AN: This is the rest of the chapter from yesterday, but I chose to call it a chapter unto itself due to my headache and the fact that it has enough going on to make it a chapter. I'm still a little under the weather headache-wise, but I think this all makes sense. :)

Chapter 13: Get Hard

The road back to the mall provided many difficult obstacles to overcome. The sheer number of cars abandoned in the road made the idea of clearing them a difficult task to perform. Technically, he could have pushed a few of them out of the way with his shiny new truck. Scott had decided against it, however. He needed the truck and plow to be in the best shape possible when they had to actually push forward and head out.

"Damned asshole slashing the tires." muttered Scott as he turned down another side road. The flat tires were the most annoying aspect of the situation. Cars could be pushed out of the way normally. A car with flat tires was just an immobile roadblock.

Forced to drive a laborious route to get back to the mall, Scott soon became lost. "Shit. You'd think this thing would have a road map in the glove compartment." And so, he pulled to a stop at yet another convenience store in the hopes that there would be a map of the area.

Just as he had done several times before, he checked the area before heading inside. Two quick shots in rapid-succession led to the final death of zombified shop clerks. At this point it was ridiculously easy to deal with something as simple as a standard zombie. Scott took the time to always check for dangers, but openly approaching shamblers were more of a nuisance than anything else.

"Cleaned out..." mumbled Scott as he finished checking the store. Looting had been going on for months, so it made sense that people would have picked the area clean while the zombies all went to the mall.

Scott spied a map behind the checkout counter after he returned to the front of the building. "Well, at least there's this..."

He studied the map for a moment, but his quiet moment was not to last. Scott nearly leapt out of his pants when he heard a loud ringing sound from nearby. On the counter there was an impossible existence. The sound came from an ordinary office phone that could not possibly work.

Curious Scott lifted the receiver and asked "Super Quickshop, how can I help you?"

A raspy voice breathed heavily on the other end of the line. Scott's eyebrows pressed slowly together as he tried to make out any sign of a voice. Was there a zombie on the other end of the line, or something?

"Hello?" he asked again.

"It's mine..." rasped the voice in a deep, frankly terrifying tone.

"What's yours?" asked Scott slowly.

"This world... You won't take it back from me..." rasped the voice.

Scott frowned. What the hell was this? "This world... What makes you think it belongs to you?"

The voice laughed darkly for a moment then stopped suddenly. An icy voice spoke now. Each word seemed laced with venom and dread. "Champion, if you continue to interfere you should prepare your anus."

Scott's eyes widened slightly and he silently mouthed the words, "Prepare your anus?"

The chilling voice spoke again, this time with an obvious smugness in his tone. "The system worlds will be ours. This is your only warning."

Unable to hide his surprise, Scott asked, "Who are you? Why would you warn me about anything?"

A hellish shriek erupted from the other end of the phone. Scott dropped it and clutched at his ears. The sound continued unabated for several seconds and his vision began to blur.

Words, or something like them, echoed menacingly from the phone. It was a strange language, but the strangest thing was that the very air around the mouth piece began to tremble, warp, almost blister. The moment that the words stopped, the voice spoke in plain English. "You should worry about yourself, Champion." The last word was practically spat out before the line went dead.

Scott was at a loss for a moment. What had just happened? He felt liquid warmth flowing down his face and reached up to check. He drew his hand back and stared at what he found there. "Bleeding... I'm crying tears of blood?"

Before he could fully comprehend the situation, he heard a weird sound from outside that sounded a like a train going by. He glanced toward the window then threw a hand to his mouth to stifle the decidedly girlish scream that threatened to rise up from his throat. Beyond the window he saw corpses and parts of corpses flying through the air. Black blood and entrails slithered through the air toward a singular direction.

The corpses in the room began to flop around then rolled over. Scott did not need to see more. His brain finally kicked into gear and he shot out of the convenience store like a bat out of hell. He raced for his truck, but nearly fell over when he turned his head to look toward the epicenter of what was happening.

"Oh fuck, me..." he said, eyes wide. A tornado of gore whirled vigorously just down the street. It did not draw him toward it like a natural tornado, but it did draw in the nearby corpses.

Scott ran for his truck once more and missed seeing something even more terrifying. The tornado spat something out of the top of its funnel. The oval-shaped mass of pulsating flesh slammed down onto the asphalt like a grotesque meteor. A cry not unlike the wail of a terrified infant began to echo from the hideous abomination.

He hopped into the driver's seat and tried to start the truck. Nothing happened. There was no sign of life in the thing. "It's dead?"

He kept trying the truck for a moment and nearly gave up on it. However, after the fourth try it sputtered weakly. He did not know it, but the tornado down the street had begun to weaken.

