Campaign 2: Zombiethon

"Hell has brought a convention with it, alongside zombiefied cosplayers. Put these undead otakus back in their place."

Travel to a anime convention lost to dozens upon dozens of infected and signal a chopper for rescue from zombiefied costumes, capes, and masks.

[Same disclaimer. Not beeg sooprize. :P]

[Author's Note]: If this took a long time to get this far into the story, I apologize. I don't really work on this nearly as often as I thought I would. But that's what happens when you have a ton of other things pulling interest away from one subject. But here it is! The chapter I couldn't wait to make! Here we go...

Starring...

Gilbert Rochester

Hank Thompson

Fredrick Manson

Yuki Everlife (M.I.A until later)

Brandon Allen Cash

Xavier Calhoun Nottingham

Akiyoko Beldandy Chachamaru

Robert "Bob" Calico McAllister

William "Bill" Overbeck

Francis

Louis

Zoey

Nick

Ellis

Coach

Rochelle

And eight more survivors. The character count is beginning to get rather high, isn't it? :P

/!\ ATTENTION! /!\

This campaign will be introducing some new infected I've created. You'll have to wait until the next chapter though.

Chapter 1: The City Square

The scene opens up to show that Nevada's Hummer has been knocked clear off the road. A large, flaming crater has appeared in the middle of the road, but the hummer had stayed intact. The survivors, or one half of the survivors, although a little bruised and battered from the experience, they survived the ordeal, but there was nothing but grass and light woodland apart from the road that lay ahead of them. They weren't going to follow the road. They had more important things to worry about at the moment. Finding the others was their top priority for now. The moon has sunken lower in the sky, but it's still otherwise the middle of the night.

"What...happened...?" Gilbert says, still reeling from the explosion that blasted them off the road.

"I'm not so sure..." Hank said, just as dizzily.

"Looked like a missile, a heat-seeker at that, no less. Barely missed it too. From the looks of the sky, I'd say we better begin to move. Night is going to end in a few more hours." Xavier said, having shaken off the dizzy feeling.

"Xavier's right. But the time isn't my concern. We need to see if the others survived. Maybe they shared the same fate as we did?" Gilbert said, much to his concern.

"Considering that a missile hit us twenty-five minutes before we lapsed into a coma, I'd say you're not far from the truth." Brandon said in response.

Only a few things survived the explosion, such as most of the un-upgraded weapons and melee weapons. They grabbed whatever did survive the explosion, and headed on out.

Infected were out in the open, amongst the remains of other cars. Given how many cars looked like they were supposed to be in a junkyard, destroyed, charred, or otherwise, it looks like they weren't the only ones to get hit by missiles. Although they looked uneasily at the cars, they shot up the zombies, and continued onward.

They wandered aimlessly through trees and past other roads until they saw another hummer similar to theirs. This one, however, had been hit directly by another missile.

"See, what did I tell you? I can't say they're dead though." Brandon said.

"How? Their hummer's been totaled!" Gilbert said in panic.

"Cool it, Rochester. Pay attention; there are no bodies to be found. So that probably means they're alive. If they're trying to search for us, then they;re looking in the wrong direction. We'd better keep going that way." Brandon said, point a finger out in front of them, signaling to keep moving forward.

They leapt over the road's side railing and continued. At the bottom of a hill five minutes later, they found them.

"Hey, guys!" Gilbert called from the top of the hill.

"There you are! We were looking all over for you!" Zoey yelled to the Brandon and Gilbert group.

"Good to see you guys are in one piece." Brandon said, as he slid down the hill with the others.

"Same here. Man, that missile nearly got us. Had we not jumped out, I don't think we would've survived the explosion. We looked everywhere for you guys!" Louis said to Brandon and Gilbert.

"Well, at least we found each other again, so let's move." Brandon said.

Nick notices something wrong with the group before they begin to move. "Uh, guys, I think you might want to do a head count. Looks like you're missing a guy."

"ROLL CALL!" Brandon yells. His and Gilbert's group lines up. Brandon counts up how many there are in the group...and finally notices that there's only seven people in their group.

"Oh no." Brandon said, as the sudden fear and realization swelled up in his face. Gilbert looked at Brandon's face in horror as it became clear.

"Yuki is missing." Those three words was all that was needed to send Gilbert into a panic.

