Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Bunkerkampf (Mortuus Orbis Part Two)	By : Sparrow & InBrightestDay Category: -Misc Video Games/RPGs > Crossovers Views: 1830 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the franchises, characters, or anything else from the settings in this collection. These include Street Fighter, Marvel, Sailor Moon, Kill La Kill, and others. I made no money from this work.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
After recovering her greatcoat from the dining hall, Isabeau found herself back on the uppermost floor, wandering the halls. She certainly didn’t feel comfortable speaking with the others now, and Satsuki wasn’t going to be good company either.
She supposed she could have ventured over to medical, as Erzsebet would likely have been fine with her presence, but ultimately, Isabeau’s problems didn’t stem from the question of who would be willing to talk to her. She was questioning her ability to control herself, along with the fact the values she believed in, the rules for how society was meant to operate, seemed foreign to the others here. She felt horribly disconnected from anything familiar.
Perhaps that was why she found herself wandering into the sleeping area, and past one of the rooms in particular. Sighing, she turned the switch and opened the door, almost expecting to find Makoto on the other side, quickly making an excuse about why she was late to breakfast or whatever other appointment they had set.
The room was empty, of course, and Isabeau just stared into it for a while, before finally walking in and taking a seat on one of the bunks. There was no way to tell time in the dormitories, of course. While there were clocks in the bunker, they were in other rooms. Given how very similar it all looked, it wasn’t hard for her to cast her mind back to when she had last been in this room.
Isabeau had been making her rounds. There had been nothing particularly out of the ordinary, a welcome change given recent events, but if their time in this necropolis had taught them all anything, it was the value of remaining vigilant.
When she glanced down the hall the dormitories branched off from, all of the doors were properly shut, with no sign of any intruders. She stopped her patrol, however, when she saw the young girl sitting on the floor outside one of the rooms, staring at the opposite wall.
“Miss Kino?” she asked, and the teenager looked over at her. Smiling tiredly, she waved at the older woman.
“Good evening, Isabeau-san. How are you?” Given the situation, the somewhat incongruous question made Isabeau smile.
“I am well,” she said. “I’m simply ensuring the shelter is secure.” She tilted her head. “Why are you out here at this hour?”
“I thought...I thought it would be better if I were out here,” Makoto replied. Isabeau waited for a moment, but the girl didn’t elaborate. Walking over to her, Isabeau gently touched her shoulder.
“You should try to get some sleep,” she said. Makoto didn’t reply. Averting her eyes, she shook her head quickly.
“There’s only one door,” she said, “and the bedroom is small. If something comes in…” She looked almost apologetic when she met Isabeau’s eyes again. “Are you sure the monster’s dead?” Isabeau understood immediately what she was talking about, and offered a reassuring nod.
“I was present when we burned the carcass in the incinerator. I don’t care how great the beast’s ability to heal was; I doubt it will reconstitute itself from a pile of ash.” Both of them laughed a little at that, and then Isabeau gestured for the girl to stand.
“Come now, Miss Kino. Let’s get you to bed.” Both of them ventured into the room, and Makoto climbed into the bed, laying her head back on the pillow and looking up at the ceiling. She relaxed a little, but Isabeau could still see the tension in her expression.
“Are you still worried?” she asked.
“Yeah,” the girl responded, looking and sounding a little embarrassed. “I know it’s better in here than it is outside, but things can still get in. It would be different if I could transform…” She stopped, and then just said “I’m sorry.”
“I assure you, Miss Kino,” Isabeau said gently, “there is no fault in being nervous, especially in a place like this.” Makoto was quiet for a while longer, and then looked at her again.
“Did you ever feel like this?” Isabeau actually laughed at that.
“I may remind you of your grandmother,” she said, “but I assure you that I was not always a knight of the Order. When I was a little girl, I lived in a big house in the woods. Now that was scary.”
“Bet it wasn’t like this,” Makoto said, a little grin creeping onto her face.
“Of course not,” Isabeau said. “There were werewolves outside instead of zombies.” Makoto laughed at that in spite of herself.
“So,” she said, “when you were little, and you got scared, how did you get to sleep?” Smiling, Isabeau took a seat on the bed.
“I would remind myself that I wasn’t alone,” the knight said, “that others were watching out for me, and that I was safer than I felt. My parents would look in on me, and if I still couldn’t sleep, my mother would sing me a lullaby.” Makoto didn’t laugh at that. Instead she just smiled.
“That sounds nice,” she said, and then was quiet for a long while. She swallowed, and Isabeau had noticed tears forming in her eyes. Eventually she spoke again.
“I miss my mom,” she said softly. One of her hands was sticking out from under the covers, and Isabeau took it in her own.
“You’ll see your family again some day,” she said, squeezing the girl’s hand tight. She couldn’t know if it was true, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered was that there was a frightened child next to her, and if Isabeau was worth anything, then she would reassure her. Finally, she came upon an idea.
“Would you like me to sing for you?” she asked. “I don’t know any Japanese lullabies, but I can sing one from my country.” Makoto looked somewhat embarrassed, but ultimately, she nodded.
“Very well then,” Isabeau said. “Close your eyes.” Makoto did as she asked, rolling onto her side and closing her eyes, and Isabeau began to sing.
Baloo, my boy, lie still and sleep
It grieves me sore to hear thee weep
If thou'lt be silent I'll be glad
Thy moaning makes my heart full sad.
Baloo, my boy, thy mother's joy
Thy father bred me great annoy
Baloo, baloo, baloo, baloo
Baloo, baloo, lu-li-li-lu.

