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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New to the story? If so, please read the previous parts first! At this point, you REALLY should! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~CHAPTER 19~~~

"And you're SURE this doesn't bother you? You're one hundred percent sure?" I felt like this was the hundredth time I've asked, but I needed to be certain.

Kyla groaned. "Yes, Greg, I'm sure. I let Cali have you to herself for one night, you two had sex, and I'm okay with it. Now the three of us are even, and I'd like it to stay that way."

She sounded like she was getting annoyed, so I decided to stop pressing any further. But the conversation still wasn't over yet. "It's just weird is all" I said. "I mean, every time I've seen or heard of a guilt-free pass being used, it usually falls apart and messes everything up for everyone. I'm glad the three of us are apparently the exception to that, but still..."

As I talked, Kyla took a long sip of the water she brought with her before responding. She offered me some, which I gladly accepted since this little chat was making my throat really dry. "This isn't a movie, Greg. Sometimes, things like that do work out for everyone in real life, in a weird, illogical way. And in our particular case, I'd like to think it will. So let's stop talking about it, and change the subject to something that isn't about relationships."

I smiled and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "Okay. Then let me ask you a different question: how's the armor holding up for you? No aches or pains?"

"Nope, this armor's actually kinda comfy. I don't know how you make these with such precision, but I can move just as freely as if I wasn't wearing it at all."

I chuckled. "Well, you know me. Some guys give their girlfriends flowers and candy, while I give mine hand-forged, battle-ready armor."

Kyla laughed and playfully punched my shoulder. "Yeah, I like the armor a LOT better. I mean, I'd rather not get hit at all, but I'm sure it'll help us win this fight."

"That it will, my lady. That it will..."

As part of the preparation for our assault on OGD's base, I figured that crafting a set of armor for all of our members worked out pretty well last time, so I encouraged everyone to let me modify their 'Omega Armor.' Seems the name Harry gave it is rubbing off on me all of a sudden... I was able to make our suits lighter and able to protect more of the body, as well as being easy to remove. All in all, a true testament to my abilities.

In the meantime, Smith opted to wear his OGD armor instead, after removing the last-resort suicide device in the chest plate. He had a plan for infiltrating the base and disabling the power, which would make our entire attack a LOT easier. In addition, Cali donned a stolen suit of OGD armor herself after agreeing to help Smith play secret agent. I was worried that she was getting in over her head, but Smith assured me she'd be fine. All she had to do was keep a dark, intimidating demeanor and not talk.

As for the here-and-now, we've been on the road for the past thirty-six hours, driving across ruined city after ruined city to reach our destination. We had eight vehicles in total and there were forty of us, so it was five soldiers per vehicle with five different driving shifts. This way we could get to the OGD base quicker and wouldn't have to stop for people to rest. Right now we were between shifts, stopping for a moment on a steep highway to stretch our legs and shift drivers. I was in one jeep with Kyla, Brent, and two other hybrids I didn't know, most likely Brent's Team Epsilon teammates.

He was the last one to drive the jeep for us, occasionally coughing and growling under his breath. I found out that that was the ultimate result of his injury from our last bout with OGD; permanently damaged vocal cords. He couldn't talk, and was restricted to grunting, sighing, and growling. Growling that actually sounded panther-like, which just made a little too much sense in this regard. His arm had healed up nicely, but there was underlying damage that prevented his explosive abilities from working properly. But he was carrying a large device with him on this trip that compensated for that. It looked like a combination of the Megabuster and a Brute Shot, meaning that Harry and I clearly weren't the only HAC videogame fanatics after all. He fired a few high-powered test shots with it before we left, proving to everyone that he may be down, but he's definitely not out. It's people like him that I truly admire; people that shrug off injury and leap right back into battle against the very enemies that crippled them in the first place.

As Kyla and I talked, Evan eventually came over to the secluded area where we were sitting to bring us up to speed with everyone else.

"THERE you two are. You missed the rally speech the team leaders gave us a few minutes ago. Pretty powerful stuff, really."

"Eh, not as important as getting closure" I replied, which made Kyla groan.

Evan took a seat next to us. "Well then, I'll let that stay between you two. But tell me Greg, is it true that you gave leadership of Team Omega to Francis? Because he's been hanging with Ross and the other leaders this whole week, so I figured I'd ask."

