Archimedes
Archimedes sighed as he waited in the street with most of the group.
“Carajo! My feet are fucking dying out here!” Chedderfield roared.
Archimedes shook his head at the frustrated outburst from his friend and the sounds of things being tossed around. The group had traveled south past an intersection of two freeways, and Chedderfield had insisted on making a stop at a couple of abandoned houses to try to find shoes after the traps at the soda museum had destroyed his.
“Damnit, why can’t I find a single damn pair of shoes that fit?” Chedderfield asked as he came out of the abandoned house holding a pair of white sneakers in his hands. He compared the soles of the worn shoes to his own feet, and it was obvious that the footwear came up several inches short of being anywhere near wearable.
Danielle snickered. “Hey, you’re the one that passed up a perfectly good pair of pumps that fit, babe. Now you’ll just have to hope the next shoe store we find hasn’t been looted too.”
“Or you could just abandon the practice of wearing shoes entirely,” Archimedes suggested while lifting a bare foot in the air and wiggling his toes. “It’s surprisingly freeing, and after a while, your feet really toughen up.”
“Don’t even start with that hippy crap. You are not convincing him or anyone else to go au naturel. There is no reason at all—with a thousand years of foot technology making the most comfortable sneaks you’ve ever had—to go back to that caveman nonsense like some sort of bumpkin barbarian,” Lucy argued.
Chedderfield shook his head, clearly siding with Lucy though as he once more started eyeballing the houses they passed. Archimedes was about to retry convincing his friend to just go with the more cost-efficient footwear option when he noticed that Nguyen, who was a good fifteen feet in front of the group usually, had slowed down to a complete stop.
“You okay?” Archimedes asked, slowing down his own pace as he walked up toward Nguyen, signaling with his hand for the others to slow down too as he equipped his spear and prepared for the worst.
“Yeah . . . just . . . Something is wrong up ahead. I don’t know what, but something doesn’t feel right.”
He looked around for what had spooked Nguyen but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just regular-looking one- and two-story homes with friendly-looking porches lining either side of the quiet street. Then it clicked. That was what was wrong: the quiet. Aside from the noise of their walking and the breeze that shook the branches of trees lining the streets and lawns, there were no sounds. No dogs barking, insects buzzing, or monsters roaming around.
“What the hell happened here?” Chedderfield asked, taking the words right out of Archimedes’ mouth as the group just stood there.
They were still a ways off from the zoo, at least a ten-minute walk, and they were just passing what used to be a police department in the middle of the suburban sprawl. The glass-and-concrete building looked like a small war had taken place there. The glass double doors were shattered, and there were streaks of blood coming out of the building. The claw marks and the bullet holes suggested that the police put up a hell of a fight. In the back of the building, there were a half dozen police cars with doors and trunks open, long blood trails, seat cushions torn from what looked like fingernails and hundreds of bullet casings scattered across the bloodstained asphalt.
“I don’t know, but whatever happened, we need to be on our toes because it left no survivors—or corpses. We could be walking into a trap or something,” Archimedes said as he slowed down even further, now coming to a complete stop behind Nguyen. He didn’t like standing still, much less moving slowly, since the slower you moved, the more time you gave for enemies like undead raptors or large multi-toothed sand swimmers to start hunting you, but he also knew when to slow down, and this was one of those cases.
However, even as the whole group stood completely still, he couldn’t hear anything else except for Emma’s heavy breathing in the back.
“Do I really have to carry this with me?” she complained as she stood there with the two boxes.
“You’re either carrying that, or you’re carrying the turret. Trust me, that box is lighter,” Archimedes answered.
Emma groaned. “But . . . But can’t one of you big, strong, handsome men—”
“Cut it. We can’t carry it because we need to be able to react if something pops out, which I’m concerned might happen, so keep the chatter and complaints to a minimum,” Archimedes shot back, a little frustrated that she was making so much noise when he needed to be listening for a potential threat.
“Over there,” Nguyen said after a minute, pointing over to a group of low-level hell-cursed zombies walking in a tight orderly row five blocks south of them. They were carrying armfuls of corpses and body parts.
The sight made everything click in Archimedes’s mind. The police station, the unnatural quiet, the empty abandoned homes—the empty elementary school they had passed. The schoolyard had telescopes still set out and banners strung up for the “meteor show” strung about. He’d thought that the place had been looted, but it was so much worse.
“Oh, no,” Emma said in realization. “They’re using the neighborhood as a harvesting ground.”
Archimedes’ felt his blood boil as he imagined what must have happened, his instinct pushing him to rush out and attack, but as his eyes glanced around, he could see the zombies weren’t unprotected. There was a floating jellyfish in the sky as well as two tall, muscular women riding undead cheetahs and carrying shields and spears as they patrolled slowly back and forth around the zombies to keep them in line.