O'er thee I keep my lonely watch
Intent thy lightest breath to catch
O, when thou wak'st to see thee smile
And thus my sorrow to beguile.
Baloo, my boy, thy mother's joy
Thy father bred me great annoy
Baloo, my boy, lie still and sleep
It grieves me sore to hear thee weep.

Twelve weary months have crept away
Since he, upon thy natal day
Left thee and me, to seek afar
A bloody fate in doubtful war.
Baloo, my boy, lie still and sleep
It grieves me sore to hear thee weep
If thou'lt be silent, I'll be glad
Thy moaning makes my heart full sad.

I dreamed a dream but yesternight
Thy father slain in foreign fight
He, wounded, stood beside my bed
His blood ran down upon thy head
He spoke no word, but looked on me
Bent low, and gave a kiss to thee!
Baloo, baloo, my darling boy
Thou'rt now alone thy mother's joy.
She didn’t have much experience doing it, her talents better suited to the battlefield than to the concert hall, but she still managed to hit the proper notes, and kept her voice gentle. At some point she found herself gently stroking the girl’s head as she sang. After a while, Makoto’s breathing slowed and her body relaxed. Even after the girl fell asleep, Isabeau stayed there for a while longer, making sure she wasn’t going to wake her when she finally rose and left the room.
Isabeau wasn’t sure how long she stayed in the room, running over every conversation she’d had with Makoto, as if doing so would allow her to discover some vital clue to where the girl had gone. Nothing came to her, and eventually she realized that this was becoming an act of self-flagellation. It wouldn’t help solve the problem, and it was only making her feel worse.
Eventually, she rose from the bed and left the dormitory, finding her way to the common room. Some supplies had been brought up from the storeroom on Level One, and in addition to that was the alcohol the new arrival with the silver arm had gotten into. Given the path her thoughts had taken since her fight with Chun-Li and the ensuing confrontation with Satsuki, a stiff drink might at least calm her nerves. It might also help with how she was feeling physically. Reaching behind her, she pressed a hand to her back, which still ached where she’d been thrown into the wall earlier. Yes, something for the pain was a very good idea.
She was not, however, about to drink it straight from the bottle. She still had some dignity left.
Taking a quick trip back to the kitchens, the one on this floor at least, she was able to secure a cup. A glass would have been ideal, but the “plastic” these cups were made from would suffice. Returning to the common room, she took a seat, pain flaring in her hips, intense enough to make her hiss in reaction.
With nothing else to do, she sat there drinking for quite some time. Not only did it soothe her nerves and wounds, it felt almost like a return to older times, when she and Greyson would meet for social occasions. The accommodations were certainly more lavish in her own world, but the little bit of familiarity was welcome. She winced at the thought. She had been doing her best not to think of him so far. Remembering him here just brought her pain.
She had been drinking just long enough to generate a pleasant warmth inside her when the door slid up and Chun-Li entered the room. She had a formidable black eye, and Isabeau winced at the sight of it.
For a moment, the two women just stared at each other, before Isabeau broke the silence.
"Have a seat," she said, waving the hand holding her mug at the crate across the room. "Don't worry, I'm not going to thump you again." A strange levity entered her voice that Isabeau herself had not expected, a sort of acknowledgment of how absurd what she was saying sounded. Chun-Li didn't smile, but she did go over to the crate.
Instead of sitting on it however she pulled the lid off and looked through it, before replacing it and starting to go through the others. Isabeau kept drinking, and watched her as she stumbled upon a crate full of cardboard boxes. She tore one open, revealing a number of long, wrapped bars.
"Never heard of a 'Wonka Bar' before," she muttered to herself.
"Can I see?" asked Isabeau, overhearing. Chun-Li shot her a dark look over her shoulder, but held up the bar and turned it so that Isabeau could read the label.
“WONKA'S SCRUMPDIDDLYUMPTIOUS BAR”, she read, grinning. “Jesus wept, who came up with the name for that? Getting paid by the syllable or something.”
Chun-Li snorted but didn't say anything, instead seating herself on the crate. She tore the end off the wrapper and bit off the end with considerable force, looking at Isabeau as she chewed. Isabeau sensed something building, and took another swallow from her mug.
"Just so you know," Chun-Li said suddenly, her tone sharp, "there is nothing wrong with what me and Kyle are doing."
"...That's your opinion," Isabeau replied. "And given where you're from I suppose I shouldn't blame you for having such an attitude about miscegena-"
"No. It's a fact. All that crap your people used to believe a hundred years ago about how having mixed-race kids would be the downfall of society, it's all a load of bullshit made up by the same people who used to think you could cure depression by chopping up the front of someone's brain."
Isabeau's mouth went dry. Chun-Li had half-risen off the crate as she had spoken, fists clenched like she was a heartbeat from flinging herself at Isabeau. After the silence stretched for a moment, however, she instead let herself thud back down onto the crate, and took another bite out of her chocolate bar.
"And nobody calls it 'Miscegenation' anymore either," she added, seemingly as an afterthought.
Isabeau looked down into her mug, the dark liquid swishing around in it. The future, their future, that the others came from, yawned open before her, a terrifying, unknowable gulf.
"Well how was I supposed to know that?" she mumbled.
"You could've asked one of us," Chun-Li snapped. "It's not like we've had a lot to do for the past couple of weeks."
Silence returned. Isabeau took another pull from her mug. Chun-Li finished her chocolate bar and started on another.
"I would like," Isabeau began, taking a deep breath. "To extend my apologies to you, over our... encounter. I’ve been having a dreadful time lately and… agh, that’s no excuse. I acted foolishly, and for that I’m sorry."