Several more of the malformed creations slammed down before the whirlwind finally died out. The sound of wailing infants echoed from several disgusting masses of flesh.

Scott doggedly continued to try to crank his vehicle. Each time he felt like he was coming just a little closer to getting the thing going. Had he seen what was happening down the street he would have worked even more fervent about getting it started.

A seam formed along the front edge of the first horrible mass. Black blood gushed from what appeared to be a giant open wound. Tiny little fingers tipped with claws slipped out from between the tear and the opening was forced further open. Soon a tiny torso slipped free. The grey skinned creature had elfin ears, a mop of white hair dyed black with blood, and the fangs of a predator.

It struggled to free itself and soon revealed a lower torso that bore the shape of a spider. The child-sized creature crawled free of its hideous birth then sniffed the air like a predator. The creature's ears twitched slightly and then turned its glassy yellow eyes toward the sound of the truck being cranked.

Scurrying forward on its arachnid legs, the creature opened its mouth wide and allowed its swollen tongue to loll sideways out of its mouth briefly. Halfway to its intended meal it shrieked out a high-pitched *skreee*, but was drowned out by the sudden firing of a heavy duty truck engine. Scott wasted no time in gunning the engine and moving forward. However, life had not favored him.

The truck lurched forward then leaned heavily to one side and made a terrible noise. His eyes widened as he immediately realized what had happened. Someone had fucked with his tires! He had not seen any flats, but he had been distracted enough that it was entirely possible that he had missed the signs!

Scott started to get out of the truck, but he was stopped short by the sudden arrival of the misshapen hell spawn slamming into the back window. The small spider-thing attacked the back glass with feverish glee and rapidly began to break through.

More by instinct than planning, Scott brought his pistol up and opened fire on the thing. It did not acknowledge the damage inflicted beyond being temporarily knocked back. However, the plasma rounds opened large weeping holes in its body.

The other terrible eggs began to hatch in the background as a spider leg smashed through the back window and slashed at Scott in naked aggression. He emptied his full remaining rounds into the thing to no good purpose.

"Shit!" snapped Scott as he set his weapon to start the reloading process. The great weeping wounds on the beast's bloated lower body and torso leaked black gunk that smelled indescribably terrible.

"Dammit! Gotta get out of here." he said while dodging a scythe-like leg.

The feral undead beast broke through the back window and shoved its head forward just as he finished his three second cool down. He shot it in the forehead at point-blank range. The creature's head snapped back heavily but to Scott's horror it merely opened its mouth and flashed its fangs. The headshot had been useless as well. It had not even expanded the wound as it normally would. Worse, the holes began to close right before his eyes.

A scythe-like spider leg lashed out, but he was unable to avoid it completely now that more of the creature was inside. Scott took a heavy slash across the face that left a thin line of blood.

He did his best to escape his vehicle, but took several more hard strikes as he did so. The thing had easily torn away at his hit points. Every strike that hit skin bled to some degree. His protection from physical attacks would not last much longer. Soon, he would be at the mercy of the beasts.

Several high-pitched skreeing sounds echoed from down the street. Scott ran off as fast as he could. Unfortunately, his fastest speed was still only a little better than a top-end Olympic athlete. The creatures behind him were far faster than any normal man could hope to be.

He dodged around the side of a vehicle on instinct as he felt a strange sensation creep along the back of his neck. His instinct allowed him to narrowly avoid a stream of material that had the appearance of spider webbing, but caused the metal of the car to hiss and bubble.

Scott kept moving and ran down a walkway that used to allow people to get out of the weather by walking underneath an overhead concrete awning. The scrabble of spider claws on concrete caused him to redouble his efforts to escape.

Practically hurling himself down the corridor, he turned down a narrow alleyway and ran back toward the previous street. He had incredible stamina compared to a normal man, but he needed to get off the street and away from those damned things.

Streamers of acidic webbing lashed out and splashed dangerously close to him as he ran. Spying a closed dumpster on the other side of the road, among other things, he rapidly developed a desperate plan.

Scott raced toward the dumpster then leapt atop it. He used it as a quick platform to hop up to an overhead railing on the second floor of the small clothing store outlet. Unfortunately, it was not a perfect escape. Just as he had nearly finished clambering over the top of the metal rail, a shot of webbing splashed against his hand.

It took a great deal of effort to pull his hand free, but the back of his glove and a bit of the flesh of his hand stayed behind. Biting back a scream, he kept moving. Now was not the time to cry about his wounds.

