a large-scale zombie hunt would be started. If this were to happen while he was still around, he would surely be killed right here and there.

Jules contemplated burning all of the corpses present to try and hide the fact that there were zombies around but quickly decided against it. The fire would alert guards and this area would be quickly discovered. With a bit of investigating, Jules was sure they would be able to find traces of zombies within the woods.

With this in thought, Jules promptly made his way deeper into the forest with a zombified Todd in tow.