Chun-Li looked almost startled. “Thank you,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I honestly didn’t expect that, especially not after earlier in the cafeteria.”
“You mean the fight?”
“No. I’m talking about how Satsuki took you out of the room, but when you came back for the coat it looked like nothing had really happened.”
“I do my best to remain composed,” Isabeau said, “but if you’re suggesting that Miss Satsuki didn’t read me the riot act, then you’re quite mistaken.” She looked back at Chun-Li, saw the other woman’s questioning look, and sighed.
“I… tried to explain myself, but she just wasn’t having it. She drew that sword of hers, put it to my throat, said she couldn’t care less about my views on racial integration, reminded me that she herself was mixed-race and that if I continued to be a disruptive element in this place she would cut me down like a dog.”
Isabeau rubbed at her neck, where the black blade’s edge had left a tiny nick, only the barest brush against the flesh being enough to cut her skin.
“I looked into her eyes, that glare that could stop a clock ticking, and I knew she was serious.”
“Wow,” Chun-Li said quietly. “I had no idea…” She trailed off, evidently not knowing how to finish her thought. Isabeau took the opportunity to refill her mug, feeling the need for continued relief. She belted down another mouthful of the dark liquor, wondering if she should say anything more. It wasn’t proper, burdening anyone else with her feelings. For the good of others, she had to keep her troubles to herself.
Isabeau wasn’t sure why she finally spoke. Maybe the drink was making her less restrained. Maybe she felt the need to give Chun-Li context for her violent actions earlier. Maybe she felt comfortable enough with the other woman that she trusted her with it. Or maybe it was just too much to bear alone anymore.
“Makoto is probably dead,” she finally said, very softly, looking down at the floor.
“You don’t know that,” Chun-Li replied.
“No,” Isabeau said, “and that’s the worst part. I don’t know if we’re soon to find a body, or if she’s still down in the corridors somewhere, lost and frightened. I can’t say which thought is worse. It’s my responsibility to keep everyone safe…” She shook her head, and then looked back at Chun-Li. “...But she is my friend, against all odds, and beyond that, she is a child. With every minute that passes, I feel as though I should be doing more; that I should be down there searching the bunker myself, and the longer we go without finding any sign of her, the worse this feeling gets.”
“That was why you hit me earlier,” Chun-Li said, nodding slightly.
“...yes,” Isabeau said downcast. “And so then I came here and decided to try and drink myself into a stupor.” Chun-Li chuckled in response.
“Copperhead hauled Johnny out of here the other night,” she said by way of explanation. “Evidently they were in here drinking and talking, and she had to half-carry him to bed.”
Isabeau looked down into her mug, smiling.
“All we need now is a sign, a bar, some better chairs, and this place would make a halfway decent pub,” she said, and took another belt. “It is at least providing a welcome distraction from pain from where you split my uprights earlier.”
Chun-Li looked at her worriedly. "...What?"
"When you kicked me between the legs."
"Oh! Sorry about that. I panicked. Just kind of lashed out.” Chun-Li leaned to one side, looking past Isabeau to something on the floor.
Following her line of sight, Isabeau realized Chun-Li was looking at the empty bottles she had set aside.
“It’s just now starting to work on you?” she asked, bemused. “It must not be very strong stuff…” Getting up, she walked over, picked up one of the bottles. In spite of everything that was happening, Isabeau found herself smiling as the younger woman sniffed the mouth of the bottle and then flinched.
“Oof!” she said. “You could probably use this stuff to sterilize an operating room!” She looked back at the bottles. “You’re on your fifth bottle and you’re just now getting buzzed?”
“Pah,” Isabeau said, taking another sip from her cup. “I spent my youth in a monastery, the nuns and monks there brewed their own beer.” She smiled. “I was practically raised on stronger stuff than this.”
“Huh,” Chun-Li said, the amusement still audible in her voice. “You know, what with the Victorian thing, I guess I figured you didn’t drink that much.”
“You mean the, er…” Isabeau rolled her eyes, trying to think through the pleasant fog in her brain. “Temperance society thing? I remember when all that started, as it happens, back in the ‘30s.” She paused, and then added “the 1830s, that is.”
“It made sense at first, the lower classes wanting to prove they could be trusted with the vote, saving children from the perils of drink and so on, all quite laudable stuff, but it started to get rather out of hand.”
“You remember when it started?” Chun-Li asked. “Even if you were a child when that happened... I’m not trying to be rude, but how old are you? I knew you were from the nineteenth century, but you definitely don’t look like you’re over fifty.”
“I’m… considerably older than fifty,” Isabeau said. “I was born in… fifteen-hundred and something. I don't quite remember anymore. Though I do recall my first monarch was Elizabeth Tudor. The Blackwater- this magic potion that we in the Order take to heal our wounds- allows you to live practically forever, so long as you keep drinking it. ”
“So you’re like… four hundred years old?” Chun-Li asked, eyes wide. Isabeau shrugged.
“Three hundred, or thereabouts. I stopped keeping precise count after the second century, when you couldn’t fit all the candles on my birthday cake.” Chun-Li laughed at that, and Isabeau smiled into her beer as she took another swig.
“And I thought Mary Jane looked good for her age... What’s the oldest one of your people has ever got?”
“We don’t know anything for sure, but that would probably be my father, Augustus. He would never say exactly when he was born, but he once told me that he remembers watching the Romans leave, which would make him very old indeed.”
“Jesus…”
“I don’t think even he is that old, but you never know.”
