🤖We Have Walking Dead At Home🧷

by Babblecat3000

Summary:

Canon compliant UNTIL an unscheduled zombie outbreak. My favourite pair of malcontents, Lord Flash and Kevin Mask, are unavoidably thrust into heroic situations, and avoidably contract a love triangle.

Notes:

'Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.'

-Oscar Wilde

Chapter 1: 🧟‍♀️Waiting For A Joke To Land🧟‍♀️

 She can only run so fast for so long, but many newborn zombies afflicted with rigor mortis can't run at all, at most they can shuffle faster for a couple minutes, before sinking back down to a stiff jointed stagger. The older ones and the ones just turned are the speedy Gonzales’ of their kind, running in the hop-drag-stagger of people afflicted by pins and needles. But what insanity is it to talk like this when the apocalypse only arrived out of the sky a few hours ago. Still, a couple hours of apocalypse is worth fifteen years of normal time. 

It's going to be easy for an ordinary human girl to keep out of trouble, find water and food, find shelter. Surely. All she has to do is stay out of the way of the endless hordes infesting the cramped Tokyo streets. Multimillion strong Tokyo, the hugest city on Earth, gateway to the stars. A horde’s outliers range far and wide, she's already seen an undead mass from a rooftop, sitting like a black and bloody scab on the skin of the megalopolis. A horde of zombies forms a rotting pincer, trailing along dozens of streets and alleys, ready to slam shut around the unwary and the foolhardy in their relentless quest for sustenance. Come, come, all she has to do is be quick and clever. 

She's reckoned without the human element, the deadly deadly human element, of whom only the wicked, the clever, and the lucky have survived the initial outbreak, and worse, she's reckoned without the chojin. A chojin zombie doesn't shuffle, a chojin zombie runs like a bullet flies, a wobbly bullet, but still a bullet. A chojin zombie also flies like a drunken wasp, regardless of whether the infected corpse knew how to do so in life or not, and like a wasp, it's only purpose is to royally eff up your day. 

While she carefully, slowly, descends a Tokyo highrise, keeping to the pale shadows, placing her trainer clad feet very deliberately while making sure never to have her eyes down for more than an instant, using her ears as her primary defence (highly effective since zombies can't help but moan and groan and grunt), one of these superpowered, flying undead is heading her way, crashing through whatever gets in its way. Showers of glass, steel and concrete regularly deluge the streets below, along with whip cracks from phone and electrical lines, taking out lesser shamblers as well as the less situationally aware survivor. Sometimes aerial collisions with buildings or other chojin are enough to significantly disable an individual chojin body, but not sometimes enough. It's a bad time for the end of the world. What with the Chojin Olympics on, so many more chojin than usual are visiting Earth, and specifically Japan. A bad, bad time. 

Ground level is quiet, quiet enough to make one sick. Where are the guns? Oh, yeah, Japan. Tokyo has never been so quiet, not even when it was an insignificant village. Car alarms ring incessantly, dogs howl, sub-stations explode, glass shatters, spaceships and aeroplanes crash, fire rages, heralded by plumes of orange smoke that obscure the sun, and people scream, but for the Chojin Crown finals she had chosen her Airbnb for its more out of the way location, and out here birds are singing despite the latest calamity. Not all the birds though, some of them dive bomb the unfortunate, seeking blood, their beady little eyes filmed over. But now what? Probably it's best to head out into the country, somewhere near to small town supermarkets, but not near to massive population centres. Good luuuck. Even with the tournament on there'll be groups of hiking pro zombies out there in the woods and on the sides of mountains.

While she's trying to think over what to do, the sound of birdsong changes into the sound of gruff, deep voiced, testosterone laced howling. It's a horrific noise, such as no human should make or does make except when in the most dire suffering, and it's coming from out of the sky, shattering all windows in its path. At that moment a group of schoolchildren, classmates in undeath, lurch around a corner from the direction of a FamilyMart, their cloudy eyes forced her way by the broken contortions of their necks. Their stick arms rise, clawlike fingers already set in the attitude of hunter-killers. Bloody bile and intestinal juice foams on their torn lips. They put on a short burst of speed, their jerking movements utterly grotesque. 

Distracted by the howling, the girl dithers, afraid another group is on its way down another narrow little street or alley. It's easy to lose one's sense of direction in a Nesting Doll city that never seems to end, but before she can hurriedly pick a direction and go, a howling bullet crash-lands amidst the former schoolchildren, throwing up grey dust, tarmac, and a mist of viscera as it goes about its brutal work.

That's another thing that sets them apart, chojin zombies are hostile to absolutely everything fleshy and edible, including other zombies.

The wet threshing and roaring of the one man feeding frenzy stuns the girl, rooting her in place by terror. She's close enough to the scene that chips of black tar and globules of red flesh strike her unfeeling form. Her survival ‘journey’ is about to be tragically curtailed. With all the dust and ever increasing smoke she can't see the creature in the middle of the carnage, but she can smell it, hear it, see occasional flashes of a thickly muscled hand and arm, a hand and arm crimson to the elbows. Thanks to the outbreak, even ‘weak’ chojin have a chance to feel like Legends.

The one sided fight begins to die down, the dust begins to settle, and a glowing white eye splashed with blood swivels loosely in its socket. A tooth falls to the ground, unmourned. The chojin, dressed in the skimpy tatters of its former occupation, heaves itself to its feet, getting its footing on the slippery mess it made before it makes a dash at the next body in line. With all the gore covering it, it's difficult to see its face, but filling up one's celeb selfie album is suddenly no longer so important. The ex-superhuman charges, working up in an instant to a speed that is undodgeable. 

For her, that is. A zigzag of blue lightning bounces off the jutting balcony of a block of flats, leaps over a bank of vending machines, and slides under the sprinting zombie. The girl doesn't see the rest because she's picked up by a white zigzag and thrust down between a bunch of stinky wheelie bins. The zombie goes down, tripped up. It's put down for good with the aid of a brick thrown at its head at near mach speed. There is a geyser-esque explosion of brain matter and bone and dirt, a plume of decay and disease(?) shooting up into the tainted air.

The zigzags of light resolve themselves, the blue one disgorging Kevin Mask, Chojin Crown finalist and professional Bad Boy Badass. She'd know him anywhere, so long as he made sure to always wear his signature helmet. His companion is, of course, his trusty trainer-manager-second-friend, Lord Flash. She'd know him anywhere too, just in general. Both of them use their attire, whether cloak or coat, to cover their mouths and noses, or, at least, to cover where those features would be were it not for the masks. 

