28 Bleach Vats Later

[subconmodo]

WHO: Avery Atchison (subconmodo), Imelda Rivera (no_dejare_de_quererte), Héctor (unpocoloco), Peter Parker (made_up_names), Souji Seta (punches_fog), Shuuji Miwa (willnotbeyourneighbour), Ellie Williams (elliexir), Fakir Ansel (schwanenritter), Bumblebee (thebreakfastbug), Orihime Inoue (leekspins)
WHERE: North Dakota
WHEN: January 18th, 2019
WHAT: Obtaining funding for the Academy at the cost of one's dignity. Unless you're in the cleanup group.
WARNINGS: None atm. Will update as they pop up.
Note: Full mission details/plotting can be found Here

To Avery's credit, he had tried to prepare his students for this. The zombies had been the easy part. The corpses were slow and weak and as long as none of them did anything stupid they wouldn't be in danger. Wouldn't help the smell or the grossout factor, but such was life, death, and undeath.

Their clients were another matter entirely.

"It's not death that's going to be our enemy here," Avery had said during the briefing. "It's customer service." And if he wasn't allowed to rip into this bunch of stuck up jerks (literally as well as figuratively), neither was anyone else. He'd let minor acts of passive aggression slide, but that was it. And maybe, just maybe if they were lucky enough, Avery might be able to convince the bigwigs to let one or two of them fire off something or another.

---

The cleanup crew is much luckier. The smell may be worse (rot and burning flesh and whatever scents habe wafted up in the wake of Coldsteel's blow-shit-up-themed office party. Avery looks to be just Abbott on his last legs as he suits up alongside everyone and hands out holy water and runecasters, all the while grumbling about how he needs a pay raise.

Comments

[unpocoloco]

Héctor would not have been disappointed to learn the zombies were nothing to worry about. He wasn't here to try and play hero, not even close. But he hadn't quite understood when customer service was considered the actual problem. His mental image of how facing off against zombies was supposed to go just wasn't allowing the idea of it, and to be honest, even that hadn't been sticking in mind much. His thoughts kept spinning and turning back around to the fact that he made it, he was in America, across the ocean after ten years, just a few states and miles and a border and then some from home, but so much closer than he'd ever been. He'd been all but shaking with nervous excitement on they way here, no doubt earning a few looks. He's made obligations, promises back at Daybreak, but none of them matter when he's this close to home.

But as of only a few minutes being here he realizes exactly what it was that Avery meant. And then some.

Another explosion goes off behind him, rattling him and causing him to once again spill the drinks he's holding up on his tray. He dares look back to see what's left of the wretched thing, still trying to crawl, and he turns quickly away again glad he's got nothing in him to even let him be sick. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, trying to purge the overlaying image of his outland familia from his mind and from these things.

He flinches to the sound of a gunshot and what he can recognize to be shattering, splintering bone. But then, in perfect whiplash, he hears one of the clients jeering, "Hey! You going to get us a drink or spill them all over yourself? Come on, hurry it up, so I can take my next shot!"

He sucks a breath, teeth grinding as he walks stiffly towards a laughing trio of them. Despite commenting on how apparently they'll just let anyone into that school, they look right over him as though he's invisible, which is pretty well par for course for these types. He can just imagine how they would sneer at whatever other homeless person living was by the corner with him at any given time or place. Each time he thinks he might be projecting just a bit too thoroughly in his anger and shame, another weapon goes off and rips through the undead, cycling him through back through fear and illness, then anger again. Just a little longer, he thinks to himself. You're this close to home, don't blow this..

There's a tree line just a ways ahead, some shrubbery, a few spots of taller trees standing alone even closer, if still somewhat distant. He's got his old ragged pants and suspenders under his uniform, his old torn jacket too, all of it right for him to change out, make the shift, and run for it. With any luck, no one would even notice or think anything of the skeleton disappearing into woods. After that, Mexico.

Eventually, after serving and flinching and trying not to lose his head in at least three to five different ways, he checks around, leaves the drinks to the grass, and starts walking for that distant tree. He's had about enough.

[subconmodo]

To say that Avery's mood is sour is like saying the sun is a little on the warm side. His hands itch and his nerves scream, begging him to take up a sword or a knife or even a goddamn letter opener and make every single one of the arrogant bastards wish they'd never been born.