"I just needed a break" I replied after a moment's thought. "He's a better leader than me anyway, since he's the one that actually wanted the position from minute one. I just did a good enough job at it that the HAC higher-ups let me stay where I was. But I don't care, I'm happy where I am now. It doesn't even matter, actually. In hindsight, we're all one big team now, all of us. One big, happy hybrid family."

Kyla sighed and hugged me tight. I wasn't trying to move anybody with my words, but this was a nice surprise. "You sounded just like Ross when you said that last part, Greg. You can say whatever you want about roles and titles, but you, sir, ARE a true leader. Don't tell yourself any different."

~~~

"Hey, look! Over there!" Harry shouted, pointing to something in the distance behind me and Kyla as we walked back to everyone else. Evan had already gone back to the group, since we wanted to finish our conversation in private.

Several of us, myself included, turned to the direction Harry indicated. Off in the horizon we could see a lone zombie walking towards our location, most likely attracted by the sound we were making. It was strange enough that this one was actually walking rather than limping, but it was stranger that he was fidgeting about, showing an unusually high degree of motor skills for a zombie.

But what happened next tipped the scale from strange to just plain crazy.

"WRAAAAAAAGH!!! GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH! GRA-GRA-GRAAAAAA!!!

The zombie threw its head back and started sprinting towards us, shrieking and flailing its arms all the while. It was going pretty damn fast, too. Before we could process what was happening, it was only a mere twenty yards away, determined to strike whoever happened to be caught in its path.

Namely, me and Kyla.

I flexed my muscles and boldly drew my giant sword, ready to dash towards it and take its screaming head off with one well-timed swing. But before I could do that, Kyla tapped my shoulder and calmly walked in front of me. "Let me handle this one, Greg. I still need some practice with moving targets."

"Are you sure?" I nervously asked, noticing that the zombie was two seconds away from mauling my cryokinetic girlfriend.

"Sure I'm sure" she answered, trying to sound like I did yesterday to prove she had this under control. And fast as a gunshot, she raised her hand and fired an ice blast that hit the running zombie head-on, knocking it back and rapidly encasing it in a frozen block. After only a split second, it was completely frozen in place, dead, but from numerous impalements to the head rather than the sheer cold. Kyla smirked and launched another blast at the statue, which promptly shattered it into thousands of frozen pieces. I could tell from the twinkle in her eye that she was overjoyed to see her power and confidence growing.

I was stunned. Harry and Cali teleported over to the pile of zombie bits, taking a second to admire Kyla's handiwork, the latter looking like she finally perfected the ability with Harry's help. I noticed several other hybrids were staring in disbelief at Kyla as well, probably wondering how she became so powerful all of a sudden. She noticed this and blushed. "Oh come on, people, you've never seen a girl annihilate a zombie like nobody's business before? I thought that was normal for us."

Ross and Francis walked over, looking just as surprised as everyone else, though pride was the more prominent expression on Ross' face.

"No, it's not that, Kyla. I'm just surprised you're being more aggressive with your powers now" Ross said. "Surprised and happy, actually. Happy to see you stepping out of your comfort zone. What made you decide to suddenly be more forceful?"

Kyla walked back to me and took a hold of my arm. "I wanted to be braver in the battlefield, so I found a good teacher. And that little display is only half of what I can do now. Impressed?"

Ross chuckled. "Congratulations, Ossland. You've turned our sweet little sister into a violent zombie killing machine. You must feel so great."

"Har, har" I replied, but that was as far as I got. Before I could follow up with a sarcastic response, another loud shriek far to the left got all of our attention. We hurried over to the source of the yell, and could see more zombies off in the distance approaching us.

"Shit..."

And by more, I mean a whole fucking ARMY of them. The ground almost seemed to shake as they advanced. For a whole minute, all we could do was stare in disbelief.

"Oh... Oh my God..." Cali muttered.

Harry nudged his way past us to get a better view. "Dude... OGD's officially gone balls-to-the-wall. I mean this is just like... Whoa..."

"Where did all these come from?" Kyla stammered. "Are we close to OGD already?"

"No" Smith answered, popping up right behind us. "We're still half a day's drive away. But if I know OGD like I've known them for the last year, they anticipated this attack of ours and sent some of their new monsters to meet us halfway."

There must have been thousands of them out there... A good half were running towards us just as fast (and screaming just as loudly) as the zombie Kyla killed, while others were advancing at a more traditional pace. But a lot of these other zombies were still unique in their own rights. Some were at least seven feet tall with ripped muscles, much slower overall compared to their undead comrades, but they looked plenty strong enough to knock a person off their feet and pound them into a pulp. Several of them paused every few seconds to let out a throaty roar, an intimidating contrast from the ambient shrieks in the background.