"No! Oh, man! Where is she?" Gilbert ran around, trying to look for her in desperation.

Then, he thought back to the store a couple of hours ago. "Oh, dear lord in heaven, tell me we didn't leave her at the store!"

"I don't think she was left at the store. Smart money on the subject says that if she was asleep and we didn't notice she was there, then it would count as such. The last I saw of her was by that pillar as we were leaving. I do remember seeing her get taken away by some freak in a purple robe." Brandon said.

"Somebody with a purple robe? Sounds like something fishy to me." Hank replied.

"I've seen things close to that. Hell, I gambled with some of them. From the description you gave us, I guess we might be dealing with cultists." Nick followed up.

"Whoa, wait. You said "cultists". Like, the freaks that believe in some sort of psychotic religion or something?" Gilbert questioned.

"Yup. Precisely. Because they were heavily sedated, or rather, too busy trying to think about their god, I got all of their money and prized possessions pretty easily." Nick said, thinking back on all those times he jinxed cultists out of their belongings and cash. Looking back on they way his life was currently going, he wished he hadn't gotten all of those "so-called" cursed artifacts; he would've been fine with just the money. His life was bad enough, why make it worse with some cursed skulls and tiki masks? Knowing the cultists he dealt with a long time ago, he almost figured that even the cash that he got was cursed as well.

"Well, if it's a cult we're going after, how will we know what the cult is related to? How will we know what to identify them by?" Fredrick replied.

"Well, last I saw of the symbol on the back of the robe, it looked a little something like this..." Brandon said as he drew a symbol that looked a little like a mandala with a large game controller in the center of it. There were also two anime girls one each side of the controller.

"...I know that clan." Gilbert said, after seeing what Brandon drew in the ground.

"What? How would you know what that symbol stands for?" Zoey said in response.

"I once researched these guys on a subject we did in college, prior to the infection of course. They're called the Occult Otakuists. Basically, the group is composed of a bunch of fierce dorks, geeks, game nerds, anime fans, otakus who spend more time in their life reading manga, and gonks. They have a habit of capturing beautiful girls, get them to dress up, and basically sing for them. They worship their 'idols' endlessly. There's hardly ever any sort of leadership in the cult, and if there is, about ninety-five percent of the time it's going to be a morbidly obese nerd with a fatter nose and pimples all over his face. Even then, they don't follow orders like they're supposed to, and they will almost always try to usurp their leader for kingship, and even THAT doesn't work out too well. Only several people have been able to kill their kings and rule with iron fists. And one king was made because of a freak accident that resulted in a fluke victory at the end of a battle royale that determines who will be the next royal heir to their "throne". Considering that a germ just wiped out the entirety of Video Game World, I highly doubt there's any of the nerds left to even keep the cult going. But there's a lot of fuss trying to get a girl to come with them when they find one they deem to be 'the fairest of them all'...why was there so little fuss capturing Yuki?" Gilbert expositioned for a couple of minutes.

"Well, Motor Mouth, to cap off that wall of text, Yuki was waiting for us to get done. The guy who snuck up on her didn't make a peep, right? She wasn't expecting that to happen." Xavier said.

"Of course. I'm just wondering...a well-coordinated nerd? And only one got Yuki without a hitch in the plan? Something's up..." Gilbert said, suspicion rising in his voice.

"Either th' nerd was in the mood to act like a ninja..." Ellis began.

"...or someone else is helming the entire operation this time around." Nick concluded.

"Nick may be right. I don't know who is leading these guys, but if a nerd can get in, kidnap Yuki, and get out with no problem at all, then we have a serious issue here..." Gilbert said, wanting to get to the bottom of this little mystery.

"Don't let the thought get to you, Gilbert. If we can find the cultists, we can find Yuki. But we won't make any more progress by standing here and pondering this, so unless we'd rather try to make a crime scene and have Francis knock it over wondering how to spell 'FBI'...and get our brains bashed out by a horde, we better split and get to...wherever our next destination is." Brandon says.

"HEY! I can spell FBI, thank you very much!" Francis yells in retort. A short laugh from Bill, Louis, and Zoey follow.

"What are you guys laughing at?" Francis says, snapping his head back at his chortling teammates.