“Kevin, you could've thrown that brick from across the street. Why risk yourself by getting close? Leave the dramatics to your less talented opponents.” An, uh, ‘event’ might be underway, but certain things never change. 

“Flash, hello?” Instead of explaining the obvious, Kevin turns his hard yellow gaze towards the wheelie bins, making sure to keep his gesture nonchalant. Honestly, sometimes he wonders about the old boy. It's like he's a villain or something. 

Villain or not, Lord Flash slides his candy red stare towards the bins so that the supine girl gets the impression of being faced with two-thirds of a horizontal traffic light. The greatly lauded chojin duo of ‘Slow The Eff Down’, and ‘I Say, You'd Best Stop’. There's no 'Go Go Go', but she does happen to have green eyes. “Ey up. Ta.” she squeaks, from the greasy ground.

Neither man replies until Kevin checks his watch, giving a great heaving sigh of universal discontent. “I'm not a babysitter.”

Lord Flash continues to stare at the girl, without blinking, without lending a hand, despite standing less than a foot away from her. The towering height and extreme girth they both exhibit creates deep apprehension, even now. “Who said anything about babysitting, Kevin Mask? It surely was not me.”

When younger man exchanges a nonverbal Look with older man that implies an entire closely written essay is passing between them, the girl gets the impression that she's witnessing Real Life, as opposed to the carefully edited version of it that is broadcast over the airwaves and internet. It gives her cold shivers.

The exchange of thesis and antithesis pauses. “We can't just leave her here to die. Not that I'm at all opposed to that. I'm not opposed to it. I'm evil.” true to his words, Kevin's leading foot begins sliding away from the girl's direction, to point down the street the schoolchildren came from. The rest of his body slowly follows suit, abandoning the cause. Body language, a loud, mute bitch. 

“So why bring the alternative up? You put down the threat, that's heroic enough. Young women these days are very street smart. Too smart. She's perfectly capable of navigating her environment.”

“Ack!” another Look passes between the men, more invisible words jogging up and down. A spiritual sparring match begins. Having recently rewatched the semi-finals for the fifth time, she can tell what is going to happen, Coach will get his way, and she'll probably lose her arms in the process. That's okay, so long as she doesn't run into any more chojin past their sell-by date. It's cool, she never wanted to hang with the cool kids anyway. 

Except that's not what happens. “I would never hear the end of it from Daddy if he discovered I'd left a damsel alone in a war zone. I'd rather she cease to exist, but I'd rather rather not be on the receiving end of a high-and-mighty bollocking. He'll say I've made Mum sad. I don't need that in my life.” all of a sudden Kevin's slowly fleeing body snaps back round to face his new responsibility. 

Lord Flash rolls his eyes into the back of his head, quite literally. “It'll be your duty to clean up after it.”

                                                                                                       🧟‍♂️

 Within five minutes of being rescued by Every Girl's Knight In Shining Armour, she finds herself begging to be unrescued. Derescued. Joking, but still. The problem is not that the personalities she thought the two possessed, were fake, no, the problem is that their personalities are all too real. And unfiltered by ad breaks. And grating. One is a pedantic cold fish with an unnatural voice and a propensity to make fun of people on a spectrum nigh undetectable by any of the five human senses, and the other is a teenage boy. 

They, allegedly, were attending an ‘exclusive’ photo shoot in Nakano when all hell broke loose, and are now seeking to make it to Chiyoda, where ‘orders’ are presumed to be located. This choice is not Lord Flash's idea, as he's not a fan of authority, and the only thing he's concerned about appears to be the Finals, while Kevin vehemently denies that it's his idea either. The goal is apparently nothing but a homing instinct, and since the phone lines are down, one must hoof it like the animals. Bringing up any other idea by the girl leads to pointed silence. 

“If they decide to call for another weigh-in, I shall object.” Lord Flash says, calmly, esoteric trainer notebook in hand, which he glances at far more often than he looks around at his surroundings. The rescue girl, stuck at the back of the travelling Congo line, would like to see what he's got written in there out of fannish curiosity, but she has trouble keeping up, difficulty even keeping the chojin’s broad backs in sight thanks to the smoke which is growing thicker and thicker as more and more of the city goes up in flames. It's sweltering, it's difficult to breathe, it's loud, but approach the densely populated city centre they must. 

“Aren't you guys superheroes? Shouldn't you be fighting off the Horde? Like, to the death, with the other heroes?” she whispers. Members of said horde surround them on all sides, their dull senses causing them to become easily distracted by shop windows and vending machines. When not distracted they rush at the three person caravan, but are as much nuisance to the chojin as fruit flies. The human, on the other hand, is already a bother to keep safe, but luckily they've not yet run into more than five or six zombies at a time. 

“I should be training, that's all that I should bloody well be doing.” Kevin, walking five paces ahead of her and two paces ahead of his coach, coughs and digs his gloved hands deep into the empty pockets of his fashionably dingy trenchcoat, hunching his shoulders at the same time so that were it not for the spike on his helmet, he'd appear headless. The only time those hands are pulled out of their sanctuaries is when he stoops to snatch up a rock or brick or anything else dense that'll fit in his palm, which he will then use to put down the next zombie he sees, his accuracy superhumanly good. Who needs guns when you have bricks? 

“There are departments of governance known as ‘the police’, and ‘the army’. Let them deal with it. The Japanese government is fabulous at dealing with any and all issues. I don't pay taxes, for nothing.” says Lord Flash, in such a way as to silently make both of his companions seriously wonder if he's joking. Watch checking seems to be a great ‘thing’ with the superhuman duo, both of them engaging in it regularly, and now Lord Flash glances over at a mostly intact British style tea shop and checks, not a watch, but a stopwatch. “Kevin, we might take a break. I fear rain is on the way, with frizz in attendance.” one wonders how he knows that, since he neither checked the sky nor an app before making his prediction.

“Good. This blasted smoke is irritating my nose.”

Since most people have either died, run away, or gone into hiding, the noble chojin discover a shocking lack of servants waiters present to see to their needs, causing them to nominate their rescue animal for the job. Lord Flash seems content to call her by the apt designation of ‘girl’ or ‘child’, but Kevin finds that is not adequate. “What's your name?” On paper it sounds like a friendly question, but because he's incapable of being friendly, even towards his constant companion, the question is flung at its target like a javelin wrapped four times round with barbed wire. The wangst is so potent that it flutters the liquid of Lord Flash's tea as the question shoots over his shoulder. Outside the shattered glass of the tea shop window, figures lurch in and out of the fog of disaster.