Isabeau smiled, thinking back. “I know, compared to that, four hundred years doesn’t seem like a very long time, but I’ve still seen remarkable things in the course of my life.” She sighed, and the smile faded. “I’ve also seen… quite a bit of change. Not just the temperance movement, but other things as well. Poets and writers have offered their own thoughts on the most difficult part of living as long as we in the Order do, and they make some valid points. We can’t really form friendships with outsiders, since they will grow old and die while we carry on, and family is a difficult thing as well.
“The hardest thing, though, at least to me, is the change. The longer you live, the more civilization itself seems to shift around you. The rules of society change. What was once considered taboo becomes commonplace; what was right and proper is scorned, and proud tradition becomes something quaint and antiquated, to be discarded and forgotten. We're always trying to adapt, the others and I, but it seems the changes come faster and faster the longer we live, until it's like we're running just to stand still. And then I come here. Where you're all so different from me and what I know. How you dress, how you look, how you speak, how you act towards each other. That's why I've... been this way. I've been doing my best to not be a disruption, but I just... I don't know what to do.”
Isabeau suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder, and saw Chun-Li giving her a reassuring smile.
“I hadn't thought about it like that. You’re trying, right?” she asked. Isabeau nodded. “Good. I’m not going to pretend you haven't been a pain in the ass sometimes- well, a lot of the time, but I’ll make you a deal. You keep trying to adapt, and I'll tell you anything you want to know about the future. That way I won't have to beat you up again.” The softest hint of a laugh escaped Isabeau.
"Oh, and next time you're gonna punch me, please do it from the front?"
"For sure," Isabeau said, chuckling quietly again. “And I would appreciate not being thrown into a wall again in the near future,” she said, and Chun-Li smiled.
“Yeah, let’s not do it quite like that again,” she said. “Although, if you do want to spar in the future, that was… weirdly fun.”
“It was, strangely enough, wasn’t it?” The concept of testing herself against a worthy adversary didn’t change what was happening now, but Isabeau had to admit that it was certainly appealing.
“And about what you mentioned earlier?” Chun-Li said, “about Makoto? I don’t know what’s going to happen, but you have to know that whatever happens, it isn’t your fault. You’re trying harder than probably any of us on this.”
“I’m not sure that’s good enough,” Isabeau said, only for Chun-Li to quickly shake her head.
“It’s all you can do, and that’s what matters. I guarantee you Makoto would agree.”
Chun-Li was very close to Isabeau now. Close enough that she could smell the chocolate melting in the other woman’s mouth.
She's so beautiful, and so kind. Kiss her.
The thought came without warning, presumably from the alcohol, and before she could quite get a handle on it Isabeau found herself running the pad of her thumb along the other woman’s cheekbone. It was so soft and smooth, Isabeau felt a quivering feeling inside herself, and pulled back, startled.
Chun-Li smiled, albeit looking slightly confused.
“...I was just- sorry about your eye,” Isabeau said lamely. “Mea culpa.”
Chun-Li’s smile got wider. “Are you drunk?”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” Isabeau took another gulp from her cup, trying to use it and her hand to hide her reddening cheeks. “A little bit.”
“Better than when you slapped me before,” Chun-Li said at last. They both chuckled, the tension breaking a little, for which Isabeau was grateful.
“That slap and that kick,” Chun-Li continued. “That was Savate, wasn’t it?”
Isabeau nodded. “Le boxe française. Learned it from master Lecour himself. Got me out of a few scrapes in the past, though clearly it wasn’t enough against you.”
Chun-Li ducked her head, but Isabeau could tell the complement pleased her.
As she began to explain how she herself had learned to fight, Isabeau allowed her thoughts to momentarily return to what had almost happened between them earlier; to what she had almost done. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, or what it meant. Perhaps it would be best to think about this further in the morning.
Things were changing rapidly once more, and as had happened so many times in the past, Isabeau wasn’t sure how to feel about it all.
****
The next morning, the city was even more oppressive than normal. The denizens of the necropolis were no more active than usual, and the search and rescue team was able to avoid the worst of those as they cautiously traversed the streets. Spinneret moved from building to building up above, spotting the densest clusters of the undead and routing the team around them. She had to stop periodically to keep out of sight of the patrolling gargoyles, but was still more than capable of doing her job.
No, the problem was that the city was not immune to weather, and beginning last night, it had rained. The downpour had hammered the city for hours on end, and while it had been tapering off as Kyle led the team out of the Bunker, the rotting city was still wet, the air humid in the wake of the storm. The moist air combined with the everpresent, biting cold of the place to create a cloying atmosphere, an invisible mist that seemed to want to reach in through the clothes and pull the heat from your body.
And then, Kyle Reese thought, there’s the fucking smell. He knew it rained in the city, and rained hard, but he’d never been outside right after a storm, and he now realized that he’d never thought of what would happen if the rotting flesh of hundreds and hundreds of zombies got wet.
“Well,” Johnny said from just behind Kyle, “hopefully we’ll all go noseblind soon.” Copperhead chuckled.
The two newcomers had gone through the bunker’s meagre supply of clothing before they set out, and had found some items to their taste. Johnny was still wearing the red and black t-shirt with “Samurai” written on it, but had thrown a jacket over it and pulled on some thicker trousers and boots. Kyle had to admit he was glad for it; the rockerboy’s cybernetic arm looked eerily like that of a Terminator, and seeing it made his skin crawl. Copperhead, for her part, had replaced her skimpy leather outfit for a baggy tracksuit and sweatpants, with sneakers.
“Does it smell like this when it rains where you’re from?” she asked.