"Nothing." they say in unison, still holding their smiles and laughs back.

"Xavier, where are we going to go from here?" Brandon asks the strange looking scientist.

"Well, I can't say I've been in this area of Video Game World too often. But if we can find the road again and keep heading due north on it, we'll eventually find a city nearby." Xavier said, taking his well thought out sense of direction. He pointed down through a small piece of woodland and the group followed. Infected were, once again, in their path, but they went down with the same efficiency as before.

Eventually, after several more minutes of forest spelunking, the group saw the road again, and even better...they saw the city's skyline. They were close to it.

"Yeah! We're almost there!" Gilbert said with an excited tone.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves now, boy. There's a citywide population of infected and Specials between us and the safe room. I wouldn't be throwing a celebration until we're safe, sound, and away from the infection's creations..." Xavier said, with a bit of a grim tone.

"Oh...sorry." Gilbert said, a bit guilty.

They walked in silence until Gilbert saw a billboard. It had a variety of anime and game characters on it. In big, bright blue and white letters at the bottom of the picture, it said "TOKYOTHON 175: In town this month!"

Gilbert's eyes lit up when he saw it. "Oh man! Tokyothon! Damn, I've been going ever since I was 5!"

"Jeez...I already have Ellis to contend with here...I don't need Gilbert, of all people, on top of Ellis' chatter..." Nick thought to himself in exasperation.

A few minutes later, they were looking around in the city for supplies. Meanwhile, Gilbert was still giddy to know that Tokyothon was here, but thanks to the infection, he didn't know if there would be time to go. He just kept talking about it. "Did you guys know that Tokyothon started somewhere back in 1984? It's been the longest running convention for 175 years, and counting!" Gilbert said, rattling off his knowledge of Tokyothon and its history.

"Okay, can we PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT THAT ANIME CONVENTION? Judas Priest, Gilbert. I thought Ellis was bad enough...but you're just adding to my mood." Nick said, his tone dripping with a combination of frustration, anger, and dead seriousness.

"Sorry, man. Jeez. What side of the tracks did you walk off of today?" Gilbert said.

"Yeah, calm down, Nick. It's not worth killing each other over just someone talking. Which reminds me of a time me and my buddy Keith..." Ellis began.

Nick, at wits end, had it with listening to Ellis throughout their trip to New Orleans and the North, and with Gilbert adding to his irritation, he pulled out both of his Desert Eagles and pointed them at both Ellis and Gilbert.

"Look, kids, I am NOT going to take this story time crap, and this damn anime convention junk anymore. I am going to tell you guys to shut up right now, or I am placing a bullet between both of your eyes..." Nick said, his face now filled with rage.

"Whoa, dude...calm down...we don't want this to escalate into a friendly fire free for all." Gilbert said, now surprised.

"Oh, really? And you're the ones telling me to calm down? You guys will not shut the hell up! If you'd do that just for one minute or so, I wouldn't be doing this now." Nick said.

"But we aren't the enemy here, Nick..." Ellis tried to say. But he only had so much time to say it in, because as soon as he opened his mouth again, Nick began to shoot at them in a blind fury.

A few blocks down the street, Brandon and the others are looking for food, ammo, and weapons. They certainly got lucky on that; there was tons of it.

He whistles in amazement. "Wow, I'm sure whoever was here before us, they were loaded to the brim. Given the amount of blood coating the walls among other things, I'll guess they died fast after setting up." Brandon said.

But their scavenging wouldn't last nearly as long as they hoped for, because at that moment, they heard gunshots firing wildly where Nick, Ellis, and Gilbert were at.

"What in the...? Come on guys! We need to get over there and see what's going on!" Brandon said to his group. They didn't hesitate, and ran alongside him.

They got to the shop the three were in, and were surprised to see Nick, of all people, shooting at both Ellis and Gilbert. Nick was yelling in rage...and then he looked at Brandon...who was now rushing at him. That's when he got socked in the face, and was knocked to the floor.

"Hold him down, guys." Brandon ordered, and Bob and Xavier held Nick down, with Akiyoko disarming him of his firearms. Brandon pointed his shotgun down at Nick.

"All right, man. You're crossing the line now. You have five seconds to tell me why you're firing upon them for, or else your face is gonna be loaded with a nice helping of buckshot." Brandon said.