He didn't even want their souls. They could rot for all he cared. Surely he could spin it into a valuable learning experience!

Except he'd get fired. Or worse. Likely worse.

And so when he notices that their numbers are off, that one of the students has wandered off, that he has to hunt someone down, he is not in the mood for mercy.

The world around Héctor gets a little darker, the shadows growing a little longer, and Avery slowly rises in front of him, his eyes narrowed, every word pronounced sharp and deliberate. "Where do you think you're going?"

[unpocoloco]

The world gets darker and he starts to slow. He can see the way the shadows stretch, watching with the horror of man who has walked through the outlands and who, despite death, is still mostly just a man.

Dios.

And then Avery appears before him and all he can offer is a laugh and smile full of fear.

Dios Mio, help me.

"¡Hola, Professor! I, uh... I just went to uh... clear... my... head?"

He's going to die. Again.

[leekspins]

Plane Ride

[She's never been to America before, and the trip there was exciting to her. She'd fussed over what to pack, gathered homework from her teachers that she could work on during the flight, and even looked up a couple of fun things to do around the area if there was downtime. There wasn't much, but there was a diner that served breakfast and lunch and boasted a big ivy-covered bear, and she wanted to see that very much. Of course, being winter and all, the ivy wasn't likely to be there and all she'd get to see was a creepy bear-shaped skeletal cage of rusty iron.]

[Still, on the ride over, Orihime's in a good mood, conversational, and happy to put her homework aside if whoever sits next to her seems inclined to talk. She strains for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty as they fly past New York, but the altitude makes it hard to see anything more than a little greenish square.]

[On the way back, she's much quieter, claiming that it's jet lag and tiredness with a smile. Is it true? Who knows with her, she keeps her complaints to herself for the most part. But she might fall asleep on someone's shoulder if they aren't inclined to shake her awake.]

---------------------

Clean-Up and Healing Duty

[Orihime's ultimate priority is to heal any injuries and reverse any possible infections that might have been picked up by an unlikely bite. She checks everyone over, including the clients, and their attitudes don't seem to ruffle any of her feathers (if they can even find the heart to give her a rough time, she's so cheerful and friendly).]

[Even before the actual clean-up, where she gets to test the runic flamethrowers, her spirits seem pretty high. Watching the huge gout of flame lash out of the device is pretty great!]

[But it's when she has to torch bodies that she finds herself growing increasingly queasy and sad. She's only ever known zombies to come from dead humans, thanks to movies, and though she's been informed otherwise...that they're just mindless monsters...there's still something about it that just doesn't sit right with her. At least she knows better than to try using her rejection abilities on one of the corpses, since doing so would likely only animate it into bite-mode and not help it become human again.]

[At one point she has to make a quick dash to the nearest bush where she rips off her hazmat helmet and empties her stomach. She stays bent over for a moment, trying not to think of the rubbery bodies, or the oozing wounds, or the decayed limbs of rotten meat and yellowed bone peeking through. Just breathe, she tells herself, waiting for the cold air to refresh her senses. She's just grateful they're doing this in the winter and not the summer.]

[Once she's better, she puts her hood back on and zips it up. If anyone asks, she'll just say she thought she saw a snow hare.]

Plane Ride, on the way there

[punches_fog]

[Souji, sat next to Orihime as a familiar face, leans over her to try and see the landscape going by underneath. Thankfully, his height means he doesn't have to lean over too far.]

[leekspins]

[She's almost glued to the window herself trying to see as much as possible. Whether it's land or clouds, it's pretty. Orihime almost doesn't realize how close he is to her until she notices his reflection.]

[Her head tips back as she grins up at him, then tries to slump in her seat so he can see past her more easily.]

Do you want to change seats for a while? I've had plenty of chances to look outside, you can take a turn!

[punches_fog]

Well, this isn't what he signed up for, but Souji's had worse jobs. Not worse-smelling jobs, but harder ones, anyway. He does have to admit, though, he's surprised at how accurate his casual impression of Americans from movies was.