However, this was only the tip of the zombie-diversity iceberg. In contrast to the regular, running, and brutish undead, the rest were few and far between, but quite a sight to behold. Some of them seemed to be mutated walkers; covered from head to toe in huge boils and leaking a dark red substance from their mouths. From where I was standing I could see this liquid dripping and sizzling on the ground, showing that it was highly acidic. Their moans sounded deeper and more gurgled than the others. Another variant of the gurgling zombies were as large as the slow, brutish ones, but much wider overall. They appeared to have slimy skin just transparent enough to show their innards, and constantly leaked thick, green bile from their mouths rather than red, corrosive vomit. I wasn't sure what the bile's harmful properties, if any, actually were, but I counted it as a threat nonetheless. These bloated zombies' hefty bulk would enable them to take a lot of punishment before dying, essentially making them a more defensive variant of the acid-spitting zombies.

The final breed was the smallest in size, but definitely the most horrifying species yet. With sickly green skin and a skinny physique, they crawled on the ground rather than walk, letting out menacing growls from their mouths as they went. But that was just what made them so nightmarish; they only had mouths. No eyes, no nose, just huge mouths with large, jagged teeth; truly the stuff of nightmares. If a zombie and a bear trap ever had a retarded lovechild, this would be it. They had a green smoke trail coming from behind them as well, suggesting that the teeth weren't the only things that made them dangerous.

In total, six different types of zombies meant six different levels of danger, and potentially six different strategies would be required for dispatching them all.

From that point, I knew this will be the equivalent of every single bout with the undead we've ever had; an entire year's worth of World War Z condensed into one fight against one army of advanced zombies.

Bravo, OGD, bravo. You've managed to intimidate me with your zombie army. Still gonna wail on their rotten asses, though.

"Well, this is it, boys and girls" Francis said. "Everyone ready for Round 3 of the HAC-OGD war? Because those zombies look more than ready to take us on."

All forty of us stood our ground, mentally and physically preparing ourselves for the zombie onslaught of our lives. But in my mind, there were only nine of us. The eight hybrids with me that I called my friends were the only ones on my mind; the only ones I felt the most connected with. Everyone else here with us was irrelevant.

As we stood in anticipation of the oncoming slaughter-fest, I could see that my friends were flexing their abilities, probably as a quick warm-up to ensure an optimal zombie-killing performance. Harry created and dispersed several fireballs in his hands, while Evan telekinetically seized several large rocks from the area and began spinning them around himself, ready to launch them at our attackers with lethal speed. Smith created his signature ice spear and ice shield in his hands, and Ross ran white, cackling electricity between his fingertips. Brent readied the device attached to his arm and eagerly growled with anticipation. Francis simply cracked his knuckles, not bothering to flex his abilities at all. But as I've come to notice from him over the months, the fierce resolve in his eyes was enough to prove his readiness. As for my two girlfriends, their hands were glowing light blue and dark red just like our morning of training. But unlike that day, I could see that they now had the same gaze of determination as Francis did. This time, they were READY. No more doubt, no more fear, just them and a horde of zombies to destroy.

As for myself, I checked my large zweihander for any cracks or dents, and gave it a couple of quick swings to get my adrenaline pumping. Like before, I had made it as tough and dense as it could possibly be, which I now knew would pay off against those acidic zombies.

Francis walked to the front of the pack to grab everyone's attention. "Everyone spread out and grab a different chunk of the horde to fight. On three, we charge in and unleash HELL."

I quickly turned to my girls, giving them a silent wave to say 'good luck.' They made their way over to me and gave me a quick kiss each. No words needed to be said, this was a time for action and action alone.

And yet, I couldn't help it.

"One..."

"I know I've already said it, but I'm so proud of both of you. Take the lessons I've taught you and the lessons you've taught yourselves, and be the best zombie killers you can be."

"Two..."

They nodded in consent, and silently returned to their positions. They were ready.

"THREE!"

And at long last, so was I.

"BEGIN!!!"

We all let out a simultaneous battle cry that would make any other army shit their pants, and boldly charged into the horde.

