Breaking into the small building that the 'After Death Fellowship' had taken for their own was child's play for anyone with a lockpick and a reason to get inside. Anders and Ezra had both. The unassuming exterior was matched by the interior as well; the front door opening to small entryway and the entryway led to a pair of double doors at the back. The building had been used as cheap seminar space, back when the Mount had still been Paramount Studios and things like 'seminars' still existed.

The doors at the back were slightly ajar, showing a large, open room that was not quite big enough for the hundred metal folding chairs crammed inside of it. The chairs were lined in ten rows of ten with only a narrow space down the middle to serve as an aisle, all of them facing away from the doors and towards the back of the room where the floor was raised about four or so feet up to make a little 'stage'. On that stage stood a podium, from which Christian Ngyuyen was addressing the congregation.

"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth," she said, delivering that line with all the fervor of a Southern Baptist preacher delivering some fire and brimstone to the damned, rather than quoting lines from Daybreak of the Dead. From the scattered clapping and calls of "Amen!" and "Preach," she had apparently found a willing audience.

The whole thing would be absurd, if it wasn't for two key details. The first was Kathy, standing in a white nightgown, roughly two sizes too big for her, staring past Christian's right shoulder in horror.

The other was the zombie, handcuffed to a radiator, its jaws clacking continuously in a sermon of its own.

( Zombies. Why did it have to be zombies? )

[Finale 1 of 2! Many thanks to the amazing team of not_every_mage and smilestopscars for all their hard work and compelling writing for this. <3 I can't fangirl everyone in this plot enough, omg. NFB, NFI. Previous post Next Post]

In the wake of Josh's escape, the Mount looked like an anthill that had been kicked over. More soldiers were called to the top of the Big Wall, trying to keep a lookout in case he came back, or get a sense of which direction he ran in, or just to feel like they were doing something. The civilians weren't much different, trying to stare past the exes to see what the Thing in the Cellar had been. Everywhere there was a hubbub of noise and movement and confusion--except around each of the Heroes. They were still, calm, quiet--but then, they knew exactly what the Thing had been. Instead, their eyes were all on Stealth as she laid a hand on Captain Freedom's forearm and murmured something, her head giving a minute nod towards the Rodenberry Building.

So, a meeting then.

Kathy didn't know whether she had been intended to be included of if Stealth just didn't think it was worth kicking anybody out for. Either way, ten minutes after Stealth had left the Big Wall, she was ensconced in a chair high up on in the penthouse, with Raven as a big, black bird perching docilely on her shoulder. Kathy didn't realize it, but this was the same room her friends had gathered twenty-one months ago when Stealth had recruited them into the war against Rodney.

( In the room where it happens )

[Preplayed with the amazing-as-always tigerundercover and adapted from Chapter of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB, NFI, OOC welcomed. Previous post Next post]

Kathy was pacing again. She couldn't help it. She knew it was frustrating Max to no end, but she was finding it real hard to work up a single fuck about that. She was trapped here, in her worst nightmare come to fucking life, and it was all his fault. If he couldn't handle a little pacing, that was on him.

Okay, it was also bugging Nick, too. She could see the little twitch around his eye with every step of her shoes on the tile--especially since she was making sure to clack them firmly as part of her 'Fuck You Max Hale' plan. She felt a little bad about Nick's annoyance, but hey, it wasn't like she asked him to hover. After news had spread about Tori's death earlier in the evening, he hadn't let her alone. He'd appointed himself her guardian angel, so he was just going to have to deal with a little pacing.

Or a lot of pacing.

The clacking of her shoes was a lot better than the clacking of the teeth outside. Now there was a noise that could drive someone mad. Kathy knew; she could hear the chattering of teeth all night long. Earplugs and loud music didn't help; that just meant that if anything happened, she wouldn't be able to hear it. If Legion were smart, he'd send out just a few exes late at night with ladders to climb over. Not a lot, not a loud invasion, but a few. Just enough to sneak past sleepy guards. Just enough to bite and raise an army inside here. Kathy wasn't going to give him the chance to get smart and sneak up on her, oh no. Even if it meant not sleeping at night because of the constant clack clack clacking by her chamber wall.

