5629/Zombie Shopping

Zombie Shopping
Date of Scene:	23 October 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Mercy Thompson, Battleborn, Vintridr

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Mercy Thompson has posed:
Tuesday morning and the Target is mercifully quiet. A few cashiers at the registers, a few folks wandering through the store shopping. Mercy is one of those, digging through the blue jeans to find some new ones. She has a couple options set aside "Uhhggh," she straightens up and looks around. "What is that stench?" Sick-sweet and rot and putrefaction and worse all rolled into one turns her a little green. Then the screams begin, in the back corner of the store near the dairy section.

Battleborn has posed:
The goverment knew... they always know, and their solution is to send in the Viking, Battleborn, Major Shepard, or any other name she goes by.

Wearing a pair of Marine issue camo pants, along with her field belt and a muscle shirt, in tan, Helena arrives and slips her hat and sunglasses on. "I want the Civilians brought out, then I want a perimiter." Helena says to the two Marines with her, hefting her rifle and walking into the store. "EVERYONE OUT!" She yells as she goes ot find the source of that stench, Rifle raised and ready.

Vintridr has posed:
th New Asgard finally stabilizing and looking toward longer term projects, Vintridr has found the time to re-open her coffee shop, at least on a part-time basis until she manages to hire additional staff.

    She's just browsing the furnishings department, absently listening and nodding to the sales representative praising their workmanship and quality when something assaults her senses. She frowns, tilting her head this way and that for a moment until she's identified what she's just felt, then scowls and turns to the salesperson.

    "Thank you, miss, but you will need to evacuate the other shoppers right now. The dead have risen and they'll be hungry."

    With that, she turns away, abandoning her casual gait for a hunter's stalk toward the source of the sensation as her armour forms around her in a shimmering of rainbow colors, her sword at her side...

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"Why me," Mercy mutters as she too starts toward the trouble. She detours through the camping gear aisle, however, and appropriates a machete. Then it's a run toward the smell of the dead.

Ten, twenty, twenty four have emerged from the back of the store, trailing foulness behind them and the reek of the grave going before. They're not shamblers, these zombies are fast. Half a dozen run down a man slow on the uptake. He screams trail off in seconds to a gurgle and red runs across the tile floor pooling around him.

Other shoppers, thankfully there aren't many in the store yet, are running for the exits.

Battleborn has posed:
The only warning that there will be live fire is the sound of a bolt being pulled before Helena fires three round bursts at the heads of the zombies. Kicking over a few aisle shelves to make some sort of cover as she crouches down and continues to fire. "We have one casualty, might need to get a blood sample to identify him." She says into a radio as she tosses the spent Magazine and loads another one, also lighting a huge ass cigar in the process, anything to kill that stench.

Vintridr has posed:
    Zombies tend to be simple-minded creatures. Absent orders from someone compelling them, they will go for the nearest food source they can detect, or the loudest noise they can hear in case whatever made it was edible.

    As Helena opens fire, the ones not busy devouring unlucky shoppers raise their heads and start toward her in a mass that will make it hard for her to shoot them all before her position is overrun -- until something bright and cold flashes past her and spears one of the lead zombies in the chest.

    Being immune to pain, the zombie ignores the arrow sprouting from its chest... Until frost spreads from the impact point with a crackling noise until its entire body is encased in ice, making a disturbing sculpture until it topples over to shatter on the floor.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The zombies that remain charge the gunfire. They're not smart but they do follow orders, and they're fast. And the shopper they tore into is getting up now also. The new made corpse takes a few stumbling steps, steadier with each one, and is charging along behind the rest within about ten paces.

Mercy skids to a halt at the sound of gunfire though and takes up a position to the side, and behind, the woman with the disgusting cigar and the marine uniform. That many zombies, and one rifle, one... she stares at the valkyrie a second, and one VW mechanic do not make for good odds. She takes a deep breath, not wanting to do this but..."Stop," she says. The volume is normal but the word carries a weight of command that the dead can't ignore. The zombies stop. Not for long, though. The zombies start to shuffle uncertainly.

Battleborn has posed:
Another spent magazine, and she reaches for her third.. wait... "Damnit..." ...

...In a jeep in the parking lost, in the driver's seat is the dropped Rifle magazine...