As the wave of advancing zombies began to break apart into smaller groups from our combined efforts, I made my move, still hoping that Cali and Kyla would be all right without me. I took two steps into the path of a wild running zombie and severed its head with one perfectly timed horizontal slash, only to find myself staring right into the eyes of one of the grotesque, boil-covered walkers. It took a deep breath and prepared to vomit corrosive stomach acid in my face, but that momentary pause was all I needed. I immediately brought my sword back up and shoved the tip right into its mouth, all the way through the back of its head, scoring myself a second, though not quite textbook-appropriate decapitation. As the spitting zombie's body spasmed with plenty of acid leaking from its neck, I kicked it over, making the nasty bodily fluid spill out onto the ground around me. Due to their unorthodox stride the three normal walkers that approached the puddle quickly slipped and fell into it, thrashing and unable to get back up, leaving themselves to slowly dissolve away. I took a quick second to smile and admire my handiwork, always appreciative of when everything works out and my job does itself.

After spending a few more minutes running around and cutting down every normal/running zombie that came my way, some of the more dangerous creatures began to take notice of me. One of the tall, thuggish walkers slowly made its way over to me, snarling and gnashing its rotten teeth all the while. I boldly ran over to him, confident that his slow speed would give him no chance at all to fight back. As I leapt up and swing straight down, much to my surprise he quickly swiped at me with one arm, allowing it to take the full force of my blade instead of his head. But as my sword hit the ground after severing said arm, I found that this was only a small part of a much bigger problem. This brute's limb was only as wide as a normal person's leg, but the muscles inside it were much thicker and denser than I had anticipated. Rather than cutting like butter, as was the norm, slicing this zombie's arm off felt like cutting through a freaking tree.

In my momentary state of confusion, my assailant wound his good arm back and punched me square in the chest, knocking me off my feet. The punch didn't really hurt thanks to my chest plate, but it was more than enough to knock the wind out of me. Slightly disoriented, I tried to regain my footing, only to be tacked and forced back to the ground by another running zombie. He sat on top of me, frantically clawing at my face, trying to rip me apart and devour anything he could grab. I brought my sword up to shield my face, but I was unable to strike the zombie at the same time. But suddenly, I got a much better idea. With a hand on each side of my zweihander, I instantly split it apart into my familiar long and short blades and stabbed them both into the runner's eyes, killing it instantly in a spectacular display of carnage. Trying to avoid getting a face full of its slightly congealed blood, I kicked the zombie off my chest and stood back up, thankfully without any interruptions this time.

From there I could see the brutish zombie slowly making its way over to me, bleeding profusely from the stump where its arm used to be, but otherwise unbothered. But after a few more steps it paused to flail its arm and let out another deep roar, giving me one chance to strike it down before any more of the walking dead could converge on me. If regular slashes would only serve to tire me out quicker, I decided to go with something I'd wanted to try out for a while; a little move I thought of to spice things up after months of one-sided zombie fights. I dashed up to the roaring beast and stabbed both of my swords into its chest, closing my eyes and focused hard on what I wanted the weapons in my hand to do. It took a precious second of leaving me vulnerable to attack, but I could feel it working right after. The thug's roars quickly turned into choked gurgles and died down almost immediately.

Yeah, I think it worked. Question is, how well did it work?

Once I opened my eyes I could see that the brute zombie had stopped dead in its tracks, mouth agape, and had all of its remaining limbs spread out in a cross shape. I could see large barbed metal spikes poking out from its good arm, severed arm, its head, and thicker spikes pinning its feet to the ground. I didn't have to check the body more carefully to know that there was now an entire network of metal inside it that had shredded its muscles and innards to pieces.

A self-contained disembowelment. In a sick, twisted way, it was almost like art.

Oh yeah, if ever there was a Mortal Kombat-style finishing move that I could think of, this'd be it. From henceforth, I shall call this move 'The Scarecrow.' Creepy AND powerful. Once we win this fight, I should show this to Harry.

I was glad that my mind could bend my swords exactly how I wanted them to in the blink of an eye, especially when face to face with a zombie twice my size. But since it required a good amount of time and concentration to pull off, I realized I can't just do this to zombies left and right. I should save it for the bigger ones like this guy, and only if slashing doesn't work right away.

Which, for my ego's sake, I hoped would be quite often.

Realizing that there was still a large battle going on around me, I willed the metal I spread throughout the zombie's body back into dual sword form, and withdrew both my blades from the corpse at the same time. The zombie fell over, leaking copious amounts of congealed blood from the dozen or so fresh holes in its body.

"Okay, enough dicking around, Greg. Back to work..."

