The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles

[spin_kick_snap]

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]

Comments

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'm sure a ton of people cried at your funeral," Dante retorted, holding onto the axe with ease as he gestured for Max to take point.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Funerals weren't really a thing by the time I went," Max said, moving forward again, but a little more skittishly than before. "For the heroes, the best we got was St. George picking us up and dropping us off in Griffith Park."

Which had started because of where he'd left Kathy, the first one to fall.

"I swapped to Cairax after I got bit in an attempt to buy myself more time, so I didn't qualify for pickup service."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"And made us all deal with a giant demon zombie," Dante said, the axe melting away in his hands. "Fantastic plan."

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Well, it would have been worth it if it'd worked," Max said with a careless shrug. "And after it didn't, I was way too dead to care."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"How'd you get bit anyway?" Dante asked, clambering over a bit of debris.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Ahhhhhhh..." Max stumbled over that same pile of debris, thrown by Dante's question. "So the first thing you have to understand is that I don't just put on Cairax's body. Some of his thoughts and perceptions filter in with it. It's my mind, sure, but everything's a little...hazy."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"I get that."

Devil Trigger came with something similar, after all.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Okay, so have you ever seen a Jessica Alba movie...?"

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

... This wasn't going where Dante thought it was going.

"Sure," he said, frowning. "She was one of like, two good things about that Fantastic Whatever movie."

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"So I want to make it clear it was just a kiss and that was only because I was Cairax at the time..."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"Oh jesus fucking christ," Dante muttered. Charitably, you could say that was because he saw the small crowd of exes down the street.

"Trust you to get zombified trying to stick it into an actress."

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Just the tongue!" Max snapped. "It was like a goodbye thing."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"You were saying goodbye to Jessica Alba?" Dante asked, frowning at him.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Well, she wasn't going to be making another Fantastic Whatever movie as an ex, was she?" Max pointed out.

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"Well, at least you died like you lived," Dante said, slowing as they got closer to the exes up ahead.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"Surrounded by sexy people?"

Somehow he doubted that was what Dante was going to take from that.

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"Desperate and hard up for it?"

Cerberus manifested back in Dante's hand.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"And you call me the asshole," Max sighed. "So, how does that work?" he asked, nodding to Cerberus. "I mean, how do they swap? I understand the general point of nunchucks."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged. "I beat the shit out of them and now they're a part of me?" he offered.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

"So you're some kind of Pokemon trainer?" Max asked. "Cute."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante rolled his eyes.

"Quiet," he said, "I'll take care of these guys."

And for a weird second there, he found himself thinking of Max as fragile.

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

Well, he sure as hell wasn't a big rampagey monster anymore.

"Go on," Max said, gesturing Dante forward. "I'd love to watch you work."

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante rolled his eyes. He slid out from in between the debris, enough pebbles scattering down to catch at least one ex's attention.

"C'mon..."

Re: Thursday

[hollywoodex_tras]

One ex looked up and started chattering its teeth excitedly. That caught the attention of the others, all of them turning to face Dante and starting to drag themselves forward towards their next meal.

Re: Thursday

[rebelseekspizza]

"Suckers," Dante muttered under his breath.

Then he moved, faster than any human and in a direction no human would just go for: straight into the herd of exes.

He whirled Cerberus through the air, the weapon freezing what it couldn't immediately rend. It moved fast, deadly, and unstoppable.

They didn't stand a chance.

(And Dante wasn't even showing off.)