“It’s not the same,” he said. “There’s more of a chemical smell—wastewater from labs and plants—but I don’t know if it’s better or worse than this. This smells like rancid meat, plus…”
“Plus sewer water,” Copperhead said, and Kyle could practically hear her nodding. “Drains must have backed up somewhere.” Kyle didn’t look back, but he could tell when her attention shifted to him. “What about your future? What happens when it rains there?”
“Sometimes it’s good,” Kyle said, keeping one eye on the side streets and alleys to watch for zombies or more of those damn dogs, “but you have to be careful where you are. Depending on the dust in the air, the rain can be radioactive.” Turning back, he pointed at Johnny’s arm.
“Is that thing going to have problems with all this?”
“Nah, no worries,” Johnny replied, giving him a thumbs-up with it. “Wouldn’t be much good hooked into my shoulder if it wasn’t waterproof.” Kyle nodded, and refocused on the road ahead.
They didn’t have a destination as such. As much as Kyle would have loved to be closing in on a distress call, knowing there were survivors waiting for them, that wasn’t an option. The bunker didn’t have any sort of antenna, and as a result had no way of reliably picking up radio transmissions. Because of that, there was only one way to conduct their search and rescue missions: they had to sweep the city, a different area each day. If they were close enough to a transmitter, their handheld radios would pick up calls for help, like how Ash and her group had found April, but otherwise they just had to hope that anyone who needed help would either be visible or within earshot when they started making noise.
They’d saved Johnny (and, to an extent, Copperhead), this way, and Kyle tried to focus on that, carefully not thinking about the people who were no doubt arriving in other parts of the city, far from any help.
Lifting his radio up to his mouth, he called Spinneret again.
“What can you see from up there, MJ?” he asked. “What does the road ahead look like?”
“Just a second,” she replied.
“This isn’t familiar turf for you guys?” Johnny asked. Kyle shook his head.
“No, this city is huge, and we haven’t been running these search missions for too long, so we’re kind of mapping it as we go along.”
“Might be a good idea to put somebody on that,” Copperhead said. “Mapping the city, I mean.”
“Agreed,” Kyle said, “and hopefully we can have dedicated teams for that in the future, but right now we’ve got nine people total, so that’s not exactly an option.” The radio crackled, and Spinneret’s voice emerged from it.
“Cover, now,” she said, and Kyle responded immediately, knowing from the simple command what she was talking about. He gestured quickly to a nearby building, and the three team members on the ground climbed in through a broken window, doing a quick scan of the room within to ensure they weren’t about to jump into the rotting claws of a zombie. When the room came up clean, they crouched down and looked carefully out the window.
After a moment, a trio of winged shapes darted overhead, the sound of the hell flyers’ beating wings echoing off the buildings all around as they swooped in low, no more than twenty feet off the ground as they passed over the spot where Kyle and the others had been not half a minute ago. The search and rescue team waited for a while after the monsters had passed, just to ensure they wouldn’t circle back around, and then emerged from their hiding spot.
“I fuckin’ hate those things,” Copperhead muttered. “Almost got caught by a couple of them when I first got here.”
“Be glad you didn’t,” Kyle said. “From what I hear, they’ll kill you, but it’ll…” he thought of what little Chun-Li had said about her experience. “...It’ll take a while.” Pushing the talk button on the radio again, he brought it up to his face. “Are there any more of those, or are we clear?”
“No,” Spinneret replied. “The others I can see are a good way off, and they don’t look like they’re coming this way. That was a close one.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “You got word to us in plenty of time.”
“That’s not what I meant. There are a couple of survivors out in the open, and they almost got spotted.” Kyle blinked.
“We have survivors?” he asked. “What’s their location?”
“You’re not going to like it,” was all Mary Jane said, following up simply by giving directions to where they were. As the group made their way to where the survivors were supposed to be, they ran into what Spinneret had been talking about, and Kyle sighed.
They had known for a while that the city was a patchwork, like someone had cut out pieces of different cities and stuck them together. They hadn’t been laid out evenly on the underlying terrain either, so some parts were at different elevations than others.
The section ahead of them, where their targets were, was significantly lower than the rest.
And it was flooded.
The nearest parts were city streets, but farther ahead the whole area seemed to open up, and all of it was submerged. Judging by what he could see of the nearest buildings, Kyle guessed the water was probably a good ten feet deep, though with the detritus in the water, it was hard to know for sure.
“Well, you’re right,” Kyle said into the radio. “I don’t like it.” He took another look at the murky liquid in front of him. Judging by the smell, he had a pretty good guess at what it was that was clouding the water.
“Dog monsters and zombies in the streets and gargoyles in the air,” Johnny said. “What do you think lives in the water in a place like this?”
“Zombies?” Kyle wondered aloud.
“Piranhas?” Copperhead threw in.
“Zombie piranhas?” Johnny added. Kyle half-smiled, wanting to roll his eyes, but also knowing that in this place the idea of fish infected with...whatever it was that turned people into the living dead wasn’t something that could be ruled out.
“Spinneret,” he said, “at the risk of anything up to and including zombie piranhas, getting in that water seems like a bad idea. Can you pull the survivors out yourself?”
“I thought about that,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s an option. See that big open area ahead? They’re out there, on something sticking up out of the water, and they’re too far from any of the buildings for me to swing in and grab them, then swing out again. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Kyle said with a sigh. “Alright, give me a minute.” Looking down the flooded street, he briefly considered going back to the Bunker for supplies. He knew that among the wide variety of supplies they’d found stored in crates was, for whatever reason, at least one inflatable raft.
He remembered the close call they’d just had with the hell flyers, though. If they took the time to go back for the raft, that increased the odds that one of the gargoyles would spot the people they were trying to save, and then…
“We’re going to have to find a way across,” he said.