"Well, this is about to get even more bloody." She says as she sets down her rifle and extends her arm, a Asgardian Runed axe forming with a slight bit of frost as she hurls it at one of the zombies, standing up as her own armor flows over her body, ending with a black open surrcoat as she extends her hand calling the axe back to her. "I am Battleborn, and You all needs to return to Hel." She says as she leaps over her makshift barrier and tosses her axt again, turing a zombie head into a frost bitten block, a hoplon styled shield flowing over her right arm as she manages to sparta kick one of the zombies that gets too close, with five tons of pressure in that kick.

Vintridr has posed:
    If the Battleborn's presence surprises Vintridr at all, she doesn't let it show. Instead, as she sees Helena jump the barrier she charges forward herself, shrieking a battle cry that hasn't been heard on Midgard in five centuries, dismissing her bow and summoning her sword as she leaps the barricade, decapitating one zombie in mid-air and cutting another in half on her landing, moving to Helena's flank.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The attacks overcome the warring commands and the zombies converge on the Valkyrie and the Battleborn. The contest is exceedingly unequal...the zombies can't begin to get through the asgardians' armor. But they try. The zombies swarm the two Asgardians, a few more on the Battleborn since she's bigger, and easier for dead eyes to see. Eight pile on Vintridr, 12 on Battleborn, trying to pull them down.

Mercy stays out of the way, machete at the ready. The one kicked by Battleborn lands near her, destroying a display rack. Mercy takes a long step forward and brings the machete down. A sick thunk, and the top of the zombie's head is removed. It immediately begins to deliquesce into a disgusting sludge.

Battleborn has posed:
A rather loud yell as Helena explodes upwards with pure strength, sending the zombies scattering, one flied into a radio display, causing music to play. Charging her axe, she slams it into the ground, causing a thirty foot radius of ice to surround the two warrior women before she tosses that axe again. She doesn't recall the axe just yet, instead slamming another zombie into a structure pole with her shield, and grabbing a third with her gauntletted hand and crushing it's head. "Personal space assholes!" She says, now willing her axe back to her hand.

Music: https://youtu.be/wnqEd_3gjPo

Vintridr has posed:
    Zombies have several qualities that make them dangerous fighters. Strength, an unbreakable morale, and above all an utter indifference to pain and injury until their heads are destroyed.

    What they don't have is skill -- and Vintridr has fought monsters of all kinds for longer than the country she's currently standing in has existed. Her blade moves with the precision of a dozen centuries' worth of training and experience -- and the speed and strength of an Asgardian warrior.

    Her first swing goes clear through the necks of the two closest zombies, rotting skin and bone offering negligible resistence to Asgardian not-quite-steel, and she spins with the momentum to lunge forward, impaling a third before tearing her blade free in a slash that severs half its torso and head, then kicks the part still standing into the path of a fourth, sending it stumbling to the ground where she can shatter its skull with a single stomp.

    She follows close behind Helena, shielding the woman's back while staying out of reach of her swings as if they'd trained together for years...

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The zombies that Helena scattered start picking themselves up again, slithering and slipping on the ice, but moving. The one she slams into a pole crunches, but keeps moving. Weakly at first but with growing coordination as it pulls back together. The one who's head she crushed goes down and says down, dissolving into a putrid puddle. Likewise the ones whose heads Vintridr has taken fall over and decay, rapidly into foul puddles of rotted flesh and bone. The remaining zombies, they keep up the attack, clawing, biting, less and less effectively the fewer they are.

Mercy stays on the edge, ready but out of the way.

Battleborn has posed:
...It is like they have trained together, right down to helena extending her free hand. "Twirl!" She shouts, catching Vin's hand and spining around with her axe in one hand, and Vin in the other, setting the woman down after that flashy and deadly blade filled display, she slams her axe into one's zombies head, cleaving the indead abomination in two, before taking a kneel and tossing her axe underhanded into another's head, calling her axe back, which brings the decaying zombie with it and she snaps the axe, sending the corpse into another one.

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr uses the assist to launch herself at the next cluster of undead, bowling two over with the impact before her blade goes to work. "Destroy their heads or they won't stay down!" she admonishes the Helena, praying to the Norns that the other woman isn't too far gone in battle rage to listen...

