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]

He steps back once on instinct but only manages to get that far before fear freezes him in place. He stands perfectly still, looking down at Avery and yet still feeling like a gnat soon to be crushed.

"Ha. Haha... N-no. Of course not. That's..."

He swallows hard.

[subconmodo]

And in an instant he's smiling, a bright, cheerful grin that doesn't even come close to reaching his eyes. Despite his tone, there's an edge behind his words, an unspoken threat all the more underlined by the fact that the Daemon Contracting teacher hasn't bothered to dismiss the darkness around them.

"Great! Glad to see we're all on the same page here. Just wanted to make sure is all. That's what teachers do, eh? Make sure their students don't suffer any accidents out there in the woods?"

[unpocoloco]

"Accidents?" He all but squeaks. He doesn't know what kind of accident he could suffer as someone who's already dead but... he's seen enough in the outlands and beyond to know he has no interest in finding out. There's options.

"Right. Accidents. Of course not."

He doesn't trust that cheerful smile even slightly, still staring nervously at Avery with his heart in his throat.

"That means we're fine, right?

[subconmodo]

"Not quite." He points back to the site they're using as a "base" of sorts. "Not until you march back over there and make yourself at home. We'll even walk together." Avery doesn't budge. He won't until he's certain he has Héctor doing as he's told.

[unpocoloco]

"Oh," He says. It's not the worst outcome to all this but his shoulders definitely sag. "Yeah. Sure," He says like it's not the exact opposite of what he wants to do. He breathes deep and forces himself to move back, feet heavy as lead and heart feeling heavier.

Still, he tries to keep his voice light. "So uh... some mission, huh?"