If there was one thing every human knew about zombies, it was that they always came in packs. It made perfect sense for them since one zombie by itself wasn’t a threat to anyone, but gather up a group of flesh-eating monsters and they’ll carve a path to humanity’s destruction. I guess they were similar to humans in that way–clinging to the only things they could call family so that they wouldn’t be completely alone.

Their only connection to their former humanity.

I think deep down, that was the reason I found it so difficult to immediately absorb or even attack her. Something about my new undead biology prevented me from going through with it. No wonder my new plant-based energy turned against me when I tried to restrain her…

Although, since I could perfectly use these new abilities a couple minutes ago, perhaps I could finally show this Type Two what I could actually do! But first, I needed to get her damn vines off my body.

“Hey, Plant Lady!” I shouted, pulling at my restraints. “You said something before about your plants having low energy during the night, right? You really think you can kill me with a weakness like that!?”

“That’s exactly why I preferred to finish this fight…tomorrow. When the Sun, caregiver of all plants, rose again,” she hissed, the ball of ooze ascending to the ceiling. “But I guess this will have to do.”

Above me, the ball began to glow intensely, pulsating in green waves that danced along the room’s cracked walls until the light flooded my surroundings. “It’s true that my babies need the Sun for more…power. However, light is still…light. Even if it comes from me.”

“You’re not trying to kill Victoria, are you?” I questioned cautiously, trying to shuffle the vines to my hands. “Or at least you don’t want to kill her.”

The moment she heard this, her hair began to rise sinisterly. “What…did you…just ask me?” Her raspy voice ran a chill down my spine.

“You said you would kill that girl if I attempted to save her,” I responded, the vines inches away from my hands. “What happened to that plan? She looks pretty alive to me.”

“How do you know that’s not my tree making her move like that? Maybe the roots are…puppeteering her muscles and all the other tiny parts of my Sunflower’s body.” She seemed to struggle saying that last sentence.

“I can see two different auras coming from that spot. One from the tree and the other from Victoria.”

“Her name…is Sunflower!”, she snarled, stabbing through my leg with another vine. “Say her actual name or…there’ll be more pain coming your way.”

“Her name isn’t Sunflower, Plant Lady,” I said. “Her name is Victoria. And I don’t know I’m even giving you this option again but…let that girl go or I’m gonna do something you won’t like.”

The giant leaf she used to fly on sliced through the wall behind her and stopped at her feet. “I’ve had enough of people trying to give me limited options for my life so I’ve decided to…give you limited options,” she said, stepping on the leaf and riding over to me.

“And what options are those?”

“You see, I’ve actually decided to…spare you. Not in the way you’re thinking though. I’m going to kill this current, disgusting version of you and change you into something more…perfect for me. It’s a similar process to what I’m going to do with my daughter.” She began to caress my face gently. “You said you were going to…absorb me. Well, how do you think it would feel for me to absorb you and turn-”

“I told you to tell me my options,” I demanded, staring back with my own lifeless eyes.

She gasped like I said something offensive and gripped my skull. “I want you to take back what you said before and call me a good mommy. Oh and say…‘honey, I’m home’ for me and how beautiful I am too. Do that and I’ll make the process of the transformation a lot less painful. After all, you will be my new…husband after today.”

Husband!? I knew zombies liked to stay in packs but this was a little too much!

“And I assume the second option is that you’ll make it as painful as possible?”

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“Good guess,” she answered, taking out a seed from her dress.

“Well, I’d like to believe that there are a lot more options than just those two.”

“And what possibly could those b-”

Before she could finish her sentence, I rocketed out of her sight, crashing through a wall as I exited the building. Debris rained down, but I could still see her through the hole I’d made, oblivious to where I had disappeared too. Seizing the opportunity, I fired a radioactive bullet through the hole before gravity began to pull me down.

However, my shot had clearly missed as I was suddenly pelted with a swarm of leaves that tore half of the building the Plant Lady was in to shreds, battering me till I ended up colliding with a wall behind me. I swiped a couple of the leaves from the air and flew higher up, tanking the brunt of the attacks while they shredded another unlucky building. I absorbed the aura emitted by the leaves, healing the hole in my thigh and creating a few leaves of my own.

I readied my battle stance with my new Leaf Blade technique and even though I was a little far away from her now, I could still tell that a face of anger and contempt was being directed to me.

“You kept calling me a disrespectful name earlier…Plant Lady! That was the name!” she yelled, hovering up with her leaf.

“Yeah, so what!? You’re the one with the memory loss, remember?” I retorted, shooting a few more bullets to see if I could get lucky but she slapped them away with a vine.

