The Zombie Tournament

Act 9 : Department Store of Death

(drap-drap-drap)

The fist-fighter zombie has walking around the department store’s hallway for half an hour straight. He was wandering across many aisle of the building’s vacant areas and rolling around them in speed. Zeno Gunnar has been tracking the beast’s direction on the rear, doing so alone to avoid being seen by the beast.

At times, he was hidden under the heap of clothes to look for Rio’s direction to flight on. For another, Zeno has tried to jump beyond the underwear’s shop wide-opened window just for dodging the fist-fighter zombie’s radar.

In spite of Zeno’s hurdles, however, most of them went in succession so far. He goes undetected, spotless to the depth of department store’s amenities within.

(tap-tap-tap)

For Zeno’s pair of monstrosity, the young knight has left his zombie partners outside for protection around the market’s entrance. In a survival game, being hungry would be something forbidden, especially if it was occurred in the middle of close-combat against zombies. There are several of those species that could be beaten in complete starvation, but many of them are too powerful to be fought in food shortage.

As an example, the gigantic zombie was intended to defeat in groups, yet their deformed counterpart could be stomped up instantly. It goes the same with speedster zombies out in the wild, as many of them has quite fragile posture that would be too easy to fight against.

That’s the reason why such massive avenue of the shopping district could be one futile solution to get nutrition, and also become the primary factor for him to assemble both of his fearsome allies in red-eyed awareness for indestructible discharge towards their upcoming threat.

---

Zeno Gunnar has been leaning on the beast’s programmed direction for awhile. He bounced above many obstacles in favor of the fist-fighter zombie’s unpredictable path, but still haven’t locate Tanya Rushdi’s exact position for the time being.

(tap-tap-tap)

On the other hand, Rio’s steady walk was traveling the first floor at the third sequence of a complete circle around the department store’s passageway. The fist-fighter zombie’s perception of the road seemingly got deflated in each step of his run. Its adamant road-seeker on the rear was also stranded in disarray, gotten mixed up in Rio’s inconsistent pathway to his master, as Zeno Gunnar questioned on the beast’s impractical alignment of direction this time around.

“Okay, what to do now?” The young knight mumbled to himself, scratching his head in confusion,” Might be ‘cause of the hammer. That head was smashed too much.”

An ordinary zombie has mostly lingers on its short-sighted instinct for a scoop of brain and their shells to be eaten. No matter how strong their head-receptors are to the beast, the boundaries on their direct reply and connections towards voice-added commands of the wristwatch would be indefinite. Deino Gunnar’s irregular condition and muscle coordination has been relying on the power of their nail coffin on the head’s temple, which was bugged repeatedly in the process and resulting in its self-rebellion over Zeno’s stack of commands sometimes.

(tap-tap)

He sneaks a quick look into the wristwatch’s positioning system. A blinking pair of red circle within the market areas were structured for Zeno’s zombie partner current situation. From its constant bout of steps alongside the fresh vegetable section, There were no formidable opponents in sight of the two beast ahead.

“Okay, no intruders in the zone, as well..” 

(click)

Zeno Gunnar nodded to the wristwatch’s information in his focus to their surroundings at the time. However, as the young knight crossed his eyes to the two zombie’s battery meter, he curled his eyebrows in an instant, “Ah, I have to switch off to blue, or else they have to be fed again after an hour.”

(click-click)

‘Vigilante mode initiated.’

In adverse to full-rage mode, the zombie’s blue eyes approach would be more reliable to battery preservation. A zombie collector will commonly configured their dead partners into this battle-boosted form if there are supplies of carcass on the field of attack. The zombie’s adrenaline rush would consume their fuel and draining them all in about less than an hour, before they need to be refilled afterwards.

(click-click)

After reading enough information of his partner’s recent news, Zeno Gunnar dragged the map’s viewpoint to the blue tags on the northern areas of the map. Its glimmering light glows up in repetitive fashion on the last-seen position of the woman. From the wrist-watch’s regular one-minute interval method of the tagged location, Tanya Rushdi was never rolling outside of the previously-set zone of arrival on the map.

Suddenly, Zeno Gunnar slapped his forehead, “How about I call her, then? I never thought of that...”

(beep-beep)

No answer from Tanya Rushdi.

“She’s out of zone, maybe?” He muttered,” Ah, no time for theories. Hm, how could I learn on her position, then?”

(click-click)

The main problem of Zeno Gunnar’s present issue was occurring due to overlapping figures of the department store’s blueprints inside the map. Market section is located in the separated areas of the mall. Their developer built it under two-floors building, and all of them are presumed as a one-for all food and beverages area, so no fatal troubles were perceived for Deino and Sanna’s trace for now.

In the opposite, The department store’s main structure is comprised of five different levels of height. They were divided in relation to similar compositions of the shop and vendors. In spite of Tanya Rushdi’s bleeping tags, her actual presence would be hindered by a bunch of inconsistent visual of the maps. To add the injury, every single source of intelligence would be pointless if Zeno Gunnar’s wristwatch was in shortage of three-dimensional rendering, hence the young knight’s intuition to shadow the fist-fighter’s movement before.