~~~

A short spitting zombie came at me fast, drooling acidic vomit at the sight of a living organism to kill. He lunged at me, bad idea. I swiftly sidestepped to the right and stabbed both swords down into its head, using my height as an advantage. I kicked it in the back to withdraw my blades, and dashed towards a new target.

One of the bloated zombies grabbed my attention, standing taller and wider than its skinny, spitting cousin. It's spewing green bile in Francis' direction, but standing just out of his ice attack's reach. Francis didn't seem to mind, though. He punched the ground to create a solid wall of ice that blocked the bile missile, leaving me to kill the fat zombie myself. He's already occupied with skewering a group of toothy, crawling zombies.

As for the fat zombie, I casually walked up to it and tapped it on the back, making it around turn and see me smiling like an idiot. The bloat took a deep breath and vomited up more green bile, but I was more than ready to act. I dashed behind it and grabbed both sides of its head, forcing it to discharge all over the other zombies that surrounded us, two of which were the thuggish species. They were quickly covered in the stuff; unable to see and unable to move without tripping over each other. After decapitating the fat zombie, I made short work of the others, having more than enough time to Scarecrow the two brutes. In their blind state, they were no match for me.

Once I got a small opening I was able to quickly scan the surrounding area for my two girlfriends, and was truly amazed at what I saw. They were both slaughtering every zombie in their sight like pros; leaping/teleporting all over the place and using each other's attacks in various combinations to produce spectacularly gruesome effects. They fought with that fierce determination in their eyes, fighting for ultimately different reasons, but with an equal amount of conviction.

With their backs to each other, Kyla froze every ghoul in their front as Cali blasted away the ones coming from the rear, using her oil and napalm attacks to produce huge explosions. They then switched positions, putting Cali in a prime position to blast Kyla's frozen zombies into nothing, while Kyla eliminated the fires before they could spread to any of our teammates. They both found a moment's rest and high-fived each other, then ran off to find a different crowd of zombies to massacre.

Glad to see they work so well together. Fire and ice... A match made in Heaven.

After powering through another small crowd, I found Smith way in the back, looking rather lonesome dispatching walkers all by himself.

"Having fun?" I asked him.

He whipped around and thrust his spear right past my head, impaling a running zombie that had managed to sneak up on us. He chuckled after seeing me flinch like a wimp. "Oh, I'm having the time of my life over here. One of those damn crawlers bit me in the leg, but other than that, I'm fine."

I was glad to hear that he was doing well, but the slight uneasiness in his voice had me concerned.

"Something wrong? You got bit, yeah, but you're not gonna turn, you know. We're built to last."

He sighed. "Greg... I miscalculated. I mean, I hope I'm wrong and everything, but if it's this intense over here, OGD's gonna be at least TEN times more difficult than this. Sad, but probably true."

This was a surprise. "Shit..." I moaned out.

We both momentarily paused the conversation to kill several zombies that had converged on us, quickly and cleanly. "Yeah. I'm sorry, man. You know what they say; 'Home is where the heart is.' Unfortunately, it's also where Stryker is. And believe me, he'll be waiting for us..."

~~~

Well, it's been my pleasure to bring you Chapter 19 after a long delay, probably my longest delay to date. Between classes starting again and my general laziness (also Deadrising 2 OTR and Prototype 2's addictive gameplay), I fell way behind. Believe me when I say it won't happen again. As you may or may not have noticed, LITA is now on the SF Folder system for your convenience, after it took me long enough to figure out how to arrange them in chronological order. I always welcome new Watchers, but feel free to subscribe to the folder updates as well.

But this is it; the home stretch for my first story. Only a few more chapters to go and only two more Origins chapters (the long-awaited Smith chapter is next), but PLENTY of more surprises. Some may be obvious, others won't be. Funny thing is, I've actually got the LITA Epilogue halfway done already, just as a small side project. But you're all gonna have to wait for that one...

Finally, as most of you have hopefully noticed by now, I'm all about giving my characters superpowers based on those from some of my favorite games, but the same goes for the advanced zombies. For all the Nazi Zombies, Dead Island, and Deadrising players out there, I hope this chapter was as much a treat for you as it was for me to write it.

That concludes my rambling. Greg out.

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