He could feel the acid burning away at his hand for a scant few seconds before the pain disappeared. He did not like the possibilities that fact might bring with it. Scott turned a corner on the upper promenade of the small section of buildings, avoiding another splash of acidic webbing.

"How the hell do I get out of this?" asked Scott desperately just before he leapt from one railing to the railing of a neighboring building. There had to be a way!

"If only I could do something to those fucking things!" he snarled as he raced down the next section of walkway. He had to figure something out soon. He was running out of easy access buildings.

The biggest problem was that he had not been given a moment to think. Scott's pulse pounded as he hurdled the rail on the other side of the building and landed on a van below. He hopped clear and kept moving into a small area of greenery.

A zombie lurched out of a group of shrubbery nearby, but Scott paid the shambling bastard no mind. Its fortune ran out a moment later as a stream of acidic webbing splashed against it. The zombie was soon webbed down and began to dissolve even as a spider-thing leapt atop it and began to feast. The little undead bastards began to fight over the meal giving Scott time to keep running.

His hand began to throb once more as his stamina slowly began to give out. He had been full-out sprinting for most of that time and even someone with his stats was not immune to exhaustion. He was barely more than human after all.

Scott had intended to keep running while the monsters fed, but he could already hear their shrieking from behind. They were nearly done with their meal and would quickly catch up with him.

He panted heavily as he reached another group of buildings. It was a half-renovated building with a blue tarp covering the front. Construction equipment had been left behind due to the end of the world.

His vision began to blur once more as he felt his energy plummeting. His hand itched terribly and a sick looking fluid had begun to form inside of it. "Dammit, what now?"

Scott used the left over scaffolding to his advantage and began to climb up the side of the closed off building. He needed to buy a little time so that he could use his few healing items. At the top of the building he used his status cleanser and a dose of his healing potion.

In the process of pulling the healing agents from his pocket, he pulled out a small flower. Scott blinked at it for a moment then tilted his head to the side. "Shit... worth a try."

The desperate champion chose to devour the gravitas flower and the seed of boom. Immediately he could feel an incredible rush of power flare throughout his body. He felt light and strong; stronger than ever before. Even the first time had not provided a rush as big as the one that he now felt.

Scott called the fire and the fire came. "Running is pointless..." he said slowly. The skreeing sound of the approaching monsters informed him that they were nearly up the side of the building.

The moment that he saw a spider leg rise up above the edge of the roof he glared hotly toward his oncoming destiny. He had forgotten for a moment while he had fled in terror; he was already dead. What was there to fear? He would die in one mission or another. The only choice he really had was in how he met his end.

"It's time to get hard..." said Scott. He curled his now unblemished hand into a tight fist and narrowed his eyes. "Nintendo hard."

Scott roared out an inarticulate battle cry as he ran forward. Acid web spitting undead spider bastards or not, he would not run away anymore.

The first spider rose above the rim of the roof and immediately arched its hideously bloated ass forward and shot a stream of webbing toward him. Scott nearly smirked as he casually avoided the incoming blast. With strength had also come speed and reflex enhancement. If he had not been so surprised earlier, he might have recalled his special garden powers. Now that they were activated, it was time for a bug hunt.

Scott leapt over another stream of webbing by launching himself high into the air. Before the beast could reorient itself the flower empowered man rocketed downward like a streaking comet and slammed feet first into the beast's torso. The moment his feet struck the creature's chest all of the power of the strike was instantly transferred into the undead spider-thing.

He instinctively used the critter as a springboard to launch himself high into the air once more. The soldier of the shroom lifestyle came with several key insights that he had not entirely understood during the time when he first used the garden powers.

Once in the air, he found his next target and shot downward once more. Webbing skidded along the side of his right arm, but did not hit cleanly. If the spider thing was capable of chagrin, it would have felt it at that moment. Scott's resistance to damage was much higher now. Another hard stomp lead to another spider thing shrieking as it was sent hurtling to the ground.

It was then that something else surprising occurred. Music began to play in the background. It was not the depressing music one might expect from a zombie apocalypse. No, it was the same quirky and overly cheerful music he had heard when in the Imperial Garden.

A brief smile appeared on his lips that soon turned into a full on grin. "Hell yeah..."

From that moment on, Scott used his flower power to stomp down on any opposition the spider things gave him. As soon as he had them on the ground, he unleashed fiery hell. He spammed fireballs that exploded haphazardly down below.

They only went off on the third bounce, but he unleashed such volume that the shrieking spiders barely had a chance to try to climb the building once more.

Soon, the five horrors unleashed on the world were nothing more than a charred ruin. Scott stood there fireballs in hand and breathed deeply. Somehow, he had managed to snatch victory from the spidery asshole of defeat.