"These motor-mouths over here are bugging the hell out of me for the last few minutes!" Nick yelled in frustration.

"Does that give you any authorization to shoot them both up for no reason at all? Where have your senses gone? Brandon countered.

"Maybe not, but I'd think we'd be better off without these idiots with us!" Nick fired back.

"Oh, really? And you're saying that to one of your teammates who has accompanied you through New Orleans, to the bitterest end? Hell, he's done more for you than possibly anyone else has. Why don't you give it a rest?" Brandon said, not wanting to make this any uglier.

Nick got up and threw Bob and Xavier off of him. He immediately yanked Bill's M-16 out of his hands and pointed it at Brandon. "Look, I don't care what you think. I would rather leave them here for dead than travel with them, talking about anime convention this, and Keith that! I'd love it if you guys would help me kill their asses here and now!" Nick said, his anger rising in his voice. He rose Bill's rifle to eye level, and Brandon did the same with his shotgun. "You're a sick man, Nick..." Brandon said, lowering his shotgun, but Nick still kept Bill's rifle at the same level, ready to place a bullet between Brandon's eyes.

"You think I'm really going to order my friends and the others to shoot Gilbert and Ellis? Really? Stop and think about this, Nick. Sure, some people will come off as annoying. Granted, there have been some people in my life that I have had wanted to kill because the irritated the hell out of me. But if you kill someone that you find annoying, you're no worse than the infected. That only really makes you take a step towards being a complete monster, and crossing the line now won't help matters. I'm sure there are already some people in your lifetime that abscond you for some of your misdeeds. Why lose our trust, here and now, by killing two allies, all over the fact that they won't keep quiet? Isn't that good enough for you? Huh?" Brandon said, pretty much blowing Nick away.

Nick stood there for a moment, contemplating what he just said before Brandon followed up. "And killing me too will not resolve a damn thing. It will only make things worse than they really need to be. We've helped you so far, Nick. Don't make a bad guy out of yourself over them." Brandon finished.

Nick stood there, and finally responded with a deep breath.

"Okay...I understand. You win, Cash. Opening a wound further won't help me any more than what I've done with my life. I swore that once the infection is off the face of the earth, I was done with crime. Guess I nearly committed another one out of my anger. Thanks to you, I'll be keeping that promise." Nick responded, his tone now more calm and level-headed than it was minutes before. He turned to Gilbert and Ellis, who were ducked behind a counter minutes before, had poked their heads over the counter.

"Guys, I'm...sorry for my...little outburst there. Can you guys...forgive me?" Nick said, with an apologetic look on his face.

"Hey man, don't worry. We forgive you." Ellis says.

"Yeah. I'm sorry if we do bug the hell out of ya, man. It's just something we do. Besides, I can't help it if I love anime. And Ellis...well, he can't help talking about his friend and his misadventures. But we forgive you for nearly turning us into swiss cheese. Just promise you won't flip out like that again, man." Gilbert says.

"Trust me, I won't. I could only take so much of that. I guess that'll teach me. I almost riddled you guys with lead, and nearly got fed buckshot for my trouble. Payback's an asshole, but it happens." Nick said, having gotten over his rage.

"I'm glad we could sort this all out. A few minutes longer and this may have turned into a bloodbath. But now that we have that issue out of the way, we need to focus on our main objective: finding where these Nerds have hauled Yuki off to. If we keep dwindling around and twiddling our thumbs, we may never get out of this place. We better find that store again, stock up, and then haul ass. We cannot afford to lose time right now. Let's move on out, people!" Brandon said

With that, they headed back to the store they found the supplies in, stocked up, and head out. More infected stand in their way, but because they're sticking together and acting like a team squad, they make short work of the zombies.

They soon hear gunshots nearby. Somebody was still alive...and fighting the infection too.

"It's coming from over there, in the city square!" Xavier pointed out.