“Charlotte.” says Charlotte, who suddenly resolves into a mahogany haired Anglo-Saxon wearing a short denim jacket and a frilly Sailor Mong print dress picked up in Harajuku for most of her money. The conversation does not resume until she places Kevin's tea, and sugar, in front of him. It's then she realises that both men smell very nice, like expensive perfume, perfume that displays pleasing complementary notes of vanilla, coffee, and baking bread. She didn't expect that, not from Kevin anyway, whose grunginess is no LARP. Makes sense though, as only the richest people with the largest allowances can afford perfume that smells of bread. 

Pulling up a pretty wicker chair is tempting, but probably not a good idea to take a seat uninvited at the little table the pair of hulks are looming over. They're VIP’s, and anyway there's no space underneath at all for an extra pair of legs, and she wonders how the infamously asocial Kevin Mask can stand to have his legs entangled with another person’s. The super men fail to be gentle men, letting her stand to one side of them. 

“That's an English name.” 

“I'm English. From York.” her Yorkshire accent is not well received by the resolutely posh Kevin, inflicting him with a scalp rash.

“I wondered why you were speaking some inbred cousin of the Sacred Tongue. At first I thought it was Welsh. Or American. I don't rescue Americans.”

Lord Flash rolls his eyes again, looking up from under the band of his crown at his partner sat opposite him. As the one with the most elevated accent of all, he considers them both to be on the level of dirt splattered, potato farming peasants. “Kevin, your near future attempts to reseed the Earth with Mankind, are already doomed. Let Kid Muscle take on the task, provided he is still alive, of course. He has no standards to uphold.”

More uncanny Real Life disturbs the looker on, as she witnesses super cool Kevin Mask turn red and splutter, tea sloshing over the rim of his cup. “What? Lord Flash, where is your faith in me, where…uh….I'm not, err…” The Boomer style unwinnable faux joke probably wasn't meant to short circuit his brain, but here we are. For Charlotte it's somewhat interesting to observe the result of father figure sabotage, until her brain catches up and wants her to know that that was an unholy assassination attempt, against herself. It was a necessity earlier to believe she could make it on her own, but the little bit of breathing room she's had since has made it clear that's simply untrue. She needs protection, but someone just tried to take that away in the sneakiest possible way. 

A now livid skinned Kevin continues to unravel, breathing in short, sharp gasps, the hand holding his teacup shaking badly. The possessed doll's eyes studying him, slowly roll away to study their foe, without shame or compunction. Without blinking. They narrow in glee when Lord Flash registers Charlotte looking back at him, knowing she knows what he just did or tried to do. Why did you try to kill me, she wants to ask, realising how stupid the question is. He's a coach, a member of a special class of men notorious for being extremely disturbed by the idea of wild girls coming within range of their tame athletes. She makes a mental note to never, ever turn her back on him.

Chapter 2: 🫖Tea Shop AU🫖

Summary:

Real life rudely interrupts tea time.

 When some of the tea spontaneously catches fire, it proceeds to ignite the rest of the shop. Somewhere Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal begins playing at an obnoxious volume. The combination of these two destructive forces, fire and pop music, deranges Kevin's reasoning processes, causing him to put off jettisoning Charlotte into the nearest lake. He gets up, in the process of escaping an inferno, but he moves with his typical elegance, giving the girl time to raise a good point. 

“We should loot what we can. We need tea, water, food, and this place has all three.” she gestures at the bakery section, not yet alight, but receives back, initially, only a blank stare from the men. 

“What? Do you reckon I'm a thief simply because I was a drug dealing, slave trading, backstabbing, murderous pirate? I object!” immediately Kevin looks to his buddy for backup. “Lord Flash, tell her I'm not a thief. I can't believe I'm being impug-” a zombie reaches through the window Kevin has his back to, plunging both its rotting hands into his mane of hair. The most blood curdling shriek ever delivered by a human(ish) throat, further inflames the fire and knocks Charlotte unconscious. When she comes to a couple seconds later, crumpled on the floor with bleeding ears, the zombie is gone, and Kevin is taking stock of the damage to his hair, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. 

Despite this ghastly interruption, and after he has gone over his protege the way a chimp mother goes over a chimp child, Lord Flash declares that yet another genius idea has just come to him, and they shall be absconding with what supplies they can manage to stuff into their pockets, since there is no guarantee that this, uh, ‘event’, will be settled by the time of the next tea break. He would suggest leaving money on the counter, but since Kevin has the money, that's up to him. 

A surprisingly roomy Hello Cat backpack helpfully dangles before his face. “I 'ave a backpack. You guys should get one too. We should loot a Chinese store next.“

The slime coating Kevin's hair makes him sad. “I don't loot knockoffs. I loot Designer.“

                                                                                                        🧟‍♀️

 It shouldn't take that long for a couple of chojin to stroll a few miles, but as during all apocalypses, there are numerous obstacles to traverse, from the static vehicles piled up in the roads, blocking traversal, to the moving inferno and shambling hordes, both of which they actively are trying to avoid by doubling back, taking tortuous routes, and by hiding and waiting for them to pass. Plus they more than once get lost in the smoke, to later find out they've been walking in the wrong direction for the last hour. Charlotte eventually has to resort to walking with one hand hovering over and perpetually ready to snatch at Lord Flash's jacket, because the threat of being lost and left behind is very, very real. It's not wrong to say she is afraid, but for her it's very difficult to imagine her male companions being afraid of anything at all, or even of being wary, but they are definitely attempting to avoid a too great buildup of death, and not simply because she's a massive weak link. 

Every time a zombie comes rushing out of a building, they turn, and if possible, toss her into some out of the way location, like a high ledge, but if not, they simply push her into the spot she should be in at all times, that is, between them. This rough behaviour does not do anything for a girl's self esteem or delicate skin, but it's something, and so far it has prevented her having her throat ripped out. 

All in all, it's late afternoon by the time they exit the tea shop, and they have not yet left Nakano. It's also getting dark. Behind the smoke the day has turned cloudy, and cold, and an unnatural night is falling, bringing with it a howling wind. “Maybe some trains are still runnin'? The world can't lose the plot that quickly.” Charlotte says, watching the trio’s glorious leader tear a fabric advertising flag off its plastic frame in order to craft for himself a slingshot. He's got himself an Adidas backpack, and has promptly filled it full of bricks. Watching The Kevin Mask stoop in order to dig bricks out of the ground is a touching experience she never expected to have. It's enough to make her feel intense love for the man, not love-love, but the normal sort one fragile, irreplaceable human being feels for another, ultimately mortal, example of her kind. 

