Their surprise attack gave the Misfits an extra day of reprieve to prepare for the coming battle. Emmy had hated tricking Alison like that but it had been necessary. As she stared down at Tim’s body lying prone in one of the control room pods, she hoped it would be enough time for him to finish whatever he was trying to come up with. She knew he’d mentioned something before he left about ancient elven magics and mixing this with steam power. It had sounded crazy but when you were as desperate as they were, crazy was a new kind of normal. Besides, Tim had created the ‘gundams’ as Sean called them which definitely were the type of crazy they needed if they were going to survive.

Emmy checked her armor and weapons once more. It seemed strange to be fighting with her own body but she knew that as long as the ammunition held out this was the way she could be the most effective. While the other Misfits had leveled their alts to about level 30, Emmy had taken out several level 50 zombies in the last ambush attack in a single shot. She’d taken both of the bunker’s long arms– a Remington 12-gauge double barrel shot gun and a Browning ’81 .308 caliber. There were a few hand guns as well and she had grabbed a Glock for back-up purposes; however, she was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

The remaining Misfits had also prepared their alts. Sean was on Smashpal: a paladin tank; Miles was on Kamikaze: another rogue; Alison was on Yalla: another priest. Since Miles and Alison had stuck with familiar alts to help speed up their leveling they were several levels ahead of Sean who was still at 25; however, he had reasoned that having the extra holy damage against the undead would prove beneficial. They were about to put that idea to the test.

They’d been waiting for about an hour when finally, the zombie hordes arrived on their doorstep. As Miles had reported to them earlier that week, they had several huge zombies that were the same size as the cyclops they’d fought back in San Francisco. The Misfits had all wondered whether they were going to try to get into the ventilation system other otherwise sneak into the bunker but it seemed like this time they were going for an all-out assault.

Emmy readied her Browning and adjusted the old-school scope. Fortunately, this one didn’t rely on any electronics or it wouldn’t have worked. She and the gundams stood on a small rise about a hundred yards up the hill that the bunker was in. Their job was to rain fire down on the zombies as they approached and whittled their ranks. When they came into range she began firing the bolt action gun. After each report she slid a new bullet into place. It was far more tedious than using the clip but it made her take the time to measure up each shot carefully and ensure it did the maximum amount of damage. The gundams fired their magical laser beams and the zombies began to fall.

As careful as she was, she was out of ammo with the long rifle all too soon. She took one of the gundams to protect her and moved into close combat with the Remington. She could see Kami moving in and out of her sight as he dove into another pack of zombies, murdered them to death a second time, and re-emerged. Seeing him like that she couldn’t help but wonder whether she would get to hold him again. After San Francisco they hadn’t held back and were quickly sleeping together in the same bunk. Her previous relationships had seemed like a dim candle compared to the flame that quickly consumed her with this one. She knew she was rushing in too quickly and it was very likely she was going to get hurt but she didn’t care. Seeing his smile in the morning was all it took to light her up, even as they had contemplated their impending doom every day for the last week.

One of the larger zombies nearly swiped her head off while she was daydreaming. Emmy snapped back to attention – she needed to focus completely on this fight or there would be nothing left to worry about. The hulking monstrosity in front of her was a blob of a zombie that looked like it had eaten twelve other zombies for breakfast. It was level 40 and remarkably fast for its size, too. She quickly pumped the shot-gun to reload and put two bullets in its face. The 12 gauge blew its head right off. Emmy smiled.

While Miles had tried everything under the sun to convince her to just level an alt, she’d known that using the guns was the way to go. They didn’t have a level equivalent and even things that looked like they shouldn’t exist had a remarkable way of dying very quickly when faced with a large amount of lead shot in their face. Right now, she was mostly using buckshot and saving the heavy slugs for anything really big that she’d encountered like that last zombie. She had two more pouches of the buckshot slung across her back and one smaller pouch of slugs. Emmy knew she was going to start running out of ammo pretty soon due to the number of enemies out here but for now she laid down the fire and attempted to clear the way for her friends as best she could.

It seemed like hours had gone by although she knew that they were mere minutes into the fight. While she was in good shape for a gamer, she was only human. Miles had convinced her to go running with him starting last week and even after just a short amount of time she’d gone from huffing through a few miles to making it with him on a couple of his short half-marathon runs. However, running wasn’t fighting and the toll of being out here in a sea of death, shooting, dodging, and stabbing those that got to close with a bayonet was starting to take its toll. The gundams had done a great job of protecting her thus far and she was really grateful that the team had decided to have them provide support for her while she did her thing. Catching her breath for a second she took a look around at the bodies that had accumulated around her and then checked her ammo.

Kami appeared out of the sea of bodies. His daggers and all the way up his arms were covered in the foul zombie guts. He winked at her. Despite her exhaustion and the situation they were in, she laughed. For a while they fought back to back, continuing to wade through the mass of undead until they got separated in the sea of bodies.

In front of them loomed one of the larger zombies and had insane looking appendages: its fingers were like razor blades and it had another zombie affixed to its chest like an unliving shield. To make matters worse it had large bat-like wings. If this thing could actually fly it would definitely qualify for the stuff of nightmares. Emmy checked her munitions situation. She was out of the slugs so she’d have to make do with buck-shot. She fired out two shots into the creature’s chest which put its makeshift shield out of order. Her hands were so slick with zombie guts she nearly dropped the shotgun reloading and was fumbling with loading the shells when several zombies broke through the gundam defense. Up until now the gundams had done an admirable job defending her and she’d only really had to worry about getting up close to the zombies a few times. However, while they were machines their magic wasn’t unlimited and they were starting to slow down. Tim hadn’t told her how long they’d last in combat but it didn’t really matter at this point. Dropping her shotgun, she hit the deck and pulled out the Glock. She laid four bullets into the zombie before it could get any closer.

She felt rather than heard a rush of air above her as something huge blocked out the sun. The giant zombie had swung one of its massive bladed arms in an arc, trying to cut her down. Ducking to avoid the smaller zombie had probably saved her life. With the gundams engaged with a sea of zombies around her and the larger zombie immediately in front of her, she knew she was in trouble. Picking up the shot-gun out of the mud and guts she dashed in between the giant’s legs. She could see its health bar had gone down a bit after she’d hit it with the buck-eye but it was going to take a lot more to kill this bastard. Reloading as she ran she got directly underneath it and fired up. Zombies might not have anything down there to mutilate but it was satisfying none-the-less.

Emmy’s victory was quick lived as she saw the creature’s massive bladed hands swinging for her once more. As every gamer knew, the key to dealing with massive robots or even zombies was to get as close as possible and get in their blind spot. She did that now and used the creature’s size against it while she fired her shot-gun over and over again until she was out of shells. With the shot-gun depleted she had no further use for it and she threw it down to the ground and pulled out the 9mm. Hopefully she could end this thing quickly because the smaller hand-gun didn’t have nearly the amount of oomph as the 12 gauge.

Suddenly, the monstrosity grabbed her leg with its bladed fingers. Despite herself, Emmy screamed out in pain as it cut into her thigh. She struggled to escape, trying to use her hands to free herself but she only managed to get cut. It pulled her up in front of its face and was about to eat her she realized. Fuck that. She yelled at the creature and fought through the pain in her leg as she steadied her body and unloaded the entire clip into the zombie’s face. Roaring, it threw her to the ground as it died.

Somewhere in the fracas she’d lost sight of Kami and as she stared up at the sky the rain began to fall on her face. Choking on her own blood she turned her head to the side so she could spit it out but the blood kept coming out of her and she knew she was drowning in it. She was probably going to become some zombie’s dinner.