They ran to see who it was. Amid the hundreds of zombies was a young woman who looked to be about thirty-two years of age with brown hair and brown eyes. Her hair was stylized in a way that it looked like she was an Old Japan Era princess (to put it in shorter terms: a Hime Cut). Her physique was pretty well defined, and she was wearing casual clothes. Firing madly into the crowd with an assault rifle was a shop owner, slightly over-weight and balding. He has a mustache the same salt-and-pepper color as his balding hair. He was wearing usual manager garb, an apron (you know what I'm talking about if you've seen some grocery shop register keepers) over his regular clothes and tie. Right behind him was a man in his late teens. He was wearing armor of sorts over his leather jacket, and a football helmet over his head. He had light brown hair and a small trace of a goatee on his chin. He was killing the zombies with excellent use of a sword. And near the woman was a fifteen year old kid who was stuck in the 90's, fending off the zombies with a chainsaw.

"More survivors! Thank goodness!" Louis exclaimed.

"We'd better help them before things get really messy." Bill said afterward.

Taking point, everyone made their shots count, and they made sure to miss the other survivor group they were defending. A minute passed, and there was barely and infected left alive to be a complete threat.

"Whoa, dude! Is that, like, a rescue squad?" the skate kid said.

"Sorry, kid. I'm afraid we're trying to escape ourselves." Hank said.

"Aw, crapola. Oh well. Thanks for the save, guys." the armored man said.

"We though we were toast for a minute there..." said the store manager.

"Guys, calm down. Although I should say that we may have been able to take them if we kept on them, we appreciate the help you gave us. I must ask you, have you seen my daughter?" the young woman said.

"Can't say we have, miss. If she's young, then it may be likely that she's been devoured by the infected. Though if you can give us some details, we can figure out who it is..." Gilbert spoke up.

"Well, last time I saw her, she had red eyes...pale skin...and blue-greenish hair..." the woman said.

"That's Yuki!" Gilbert said, to his surprise. "You're...her mother?"

"Why...yes. Yes, I am. My name is Chie Vermillion. I once emigrated here to seek bigger and better things. But now that this infection is around, I've been trying to get my daughter to safety, and you found her! Where exactly?" Chie said.

"Believe it or not, nearby where we started our escape from the infection: Laine City. She came running towards us in tears. I promised to protect her as much as I could. To her, we're like her guardians." Gilbert said.

"She has a knack for always trusting those who can be trusted. Where is she now? Is she with you?" Chie responded.

"Uh, that's the bad news here. We just recently lost her to a bunch of geeky cultists." Gilbert said, though his tone wasn't too happy about it.

"What? What do you mean you lost her?" Chie said in a panic.

"Whoa, calm down! We've been trying like hell to find where she's being held hostage at! At the moment, I haven't a clue where we are able to find her." Gilbert said.

"Well...I don't know. Can I trust you to find her? In other words, who are you?" Chie said, now a little calmer.

"My name is Gilbert Rochester. These guys here are Hank, Fredrick, and...well, Yuki would be with us, but as you know, she's been abducted by nerds of the occult kind. Back here is Brandon, Akiyoko, Xavier, and Bob. And these two groups are composed of Bill, Zoey, Francis, Louis, Nick, Ellis, Coach, and Rochelle." Gilbert introduced.

"Nice to meet you all. As you know, I'm Chie, and over here, this is is Frank Erholtz, the toy store manager me and my daughter was good friends with prior to the infection's spread in this world. Over here is Butch Harlow, the "tank" of the group, figuratively speaking. And over here, we have the teenage sharpshooter, Randy Meltzer." Chie said, pointing to the toy store manager first, then the armored greaser, and finally, the skater kid.

"It's good to meet you all. We always could use some extra hands in defeating the infection. We'll help you find your daughter, Mrs. Vermillion. We'll just have to find some way to get out of this square first..." Brandon said.

Just then, a bright light shone down onto all of the survivors. It's the same news helicopter that was looking for survivors in Laine City, and it had caught sight of the survivors at last!

"Hello down there! Are some of you the survivors that came from Laine City?" the chopper pilot said.

"Yes, we are! We have been trying hard to escape to somewhere safe!" Gilbert called up to the pilot.

"Well, you're looking in the wrong place then. You all need to get to Rastonburg! I heard that the military is holding out and waiting for more survivors! I can help you get out of here, but I need you all to find somewhere suitable enough for me to evac you!" The chopper pilot called back.

"Can't you come down here and pick us up?" Chie called to the pilot.

"No can do, miss! A ground rescue is going to be far too risky in case the infected attack! You need to get to a tall building and get to the top of it. Only then, I will be able to get you out of here!" The chopper pilot responded.

