A quarter million years ago, in a certain world...
Back in the day, when Jonathan Lacks was certainly himself, he was riding in his W12 biturbo, nuclear-powered bike across the battlefield of a world with skies as blue as the natgas flames, and grasslands as green as the bile of an undead ally of the captain. A hellish place indeed, the captain thought the very first moment he arrived with his brethren; blue sky with a warm wind running gently, the inhabitants thought
Being the midday, a fight was ensuing between two hundred brothers, all in attack bikes, of the third brotherhood with Jonathan Lacks as the captain, and some thousands, if not millions of warriors in armor as well as in armored horses, long time ago genetically smithed, long time ago freed by an accident, now roaming wild, their sets of legs that were four, fusions of organic iron and human brain and air recycling organs and eight eyes, three by each side and two at the front. They screeched in human roaring rather than animal sounds, they spoke words instead of senseless noises. The riders could hear what their steeds wanted, no more pretensions were manifesting
With his bike, he was opening a path of carnage using its four frontal microguns. He threw himself out of the bike, crashed it at two hundred km/h into a city's gate, he of course got thrown at high speeds, yet he survived falling over some enemies armed with swords and lances and wrist-crossbows. He threw only two grenades into the air, releasing a white smoke
With its helmet covering its face and the gas tanks in its back "protecting" him from the gas grenades he threw, he was safe and imposing, causing fear and awe wherever and whenever he manifested into reality
The gas grenades did its purposes: to cover him to infiltrate the city walls, and the second is to cause the most horror and panic a mortal can ever see, the most of it in the first few weeks after the throw of a single gas grenade
Those grenades aren't called ZV for nothing. After the gas, they fire thousands of tungsten darts polluted with even more amounts of gas, just in case any armored entity was to be there, or for tanks with crew inside
Fortunately, the ZV acts by two different methods: delayed, or the second one, which we will see later, so don't despair, for Jonathan is not a good fighter, but knows how to resist, or in this case, to let himself be captured
Soon and too late, they will know why one shall not capture a hero of an old time, why is better to kill it.
He surrendered before the commander of the enemy forces, ordering the full back of the two hundred bikers that threw their own ZV grenades to its persecutors that were riding horses
"I surrender" the captain raised its hands, putting them in its neck, to finally kneel before the enemy commander. Then he got thrown to an iron chariot that sent him to a prison full with other inmates
He got interrogated, his sniper rifle had to be carried by two people, because it weighs seventy kilos, the commander demanded the captain to tell it about its forces, to the slightest detail, everything that could be told would be told
Here, is a fragment of the interrogatory in a prison of stone with lots of inmates, approximately, thirty by cell, some of them with their beds hanging from the ceiling because of a lack of beds and cells to recluse the high amount of inmates. All of them, mortals, innocent and guilty, robbers and serial killers, professionals by their own, madmen and even the jail children, gathered from across the continent in a single place. Subjects of constant experimentations and just the right amount of torture to ensure they were as obedient as their lives were being expanded, for once someone made a felony, from the biggest offense to the most little of robberies, would meet endless pain, as written in the stone slabs left by a mysterious entity last-named just as Jonathan: Lacks
The enemy commander was wearing a set of traditional armor with a little but well ornamented shield generator in its right arm that glows a green aura in the form of a silhouette in the form of the armor itself, yet the armor looks so ancient, old. An archetype of medieval armor with the less old technology anyone can find, but extremely few can attain to shape it to the needs, own's or another's
The captain Lacks was chained to the chair, so he had anyways to be there, want it or not. But its power armor wasn't going to abandon him, never. The instrument of ruin was fused by plugs, cables and raw welding to the flesh inside him, its organs having grown once and again. The armor was an ash grey, of the radiation. Only a silhouette of his own head in the left shoulder, a human hand, long ago rotten, marked with the number "329" hung from his utility belt, a little ribbon , and of course its helmet without holes, and still he was capable of seeing and hearing, and the most important, of speaking
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Enemy commander (EC): So... you are... (the commander sat down in a wooden chair, facing the captain)
Jonathan Lacks (JL): I am an entity who brings death and lends life. But I don't require to know your name, rather, to know why were you scratching your arm so... harshly
EC: Your name. NOW! (The commander pointed its sword to Jonathan's head, imbued with a mix of fire and light magic)
JL: I feel sorry for being so uneducated to you. I am an entity who lends life
EC: You won't say your name, so, if you don't answer me, I will make sure you rot in the depths of...
JL: Whatever... (he tried to stand up, just to fall back to the floor, breaking the chair in the process)
EC: WHAT YOU'VE DONE!!?