“I am not swimming in that,” Copperhead said.
“Zombie piranhas?” Johnny asked.
“That and I don’t want to get every water-borne disease in the universe,” she replied.
“I don’t think we’re going to have to swim it,” Kyle said, pointing at the water’s surface. In addition to the particulate clouding the water, there was also a significant amount of larger debris in it. Some of it was small, bits and pieces of plastic and disintegrating paper floating around, but other pieces were larger, chunks of destroyed wooden structures as well as exposed surfaces of submerged cars.
“Between the floating debris that looks big enough to stand on and the stuff that looks more fixed,” he said, “I think we can cross by jumping from spot to spot.” He looked back at Johnny. “I’ll go first. Copperhead and I probably weigh about the same, so if whatever I jump to holds me, it’ll hold her.” Both of them nodded, and taking a deep breath, Kyle made the first jump. It wasn’t far, and he landed with relative ease on what looked like it had been part of a wooden fence once. The impact forced the structure under, and for a moment he tensed up, expecting to tumble into the water, but then the fence stabilized, having sunk a little, but evidently not going any further.
“Okay,” he said, “follow my lead.” Next he moved to the rear of a van which, given the angle, had to be resting on its nose. When that didn’t shift as he landed, he moved to the next piece of footing, and then the next, making his way out to the end of the street and into the wider area, Johnny and Copperhead following behind.
“What do you figure wrecked this place?” Copperhead asked. Kyle hadn’t really been thinking, focused on hopping from one safe spot to the next, and Johnny appeared to be having the same difficulty, but she was moving with the effortless grace of an Olympic gymnast, apparently with enough ease to start wondering why the place looked the way it did.
“Well,” Johnny said, coming to a stop, evidently to think, “I doubt the rain here is that hardcore, so maybe a flash flood?”
“You thinking like a levee broke?” she asked, and he nodded.
“That might make sense,” Kyle added. “We don’t really know where there are bodies of water here, so maybe this part of the city is connected to a lake or a sea or something, and the rain built things up enough to take out whatever was holding the water back.”
The group resumed moving, and as they came out into the open, it became very obvious why Spinneret couldn’t retrieve the survivors from where they were stranded. Judging by the way the four streets led into it at right angles, and what he could see of the remains of cars littered around it, he guessed this open area had been one of those round circular intersections; he thought he’d heard them called “roundabouts” by some of the older people back home. Some of those were fairly small, but this one was huge, maybe two hundred feet across.
“Well,” Kyle said into the radio, “I can see why you couldn’t make this work. What’s your position?”
“Look up and to your right,” she said, and when Kyle followed her instructions, he caught sight of her clinging to the wall of a building bordering the roundabout, maybe 50 feet up, waving one arm to be sure he saw her. “I can probably get across if I build up enough speed, but to grab anyone I’d have to be low enough at the center there, and that’s not going to happen.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said, seeing the spot she was talking about.
At the center of the open space was a statue of some kind, a man on horseback, maybe a local historical figure or founding father of whatever city this had come from. It was mostly submerged, but enough of the statue was still above the water that it could be used, which it was.
Three people had climbed onto the statue, a man and two women. The man had short brown hair and wore a blue shirt and black pants that, at least from this distance, looked similar to Carol Marcus’ uniform. The women both looked about the same age, but were stark contrasts otherwise. One of them wore an all-black leather outfit, with a form-fitting jacket, tight pants and high-heeled boots. Her blond hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. The other wore a silvery top and leggings, and a currently open leather jacket, purple in color. A pair of goggles sat on her head, sticking out from vivid pink hair.
The survivors were looking out across the water, and didn’t seem to see Kyle and the others as they made their way closer. Finally, they arrived on something stable: the trailer of a partially submerged eighteen wheeler. As they moved along that, Kyle grateful to just be walking for a change, the blonde on the statue noticed them, quickly elbowing the man in blue and gesturing at them, anxiety visible in every move.
“You guys okay?” Johnny asked, approaching the end of the trailer, and the man on the statue held up a hand in warning, all three survivors talking rapidly.
“Stop! Stop right where you are!” Kyle paused for a moment, looking at the others, before shifting focus back to the man who’d just spoken.
“It’s alright,” he said. “We’re not going to hurt you guys. We’re actually out here looking for survivors, so—”
“No, kid, there’s something in the water!” Kyle and the others stopped in place.
“What’s in the water?” Kyle asked. The man threw up his hands in frustration.
“Damn it, man, I’m a doctor, not a marine biologist! All I know is it’s carnivorous.”
I swear to God, if this turns out to be the fucking zombie piranhas…
“What’s it look like?” Johnny asked.
“We haven’t gotten a good look,” the blonde said, “but it’s big, really big.”
“Great,” Kyle muttered, looking around. The sun wasn’t bright, obscured as always by the thick clouds overhead, but between the glare, the debris and the murk, he couldn’t spot anything moving underwater. “Spinneret, these people say there’s something big in the water. Can you see anything from where you are?” There was a moment of silence, and then the radio crackled to life.
“I don’t see anything right now,” she said, “but I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Roger that; thanks.” Lowering the radio, he looked around one more time, and then addressed the survivors again.
“Okay, we have a lookout above, and she can’t see anything right now. The fact is that whatever’s in the water, staying where you guys are isn’t safe either. You might not have seen them, but there are these gargoyle things flying around, and if one of them spots you, it’ll bring more, and those things will kill you, so we have to get you off that statue ASAP. We have a shelter we can take you to.” The statue trio looked at each other. Talking for a moment, though they were too far away for Kyle to hear what they were saying. The discussion was energetic, but finally the blonde stood up, scanning the debris on the water. Finally, she jumped from the statue onto a piece of debris, what looked like part of an overturned, mostly submerged car, likely wedged in place like the one Kyle had used back on the street.
