Holding back a horde of zombies is tiring work. Even if you’re a tireless undead. Thankfully, the undead were still stupid as hell, so they never tried breaking down the barricade since there was an ‘open’ path. And because of how things were set up, I only had the weight of a few zombies pressing on me, instead of the horde.

Finally, I Saw that everyone except Incende and I were out. The only living things inside the stadium were us, the Tree, and the vines animating the zombies (don’t ask me how that worked, magic is weird!), which was good, because we’d still managed to get several hundred people out of the stadium thanks to quick work, but there were simply too few of us scattered too widely to protect everyone against a threat that hit the entire stadium at once. I estimated that only about 2% of the people made it out.

As the portal shut down, the zombies that had been frantically trying to push past me in their frenzy to hunt down the survivors ceased their struggle, and went back to… doing what zombies do. They were too close together to just shamble about like normal, though, so I decided to be a good neighbor and do some pruning. I was calmly killing my eighth zombie since the portal closed when I saw a red glow on the walls.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Incende’s fire-form flying towards me. This form was fairly demonic-looking, in my opinion, what with its twisting lava base going into a blackened breastplate with pauldrons that had towering flames coming off it, a blackened skull mask with fire underneath and two molten horns coming off the top, and a freaking huge two-handed hammer. Looked demonic, but it wasn’t. Apparently, it was a form granted by certain powers on the elemental plane of fire to powerful warriors.

I nodded to him, and Incende looked at the security gate and the zombies behind it. “BY FIRE BE PURGED!” With that, he unleashed a torrent of flame that filled the hallway. The security gate melted under the abuse, but did nothing to stop the flames as dozens of zombies were consigned to the abyss.

Smiling at the being of pure flame, I made sure to keep a couple feet between us, because I’m a vampire, and we didn’t like fire. Incende knew the score, though, so it was cool. “Nicely done, Incende. Now, we’ve got to get to the tree, and see if we can’t stop it from growing any more, or figuring out any new tricks. The magic types already killed the ritual that was causing this, so I am hoping all we have to deal with is a giant magic tree with potentially endless regenerative abilities instead of something worse.”

Incende laughed, a sound that was not unlike a volcano. “And you think just the two of us can do this? I know your Pyramaniac said fire hurt it, but…”

I nodded. “But it is a big ass tree of wood that is not easy to burn, and is probably magically protected, so it isn’t like you can just snap your fingers and light it up. I know. I’m hoping that if I can get close enough, I can drain away some of its power, weaken it somehow. Neither of us are exactly the best people for dealing with magical weirdness, but I can at least See life forces, and you can burn the hell out of things, and the zombies don’t think either of us are snack food, so it is all on us.”

Incende nodded. “Yes, I guess you’re right. Too bad neither of us knows whether the tree will be more active than the zombies, right?”

While we’d been talking, we were strolling along through the zombie-filled corridor, heading back to the field. The zombies ignored us, of course, but we did our part to help control the zombie population by casually killing a zombie or two every so often. Sword and hammer did good work on unresisting zombies. I had Incende hold back on the fire, not wanting him to get tired before the real pyro work began.

Now, standing in the stands where we had been watching a game just a short while ago, I was startled by the changes. Vines had shoved their way up through concrete, or snaked their way above the ground. The stadium lights were still on, and everywhere I could see bloodstains where people had been stabbed by vines and turned into zombies. In the middle of the field, standing tall, was the Tree of Life, a huge ass oak tree that was damn near as tall as the stadium already.

Tearing my eyes from the tree for a moment, I looked at Incende, and laid out my bare bones plan. “All right, the vines tried to attack me earlier, but that might have been ‘help’ from the ritualists who were boosting the tree. So I’ll go in, and try to get to the trunk so I can drain as much of the thing’s life force as I can. You start here and start burning back the branches so there’s less chance of us getting nasty surprises if this thing actually starts paying attention. Do you have any kind of ‘ultimate fire attack’?”

Incende nodded slowly. “The Flames of Perdition may be able to strike down the tree, but I cannot prepare for that at the same time as I am trying to push back the foliage. I won’t be able to defend myself properly while gathering the necessary energies. Should take about ten minutes? And when it is done, I’ll be forced into human form for at least a day.”

I grimaced at that. “And then you’ll be vulnerable, if the tree isn’t completely dead, or there are zombies in the area. Wonderful.” I paused, and looked back at the tree. It was no longer receiving the pulses of life energy from the ritual, but it still had the energy of the entire stadium’s people in it. I was fairly certain I couldn’t drain anywhere near that much. I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if I tried. No, couldn’t think about that. I sighed. “Rooftop then. Make sure you have some kind of fire shield up, to block any ranged attacks it might get off, but you’ll be safe from the zombies when you turn human if you’re up on the roof of the stadium. These aren’t the ones that can climb, thank goodness.”