“DIE, YOU BASTARDS!” an unknown voice shouted out as a volley of arrows flew over the nearest houses toward the undead. Archimedes couldn’t tell how many people there were with the mystery group, but none of their arrows hit a monster. The only one that got close to striking a zombie was intercepted instead as a large mutated hell-cursed cheetah rider jumped over the line of corpse-carriers and used her shield to block the projectile.
“Fuck, they played our hand for us,” Archimedes grumbled before activating Leap Rush, his legs filling with energy a moment before his body shot through the air toward the line of zombies. He had been hoping to land at least within range of one of the two cheetah riders, but by the time he was descending from his long jump, the mounted undead were already racing toward the archers that had fired from the roofs of the homes lining the west side of the street.
“Emma! Set up the turret now!” Nguyen called out from behind Archimedes as he hit the ground with a thud, skewering two of the regular zombies in the same movement. He turned to face the two cheetah riders moving away at an incredible speed toward the rooftops, their mounts jumping over obstacles with ease. Then a thick laser bolt shot right past him, burning a hole through the head of a zombie that had just turned toward him.
He glanced back to see Danielle kneeling, laser rifle aimed toward him; Emma standing nearby and feeding metal to the forming turret; and Lucy, who was a running blur, short sword out and charging toward the fight.
“DAMNIT! STOP GOING SO FAST!” Chedderfield yelled out at the top of his lungs as he charged toward the group of zombies, bone macuahuitl in hand, running like he was trying to win the hundred-meter dash at the Olympics. He crashed into a trio of zombies, knocking them to the ground and killed them with an overhead chop.
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“You just gotta keep up, bro,” Archimedes said with a smile before leaping off toward the cheetah riders.
Even with the help of Leap Rush, Archimedes struggled to close the distance between himself and the mounted undead. His first jump barely halved the gap as he tried to leap in front of them, only for the hell-cursed cheetahs and their riders to race ahead and clear an entire block before he could even make a second jump.
Archimedes mentally measured out the distance he would have to leap before he could finally catch up with the speeding monsters, and realized it would be too late. By the time he reached them, they would probably already be eating the archers that he could see shooting from the roofs to the west. He instead used his movement skill to jump toward the closest house, and as his feet met the rooftop moments later, he used the momentum to turn and launch his spear toward the nearest rider. His arm burned with effort as he threw it with all his might, and he silently prayed that it would find its mark.
The sirrušu-crafted spear hurtled through the air, the sun reflecting off its gleaming obsidian tip in an arc of dazzling light. Archimedes watched with amazement as the rider on the cheetah below seemed to sense the incoming danger and suddenly shifted backward in a desperate split-second twist, just in time for her heater shield to intercept and block the spear. But despite her blocking it, the sheer force of the projectile was enough to splinter her shield into pieces, sending jagged fragments of wood flying in all directions.
The rider tumbled from her steed, and both cheetahs came to an abrupt halt. As the rider lay motionless on the ground, Archimedes saw a look of feral determination flash in the eyes of her mount as it snorted and pawed at the ground angrily.
Crap, Archimedes thought as the cheetahs growled. The rider he had knocked off started to recover, and the one that was still on top of its mount gave him a wicked full-toothed grin. Normally, he would be confident he could kill them, but at the moment, his weapon was now several dozen feet behind the two cheetahs facing him, and all he had were his bare hands.
“Whatever. Come at me, you little bastards,” Archimedes taunted, only to have the moment interrupted as Chedderfield came barreling down a perpendicular side street right into the warrior who was still atop her beast.
“You just gotta keep up, bro,” Chedderfield laughed as he equipped his spine whip, and the warrior he had slammed into skidded across the rough asphalt until she crashed into a garage door.
Archimedes would have laughed at the situation, but the second his friend’s attack ended, the cheetahs suddenly sprang toward Chedderfield. The man veered to the side, narrowly dodging their razor-sharp claws. In the instant before another lunge, Chedderfield already switched his whip for the bone knuckles. The cheetah flew at him like a heat-seeking missile, aiming to rip open his unprotected side.
“Fire Breath!” Archimedes shouted in warning to his friend before shooting out a cone of fire toward the enemies.
Chedderfield heard the warning and leapt to the side, turning as a cone of green acid spewed from his mouth, colliding with Archimedes' blazing breath just as it reached the two cheetahs. Right where the two area-of-effect attacks collided, there was a loud crackling pop followed by an explosion that blew the zombie cats apart.
The force of the blast blew Archimedes back and sent Chedderfield tumbling ass over teakettle backward. Even the two zombie women, who were slowly regaining their feet, were thrown off balance, crashing to the ground.
Archimedes scrambled to his feet and stared ahead at the hell-cursed woman he had thrown off her mount earlier. She grinned evilly, her spear held in her hands and her eyes wild with bloodlust.
“You’re eager to die, hu—” A volley of arrows from the house behind them interrupted the undead woman as they flew true and struck her, ripping through the flimsy armor she was wearing and turning her shoulder blades into pincushions. While they weren’t able to hit her at all while she was moving, she had been still so long that the archers on the roofs had finally managed to land their shots.