“Hold up, Nina!” the pink-haired woman said. “We don’t know where it is.” The blonde, Nina, looked back at the others, shrugging.
“Look,” she said, cocking an eyebrow, “I understand this is dangerous, but you heard what he said. There are other threats, so we have to go.” She gave the others a little smile, and then turned back toward Kyle and jumped to the next piece of debris. This one was floating, a large stack of plastic piping that had been tied together, probably on a truck before the floodwaters had knocked it loose, and when Nina landed on it it sank into the water, creating a small splash and shifting a bit. She held her arms out, looking very nervous for a moment before she managed to stabilize, and then giving Kyle a reassuring nod. Nina looked for her next stepping stone, and Kyle idly watched the ripples spread out from the debris she was standing on, radiating out through the water.
Mary Jane swept her eyes over the water again. From her vantage point, she didn’t have to deal with the glare, and could see deeper into the water than the others could. Thus far, the only things moving in the flooded roundabout were pieces of flotsam. It was actually a little surprising. She didn’t know what being submerged would do to a zombie, but she didn’t think they could drown.
Taking her eyes off the roundabout for a moment, she looked down the flooded street to her right, thinking that maybe whatever they’d seen had moved in one of those directions. She couldn’t see anything at the surface, and as her viewing angle changed, the glare became harder to see through. As she looked down the street, though, she did catch sight of something else.
Down the road was a tall building, rising above the others by a significant amount. That by itself wasn’t so important, but the cluster of radio antennae sprouting from it was.
One of the problems they always ran into out here was that they couldn’t pick up radio signals at any real distance, so they had to search pretty much at random, but if they could access that tower, that could all change. Maybe they could figure out how to rig up a line from the tower to the Bunker, and they could hear others call for help from farther away. Better than that, they might be able to broadcast, actively letting others know they had food and shelter. They weren’t doing terribly here, but she knew it would be a lot better if they could reach out to others.
Hell, someone else might even know more about what was going on in this place.
Making a mental note to tell Satsuki about the tower, MJ let her gaze trail along the skyline, as she did periodically, looking for more of the gargoyles. She found a few of them, flying between buildings to the East, but they weren’t close enough to be a threat. Satisfied of their immediate safety, she looked back down to the roundabout, and then to the street to her left.
Her first thought was that the water level was changing. She blinked, thinking that perhaps more water was being let in, that another levee or dam had burst somewhere. It took her a moment to realize why she was seeing this wrong.
Kyle had said there was something big in the water. In spite of that warning, however, she had still been thinking too small.
And with the time it had taken her to wrap her head around what she was seeing, the creature was almost on top of the people below.
Goosebumps forming all over her, Mary Jane brought the radio to her mouth and stabbed at the talk button.
Nina was getting close to Kyle when his radio practically screamed. The sudden sound made him jump, and the blonde gave him a curious look. Shaking his head, he brought the radio up. MJ was talking, yelling in fact, but she was speaking too quickly and it was borderline indecipherable.
“Slow down, Spinneret,” he said. “I couldn’t understand, so just say that again.”
“—ERE IT’S RIGHT THERE!”
A shock of dread passed through Kyle, and he moved to hook the radio back onto his belt even as he grabbed the rifle slung over his shoulder, looking up.
Just as the water near Nina exploded.
It happened too fast for the woman to even really register fear, her only expression one of puzzlement as the debris she was standing on was struck hard, throwing her into the air. She flew nearly ten feet, arms flailing uselessly at the air, before splashing down and vanishing into the murky water.
The thing that had rammed the debris also submerged. Kyle looked back to it as fast as he could, but was only able to get a sense of dark brown, slick skin, as well as bony plating a lighter shade of the same color, before it slipped below the surface again. He tried to see where it was going, but the eruption was sending waves and ripples everywhere, the water in the area moving enough that he couldn’t be sure if any given disturbance was actually the creature.
A second later, there was another splash as Nina surfaced, gagging as she spat out the filthy water and tried to take in her surroundings.
“God,” she managed, coughing. “Is it...is it back?” She looked at Kyle, and then back at the other two on the statue. Kyle knew what she was doing, and the others seemed to as well, as they shouted for her, but pointed at Kyle.
“It’s alright,” he said as her head whipped around to face him again. “They’re right. You’re closer to me than you are to them, so swim to me.” She coughed again, nodding, and then looked around the flooded area again as she treaded water.
“Come on, lady,” Copperhead called out from somewhere behind Kyle. “Don’t look for it; just swim to us!” She shook her head a little, likely still disoriented from the impact, and then slowly began making her way to them.
“Okay,” Kyle said, looking back at Johnny and Copperhead. “I need both of you to keep your eyes on the water. You see that thing…”
“We call it out,” Johnny finished. Kyle nodded.
“Yeah, and you fucking shoot it,” he said. Turning back to Nina, he moved to the end of the trailer, the closest spot to her, and waved her over. She wasn’t swimming as fast as he’d like, but she was making a decent pace. She was probably 30 feet from them, and he figured if she kept it up, she’d be close enough to grab in maybe fifteen seconds.
Then Johnny inhaled sharply behind him, and Kyle looked past Nina.
And saw it.
“Oh Jesus Christ.” She might not have heard what Kyle had said, but Nina caught the look on his face, and started to turn around to look.
