The Shell was swept along with the tide of soldiers without much resistance.
Deafening sounds of screams, gunshots, and artillery shells had no impact upon It.
Blandly, The Shell noted that at one time It may have been frightened at the outcome of these events. It hadn’t wanted to fight. To kill. Even if it was zombies, the action of killing seemed wrong, and not within Its’ capabilities.
Looking to the gray skies above, The Shell pondered the orders it had been given. Use the weather against the enemy…and not hit their own.
Why should It?
They were fighting an enemy that so far, couldn’t be beat. Zombies outnumbered them in ludicrous amounts, and everyone expected four super humans to make a difference? Two of which could barely tip their scale in their favor?
The Shell knew that General Lakas was one of the major scale-tippers, and It knew that Itself was the other one. Soldiers of the EAM were already dying around It, but the blood that splattered up onto The Shell’s face made no difference to It.
So what? How many people were dying of starvation in the African Central Power? This was a useless, pointless, slaughter that would solve absolutely nothing, and they had absolutely no chance of winning~
“FALL BACK!” General Lakas commanded over the noise of the battlefield, “FALL BACK TO THE BARRICADES!”
“Retreating so soon?” The Shell thought with a twist of cruel irony.
Once again, It was swept along with the tide of soldiers. However, since The Shell was near the front of the soldiers in the beginning, It was now near the back. Whatever. It didn’t make a difference.
The barbed wire panels would close in a few seconds, and they would lock everyone safely inside…safe for the moment, at least.
A sound made everyone freeze, however.
As a whole, the army turned to see a small child sitting in No-Man’s-Land; wailing helplessly as the Halogen army bore down. Many soldiers turned their heads the other way; giving up on the hopeless situation. Others looked and clenched their jaws; using what they were now seeing to add to their resolve to win the war.
The Shell froze completely.
Even from the distance, It could tell the child was a boy. He had dark brown hair that fell into his eyes as he rocked back and forth from the terror of the zombies coming towards him. Looking around, The Shell realized no one was going to even attempt to save him.
No one.
“Promise you’ll be back? Cross your heart ‘n hope to die?”
“I promise.”
Who had that conversation been with?
“…Joshua.”
The shell slipped from the man…no, it exploded from him. The dull, emotionless covering was blasted away with the force of everything that made Nathanael Willow the man that he was.
The resemblance to Joshua and this boy were too similar. That’s what Nathanael would say later as to why he recovered at that moment. It was as though he were trying to save his little brother from something that he was obviously too late to save him from.
Nathanael sprinted for all he was worth as the barbed wire closed in around him. It was at least as long as a football field, and it wasn’t going to stop for him. In the background, he thought he heard Lakas shouting at him to get his ass back there RIGHT NOW.
Ever true to his college bachelor, young, rebellious ways, Nathanael completely ignored the authority figure. He didn’t quite make it out of the barbed wire. As a result, vicious cuts were carved into his chest and arms as he dove out of it (his face somehow miraculously escaped any harm).
Nathanael skimmed over the bloodied ground; barely breaking stride for the dead bodies that littered it. The race between him and the might of the Halogen army…the winner received the helpless boy.
It was nearly a tie.
The Aussie didn’t have to worry about running into other soldiers. The zombies were slowed by each other; which allowed him to scoop up the boy about ten seconds before the first few rotting flesh bags got there.
“Wait!” A voice shouted, “Everyone stop!”
Surprisingly, the entire army stopped. There was a ripple in the masses, and Nathanael knew that someone—or rather, something—was about to emerge. He set the child down on his feet gently and pointed to where the British army was waiting.
“I-I’m small e-enough to crawl through t-t-the wire.” He blubbered out. Nathanael nodded and jerked his head in that direction. It was a motion that said, “Run as fast as you can.”
The boy ran, and the isotope couldn’t help but notice that he looked as though he were about seven years old. A few years younger than Joshua.
Nathanael straightened just as the army parted in front of him. A Halogen with a large rotting hole in his chest greeted him first. Blood covered ginger hair was noticed next, followed by the small rotted spots on his face.