Lord Flash, on the other hand, has done nothing remotely sympathetic, done nothing to make her fear for him. Fear of him, however, runs high, especially as every time she opens her mouth, he stares at her as she imagines he would stare if the yappy dog he was resolved to kick, began speaking in English. Probably she should stop offering advice or observations, as doing so is clearing wearing thin his patience. Any second now she expects another attempt to oust her. 

It's him who answers her now, as his student is too busy crafting. “Shut off its power, and the world is lost.  Electricity was the first thing to go, and with it has gone all semblance of civilization. No doubt we shall soon suffer flooding, as well as your perpetual yapping when your phone drops below fifty percent.” he turns his head, utterly serene. “Kevin, have you attempted to ring your father?“

“Are you having a laugh, Lord Flash? I can never tell with you, old chap.” Kevin says, carefully fitting a chunk of fired clay into his makeshift sling. A pair of zombies fall, or fling themselves, out of a window in a building up ahead, and he gets them both before they hit the ground. It's an extremely dangerous activity, walking down the narrow little streets, but at times unavoidable, and besides, the men can always leap onto the roofs surrounding them. 

“Ringing him might very well clear up the confusion we're experiencing. He does know all, after all.”

“Confusion? I'm not confused. I understand what's going on here, and what I'm to do about it.” into Kevin's eyes goes the look of a young boy who is about to attempt to stay up past his bedtime. “And he doesn't know everything. That's a myth, and a lie.”

The bone white hand nearest to Charlotte, jerks, powerful fingers half curling into a creaking fist. The body it's attached to pivots, swinging noiselessly to face it's partner in crime. The naughty little boy in Kevin's eyes abruptly goes to bed. “What was that, Kevin Mask? I didn't quite catch it.“

“Nothing, Lord Flash. Um, it was the wind. Yeah.” 

“The wind is rather fresh today, I see.”

“Urgh, it's the stress. Richard the Third over there had a good point though, there must be sanity somewhere still. I constitutionally need hot water for my evening bath.” Watch checking occurs, Charlotte deciding it's an arousal mitigating tactic, such as when two male antelope spot each other across the long leagues of savannah, they turn to nip grass or scratch their behinds, thus diverting excess nervous energy. Watch checking is obviously a chojin anxiety relieving activity. Obviously, even where a pair of chojin are the bestest of friends, they still desire to beat the ever living shit out of each other at every waking moment. Charlotte takes a mini step backwards, but not before checking left and right. No one told her testosterone, or the chojin equivalent, was such a volatile chemical. 

Once they're done metaphorically dragging their skulls over tree bark, Lord Flash resumes speaking. “Kevin, it will be as in the old days. We shall harness the power of fire. Happily, there's plenty of it to go around.”

                                                                                                        🧟‍♀️

 In order to have an evening bath, they need to locate a bath, a bath free of undead and capable of holding a seven foot tall man. Even in Tokyo the latter is no easy requirement to fill. Hotels in Shinjuku and Shibuya are more likely candidates than those in Nakano, plus Lord Flash reminds Kevin that there's some chojin-only YMCA’s in those parts. The solution is a problem. YMCA’s equal chojin, and also equal no girls allowed. Kevin shrugs at this and trudges onwards, shoving a zombie through a vending machine and into a collapsed cellar. If chojin must be fought and girls abandoned so that his hair can be clean, then chojin will be fought and girls will be abandoned. 

The trick lasts all of five minutes, until Charlotte, still trundling along behind the men, becomes sufficiently alarmed to attempt thwartification of the evil plan. “Um, Mr Mask? YMCA’s operate hotels that allow women. Also, it's the end of the world. I don't think certain rules apply anymore.”

Profanity is not exclaimed, but it may as well be, as the metallic crack of Lord Flash's neck when he turns it is far too loud and far too shocking for a normal chojin to produce. He seems himself to be aware of this, as he immediately distracts everyone by declaring a horde to be approaching from the direction he is not looking in. Despite this blatant bullshit, he's right, and when Kevin looks round the next corner as cautiously as he always does, he lightly dances his way back to shoo the other two into a seemingly empty building whose rectangular entrance looms as dark and narrow as a birth canal. Inside the corridor a not very gentle rearranging of order occurs, during which Charlotte is dragged from her premier position, squeezed past her undeclared enemy, to be, not behind Kevin, but in front of him. Apparently this unusual thing requires an explanation, even though they all understand the need to be quiet. “You'll trip out the door into the street and alert them.“ he says, before looking up and jerking his head at his coach. It's not a good time but Charlotte wants to tell them that their eyes glow in the dark. 

It's a good thing Kevin has his head screwed on, because when the group retreat move proceed upstairs, Lord Flash ends up opening a door onto a family of zombies. It's a good thing his head is apparently bolted on, because before anyone can do anything, or help in any way, he has silently snapped all the undead necks, women and children too, and strutted across sagging linoleum to crouch beside a curtainless window so that he can watch without being watched. 

Well, that's not true, as Kevin does spend an inordinate amount of time watching him, in a way not at all similar to how Lord Flash is watching the gurgling zombies parade past outside. Upon her noticing this, white noise fills Charlotte's head till it's sore and heavy. To distract herself from uncomfortable and confusing thoughts, including the fear of having her neck snapped in less time than it takes to blink, and from the festering corpses at her feet, she studies the evidence of the lost lives the family must have once enjoyed. Deep sadness soon wells up when she looks into the happy faces behind the glass of photo frames, and she soon forgets all embarrassment. As a way to honour the dead, she puts one of the pictures in her bag. 

A grunt attracts her attention. Cheek to cheek, the guys are both peering out the window now, with Kevin occasionally ducking down to keep an eye on the door. When she crawls over to join them, he wordlessly indicates that she should take over this duty. Outside, hundreds of dead people are flowing messily down the street, some of them sliding along the walls, through obstacles until they hit one that's too tough, then they join the many zombies who fall down only to be trampled, their skulls eventually caving in under the pressure. Piles of corpses begin to grow, and the brick path stains red. The sound is charnel, indescribable. 

Knowing that the chojin with her could mow down even such a crowd lessens Charlotte's respect for them, until she realises that they also don't know how the whole zombie thing came to be, and while they could run through the horde with their arms spread, carving them up with a dual application of the clothesline move, they might come out the other end just as dead as their enemy. 

It takes hours for the herd of man eaters to pass, and by then it's not only well and truly night, but Lord Flash is proven right twice, as the unnatural dark turns out to be coming from a heavy build up of ominous storm clouds, which break, unleashing torrential rain on a lightless city. A Shinjuku hotel is out of the question but they can't stay in a room such as this, necessitating a stealthy move to a more healthful location, chosen from the list of four star and up hotels in Kevin's head. That's not to say he won't make do with anything below four stars, but if he had a choice.. 