Clack clack clack. Fifteen steps from one wall of this room to the other. Clack clack clack Fifteen steps back. Clack clack clack. Fifteen steps to the far wall again.

Kathy was aware she might be going a little crazy. That was fine, so long as she took people with her.

( Some surprises on all sides )


Later, Kathy would only remember the rest of the night in snapshots. Nick would catch her eyes and she'd stare back, helpless and unmoving, until he broke eye contact again. And then she would pass out immediately into a dark and dreamless sleep. She woke up several times as they sped across the rooftops of LA, Nick thrilled to be Gorgon once more, up however many tiers he could get from her. She was like cocaine, he told her once; a hit from her was the best and purest high he could imagine, shooting him up so many tiers it was hard to keep count. She put the 'speed' in 'speedball,' apparently. He needed three more hits from her to cross the distance between the Mount and his old apartment and she crashed out after each one. She didn't wake up from the fourth time he drained her until they were in his apartment, waking up in his dusty bed to the sound of him crashing to the floor, his legs giving out at the same time as the energy from his last hit wore away. She must have caught his eyes again, because the next thing she knew, the sky was lightening to the east and they were running again, his dead cellphone tucked away in the harness with her, both strapped tightly to his back.

But the run home wasn't as fun and carefree as the trip there. At some point, Max's spell must have run out because they weren't just running, they were fleeing, being chased by exes that were ringed with blue flame, mouths open wide to show rows of shark-like teeth and claws made only to rend and tear. And Nick was slowing, dropping from tier to tier and Cairax's exes gained ground. One time, one of them got close enough that she could feel the heat of the fire on her cheek, smell the scent of rot that rose from it before it missed a jump and plummeted between buildings. "Last time, baby," Nick said, turning around to drain her one more time. And as the world floated away again, Kathy realized she was glad that she was going under again, that if Nick slipped or tripped or just didn't go fast enough, she'd be unconscious when Cairax got his talons on them.

She woke in the Mount, curled up on the box spring in her apartment - her first night in the Mount, she'd put the mattress on the floor in front of the door as an easy barricade - Nick's phone plugged into a charger and attached to the wall. Bleary-eyed but smiling for the first time since she'd gotten to Los Angeles, Kathy opened up Nick's contacts to see who on the island she could call.

[NFI, NFB, all the love to OOC. Previous Post. Next Posts here and here.]

Kathy didn't know why she was here. It was a question she couldn't answer for herself, never mind anyone else who might ask. But no matter how many times she tried to end up somewhere else, her feet had brought her here, right in front of the West Gate. Something about the conversation with Todd yesterday and the hungry look in the eyes of all those people, clustered outside the office. She'd sworn up and down that she didn't have the ability to talk to exes, but was she actually sure?

Wait a minute. Of course she was. This was stupid.

Once more, Kathy turned away, heading back towards town proper. Except then she thought about Todd's genuine grief and, once more, she found herself spinning back around and heading towards the gate again.

Fuck, she hated this place. It was turning her inside out over bullshit. But - fine. She'd go, she'd try to talk to a fucking zombie, she'd prove to herself for the last time that she didn't have any non-bouncy powers, and then she'd go back to her place and try to catnap for a few hours.

West Gate was on Vine and directly across from it was the guard station. She knocked, ducking her head inside to make sure if wouldn't interfere with the people patrolling the Wall if she just kind of...hung out there for awhile. The guy in camo - probably another Unbreakable, judging from his sheer size - seemed pretty unfazed by the question. A lot of people came to the gates, she realized, probably looking for familiar faces; the After Death folks especially. He pointed to a bright line painted on the ground in front of the gate, telling her to stay at least a yard behind it. So long as she did that, none of the exes would be able to touch her.

Giving him an appreciative nod, Kathy went out to the designated location and just stared through the bars for a moment. These were spaced a lot wider than the bars that made up the East Wall, wide enough that she was able to get a full view of the street beyond it. She'd...pretty much been avoiding doing that very thing since she arrived and yet, here she was now, doing that exact thing.