“Hello there,” The Halogen said with a sadistic smile, “You risked an awful lot coming out here. You know the boy?”
His answer was a head shake.
The enemy tilted his head to the side, “Then why save him? You just threw your life away, you realize that? Who do you think you are?” He laughed, “Do you really think you can defeat us? I am Magnesium! You cannot hope to beat me! Now tell me, little man; before I kill you, what is your name?” His smile turned cruel, “Or are you just a number?”
Raising his calm, cool, collected (but not emotionless) Bambi brown eyes to the monster before him, he spoke for the first time since arriving home from his family’s funeral, “My name is Nathanael Willow. And I have beaten the shit out of bigger, badder, and better fuglies.”
Magnesium’s cocky attitude disappeared, “You dare to speak to me like that?” He seethed, “A worthless lump of flesh like you? I think some lessons in manner are in order. Right boys?” The zombies behind him grinned with a crazed air.
“Come at me, jackass.”
The first punch Nathanael avoided with ease. It was the following series of kicks, chops, and punches that were more difficult to block. He was in no way a fighter. Sure, there had been a few brawls back in college, but those experiences didn’t help him here. A slip-up in college meant carrying around a black-eye for a week or two.
A slip-up here meant death.
That, and Magnesium was at a huge advantage. Being a zombie had its perks, and one of them what that he was nearly invincible. Nathanael could punch him all day and not make a blind bit of difference.
However, after a few minutes of rapid ducking and blocking, he realized something crucial. Magnesium wasn’t a fighter either! Nathanael finally saw it in the way that he over-swung his punches, how his feet sometimes crossed each other, and when his fingers would move uncertainly when he was thinking about what he was going to do next.
“Think, Nathanael! Think! Self defense stuff from the internet!”
Steeling himself, Nathanael threw a wild punch at the enemy’s face. Magnesium barely flinched from it, but it was nevertheless an opening. The pair fought like a whirlwind on the battlefield; duck, swing, kick, chop, pivot, step, block, recover from the enemy’s blow, and launch one of your own.
Nathanael, after taking a painful kick to his thigh, saw an opening. Darting forward, he drove his palm into Magnesium’s nose, and his first thought was, “Oh God, that is grody.” The bone offered little resistance and snapped on contact. Worse though, was the skin-crawling squelch that sounded when the bone jammed up into the Halogen’s brain.
Some kind of bluish-green liquid (Nathanael assumed it was blood) spurted out from Magnesium’s face, and he roared in pain. The rest of the army, which had been standing by until the moment, stepped forward with various growls and hungry noises.
“NO!” Magnesium shouted, “HE’S MINE! BACK OFF!”
Nathanael, now feeling like the cocky one, asked, “What’s the matter? Did your muscles rot away at the same time your brain did?”
“Fool,” Magnesium spat, “I am no copy. I am one of the five-hundred isotopes that Helli0n tested. They used us and discarded us. Well, we’re going to show them that they were wrong. I am a superhuman. You, are nothing. NOW DIE!”
Magnesium burst into flames, but he didn’t die, as he just commanded the bachelor to do. Nathanael was oddly mesmerized by the flaming man, and how he could still see a distorted face of rage through the roaring blaze.
The moment came to a painful end when Magnesium slashed a fiery hand across his chest. Nathanael’s torso, already covered with lacerations from the barbed wire, shrieked in newfound pain as a far more intense pain raked over it.
Nathanael was knocked back from the blow, and the next thing he knew, he was on his hands and knees in the bloodied soil; facing a dead British soldier.
The Halogen thought he had won. His enemy was on his knees before him, no one was coming to his aid, and he thought he was just one puny human.
“The world will be consumed by me,” Magnesium boomed as he watched the Aussie struggle to get upright, “The world will end in fire!”
“Actually,” Nathanael replied as he looked up, and Magnesium was shocked to see a hint of mischief dancing in those eyes, “I think it will end in ice.”