(beep-beep-beep)

‘Intruders on sight. Please be advised.’

A single group of heat-spot appeared on Zeno Gunnar’s wristwatch. They hailed from the southern areas of the department store. There are four of them beyond the fence, and a pair of their spearhead attackers were already running in speed before long.

(click-click)

“Time for you, fat-“

(prang!)

Somebody has shattered the glass-pane window above. Lucky for him, the young knight was coiled under the safety of the first-floor women’s underwear shop. He placed himself behind the lines of display cabinet and using its iron bars small opening to peek outside.

“Who is that? I’ve never thought-“

(Flap-flap-flap)

Zeno Gunnar wrinkled his nose to the unprecedented. Two flying zombies have landed to the open space below the window pane of Department store. Their spines were protracted to sustain two frames of adequate wing-shaped soft-bones, which was covered in skin membrane for their means of flying. Most of their bodies were formed in the same plane to the regular type of zombie. Rotten features are intact, but their hair above the head were rather dyed in black.

The young knight then shook his head in confusion,” that maniac would love to hear about this.” He said, before snapping a picture by the wristwatch.

“Graa!”

They flew immediately towards Zeno Gunnar as soon as he finished on taking a photograph of their figure. On the other hand, the young knight has putting a stance of counter-attack. He was crouching slightly-before the opponent’s reaction happened by placing his right leg for momentum on the back while stacking a spring of momentum to the left. As of the weapon, the young knight positioned the black sword’s hilt above his forehead, pointing its tip before the middle of chest area to greet them all in peace.

(prang!)

The flying zombies break the glass partition of the underwear shop’s entrance with their bare feet. However, those legs of theirs were never meant to be compared with humans. Their soles were hardened by many layers of skins that were enveloping its bottom. Their toe-nails were growing in cutting-edge fashion to be replaced by five rows of claws on the front.

(clang!)

Luckily, Zeno Gunnar’s well-prepared guard stance could endure their advance without much effort to do so. He blocked one of the flying zombie’s dive attack in minimum twitch of muscle, as the hanging-right position of the black sword interrupted many forms of strike above his chest.

“Hyaaa! Hyaa!”

(clang!clang!)

The two beast pursue on initiating another instance of attack by the claws. They tried to kick without thinking of vulnerable regions of the man and sorted it out in salvo, yet Zeno Gunnar’s capability on the black sword could receive their approach handily.

“How about this, pesky bats!?”

In counter-act to the two beast’s mad assault, Zeno Gunnar fends off their protruding claws by a front sweep. There are a small gap of time for the young knight to disappear from his enemies’ front, and Zeno Gunnar utilised it in immediate fashion afterwards.

(s***h!)

“Graaaa!”

An illegal swordplay to exist, indeed. Zeno Gunnar rips off both of the flying zombie’s wing membrane from the back. Their soft frames for soaring the sky high has been cut down, so there are no way for them to tap out from their opponent’s range of attack at the moment.

(s***h!)

Without much to waiting for, Zeno Gunnar applied the finishing blow towards the ill-fated beast. The young knight use the tip of his black sword to decapitate them out, ending their miserable second life in mere seconds.

“Rest in peace.” Zeno Gunnar murmured.

Nonetheless, The young knight has to be ready for an upcoming assault, therefore Zeno Gunnar sticks on his black sword to deflect anything that arrives. He opened his sole earpiece on the left for focus to listen many prowling sounds of his surroundings, but then fixing it back shortly after to lay down strings of command.

“Father, you can enter the mall now.”

(bzzt-bzzt)

Zeno Gunnar found no sign of impending movement from his father in the wristwatch. He zoomed on Deino’s red dot across the mini map to check on the beast’s situation, yet there was no emergency under its tail for now.

“Father?”

(prang!)

“Graaa!”

(bam!)

Out of the blue, Deino Gunnar was thrown out into the second floor of the department store and falling down to the ground in an instant. The young knight was unable to perceive on the legendary warrior’s foe. In reckon to his father’s abrupt entrance, the opponent should have a whole world of power within its brawn, considering Deino Gunnar’s natural prowess in close combat maneuver of the battlefield.

“Wh-“

(tang!)

“You’re demanding a worthy rival, mate?”

Zeno Gunnar swerves a thrust of spear ahead and tossed it aside. That attack was never meant to be the end, anyway, since another human survivor of the game has closing in to his flank for reclaiming the thrown out spear and propelling them once more.

(clang!)

In his parry, The young knight still need to counter many instances of attack from the mysterious man. He grins in every flop of attack, yet continues to pursue another in the run.

After awhile of direct battle, the mysterious man suddenly ask within his barrage of attack, “Hehe, you’re quite good for a collector. Must be from Maxim, huh?” He said, painting a smirk on the face afterwards. Of course, it was also a question for the young knight, as much.

“Who are you, then?”

Zeno’s question laid out another stint of grin on his face,“Let’s call myself a dangerous foe for someone like you, mate.”