Thanks to the dark, their next foray into the street has to be planned and Charlotte has to be addressed, a concession which she can see pains not only Kevin, but especially Lord Flash, who is the one who naturally has charge of official team tactics. Halfway through him describing how things are going to proceed, it strikes her that he intends to lose her once and for all, the evidence coming from the fact that she is again placed at the back, and from the fact that he narrows his eyes at her, deploying what she imagines is a duper’s delight grin under his mask. There's no place for silent forbearance in this situation, she has to speak up. 

“If I'm at the back I'll get lost, eaten and die. That's almost 'appened like a thousand times already. I'm only 'uman, I need one of you guys to keep eyes on me.” she says, confident that is enough. 

It's not, as while Kevin moves his head ever so slightly in a way she interprets as highly begrudging acknowledgment of her weakness, Lord Flash interjects with a swift and savage knife thrust between the ribs. “Eyes are not enough. Comrade, you'll have to hold her Northern hand. It's the only way to make sure the child doesn't wander off.” he twists the knife by applying a coating of concealed amusement to his voice. 

Now as before, Kevin turns bright red, then stark white, the colour changes visible even in the shadowy mire. Whatever horrors are afflicting his mind do not permit him to speak, he can only shake his head rapidly, the soft sound of his hair whisking across his coat enough to cause Charlotte to begin hyperventilating. Pointing at his friend and then at her, he indicates that his fellow English the disguised Russky should be the one to thus damn himself. 

Naturally, Lord Flash does not take him up on the offer, and almost the instant that Charlotte emerges onto the street behind him, she gets lost. The rain comes down in black sheets, mixing its dank smell with the reek of garbage and fire and dead flesh. It has yet to put out any but the smallest fires, and the air is thick soup. As soon as she understands that the barely discernible white shape she was following, has vanished into nothingness, the waves of terror she's been swallowing back all this time, well up, buckling her knees and dropping her onto a pile of discarded Chojin Crown premium brochures. She's too frozen even to cry, and the cold rain eventually slows her breathing. Zombie eyes don't glow, so at least she's spared seeing them approach, although the encompassing sound of their moaning and dragging feet getting ever closer is enough to drive anyone mad. 

Of course this is not the end for her, as it has been for so many others. Zombies pass by, even blinder than she is. So long as they aren't chojin and don't step or fall on her, they won't discover her location. But if they did, then it would be a lion’s feast, because zombies don't care if you're dead before they get stuck in, and they don't eat particularly fast. 

The dark gets ever darker, Tokyo without neon being even eerier and more dead than another city would be in the same situation. A horrific howling whistle starts up from somewhere, loud and travelling fast. Dazed and exhausted by fear, Charlotte's brain is too busy trying to pinpoint where it's heard that sound before, to pay attention to other noises, such as her name being borne on a hissing whisper, or the clatter of expensive professional boots on wet brick. 

                                                                                                        🧟‍♀️

 Kevin is pissed off. At her. Because he obviously can't be pissed off at his compatriot. He also cannot ascribe either incompetence or malice to the man, and since Kevin himself didn't lose the girl, it must be she who lost herself. There's no time to have a fit about it here, especially not when there is a great big chojin wasp in the vicinity, so he grabs Charlotte's wrist, pulling her off the ground and away into the night, followed by his trainer. Relying on his enhanced senses and those of Lord Flash, he navigates a shadow world full of vaguely human shapes picked out in a slightly lighter grey. Sound is extremely warped and deceptive, even before it began raining, it's not to be trusted. What light there is bounces off glass and metal, causing strange spots of soggy luminescence. Lightning strikes a tree, exploding it, drawing a scream from Charlotte, as well as attracting the scattered attention of nearby undead. Taking a different route to the one planned, as a result, Kevin dodges down an alley, and almost walks straight into a dead chojin, quieter now that it's confused by the lightning. Reacting the way he would in the ring, Kevin leaps backwards, almost knocking over Lord Flash, who dodges him, but not the human he'd been dragging along. Those two go down, leaving Kevin to charge forward and kick the creature whose hands are already coming down to rend the flesh lolling around on the ground in front of it. His foot connects with its head, slamming it into, and through, a series of walls. Unsettled, Kevin wastes no time on finishing the fight, only making sure his companions are up and moving, before continuing the trek, his violent movements almost wrenching Charlotte's shoulder out of its socket. 

There's only a five minute walk between where they began, and their destination, but the situation has rendered it a forty five minute ordeal fraught with near misses, severe fright, and physical and mental distress. And that's not to say that the hotel, which looms out of the dark as a pale grey slab of concrete, is even free of danger. Of course it's not, some of the staff are shuffling about, but it's very difficult for a horde to form in confined spaces so the men barricade the glass doors, then set to work clearing out the infestation, helped greatly by the hotel's generators, the light acting as a cheering up factor. Without a gun or knowledge of how to use it, Charlotte is relegated to following them, keeping back from any unchecked rooms or doors. 

The choice of room for the night falls on a deluxe twin bed on the highest floor, and in the furthest corner, where the roof can be accessed and a chojin in their prime can leap to safety if need be. With all the doors sealed off, it'll take a good while for a horde of any size to break through, even if they get it in their mushy heads that light equals food. The room is very nice, thinks Charlotte when she sees it, Cosy, modernly furnished in browns and golds. Oh to fall into one of those perfectly made beds and sleep this nightmare away, but she imagines sleep will be evasive. Her arm is killing her, and one of her rescuers has a grudge. She'd been taught by society that one should talk out interpersonal issues and ignore bullies, but that has literally never worked ever, and society, hopefully, didn't include murderers under those headings. Hopefully. 

And a murderer is exactly what Lord Flash is, even though his victim is not dead. He intended her death, or at least he didn't care whether she died due to his actions, although, watching him fingering the bed linen with the air of an arrogant Influencer judging the accommodations provided on a sponsored trip, she finds it impossible to imagine uttering such an accusation to his face. Utterly pointless to speak to him, and when she looks at Kevin, who's dumping armfuls of liberated vending machine noodles and bottled water onto the middle of the floor preparatory to taking his all important bath, she decides it's equally pointless to speak to him. The goal is survival, but no one said it was indefinite survival which was meant. 