"NO! Don't look back, just swim to me and don’t look back!” To her credit, the black-clad woman listened to him, quickening her pace, thankfully unable to see what Kyle and the others could.
Maybe 90 feet behind Nina, the debris was being pushed out of the way. It wasn’t that the creature was knocking into floating objects and pushing them aside. Instead, the water itself was bulging horrifically, the surface lifting up like a carpet as the terrible leviathan’s mass pushed an immense bow wave ahead of it. Behind that, god, maybe fifteen or twenty feet behind that, a large, curved dorsal fin broke the surface, spray beginning to come off of it as the creature accelerated toward its prey.
Nina could hear it, that much was obvious. She wasn’t looking back, but the expression on her face said everything. Driven by the instinctive terror of the prey animal, she somehow drew more strength from her muscles, swimming much faster than before as the monster closed on her.
From behind Kyle came the sound of gunfire as both Johnny and Copperhead opened up with their handguns, the 10mm rounds striking the bow wave as they aimed for the Leviathan’s head, little spouts of water bursting up from the points of impact. Kyle couldn’t even tell if they were hurting it, but it was all they could do.
Nina did exactly what she was supposed to do, and kept swimming as fast as she could, and the distance closed, twenty feet, then fifteen, then ten.
The Leviathan closed much more quickly, moving far, far faster than its prey, and Kyle was beginning to see it now. It was vaguely like a shark, but far larger than any shark he had ever imagined, between 40 and 50 feet long, its elongated body moving with sinuous, effortless power. The image of its armor-plated head was distorted by the water it was pushing aside, a half dozen yellow spots on the sides of the head seeming to glow as they reflected sunlight.
More bullets splashed into the water as it closed. It didn’t even slow down.
Nina was only six feet away, and Kyle knelt down on the trailer, reaching for her as she closed the distance. The top of the trailer was several feet above the water’s surface, and she wouldn’t be able to climb up without help. Stretching his hand out, he barely managed to make contact with her, and she seized his arm in a deathgrip, gasping or sobbing, he couldn’t tell which, as he pulled her toward him. She was there, right in front of him, and he would have her out of the water in a moment. He just needed one more second.
But it was one second he didn’t have.
Nina was nearly yanked away from Kyle as the Leviathan slammed into her, and then collided with the trailer. The entire structure lurched sickeningly, and water came splashing up over the far side of it as the monster’s immense weight pushed it back nearly six feet. Somehow, Kyle managed to hold onto his footing and not go over the side. He found himself looking down at Nina, and then below her, at the monster’s face.
He saw the seams where the plates of the armor merged.
He saw the yellow spots, the size of tennis balls, the pupils within contracting as the pus-yellow eyes rolled to look at him.
He saw the jaws open, and through the water glimpsed row upon row of long, translucent teeth.
But he felt when the Leviathan bit down, the way Nina jolted, the shock of it going through her arm into his hands, how her eyes bulged in her sockets and her breath suddenly caught. Even through the water he heard the stomach-turning crunch of its massive jaws coming together.
The aquatic horror turned to the right, its armored head dragging along the side of the trailer, rocking the entire thing back and forth. The dorsal fin passed him next, and then the massive tail, the huge, leaf-shaped fin sending a wave of filthy water over Kyle and knocking him down on his face as the monster picked up speed, pulling away from the trailer.
Shaking water from his eyes, Kyle got back up onto his hands and knees, one hand still locked with Nina’s. Looking over the side, he saw that somehow, she was still there, shaking with terror and pain, her eyes locking onto his. Her mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.
“Hang on,” he managed. “Hang on and I’ll pull you up, okay? Just don’t let go of my hand.” Bracing himself to take her weight, he pulled her up.
It was easy. She was lighter than he expected. As he pulled her onto the trailer, he understood why.
Nina’s body ended below her ribcage. Beneath that, there was nothing but a few ragged strips of skin framing the red cavern of her insides.
Kyle felt cold, his heart throbbing so hard in his chest that it hurt, his vision blurring at the edges. He drew a long, shuddering breath, concentrating for a moment to stop his arms from shaking. Looking back out, he saw the water moving as the Leviathan swam away, patrolling the sunken roundabout. Looking away from the monster, he did a quick check to ensure that neither Copperhead nor Johnny had fallen into the water. They were soaked, but they were still here.
Finally, he looked back down at Nina, and had to suppress another tremor when he saw that she was still alive, what was left of her bucking and twitching feebly, her lips quivering, her eyes rolling back and forth frantically, and her skin growing incredibly pale as blood poured from the void where her body ended. Her mouth was opening and closing, like she was trying to breathe, but Kyle realized that she couldn’t. The muscles she needed to breathe had been torn away.
She swallowed, her jaws coming together, teeth clicking quietly, and then she looked at him, her expression pleading.
Kyle wanted to do something for her, anything… but he had no idea what. There was no treating this, no healing it. A terrible, cold part of himself even told him that trying to end it more quickly was pointless, since she would bleed to death in a few more seconds, and all he would be doing was wasting a bullet.
Vomit stinging the back of his throat, Kyle did the only thing he could, and took her hand again, squeezing it in both of his as her body tremors slowed, and then stopped, her eyes half-closing, and then beginning to turn glassy.
If anyone wants to leave a review or comment on this story, please do so on this thread here: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/69143-mortuus-orbis-discussion-thread/
The lullaby in the first half of this chapter I was inspired to use by a film called A Field In England, and a rendition of the song from said movie can be heard here: https://youtu.be/52lflfsb0fE
- 6
- 7
- 8
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Bunkerkampf (Mortuus Orbis Part Two)