( Fuck, this was stupid. )

[Adapted from Chapter 18 of Ex-Communication, by Peter Clines. NFI, NFB, OOC is nice to get. Previous Post Next Post]

A week. She'd been here a week already. And as much as Kathy wanted to sit in her room all day and sulk at the unfairness of the universe for sticking her here, she was really, really bad and doing nothing. Just ask Raven! Or Dante! Or Anders! You know, if they were here. She was especially bad at doing nothing when just outside her window were several hundred exes all chattering their teeth at the guards on the walls above them.

So, as an accredited EMT in a place where trained medical professionals were few and far between, Kathy had volunteered to work in the clinic for a few hours every day, in part to spell Dr. Connolly and give the poor woman a break, and part to keep herself busy so she didn't run screaming mad watching every minute tick by that she was stuck here.

Boredom mixed very oddly with hypervigilance.

Today, though, even this place was slow. With regular scavenging runs currently on break due to demonic activity in the neighborhood, fewer people were getting hurt. The last patient--Deborah Jenkins, 33, sliced her arm on a rusted railing--had been discharged this morning. Kathy had remade the bed, cleaned up the patient area, taken stock of equipment and supplies, folded bandages, thrown a load of sheets in the washing machine...and now was stationed behind the desk reading the treatment of thrush, an outcropping of oral yeast. Not really her thing, but it was that or Connolly's notes on the ex-virus, and of the two...

( Yeah. Oral yeast outcroppings it was. )

[Adapted and mangled from Chapter 16 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines and, oops, I made myself sad with this one. NFI, NFB, OOC is great though. Previous Post Next Post]

Catching Banzai hadn't been as easy as one would like. In the two years since she'd died, they'd forgotten just how fast she was. And she was panic-running, flat out, not bothering to converse energy or breath. If she'd known the layout of the Rodenberry Building, they might not have caught her until she'd made it outside, halfway through the Mount.

But St. George had caught her up against a pair of locked doors and his impervious skin held up against her kicks and blows and scratches as well as it did bites from exes. He was glad he was the one who caught her, though; some of her attacks would have incapacitated anyone else if they'd landed. He just held her in the loose circle of his arms and let her wear herself out trying to get away.

He didn't take the heel to the groin or the gouge towards the eyes or the elbow to the throat personally. He wasn't even entirely sure that she could see him. Her eyes were wide and blank, constantly darting around, refusing to focus on his face. St. George didn't know how much Banzai remembered, but from the intensity of her reaction, he was betting it was a lot more than anyone had hoped.

When she finally sagged in his arms, exhausted and whimpering, he scooped her up and carried her back towards Max's room, shooing away volunteers and nosy patients. Max Hale's return to the living had brought up a lot of goddamn questions and ( it was time to get some answers. )



The North Gate was a few blocks from the hospital. Like all the entrances through the Big Wall, there were a few hundred exes and the air crackled with the sound of chattering teeth. Half of them pressed against the gate. The rest staggered through the street. Kathy made a small sound in the back of her throat, clutching St. George's hand in a white-knuckled grip, but her steps didn't falter.

"Baby, you don't have to see this," Nick said, his wheelchair rolling along beside them. "You could wait in the hospital with Danielle--"

"No," Kathy interrupted sharply. "I need to see. I need to know."

In the middle of Bronson was a smoking set of lines, a scar in the pavement stretching from one side of the road to the other. The superheated material had turned a fresh, deep black that stood out from the faded charcoal of the street. Three exes had been slashed in half bu Zzzap's burning touch, too slow to get out of the way and too mindless to realize their danger. Steam still trailed from their severed bodies. A spray of gore marked where one had boiled and exploded.

To parallel lines marked out a ring fifteen feet across. Inside the double circle was what looked like two triangles--or maybe an hourglass--surrounded by squiggles.

( So, about those symbols... )

[Text taken and adapted from Chapter 13 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB, NFI, OOC is made of sparkles.]

Last night after finally exiting the tower, they had made their way back to Dante's place in Limbo City. Kathy had been half-tempted to get a portal back to the island, worried about Eliot, wanting to be home, but she'd been too sore and exhausted to do much more than look at her phone before letting it fall back to pocket.

