spin_kick_snap | The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

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The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

The last time anyone from Fandom had been in Kathy's LA, the heroes had been living inside the walls that surrounded Paramount Studios, with the exes and the South Seventeens laying claim to everything else. Since then, they'd expanded; the Big Wall pushing the borders out almost a mile in all four directions. In some spots, it was hard to tell that there had ever been a zombocalypse; the streets were clean, the buildings repaired, the blood all scrubbed away. There was a proper school, lots of farms and gardens, several churches, and even a small library. The studio was still the heart of the community, but people had started to spread out and settle. It was still a tight fit, several thousand people into one square mile, but honestly not much worse than Los Angeles used to be, back before the world died and reanimated again.

Life had fallen back into a rhythm again. People got up, got ready for the day. Kids were sent off to school, adults took themselves to various jobs, though there were fewer sales people, baristas, and aspiring actors and a lot more guards, scavengers, and farmers these days. There was a brewery down on Larchmont and a still over on Monroe. Burns Park let people enjoy a bit of nature where the kids could run around and burn off steam and a Gold's Gym practically against the Big Wall. That was where the Unbreakables spent most of their free time, with curious gawkers watching them put more and more weight onto the machines.

It was a bustling little community of survivors, as safe as a place could be, surrounded on all sides by millions of undead waiting to find a way inside to devour them all.

[For them that are there! NFB, and ~~please wait for the~~ OCD is up! Previous entry Next Entry]

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"Well, you did kinda unleash the warden on everybody," Dante mused, surprising himself with how casual he sounded about it.

It wasn't the kind of casual you sounded about a threat you didn't understand, or about something you thought wasn't worthy of your time. It wasn't oh-I-dropped-my-sandwich-casual.

It was the instictive casual of someone who understood, deep at heart, that he was the apex predator here, even if no one else acknowledged it. That he didn't have much to fear, at least for himself.

And it surprised him.

Edited 2018-10-06 06:10 (UTC)

Max gave a small snort of something akin to amusement. "Well, without him, we never would have had this great bonding experience. We're gonna head back to the Mount and paint nails, right?"

"Nah, I feel like that'd ruin the mood we're setting here," Dante joked, looking up at the large ruins ahead of them. "You probably should talk to someone, though."

"Talk about what?" Max asked. "Hair-braiding techniques? Cause I was never super-good at that. Ma--" He stumbled over a rusty bit of pipe and went quiet.

Dante blinked. "Max?" he called, looking over at the guy.

"Fine, I'm fine," he said, waving Dante off. "Just tripped, it's fine."

He wasn't ready to talk about Marie-Anne. Not to anybody. She was probably dead by now, so it didn't even matter, but still, not ready. It had been almost a decade, but still, not ready.

Dante shook his head. "Okay," he said. "Sure. Let's go with that."

"Look, I tripped," Max said, catching up. "LA was a garbage dump before the exes showed up. Don't read into it."

"I'm not reading into anything," Dante said lightly. "I'm just telling you to go talk to someone. You clearly need to."

"I talk to lots of people," Max said. "Barry..."

Not that Barry had been talking to him much since the whole 'not entirely truthful' thing.

"...Nick..."

You know, trading barbs.

"...St. George..."

Who talked to everybody.

"Whatever, man."

He was worried about Max, but not enough to make a big stink out of it. They both knew Max was full of shit, that was enough.

"You think any of those exes are still left near here?"

"Hard to say," Max said, looking around. "Koreatown was cleared out and so the exes followed. But I made a lot of fucking noise trying to get the fire escape down, so they're on their way if nothing else."

Dante glanced over his shoulder. Sped up his walk. "This your first time outside the Wall since you got back?"

"I don't make it a point to go out where I could get messily devoured at any moment," Max said dryly. "Or where a Reaver Lord could turn me inside out."

"Explains why you were so eager to hitch a ride out here once you got the chance, I guess," Dante said.

"I don't like standing still," Max said. "Or being stuck in one place. You're pretty and useful, kid."

"You're welcome, I guess," Dante said, glancing his way for another second. "Even if I'm out here dealing with your shittastic demon because of you."

Edited 2018-10-06 10:00 (UTC)

"You're just wandering around exuding demon aura," Max retorted, rolling his eyes. "You're not dealing with shit. In a few days, if Cairax doesn't fuck back off to the Abyss, I'll have figured out a spell to send him back there instead."

"You think he's gonna leave just like that?" Dante said skeptically. "Cause lemme tell you, that didn't work with Mundus. That guy spent ten years trying to kill me just because he had beef with Sparda."

"And this is probably why Cairax was only the third-strongest Reaver Lord or whatever," Max said easily. "Impatience and a lack of general follow-through."

"Wishful thinking is strong in your family, huh."

"Right along with great hair and big dicks," Max said with a lift of his chin. "The combination makes us sure we can do damn near anything."

Dante caught himself snickering at that, and quickly tamped back down.

Dammit, Max. Stop being likable.

No could do, buckaroo. That was the worst kind of asshole; the one that made you like him, in spite of your better judgment. Because then you were mad at him and yourself.

"We're gonna have to sneak in," he said as they made their way along. "Unauthorized excursions are frowned upon."

"You couldn't have told me that two hours ago?" Dante asked.

He probably still would've done this. "I guess jumping over the Wall isn't gonna work."

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