Notes:

I can already see this is going to be a grand epic spanning continents, dealing with the themes of love, death, betrayal, the-

Chapter 3: 🧟‍♀️Flayed🧟‍♂️

 A bath requires bath attendants of the same sex, such as all the upper middle to upper classes had in more prosperous times, and while he might not look particularly well off, Kevin is in fact not poor, his coat alone being more valuable than the entirety of Charlotte's wardrobe, past, present, or future. Lord Flash must act the servant, giving her a little time to herself, which she uses to check on her shoulder (viciously hot and red), scrounge a meal off the floor (self heating chicken noodles), and climb into bed. 

The instant she flips the covers over her head, she wonders if she's done a boo boo. It can't be that one whole bed was actually meant for her, seeing as she's a second class citizen, but she really, really doesn't want to get back out. Maybe if she falls asleep she'll be left alone? Closing her eyes, she tries to tune out the looming threat of a world gone to heck, as well as the male voices coming from the bathroom. They're talking shop, going over move sets and tactics, privileged information that means she's either not considered a genuine life form, or neither actually expects the Finals to happen. 

Turning over is becoming increasingly difficult, but warmth and comfort places sleep almost within her grasp, when the door to the bathroom opens, steam pouring into the room, followed by ravenous men, one of them clothed in a towel. The sheer audacity of their rescue animal stops them in their tracks for a moment. She's taken one of the beds without asking. Never did it occur to them that such a thing could happen. The shock lasts but a moment before they sit down to their floor based meal, their knees like those of boys, jutting thanks to their identical crossed legs positions. 

Glancing over his shoulder, Lord Flash affects a haughty sniff. “Comrade, this will not stand. Wake her up.”

“I'll have to get dressed first else someone will file a complaint with HR. And I'm only getting dressed after I eat.” Kevin says, while unscrewing a bottle of water. “Why don't you wake her up, Flash? No one could possibly suspect you of having sinister designs.” the words would call for an annoyed Look from their target, that is, if Kevin were capable of joking, which he's not. He really and truly believes what he's saying and over in the bed, Charlotte huffs a laugh. 

“I'm awake.“ she says, sitting up in case she's further manhandled. 

“That's my bed, girl. Kindly cease depositing your skin cells in it.”

“Okay. But where am I going to sleep? Not with you, I guess.”

With his eyes fixed on his noodles, Kevin lifts a moist, naked arm, pointing at an armchair nestled in a corner beside the complementary coffee sachets, which lie in a neat row on the complementary desk. 

“There's also the floor.” adds Lord Flash, who slowly lifts a water bottle towards his presumed mouth. Curious despite herself, Charlotte waits for something to happen, such as one or both of them removing their masks. She thought she was too exhausted and scared to care, but no, she discovers that she still deeply wants to know what they look like under those things, especially Kevin. 

It's not to be, as instead of being constrained to normalcy and poor man's physics, the chojin eat and drink like famished men, straight through their masks, a truly fascinating sight. So fascinating that Charlotte remains in bed long enough to receive another rebuke, the unfairness of which provokes her to rebel. “What ‘appened to chivalry? I thought Mr Mask was a knight?” speaking of Kevin while he's present is excruciating, but addressing him directly would be worse. 

“No, he merely resembles one. Have you not been paying attention to his matches? I notice you have a couple badges depicting him attached to the strap of your backpack…” Lord Flash pointedly glares at that item where it sits on the desk, then turns to pointedly stare at his protege, widening an eye. 

Oh no, oh no, not this again. Seeking for a distraction, Charlotte's attention is caught by the storm raging outside, the thunder seeming to break just above the hotel’s roof. She moves to get up, only to yelp and clutch at her shoulder. The noise of chewing pauses, yellow and red eyes flickering a little before returning to their meal. Then those eyes stealthily meet. 

Exploding off the floor, they are upon her before she can even begin to know what's happening, covering her mouth and pulling at her clothes without a word of explanation. It doesn't take much to imagine what sort of emotions are pumped with her blood through her body, by her pounding heart. It's no excuse to say that it should be obvious, and that in this situation no chances can be taken. 

No bites, scratches, or other damage by zombie is discovered, but for a moment Charlotte imagines her head is going to be pulled off like a chicken's when Lord Flash discovers a scalp wound, and doesn't like her explanation stating that she got it from a falling book. That head might very well have come off, had not Kevin wrapped a hand around his friend's wrist, preventing decapitation. They leave her to put herself back together after that, turning their backs like gentlemen, seemingly over munching on vending machine slop. Seeing their backs is still too much, so she slips past into the loo, running what she assumes is the last proper bath she'll ever take. Kevin had found some duckies from somewhere, and used them, to judge by the suds they're wearing for hats, and she follows his example, playing with the ducks and thinking of all the species she knows, listing their attributes. She knows she should be grateful to have fallen in with intelligent, competent, ruthless men, because that's vital now, but still, they have no kindness, no grace, and no concern. 

There's no reason, beyond the practical, not to sleep in the bath, but that idea is shot down when the men wish to use the facilities, running her out to curl up in the small chair designated as hers. She does so backwards, so that her back acts like a shield for her head, which she tucks between her body and the upholstered backrest, curling up armadillo style, but much more squishy. Her arm is on fire, shooting with pain, muscle pain. No one has said anything else to her, but she listens to them speaking to one another. 

“I'll watch.”

“Alright. Wake me up when it's my turn.”

“No, I'll be watching all night, Kevin Mask. All you need to do is rest.”

“Don't be a martyr, Flash. There's enough hours in the night for both of us.”

“Comrade, you know I require much less sleep than you. Much less.”

“Err-”

“Sleep. Never fear, I will wake you if I need to.”

Orders are to be obeyed. The light dims, covers rustle, a heavy body makes the small adjustments necessary for comfort, than all is quiet, the racket of the street and storm far away. The hotel goes bump in the night, it's steel skeleton creaking, but no moaning wafts along stagnant air.

It's cold with no blankets and Charlotte begins to shiver. Tears slide down her nose, dropping with soft plops onto the fabric seat of her makeshift bed. It's always been this way, she doesn't have the knack some people do for inspiring friendship. But then again, friendship is something between equals, and it has been made clear here that there can be no equality. Even calling this pair of chojin ‘friends’ is pushing it, as Kevin may act the leader in striding on ahead of his trainer, but much like a little boy playing near his mother, he makes sure to look back every few seconds. 

The night passes extremely slowly, as every little movement and sound is like an electric shock to a suffering human nervous system. Imitating a ball does nothing for the neck, so she uncurls, feeling safer in the dark, up until she catches sight of the pair of glowing red eyes on the other side of the room, beyond the black mound that is Kevin. Their red light creates a corona, making them seem even larger than they are. Freezing, hardly daring to breathe, Charlotte watches as a pale and bloody page turns, and then another, and another. She relaxes. That…creature, is reading. Without light. But obviously he would read without light. She never thought so before meeting him, but now she gets the strong impression that Lord Flash is a showoff, or at least interested in pulling off pointless stunts for vanity’s sake. Prima donna.