There was no time to ponder what he said, because at that moment, lightning shot across the sky, and the once gray and lifeless clouds were now thick, swirling masses of dark gray. A combination of rain and hail then unleashed itself from the heavens.
It was almost as though God Himself was spurning the Halogens.
Magnesium roared in a rage when the pouring rain extinguished his flames, and was even further pissed by the golf ball sized chunks of hail that were hitting only him and his army. The Aussie stood, and water flattened his hair to his skull before running off his face and into the ground. In no time at all, the rest of his clothes were soaked.
And he had never looked stronger.
“I think the world will end in ice,” Nathanael repeated to his enemy, “But I know you won’t be there to see it.” Using the bayonet from the dead soldier on the ground, he beheaded Magnesium with a single stroke.
His rotting head fell to the quickly muddying ground; still wearing a look of surprise at the turn of events. The body fell after a second, the bachelor looked up to the rest of the army, and thought, “Son of a bitch.”
While the super humans had been fighting, Nathanael hadn’t paid attention to the army of zombies. Now with their leader dead, and no one ordering them to stay back, they surged forward. Hunger gleamed in their eyes, and the bachelor suddenly realized how a turkey felt on Thanksgiving Day.
He turned and ran; not really sure why he did. The Brits wouldn’t open the barbed wire for him. Not with an army of Halogens right on his ass. Maybe it was just to by more time. Either, way, Nathanael could never figure out why he did.
Upon reaching the sea of barbed wire, he turned around and surveyed the situation. The army was still there, but he had put a bit of distance between them and himself.
Nathanael clenched and unclenched his fists. There was nothing he could do.
“Well, at least the kid is safe,” He thought to himself, “That’s what matters.”
Closing his eyes, he relished the feeling of wind on his face; knowing it would probably his last pleasant sensation on this world. After that, it was sayonara to this polluted dump and onto the Promised Land.
First it blew against his left cheek, then his right. It somehow managed to swirl around Nathanael’s wet hair before dying down again. Inspiration struck.
“That’s it! The wind!”
Nathanael swallowed the lump in his throat. What he was about to do was dangerous. As in, extremely dangerous. What if he lost control? Worse, he could die from trying to sustain what he was about to brew up, and he could destroy what was left of London.
But it could save them all.
The Aussie inhaled deeply, and winced from the intense pain in his chest before closing his eyes. Above them, the sky took on a dangerous green tint, and the wind, which until now had been moderate, turned into a powerful howling noise.
Nathanael’s insides twisted in pain as his efforts already began to take its toll. The funnel cloud was now in formation. He just had to finish it off. His arms raised as he summoned all the strength he could, and a yell of pure adrenaline ripped from his throat as the wind roared like an approaching freight train.
The tornado sucked up everything in its path before hurling its victims out of sight. Nathanael was able to guide it, but it felt as though he were putting a dog leash on a great white shark. He was barely hanging onto his control.
Shouts of panic could be heard from both sides of the battlefield. The Halogens scrambled for some kind of cover, yet to no avail. Nathanael was merciless to the mutated monsters and didn’t stop until the field was cleared.
Now came the hard part: dissipating his creation.
Black dots closed in around Nathanael’s brown eyes, and his muscles were shaking uncontrollably, but in one last ditch effort, he destroyed the tornado. Actually, he more like made it explode from the inside out. It sent one last hyper-blast of wind in all directions before silence eerily descended across the blood soaked field.
Not even the entire army behind the Aussie made a sound.
Nathanael’s legs folded fawn-like underneath him, and his back hit the ground with a muted thump. Rain drops hit his skin lightly; as though the heavens were caressing his face. As his eyes closed, and before unconsciousness took him, the last thing he saw was a brief ray of sun peeking out among the rolling dark storm clouds above him.
26/6/2013, 9:12 pm by Rozen_Maiden
» Character Skeletons, Rules, and Accepted Characters
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» I'm Back! And Better Than Ever!
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» The answer is a question
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» Cleverbot:not so clever, gay ,and best conversationalist
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» Shawn character app
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» Destroy the picture above!
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» Chapter 1: Dawn of the End
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