Souji has no problem running drinks for the clients and keeping a straight face at all the explosions, although he is perhaps not wearing his best customer service smile. This is. Really kind of excessive. But a job is a job, and he'd feel bad messing things up for a school that was paying his tuition.

He only flinches when he's very close to an old man firing off a grenade launcher at a distant cluster of zombies. In the face of the client then turning to berate him about almost spilling his drinks, Souji reaches into a pocket and adds a small paper umbrella as a silent form of apology. Other than that, all he can really do is stand around getting lectured.

It's a job.

[thebreakfastbug]

"Spilled drink? No, that won't do at all, sir. Would you like a fresh one?" Bee is cheerful. Bee is in fact extremely cheerful, just barely avoiding veering into a parody of cheer.

He's also in his armor just in case it's necessary. And while it may not be the biggest of armors, it still looms over pretty much every baseline human in existence. Completely unintentionally, of course.

(It's completely intentional. He is absolutely doing this all on purpose, and doing it all in the most polite way possible so they can't call him on it.)

"And will there be anything else while I retrieve a replacement?" He asks, inclining his head to look down on the exec.

[made_up_names]

CAPITALISM

[ Okay, when they'd gotten briefed on the potential of encountering literal zombies? This was not what Peter had had in mind. Like. Seriously! He traveled all the way to France for supernatural school, and now he's just back in the states serving drinks to assholes in suits. It doesn't help that these jerks ignore him at best. Even if they were nice, though, he'd be bored out of his mind. But they're not, and he has to endure comments on how they got the cut rate students this time, look at this, here's a literal homeless dude--

Yeah, that dude's getting a shrimp platter down the back of his shirt. Oops. ]

Whoops. Guess you were being a little shellfish.

[ Someone stop him before he does something worse. ]

DUMB SHIT

[ And now he's doing something worse. When he's had enough of the walking dicks, Peter decides to slip away from the group and get a good look at these zombie hordes that they're fighting. Like, zombies! Come on! He's got to fight a few of them. They're so cool.

... Okay less cool than what he was picturing. They're so incredibly slow that his spider senses aren't even bothering to go off; he just kind of stares there a moment, watching this zombie sllllowly hobble towards him. ]

Seriously? This is it?

[ Fun fact: Peter is so used to his spider senses by now that when it doesn't go off, he kind of doesn't react to obvious stimuli. Like this other zombie that's coming up behind him, about to give him a nice big bite in the arm. ]

HEADING HOME

[ Back on the plane, Peter probably has a line of adults wanting to yell at him, huh. Yeah uh. He. kind of deserves it. And he's in the plane now, so no escaping!!

When he's not being yelled at, he sort of curls up uncomfortably back in his plane chair, looking just a little bit feverish. Which is weird, he never gets sick? But today he feels distinctly glassy for some reason. Maybe he's just tired from jetlag and dumb zombie missions.

(No, it had been his close proximity to all the anti-undead weapons. Since he'd, y'know, wandered off and gotten really close to them! 95% alive means that 5% of him is still sensitive to this kind of thing. It makes him ache just enough to be uncomfortable, though the effect will be gone as soon as the plane touches down in France again.) ]

OTA

[ Anything else? Pete probably got into some antics at the hotel too. ]

Dumb shit

[thebreakfastbug]

[Thankfully, the the zombie is bisected by a massive sword before it can try to bite Peter. Credit where credit is due, Peter had finally given Bee an excuse to cut something in half on this trip. That didn't mean the Autobot wsn't still extremely angry with him for wandering off. Bee picks Peter up, the back of his shirt held firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the armor's unbladed arm. Blue optics glare at him through the wasp-like lenses of an insectoid battle-mask.]

Peter, what the slagging hell?!

[made_up_names]

[ Peter is here to provide everyone with excuses to kill zombies and/or rescue people. It's unfortunate that the rescuee is a dumbass like himself, but. Hey! Whatever works.

He yelps as Bumblebee lifts him bodily, straining a bit against those massive metal fingertips. This is objectively awesome, but he's a little bit embarrassed right now?? ]

-- hey! I had it!