Irritation and the sting of injustice makes her bolder. All hotel rooms have cupboards with extra blankets, usually by the door, and she's going to find the one in this room, come what may. Fiddling with her jacket, she locates her phone, which is in the low thirties for power. Dumb-dumb, connect it to the hotel sockets. But first, torch. 

Her stealthy movements draw unwanted attention, the pair of demonic eyes on the other side of the room, slowly turning her way, sweeping scarlet across the floor, picking out the shape of a sleeping man in silhouette. Nothing is said, but when Charlotte switches on her phone's torch, she really wishes she had stuck to groping along in the dark. The headgear Lord Flash wears is cute and quirky during the day, and utterly petrifying at night, the points and spikes of his crown and mask throwing jagged black shadows across his ‘face’ and the curtains behind him in a vista of a mountain landscape from hell. He continues to say nothing, watching her with the tense energy of a coiled snake. Bleak as it is to think about, she consoles herself with the thought that if he kills her, she will have least have been killed by someone famous, important, and presumably rich. 

The cupboard is indeed located just past the entrance, and it has blankets. Kicking herself for not thinking of this earlier, she brings all of them to her chair, and then has a thought. Someone once said something about coals of fire, and it stuck with her. Going over to the danger zone with a blanket clutched in her left hand, she offers it to the frightening manifestation sitting, not in the bed, but on top of it. In exchange for this kind gesture, she receives no response, no sound, no movement, not even of the eyes, not even of breathing. 

Thoroughly creeped out now, Charlotte passes the great lump of semi-finalist, and stops. Being a man, Kevin had also made inadequate provisions for himself. His duvet is too short, leaving his still booted feet sticking out. If he curled up he could probably make it work, but curling up in the foetal position is for infants, and he tries not to do it too often lest people get the wrong idea. Taking it upon herself to assist, Charlotte covers his feet with a blanket. The instant she does he curls up so that nothing of him can be seen, becoming a very large pill bug. There's some pride to be gleaned from her blanket having gone into the forming of this art installation. 

                                                                                                       🧟‍♀️

 As nice as it is to have access to hot water and phone chargers, they can't stay at the hotel, not when it's full of rotting corpses, and especially not when doing so will potentially lead to charges of dishonourable conduct in the face of planetary, and possibly galactic, and possibly intergalactic, threat. Previously she would not have ascribed fear of dishonour to the villainous duo, but it's true, she wasn't paying attention. 

After the experience in the dark, Charlotte counts herself a most fortunate winner, the most fortunate, to have survived a single day and night cycle. Probably there will not be another if Lord Flash can attempt to kill her seven times in one day and only fail because his protege is either distracted, or still clinging onto the bare edge of humanity. The instant they get sent off into the woods alone together to collect firewood, that's it, there'll be ‘an unavoidable zombie attack, comrade. Sadly, there was nothing I could do.’

Being hated has its plus points, one no longer has to be concerned about the impression one is making, at least on the one doing the hating. If Lord Flash wants to give himself wrinkles by making faces at her accent, then so be it. Kevin, on the other hand, seems to have gotten over his initial extreme distaste of anything lower down the accent scale than Received Pronunciation, and barely flinches when she greets him in a tired voice with ‘Ello, love. What we up to then?’ in fact, he turns a bit pink, no doubt because the L Word holds deep seated terror for him. 

“We are moving out, that's what. Now move.” he says, from the other side of the bathroom threshold, where he had spent a laughable amount of time brushing his hair. A bugger that with the presence of a foreign body, he can't just fling his helmet off willy nilly. He can fling it off willy nilly when only Lord Flash is around, but that's because the man barely reacts to most things, including the divine face thus revealed to him in confidentiality. He's barely reacted to the ‘Dead Person Outbreak’, as Kevin terms it, and when the people taking their pictures suddenly tried to eat all their tender bits, he merely snapped their necks like he was waiting for a reason to do it, while it took at least half an hour for Kevin to get back into the swing of killing humans. It's always like that, he's kept on his toes at all times by the peculiarity of his second. 

The man does it again now when Kevin brushes past the female (ick!) obstructing the bathroom door. Sitting on his bed, Lord Flash crosses his legs in a hyper masculine way, and states that he requires tea before going anywhere, pointedly keeping his gaze on the gap between Kevin and Charlotte. Since when is he the one to hold up work with human needs and desires? That's Kevin's job.

The girl doesn't jump to obey, and Kevin doesn't make tea, or any form of sustenance, unless severely under the weather, so it falls to him to tell her to do so, but he's not cut out to tell anyone to do anything, at most he can passive aggressively bark or snipe in their general direction, following up with a flat handed jab to the throat. “You heard the man. Tea.” he says, to the empty air above the human's head. 

She raises both her eyebrows. “A ’please’ would be nice. Just sayin’. ”

DeFiAnCe?!! 

Turning a horrid shade of brick red, Kevin almost passes out with impotent rage on the spot, steam curling out the holes in his mask. How dare someone imply that he's not good enough? How daaaaaar-

“Or not, I guess. When your buddy snaps my neck, remember that I never did anything nasty to you guys. It's not my fault that I'm not strong like you.” turning away, Charlotte trots off to make tea. 

Confusion takes the place of rage, which abates when Lord Flash huffs a derisive little laugh. Women, always overreacting. 

 The tea is good, as it was good in the shop it came from, causing Kevin to reflect on the nature of Man and his place in the universe. Lord Flash may be the greatest thing to ever exist ever, even topping sliced bread, but he can't, or won't, make tea. They always need someone, like a waiter, or Kevin's mum, to do it for them, or else Kevin needs to be drunk. Then he makes good tea, but Lord Flash hates it when he's drunk, becoming more slap happy than usual…secretly Kevin suspects the man of being a teetotaller. 

The tea is so good that Kevin almost forgets he's a victim of unplanned zombie apocalypse, and he should probably be on his way. The earlier irritation in losing the group's pet Yorkshire terrier, means Kevin has had to adjust the strategy he presents to his mentor for approval. This task is always fraught with existential horror, as he simultaneously has to think of himself as at once King and Subject, paying homage to an even more superior ruler, who has the final say on things unless Kevin wants to mess up and shame his entire bloodline, and who may indicate by word or deed that he thinks Kevin is insufficient in some way. There's leeway, and sometimes Kevin takes a risk, as he did in keeping his rescuee around in the first place, but he generally pays for it somewhere down the line by Lord Flash being proved right. The man's right about everything, to a genuinely creepy degree. He looks into those eyes now, located across from him on the other bed, eyes red like his father's, and wonders. 