At least her texts to Raven had gone through, even if she probably seemed like a madwomen in them.

Exhausted as she was, she didn't manage to sleep much past sunrise. Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many feelings crowding close to keep her asleep. She got up, limping a little unevenly downstairs, scrounging to see what kind of breakfast she could make from the remains in the kitchen.

The answer was apparently coffee, so she set that to perking and went to sit in front of the big window, staring out at the street, eyes blank and seeing very little.

[For them who are in Limbo City with her! SP for forever because BDE and also brain.]

Dante's phone laid on the kitchen counter, haphazardly discarded. Its warning light flashed a flickering red, advertising its dying battery.

Dante himself was nowhere to be found.

( This bodes well. )

[NFI, but OOC & broadcast okay! Preplayed with the wonderful not_every_mage and follows this.]

Kathy rolled her shoulder; it groaned at the motion but was otherwise fine. Good, she hadn't dislocated it when she'd hit the ground. Hitting the ground had been better than getting hit by her opponent, but concrete was pretty unforgiving.

( Fight Club! Ish. )

[NFI, NFB, establishy]

Stealth crouched on the arch about the Melrose gate with Gorgon, St. George, and the visitors. The other heroes had been dispatched to the other gates she'd marked as vulnerable on her map, but Zzzap was flying recon and they were backed up by almost fifty more of the Mount's guards. They were the most vulnerable gate, to be sure, with Gorgon standing up front as bait for Cesares, but she had estimated the capabilities of the assembled people would be more than capable of repelling an attack, even if Zzzap was not able to return to aid them.

The exes had always been thick here, but now they grew denser by the moment. They packed the space in front of the gate and pushed back into the streets. Hordes of them staggered down Melrose and up Windsor. The guards walked the walls and stared down at the hungry mob. Some of them manned scaffolding towers. The dead pounded and clawed at the stucco. Another fourteen gate guards rammed pikes and spears between the bars of the gate. The dead stiffened at their skulls cracked and their brains were shredded. Then the humans pulled their weapons free, stepped back, and then lunged at the gate again even as more exes staggered forward.

"When do you want us to start sweeping?" one of the men asked, his rifle tucked against his shoulder.

"This is not the attack," shouted Stealth. "Just a massing of forces. Conserve your ammunition for now. Pikes only!"

Another wave of crushed skulls echoed up to her.

( Everything about this is fine. )

***

Zzzap flew through the air, lighting up the dark sky, and came to a hover above the arch where they were watching the crowd of exes grow. Something big and scaly at Van Ness. Thought you'd want to know, he said in his crackling, electronic voice.

"Damn it," St. George said, scanning the street. "How'd he get by us?" He looked at Stealth. "You all good here?"

"Go," she said. "And take Dante with you. Cairax Murrain cannot be allowed to breach the gate."

The big hero nodded and took off, with Dante close behind. "Demon's at Van Ness," said Gorgon as he watched them leave. "Not the best way for us to start, with you being wrong right at the top."

"Thank you for pointing that out," she said. Her cloak draped across her shoulders and down over the edge of the archway. "Can you see any further than four blocks under these conditions?"

Gorgon looked around. "Not really." Hid hand went to his mic. "All gates, let's get some flares up." Across the Mount, small comets shot into the sky and burst into stars. They could see for blocks now as red and yellow light bathed the surrounding neighborhood. Melrose was visible for a quarter mile past either end of the walls.

The walking dead kept coming. More and more, until the pavement vanished under a carpet of death. Thirty thousand dead eyes stared at them, and thirty thousand brittle hands clawed at the air. The exes pounded the walls, pushed at the steel fences, and rammed their arms between the gate's curling decorations. In the distance, they could hear engines roaring and horns blasting. The Seventeens were near.

Gorgon rolled his head in a circle until his neck popped. "Still feeling confident?"

"We are prepared," said Stealth. "We know their capabilities. It will be a challenge, but we are ready for whatever they have fight to fight us with."

And then the lights went out.

( Again, everything is just great! )