[ He did not, in fact, have it. ]

DUMB SHIT AW YEAAA

[unpocoloco]

[ Maybe they've got about the same level of patience or maybe the timing just worked out coincidentally perfect or maybe they've both got the same level of Terminal Dumbass Disease but Héctor is making his way across the fields about the same time that Peter's wandering off. He glancing back every now and again, half to make sure no one's going to catch him and half just paranoia and fear that somehow these guys will see right through him and he won't notice until he's got a bullet through his skull.

He doesn't know a lot of these people all that well yet, but truth be told, there is one or two he wishes he could say goodbye to. Like Imelda, who would stop him in his tracks if he tried. Or Peter, who...

Who isn't paying attention. ]

Hey. Hey! PETER!

[With a silent aching apology to someone far away, he bolts the opposite direction, back where he came, running as fast as his legs will carry him. If this were a horror movie, he'd probably be far too late with the distance between, but the thing is slow and before it can chomp at Peter, he's pushing the boy out of the way. The marks under his skill light up, and with it his arms. The flesh pulls back as the thing bits down instead upon his arm instead, those teeth grinding upon his ulna and radius bones. A bony hand has Peter shoved back, held firmly behind him, until he lets go and closes that hand to a fist. Wincing, and muttering under his breath, he says;]

Sorry.

[The zombie's nose cracks as his knuckles connect and his arm is released. Immediately, he turns around and grips Peter by the shoulders, pushing him forward and walking fast.]

Vamos, vamos.

[His marks light again, the bones with it, and once he's almost "living" again and they're a good distance away, he shouts to their clients.]

One over here!

[He winces as the explosion goes off behind them, but doesn't look back, still pushing Peter onward until they're as far away from just about everything and everyone as he can get them. He reels to face him.]

What's the matter with you?! What were you thinking?!

[made_up_names]

[ It all happens very quickly. One moment he's just standing here minding his own business, trying to figure out how best to deal with some zombies? And then bam, there's Héctor. He opens a mouth to protest - he's fine, geez, what is wrong with her - when he sees that. Oh shit. There sure was a zombie behind him. And before he can move to try to protect Héctor in turn, the zombie bites down.

Peter is expecting blood, maybe the crack of bone. What he doesn't expect is to see just the bone. Or the bony hand pushing him down and out of the way. His spider senses aren't perfect, but when there's a crack that blatant - when he can physically see the underlying reality - they sure can extrapolate a lot. Hector's like that all over, isn't he? Those marks under the skin - those were on bones, right? All this time he's been talking to a skeleton and didn't even know it.

He can only stumble wordlessly for a moment, his mouth dropping open. Hell, he won't even fuss about being kept out of the way while these ding dongs swoop in and overkill a zombie. It's not until they're a good distance away that his mouth and his brain finally start working together again. ]

Me? What were you thinking? What the hell--

[ His gaze snaps instantly to the arm that Héctor used to keep the zombies at bay. Where he'd seen literally just bone a moment before. Oh god. ]

What the hell are you?

Capitalism

[no_dejare_de_quererte]

[It's not difficult to miss the uproar that Peter's stunt causes. A student dumping a plate of shrimp on one of the clients is... unfortunately, pretty noticeable. But fortunately (or maybe not so fortunately) for Peter, Imelda swoops in to grab him by the back of the neck before the men can demand his removal--or worse.]

Peter Parker. How many times do you have to be told to watch what you're doing? [Her tone is scathing, all the force of an angry mother put behind those words. While it might not be pleasant for Peter, the man he just dumped shrimp on seems to be placate by watching him get reamed out.]

[made_up_names]

[ WHAT. What!! They deserved it. Them being a dick to Héctor wasn't kosher at all, so he punished them with shrimp. Seems appropriate. As such he kind of squirms and yelps when someone drags him away, already turning to put up a fight --

Oh. Shit. It's Imelda. Yeah uh he's going to let himself get dragged and hope she doesn't murder him. That probably placates that dude too, since he's instantly regretting his life. ]

I couldn't help it! He has some kind of shrimp magnetic field!

DUMB SHIT

[willnotbeyourneighbour]

[Three gunshots ring out, and the zombie that had gotten the jump on Peter collapses to the ground – not damaged, as such, but crumpling under the weight of three huge black metal bars that were suddenly attached to its body. One through the side of the chest, one through the outstretched arm, and one right through the head.]