Mercy Thompson has posed:
There are only eight left at this point, still mindlessly attacking. One spots Mercy standing there and scrambles her way. Mercy just waits for it, then moves. Not so graceful as the asgardians, but efficient and balanced, and effective enough, her machete thunking into the thing's skull. She twists , jerks, and frees the blade in a spray of blood and brain and the animated corpse is no longer animated.

The other seven continue to go after the Asgardians right there in the middle of them.

Battleborn has posed:
The shield on battleborn's right arm vanishes as she draws her tactical longsword, now with an axe in one hand, and a blade in the other, the woman starts to cleave, chop, and decapitate, even managing to dropkick a freash head across the store and kicking another to the ground and stomping it's head like a grapefruit before she continues her 'work'. She does Toss her axe at the head of one trying to go after Vin's flank.

Vintridr has posed:
    Spin, block, thrust, swing, decapitate, dodge -- Vintridr doesn't even need to consciously think about the battle as her body moves, which leaves her mind free to ponder more important questions -- namely "how" "why here" and "why now?"

    Admittedly, with Halloween around the corner the third question has an obvious answer, but "obvious" is not the same as "correct"...

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The last two zombies hit the ground within a second of each other, one laid low by a blow from Helena's axe, the other, skull shattered by Vintridr's shield. Incongruously, the store's sound system continues to play what sounds like something from Kenny G.

Mercy waits a moment, takes a breath, and then a cautious step forward. "I'm so very glad I'm a mechanic not a janitor," she says mostly to herself. She slowly makes her way toward the back of the store and the door to the storeroom there that the zombies entered through.

Battleborn has posed:
Battleborn sheathes her sword with a nod to Vintridr, and let's her axe rest on her shoulder after calling it back to her hand. "I'd let one of us take point Ms. Mechanic." Helena says as she attempts to go first, shield now in more of a scutum size, and out in front as she has her axe ready to hit anything from the top of that shield.

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr nods, letting Helena take the lead as her sword swaps out for her bow in another shower of rainbow particles, an arrow coalescing out of pure cold as she draws the bowstring halfway back.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy stops, and nods. That's just common sense. "I'll just hold the door for you then," she says and suits action to words, pulling the door aside for the two Asgardians as the approach it. She sniffs at the air, carefully, as she opens the door. "Doesn't smell quite so bad anymore."

Battleborn has posed:
Battleborn walks through the door and has a look around as she holds her shield in front of her, her axe ready to cleave into anything that might charge at her. "Someone has to answer for twenty five living corpses, well, twenty four and a murder." Battleborn says as she doesn't sound happy that someone is playing with dark magic.

Vintridr has posed:
    "Someone will," Vintridr agrees, scowling. "The dead have earned their rest."

    She follows close behind Helena, her senses reaching out and following the remaining strands of death magic, seeking their source...

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy enters after the other two and looks around. She walks slowly back and forth behind them, looking. "I think they came in over there..." she points at the back door. "Mid-morning...zombies. Why?" Helena in particular gets a look. "And how'd you know? Uncle Sam's Misguided Children just happened to be shopping, fully armed?"

Battleborn has posed:
Battleborn chuckles. "I don't question my orders, I just show up when the colonel asks me to." She states as she makes her way to the door. "I'm not a genius or anything like that, but I'd guess this was an attempt to turn a few zombies into an army. We might have a very pissed off necromancer on our hands if that's the case." She says as she kicks the back door open and steps outside.

Vintridr has posed:
    "Would you believe I was just shopping for furniture?" Vintridr quips, then turns her attention back to the interior.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
They followed the trail through the store's back room and to the exit near the loading dock. Mercy goes over to that door, but pauses and looks at the other women. "I'll open if you two want to be ready for the fray," she suggests to the two Asgardians, and standing ready to push open the door. "Sound good?"

Battleborn has posed:
Battleborn nods as she rolls her shoulders in an atlas shrug. She hangs her axe at her hip before pulling out a shotgun. "Ready." She says as she dashes throug hthe door, taking a dive and comming up with her shield in front of her and her gun pointed.