“Don’t you dare think of dying from that!” Archimedes roared as he Leap-Rushed forward. The rider, lacking a shield, thrust out with her spear, trying to use Archimedes’ momentum to skewer him. But it was to no avail. Archimedes had been trained by Leap Frog on the other world, and he had memorized her moves. The attack was practically telegraphed, and with one swift motion of his left wrist, he parried the thrust before latching onto the already-wounded woman’s throat. “You were mine to kill from the start,” he practically growled as he lifted her off the ground, squeezing as hard as he could with his stat-enhanced strength, and her throat imploded like a ripe tomato. Then he used his other hand to stabilize her while he ripped her throat out completely.
He couldn’t stand those like her, the hell-cursed that destroyed everything in their wake, killing and hurting people indiscriminately while at the same time acting like they were somehow the true or evolved versions of people. It caused his blood to boil just thinking about it.
Turning, he saw Chedderfield squaring off against the other rider. He had equipped his whip to deal with the gap in distance between them, but she was doing a good job using her heater to block the attacks he was making while at the same time backing up. She didn't see that Archimedes had crept up behind her and had grabbed the now-dead rider's spear. With one swift thrust, he drove the weapon through the back of her head, dropping her lifeless body to the ground.
“I had that,” Chedderfield said, looking a little disappointed at Archimedes having taken his kill after putting her on the ropes with his whip.
“You did,” Archimedes agreed. “The cards are yours. I just want to get back to the others.”
“Fair.” Chedderfield shrugged, and the two of them each grabbed a set of cheetah and rider cards. Archimedes then grabbed his weapon before they used their respective movement skills to head back to where the battle had begun.
Even though when the fight had started, the only enemies Archimedes had seen were the two riders as well as a couple of dozen zombies in lines carrying corpses and body parts, the disruption had caused a big enough commotion that other hell-cursed were now reinforcing the group. There were already two of the large jellyfish monsters floating above in the air, these had not yet evolved into the kind with zombie cannons. There were also at least five evolved hulks and a few dozen more regular zombies still holding the body parts they were carrying when the line got interrupted. In the distance, Archimedes could even see the movement of several large creatures coming toward them from the direction of the zoo.
“I think we pissed them off,” Chedderfield said as he and Archimedes watched the turret Emma had summoned shoot down the jellyfish. The giant monster’s body leveled a house as it crashed into it, dead.
“Yeah. Might have bitten off more than we can chew . . .” Archimedes agreed, looking at the large wave of enemies approaching them.
“You? Complaining about too much to eat?” Chedderfield laughed as the two jogged closer to the actual battle.
Even without Chedderfield or Archimedes helping, the rest of the group was doing incredibly well. Lucy was using her No Brainer skill to stop any of the larger, more deadly zombies like crystal hulks or otherwise that were getting too close to Nguyen, Danielle, and Emma, freezing them in place before a spray of laser shots and heavy-caliber turret ammunition tore them apart. The group was ripping apart the monsters as fast as they were arriving. Meanwhile, Emma’s Ring of Purity was burning up any of the small fry that Lucy let past her.
Not wanting to allow his team to lose its momentum, Archimedes looked over at Chedderfield and asked, “One more breath boom?” before leap rushing through the air. He didn’t even have to wait for an answer. He already knew his friend would back him up when he landed next to the zombie.
Chedderfield sped into the fight a moment after Archimedes landed, sending the closest zombie flying like a pinball upon impact. He opened up the combination with a perfectly aimed Acid Breath that managed to coat three of the five remaining hulks while just barely missing hitting Lucy in the crossfire.
“Lucy! Back up!” Archimedes warned before unleashing his Fire Breath onto the acidic compound Chedderfield had sprayed everywhere. Just like before, the two skills mixed with a violent result.
BOOM!
The crystal brutes shattered, arms, chests, and heads crashing to the ground as their bodies were wrecked by the combo attack. Lucy was tossed through the air by the concussive force of the explosion, and she landed hard on the sidewalk.
“Fucking assholes!” Lucy roared as she got to her feet. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing? You nearly blew my beautiful blue hair off! I can’t go through that again!”
It took Archimedes a moment to recall the time when Lucy had nearly been melted to death by an exploding dvixian and had regrown all of her hair as well as much of her flesh using an overpowered healing skill.
“Sorry, Luce!” Archimedes replied, Leap-Rushing over and reaching out for his girlfriend to help dust her off.
“No time for make-up sex, you two. We need to get out of here unless you can take out that hell-cursed army heading toward us,” Nguyen warned, pointing south to the twenty brutes and forty zombies jogging toward them in neat rows.
“The archers of Rohan have come to aid you!” a voice from the right shouted. Archimedes turned to see a bald man with a long black beard and a bow waving as he and the other archers that Chedderfield had saved a moment ago fired off a dozen glowing arrows at the approaching enemy.