Incede nodded. “Right, I can get up to the roof. How do I let you know when I’m about to set it off?” I sent him a temporary group comm code, and he nodded. “All right. I’ll get in position and start charging for the flames. If it matters, they’re going to be a ‘fire from the sky’ kind of attack, so try to get out from under.”

“Will do. And watch out for those ranged attacks as you fly up. Rocketman’s a tree, after all.” He chuckled, and flew off, surrounded in a fire shield. Didn’t think a plant would be able to do much to him, but magic was freaky like that at times. Couldn’t take anything for granted.

Now it was my time to see what I could do to this tree. I took a breath to steady my nerves, and kicked off, my golden aura surrounding me as I flew to the tree’s trunk. Unfortunately, the tree was most definitely smarter than the zombies, or else it had different target parameters, because vines and branches began moving to try and grab me as soon as I was over the field, but I was moving too fast, and I could see them moving. The only moment I was really at risk was the moment between when I stopped moving and when I began draining the tree. But I’d covered the distance too quickly for the vines to react.

Locked in as I drained the tree, I was overwhelmed by the pureness of the life force. It was like I’d been drinking vending machine coffee and then suddenly someone handed me a cup of Arabic coffee, made by someone who KNEW how to brew! Temptress would have put it in more crass terms, but I wasn’t going to think about that right now, especially since she was still MIA.

Unfortunately, my happy-fun eating experience was ruined by several sharp pains in my back, as two, three, no, four vines stabbed me in the back, and began draining the life force from me as quickly as I was taking it from the tree. So that’s what it was, then? The vines attacked life force, but the zombies were limited to living humans? Possibly an intentional degradation of their abilities to keep them from wiping out plants and animals?

No matter, I wasn’t going to let these terrorist assholes win. And I CERTAINLY wasn’t going to let them get away with draining me of the life force I’d rightfully stolen! The nerve! No, I was a vampire, and I could keep this shit going all night long. Especially since I only needed to outlast the thing for 10 minutes.

TechSupport: All civilians safely relocated to local hospitals. Final tally, 925 people safe from the food courts, including the defense teams. The survivors of the two baseball teams were locked down in their locker rooms. They’re both at half-strength now, so the season is probably over for them.

BloodRaven: Grrgh. Ye-yeah. Unless they bring up people from the minors. Good news on the civvies. More than I-augh expected.

TechSupport: What the hell is going on there?

BloodRaven: I’m draining a tree and the tree stabbed me a few times to drain me back. Kindof hurts like a motherfucker.

TechSupport: Where is Incende in all this?

BloodRaven: On the roof, prepping the mother of all fireballs. You’re going to need to see if you can get him out, or get someone to do a flyby and grab him once the fire hits. He’ll be vulnerable and in human form.

TechSupport: And the only reason the zombies aren’t keying on you is because they don’t see you as humans. I’ll have Rep grab him. What about you?

BloodRaven: Plan is to drain this thing as much as possible, before getting out of the way of the column of flames that is going to drop from the sky.

TechSupport: So you’re waiting until he releases the attack, which is one of your major weaknesses, and then trying to outrun it?

BloodRaven: That’s the plan.

TechSupport: THAT’S INSANE! EVEN FOR YOU!

BloodRaven: Hey, I never said it was a good plan, but it is the only one we got right now!

TechSupport: IT IS BLOODY SUICIDE AND YOU KNOW IT!

BloodRaven: Bloody, talking to a vampire. Nice.

TechSupport: YOU IDIOT!

I chuckled as the call to Web Mistress cut out. She might be upset, but she knew this had to happen as much as I did. We had to cut this tree down to size before something even worse than zombies happened. I didn’t know what that would be, and I wasn’t going to invoke Murphy by guessing, but letting the magic-powered ecoterrorists just have their magic tree in the middle of a city seemed like a horrible idea for long-term survival.

No, this needed to be stopped now, before things could go too far. I grit my teeth against the pain (getting stabbed in the back hurts, y’know?), and tried to find out what my options for a quick getaway were. Unfortunately, things were a little bit worse than I’d let on to Web Mistress about. The vines weren’t just stabbing me now, but had pretty much enveloped me. I was pretty much bound head to toe now. Almost like a cocoon… Oh, that wasn’t a happy thought.

Fireman: Right, all charged up! There’s a 100 foot radius on the column, so you best get moving!

Yeah, moving wasn’t going to be an option for me, it looked like. At least, not until some of these vines burned away.

BloodRaven: Do it.