“I remember…my name now! The name they took from me! Call me Rosalina—Rosalina Ramirez!” she barked, large carnivorous plants erupting from the concrete below.

Since Rosalina and I are of the same species, that would mean we share one thing in common. We both can’t feel pain no matter how much power we attack each other with. Though, she definitely has me beat in the numbers department and the strength of each of her hits is no joke. I couldn’t even break out the mouth of that Venus Flytrap last time.

The only way I was going to defeat her is by absorbing her completely and in order to do that, that light ball above her head needed to disappear.

I zoomed at her, slicing up all the carnivorous plants to bits. I was mere inches away from cleaving her ooze orb in half before a familiar, heavy attack slammed me down to the ground. Confused, I looked up from the crater I was in and realized the Type Two had used a whole damn tree to strike me down. Before I could react, the massive trunk came hurtling toward me like a giant arrow. Thinking quickly, I raised my leaf blades and fired, slicing the tree cleanly in half before it could reach me.

Then, I soared back into the air, eager to end this fight sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, I was about to run low on energy and I needed to absorb that light ball before I had nothing left in me. Well, something big would also be helpful to me.

At that moment, that big something came into reality as another tree burst from the ground. But it wasn’t just any normal tree. Only a second seemed to have passed once I noticed it but the tree had already stretched above the buildings and even further than that, utterly dwarfing me. Filled with sharp, small, woody spikes across its body and decorated with…human skulls on some of those spikes—what kind of tree was this!?

This was going way beyond what I thought was in nature!

“Sandbox Tree!”

“I noticed…”, said Rosalina, approaching the front of the massive tree. “that you haven’t felt the pain of any of my attacks…right?”

“I could say the same for you,” I responded. “But I haven’t given you a clean punch to the face yet so who knows! Only thing I’ve seen hurt you was a spray of herbicide.”

“And it makes me so glad that you didn’t bring it with you! Maybe you will make a good father to my Sunflower…I only picked you because you’re the same as me but…it seems you have some good qualities as a man…husband too. A husband shouldn’t hurt his wife and you’ve demonstrated that quality perfectly. Sunshine would be proud of you!”

Now that I think about it…why didn’t I bring the herbicide with me? I guess with how fast I got to the arena, Elias would still be running those fifteen minutes. Though, it felt like there was another thing clouding my decision—like my body forced me to not go after it.

“Don’t worry, once I transform yo-”

I shot her face, interrupting her babbling. Actually…I didn’t shoot her face! I know my fingers were aimed right at her, and yet it was as if they had moved the very moment I shot.

What’s going on with my bo-

An attack pierced through my chest. Then another shaved off the side of my head. The tree had fired its spikes at me!

“You won’t get to eat those syrup…sandwiches with your daughter once I’m finished with you!”

Huh? How the hell does she know about that!?

Before I could figure out the answer to that question, the Sandbox Tree unleashed a torrent of spikes, tearing through the air with murderous intent. My body moved on instinct, hardening my fists as I threw punch after punch and shattered spike after spike in a desperate storm of blows. My fists blurred, the mysterious beating in my chest pounding with each attack while the energy on my feet burned brighter.

With each spike I broke, another one just stabbed through my ooze. However, I did not give up! My eyes glowed a deep emerald as I echoed with all my might…

“Fatherly…Gatling!”

My elbows ignited with raw radioactive energy, boosting the speed of my arms. Boosting the speed of my punches. Boosting everything within me! Aura surged around my hands, releasing an onslaught of colossal energy fists that outsized the spikes and stormed through the Sandbox Tree, riddling it with holes.

I let out another reverberant roar as my final energy punch flew through the air and slammed into the Plant Zomb-Wait…What!?

The attack landed on her body. I was sure of it. Sure, the punch I sent out blocked my view of it but I know I felt it hit. What the hell did she do!?

No…It was more like what the hell did I do? Did I throw a soft punch?

“What kind of…weak attack was that?” Rosalina emerged from the dust. My new technique had damaged everything around us but her. And yet, I only intended to push her back. “I felt the power…of every other attack when it destroyed my tree. So why was that last punch so…half-baked!?” Her ooze curled into a smile. “Are you scared of hurting me?”

Oh God…can zombies not attack other zombies? But that doesn’t make any sense! I remember that Type Two Dante had was able to do damage to my neck. Plus, this Plant Girl has been successfully attacking me ever since I met her…

So what made Rosalina so damn different!?

There were holes all over my body and all the energy I had was finally gone. But I still had one trick up my sleeve. The Fatherly Beam that had blasted the arena earlier should finally be taking effect now…

And, as if on cue, Rosalina began to scream.