"In that case, how are we supposed to get out of the city square then?" Frank called up.

"There's a barricade in the road leading towards the metro station to the tall building! Use this!" The chopper pilot said as he threw down something square and plastic. Brandon caught it. "Plant that C4 on the base of that statue. It should be tall enough to reach the barricade, although I should recommend that you do not stand in its path when it falls! Use this detonator to make it blow up!" he continued as he threw down the detonator. Brandon caught it as it fell.

"Hey, thanks!" Gilbert said.

"Don't mention it! I wish there was more that I could do to help you, but this is all I can do for now! Good luck, survivors, and take care! I know when you've gotten to the building!" the chopper pilot said as he flew off to wherever he was going.

"Well, let's plant this thing and find that metro station." Brandon said.

They spent a few minutes getting the plastic explosive to stick to the base of the statue, but once they did, they were all set.

"All right, Brandon. Light it up." Gilbert said. Brandon flipped up the cap and pressed the button. The statue's stone base exploded spectacularly. It sent the entire thing toppling down on top of the barricade in the middle of the road ahead, destroying some cars in its path. But with the explosion and the resulting crash of the golden statue, it alerted the horde.

"Ger ready!" Chie yelled to the group.

The group unloaded as many shots as they could into the crowd. Blood spilled absolutely everywhere on the pavement. Amongst the crowd was a Spitter, who popped off a shot at the group. They moved when they felt the searing pain begin to increase in their feet. Randy caught sight of the Spitter and, with a well aimed shotgun shell, blasted its head clean off, leaving only just a floppy stump of what was once its neck.

Disaster struck near the end of the horde. A Tank, flanked alongside a Charger, was running towards the group. Butch had wisely held onto one of his bile bombs and threw it in an arc. It sailed over the ever-thinning crowd of infected, started to dive in its arc, and nailed the Tank, smack-dab in its head, blinding it and covering it in glistening green bile. The Charger lucked out, as it charged the group unrivaled when the infected turned their attention away from the survivors to the Muscle Point brute covered in smelly vomit. The Charger bowled the entire group over, and caught Bob in its path. Frank rushed over and, with a well placed Body Avalanche, he knocked the Charger aside somehow. If a Charger could make an 'oh crap' face, it probably did it at the moment Frank lifted the Charger off the ground, over his head, and sending it into the ground head first, splattering it's head all over the group. Frank wasn't going to let working in a toy store and approaching middle-age decompose his wrestling prowess.

Meanwhile, the Tank had regained sight, but was more or less okay after trying to punch away his team-killing comrades. He ran at the survivors, in hopes to get some shots in, but he was in the yellow at that point, and it wouldn't take more that just a minute or so of concentrated gunfire to bring him down. The Tank played it a little more tactical, throwing objects from a distance, rather than a run and die approach. He managed to incap some of the survivors, but they caught onto his game after a minute. With sneaky tactics, they brought the Tank down after that.

"All right guys, we've survived that. Let's get over that shattered statue and get on our way." Brandon said, ready to move again.

They stepped over the hundreds of zombies that littered the street before them, and walked past the flaming wreckage of cars and trucks that were in the way of the statue when it came down. The barricade was thoroughly wrecked; this meant they could get to the metro station now.

They made a few turns on the streets before finally seeing the safe room door. The metro station was probably right behind the room too.

As soon as they got in, the shut the door tight.

"Whew. We have a missile blow up a hummer and barely miss the other, then we have one of our own nearly TK, and then we meet these guys and finally end our run through this town with destroying a monument in the square. This is getting crazier by the hours." Gilbert said, once again tired, but excited about what had happened.

"Well, whether this will keep getting over the top or not is not of our concern. We are probably one step closer to Yuki, and that's what matters. I know that if there is one thing that I have learned from my experiences as the commander of the Brandonopolis Army, it's five words..." Brandon said, pausing for a beat.

"...no one gets left behind." he finished. Gilbert was happy they weren't going to forget about her, and that speech from Brandon encouraged him to keep fighting harder.

Especially for the people he cared for.

CHAPTER CLEARED.

They're safe...for now.

It didn't take me long to finish this chapter, but it's time for the real deal. Time for the core area this campaign is centered around. Stay tuned for chapter 2!