JL: Breaking free of course
EC: You won't
JL: I don't have to. I have arrived, and the time for you and your world to surrender is ending. Each second you are demanding answers of me is a second the blessings of undeath run freer in the veins of the enlightened. As you can note, you too are illuminated, a spark of knowledge, a very little amount of true self awareness, but is there, waiting my signal to manifest here and there.
EC: Just nonsense of a feeble person, babblings of a madman who knows the eternal darkness in the biggest prison ever made is waiting (scratches its left arm in a futile intent to be free of the mysterious itch it acquired back in midday)
JL: I see your arm is gifted now. Everything in a radius of three hundred meters around me is waiting my fingersnap to awaken, to show the path of undeath to the others, and the others, and so on, until all life here decays and borns anew. Worry not, the answers you want to find are there, just embrace the sickness and they will open willingly like a book, into your mind.
A pair of people brought the captain's sniper rifle then put it in the table, pointing at him. The commander took the rifle, but in the very instant it touched the trigger, two darts pierced the index finger of its right hand, infecting now the right arm
Captain Lacks just amputated its arms, freeing himself. He regenerated them faster than a livestock dealer can say "sheep". The armor repaired back to its irradiated, grey form
He snapped its finger and every person in a radius of three hundred meters that got caught by the gas grenades or who was wounded by a grenade dart got the dormant virus inside them activated
The commander tried to swing its sword but the itching was so much to deal with that it started to itch to the point of stripping its own skin, the itch would never end. Then, in an act of possible tactic, or desperation, it took Jonathan's rebreather to see if the captain would be infected as well. I it would die, the captain would accompany it to death. The thing is, the rebreather was plugged to the gas tanks in the captain's armor's back. That gas was gassified zombie virus. It knew it was a mistake, but it was too late
"I can share" the captain took its rebreather and shared it with the commander who was terrified of the truth. He put the rebreather in the enemy commander's mouth so it could breathe more of the gas. The captain added then "Viene la muerte".
The enemy commander got quickly transformed into a zombie who proceeded to kick the door to escape. The captain gently opened the door of the interrogation room and let the entity escape. The zombified commander watched the captain, and Jonathan watched the entity with proud.
The screaming of terror and the sounds of zombies eating people by the tens, roaming freely to greener grasses because why not was there in the night. The wild fires spreading all through the prison, the chaos of the slaughter made the guards lose control of the facility. No one was able to go out, the inmates had to fight its way through the five hundred main zombies, that now infected more people, becoming fifteen thousand in the lapse of three hours
The captain watched satisfied as the former commander of the prison garrison was hunting and eating its own allies, infecting some others and joining the bloody feast.
The captain returned inside to pick up its rifle and put it on its back, then, walked between the zombies and the alive and dead. The zombies roared in something resembling happiness and thankfulness to its savior, its hero, the one who freed them all from the restrictions of life. To top if off, he opened the main gates only until he checked seven times the full prison in search for survivors. Gradually but surely, the alive were less and less until eventually there were only zombies and eaten people
It semeed to follow no rules, but the captain was actually following a path of fighting, one set of RoE made specifically for those ones who wield the power of life and death at the same time:
"The Man comes around" Rules of engagement. They tell how to infest an entire world with a zombie plague as a distraction method and how to start the real invasion later on, once the first place the commanding officer gets fully infested
Finally, after checking that no more alive people was running inside and therefore that the prison was fully infested, he opened the gates of the prison to let the twenty thousand zombies free in the new world, to consume, consume, and most importantly, to consume
The twenty thousand zombies were running at full speed towards liberty, towards the truth of the universe and they were more than willing to spread the knowledge, the blessings, the gifts
The zombified commander looked the captain a last time before it followed the little megahorde with the rest of its new friends and family. The captain looked with satisfaction that more people was illuminated now, another group carrying the truth: Decay, death, is the way to immortality. Abandoning everything but one's mind is the path to start the road to godhood. He wanted for mankind to be powerful enough to unthrone the gods, but for now...
"Landing zone clear. We can start the real" said the captain via a transceptor in the helmet to the rest of his brethren in orbit. From a moment to another, thousands of drop pods were falling, big cylinders a hundred meters long containing little repeating beacons measuring at the most a meter high and twenty centimeters diameter.
The beacons were there to amplify the effect of the fingersnap of the captain from hundreds of meters to megameters so every person affected directly or indirectly by the gas grenades, each virus particle free in the water and air and ground, inside every piece of saliva, in each drop of blood of each infected, direct and indirect, now ready to awaken the full potential of undeath
"Arton Fodath, mjuth" said the captain in modern brittish english. That meant "Invasion time, start"
He snapped with its left hand, and the apocalypse really started. The twenty thousand zombies were now to be reinforced by another ten million of them, more illuminated minds to share knowledge and gossip with, maybe eat some picnics and chill for the eternity being, all because of a captured captain from another world
Another world doomed because of ancient, antiquated battle tactics