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr follows close on Helena's heels with her bow at the ready, albeit at a more sedate pace, letting her eyes adapt to the relative gloom before advancing.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy pops the door, waits for the others, and walks on through. Outside it's the loading dock, a couple of cars, the trash compactor....and a ring of symbols drawn on the concrete. An eviscerated body is centered in the magical symbols. It's hard to tell with all the blood but they were dressed in what might have been robes of some kind. Outside is quiet except for the omnipresent noise of traffic in the city, and the distanta wail of sirens, many sirens.

Battleborn has posed:
Battleborn rises and frowns at the sight. "Either they were a sacrifice, or they lost control of their zombies and were mauled by their own puppets." She says as she looks to Vin. "You have any idea about those runes? I think the body should be burned in any case." She adds as she hears the sirens. "Well, someone called 9-1-1, hopefully my boys can keep the police at bay, usualy all it takes is waving a badge around and the cops figure it's not worth the paperwork."

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr scowls as she walks over to the edge of the ritual circle, studying the runes - and almost as importantly, looking for tracks of people /leaving/ the circle. "Necromancy isn't my specialty," she admits. "But in my experience, necromancers usually don't bother dressing their victims before the sacrifice..."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mersy is walking around too and stops. "The circle's broken," she says, pointing at a gap in it where the marking is washed away. She squats down to look closer. "They didn't pay attention to the run off." She straightens slowly and looks at the other two. "Really glad you were both there...that could've been ugly. Uglier. Furniture shopping, really<' she asks Vintridr. "That seems so, ummm." She's still staring at the body though. "Burning's probably a good idea," she agrees.

Battleborn has posed:
"Mother used to say controling the living dead was best left to Hela." Battleborn says with a sigh. She raises her shotgun and fires three shots at the corpse, dragon's breath. "Arrow Magic is beyond my skill, so I have to hack." She says with a smirk as she holsters her shotgun after twirling it and blowing the barrel. "Groovy."

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr snorts and discards her bow -- and both it and her armour vanish in a shower of rainbow particles, leaving a strinking woman dressed in clean but otherwise unremarkable street clothes. "I prefer my shopping trips significantly less exciting than this, normally."

    She scowls at the burning remains, then glances up into a darker corner of the loading dock. "Perhaps when you requisition that security camera's surveillance footage you'll be able to find out who that fool was and how he brought those corpses here in the first place."

    She falls silent, then looks around the loading area again, scanning for things that don't match - such as vehicles not marked with the company's logo...

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Mercy crosses her arms and looks, just staring at the body for a bit. "I guess I'm not really sure what to do from here. I fix cars for a living not," she waves her hands at the body and the symbol. "Not this."

Battleborn has posed:
"You got a good arm with that Machete, maybe abit of trainning and you'd be formitable." Helena says as her own armor and axe vanish with a small flurry of snow. "I'm Major Helena Shepard, or, Valdisdottr." She says the last name to Vintridr. "Then this idiot summoned his little party of shambling monstrocities, my battalian;s mage felt it, we scrambled to get here, lucky only one person died, still one to many." She says as she stands are a parade rest, now wearing the camo pants and tan muscle shirt, Asgardian runes on her shoulders and arms, an ancient form of the script.

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr turns around to face Helena as she hears the name, studying the woman's face with a sudden intensity. Recognition flickers across her features after a few moments, and she tilts her head. "Valdis was your mother?" she asks.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
"Mercy Thompson, volkswagen mechanic," Mercy introduces herself. "Thanks. Four years of shi she kai kan have't gone to waste then." She looks over at Vintridr. "Wait...she said she deployed, that means she's here officially." Grin. "That means she gets the clean up. Right?" She hmms, letting the grin fade when Vintridr asks her own question.

Battleborn has posed:
Helena blinks and looks at Vin. "Yes, well, she IS my mother, though she went missing right after my pops died." She says, and she DOES have Valdis' eyes, and the fighting style she used is pretty much a copy and paste of the valkyrie style. She looks to Mercy. "Yeah, no charges, the official report will be that someone tried necromancy and it backfired, case closed." She says, which is the truth.

Vintridr has posed:
    "... I am Vintridr," Vin replies after some thought. "You've kin building a new home in Kvalvika, Norway. Come visit us if you ever wish to learn where you came from."

    With that, the woman turns to leave.