Mind your six, Parker.

[whatsupdanger]

-Plane ride-

Miles struggled not to bounce in his seat. ZOMBIES! The real deal! Avery was saying something about customer service but apparently he didn't even have to worry about that, he was in the group that had FLAMETHROWERS! Man this was CRAZY!

It's a long plane ride from Europe to America, though, even in a fast plane. Miles needed something to help kill the time. And he had zombies on the brain, so...

"You ever seen Night of the Living Dead?"

Look his only source of knowledge on zombies before this was Hollywood. He's got some preconceived notions he needs to get rid of.

-Clean up-

Naturally, no one would give a thirteen year old boy a flamethrower. Miles was behind the main squad that was burning the bodies, and he had a backpack canister full of holy water connected to a spray gun. He was spraying the piles of burning ash that had, previously, been bloodthirsty zombies. It was interesting at first but after half an hour without a single one of them jumping at him dramatically like in those movies, he was starting to realize how itchy the hazmat suit was and just, generally speaking, getting dangerously bored.

"Man, I thought zombies were supposed to be scary. What IS this?"

CLEANING

[made_up_names]

Of course, by the time they actually get there and do stuff ... Peter is not enthused. He's frankly kind of upset? These dudes are dicks and Héctor is dead and the zombies are just shuffling walls of flesh and all of this anti-undead magic is giving him a headache for reasons unknown and - ugh. He's never doing this mission ever again.

"The worst zombie horde ever," he says, making a face. "Also the worst mission ever. What kind of BS even is this?"

[whatsupdanger]

"Video games did not prepare me for life nearly as much as I thought they would."

And that's all there is to say about that. Miles squirts a still twitching hand with holy water and watches it bubble and steam before melting away to nothing, which was cool the first 15 times he did it, but now...

[thebreakfastbug]

"Yeah, and this isn't going to be that. This isn't even going to be Shaun of the Dead." Bee said, as he pulled out his earbuds. Apparently he'd been listening Queen, if the fact that Don't Stop Me Now could be heard coming out of them said anything.

Clean Up!

[subconmodo]

"Welcome to your first step into adulthood:" Avery replies as he idly kicks the remains of one corpse over to pile up with another, "the world of broken dreams and disappointment."

The bodies now close enough to feed the fire, he sets them aflame, making sure to keep a fair amount of space between himself and the holy water Miles is making use of. "Look on the bright side! At least your first mission is set to be a resounding success."

Clean up

[schwanenritter]

Fakir was methodical, stabbing the brain stems of the zombies, occasionally being forced to stomp on one with a hazmat-protected heel when it looked like they weren't quite dead, giving a noise of disgust before stepping away to run holy water over the length of his sword.

"Zombies really are only scary if you got a Necromancer or Daemon taking control of them." Fakir answers as he scrapes his boot against the ground, dousing the spot afterwards. "Be careful, some of these are ankelebiters."

[inkedspell]

"Scary? This isn't a movie." She says as she continues to use the flamethrower to burn the bodies. Sarona isn't unused to this kind of thing. She's gotten into the muck and grime plenty of times working with the Inkmetal Forge, but they were very much against zombie auctions. This is the first time she got to see one up close.

"Can you get some on the area to our four-o-clock?"

On the plane ride home

[subconmodo]

This is the worst mission he has ever been on. Between two students attempting a runner, dealing with snooty clients he wasn't avowed to kill, and having to avoid the holy water during the cleanup, he was completely, totally, utterly done.

At least most of the students he'd dragged along had a few drops of survival instinct wriggling around in those empty heads of theirs.

He gets up halfway through the trip and moves to another seat, nursing a cup of coffee, doing his best to make it last. "Thank you for being competent," he murmurs to the person next to him after a moment.

[no_dejare_de_quererte]

This isn't quite the worst mission that Imelda has ever been on... but it's close. Chasing down and dragging her estranged husband back to the base puts it pretty high up there on her list of things she never wants to have to do again. So when they get on the plane, she's prepared to just simmer in her seat all the way back to France.

When Avery sits down next to her, she looks over at him with a bit of surprise--and then a commiserating grimace of a smile. "You're welcome. I saw who was signing up for this mission. You clearly needed it."