“Whatsherface, Charlotte, she can't be trusted at the back. She'll run off and get bitten, then return and bite us. She has to be in the middle.”

“And do what, Kevin, trip me up? Trip you up? If that occurs when a chojin undead is in the middle of dive bombing us, we, or at least you, will swiftly suffer sudden death.”

“I won't be difficult for you to put down, old boy. You'll be on me in an instant.” Kevin says, imagining his transparent fishing for heartwarming compliments is undetectable by the living 'bullshit radar' that is his coach. 

His fish slips away, Lord Flash actually leaning back slightly and screwing up an eye, his free hand fluttering over his chest. “It's not you I'm concerned about.”

…*sniff * The steel kettle on Kevin's head does little to prevent the sad expression it's hiding from sneaking the gist of itself out into the open air. As per usual, Lord Flash fails to act like a decent human being capable of being afflicted by shame or remorse of conscience. He sips at his tea through his mask, as if he did not just crush a little boy's heart under his heel. 

The woman in the corner of the room adds her two cents, afflicted in his stead. “I'm concerned about you, Mr Mask.”

Coming as it does from an object other than the desired one, this means little to nothing to the still arrogant young man, but he feels it's only right to acknowledge the attempt, if only to encourage good behaviour in certain other people. “Cheers. Anyway, Flash, it's gotta be this way, alright?” please say yes, please say yes, please say yes, please say yes, please-

“Comrade, do not cry to me when things go pear shaped and your face has been eaten off.”

                                                                                                       🧟‍♀️

 The hotel kitchen holds necessary supplies. One day in, and all thoughts of providing remuneration to the absent proprietors are gone, no longer manifesting to bother the minds of two out of three of the little group. Although they'd already swept the area, the men carefully do so again, even checking small drinks fridges for curled up child zombies. A few of those are discovered hidden away in nooks and crannies, but luckily for Kevin, his partner is the one to discover them, saving him the mental trauma of dealing with them. A book he read once said that one ought to commiserate with one's friends, if one was so fortunate as to make any, but how one does so, was not really explained. Touching Lord Flash outside the ring is a thing to be done sparingly, but when it's done it's done confidently, and he imagines from observing other people that a pat on the shoulder is the correct course of action. Accordingly he approaches while the man is neatly arranging boxes of expensive cheese, chocolate croissants, and cans of caviar in a backpack. 

From the other side of a preparation counter, Charlotte watches the interaction with a mixture of confusion, amusement, and sadness. It's like watching an oil tanker trying to turn and ram a zippy little yacht. Lord Flash isn't obviously evading his student's attempts to provide comfort over what he imagines is a horrible experience, or seemingly even aware that he is being slowly pursued at great haste, but he does keep turning and opening this fridge door and that, his shoulders ever out of reach of the looming hand, his eyes constantly looking out their corners whenever Kevin can't see his face. 

“Issues.” mutters Charlotte to herself. 

 The day is going to be hectic, one can just tell already. No sooner have the guys unblocked the door, then a pair of chojin undead, who were attempting to swallow each other's arms a little ways down the street, come charging in, the first one over shooting and flying into the ceiling. Normal sized, luckily, but still their unexpected appearance almost results in tragedy, as the second one's jaws barely miss slamming shut around Kevin's unarmoured throat, the skin of his shoulders saved from its disgusting nails by his trusty trenchcoat.

With a mixture of extreme horror and intense delight, Charlotte watches her mortal enemy snap his unrelenting stare from the ceiling, in order to snatch at the zombie who's trying to end his wrestler's career. Snagging it by the ankle, he pulls it off Kevin and to the floor, where he swiftly takes it to pieces in a manner not to be described, but let's just say that his propensity for kicking heads in and tearing limbs off, comes into play. 

While he's over there sorting that issue out, Kevin waits for the second malefactor to wriggle out of the cardboard ceiling the way a fat white maggot wriggles out of pulpy flesh. It falls head first to the floor further along Reception, right where Kevin lurks. It's not over yet, as the sound of a kerfuffle has drawn lesser flesh eating miscreants, who shamble through the wide open entrance way, dead eyes swivelling horribly.

Retreating, Charlotte dives behind the check-in desk, face first into another curled up zombie child, which hisses and unfurls, small face displaying a very large set of jaws, the lower one swinging downwards beyond the range of a living person. Twisting her arm backwards, Charlotte pulls her heavy backpack off and hits the creature with it in the same movement, slamming it into a cupboard. Zombies can't be stunned, and a stick arm full of unnatural strength slashes at its prey. Not knowing what to do but knowing she can't hold it there or kill it without injury, Charlotte decides to skitter backwards and hope it can't follow as fast, but she's in luck, as the noise has drawn positive attention, Kevin's thick legs appearing around the other end of the counter. Reaching down and jerking his arm back in a movement so fast it appears to her as a blur, he picks the former child up by the skull and flings it away, adding a fatal twist to its head as he does. 

Lord Flash’s cold shadow silently falls across Charlotte from her end of the desk, exuding contempt. There’s no time to preen each other, that has to wait for a safer location, and like he’s gotten into a habit, Kevin takes her wrist, barely suppressing an overly dramatic shudder.

 

Chapter 4: 🎡Don Quixote🏇

 A ‘safer location’ is not to be found for numerous hours as the combination of storm and fire has forced many homebound and interiorly located zombies out into the smoke wreathed and humid streets, where they dawdle, rushing away in short bursts after small groups of survivors, which, if caught, form the locus of a feeding frenzy drawing yet more zombies in. It continues to rain, and burn, and rain, making hearing and sight less useful. Entire streets become inadvisable for the trio due to this phenomenon, while suspiciously rising water blocks off others. 

Brollies are not even an option, unless you're asking to die. 

“What's so bad about getting our hems a little more wet?” says a stringy haired Charlotte, who is inclined to jump to anti-chojin conclusions despite being a fan of chojin. In response, the man who she told herself she would never turn her back on in order to stay safe, but who she needs to turn her back on in order to stay safe, pushes her sideways. ‘Pulls’ would be a better description as he pulls her sleeve so that she is moved out of the line to the left, into one of these flooded streets, but that sounds weird. Naturally she staggers a bit, but not enough to fall, just as well, as a nearby submerged zombie, lifts its head out of the turgid water, questing for fresh meat. A brick splatters its black brains against store shutters painted with excellent representations of Kevin and Lord Flash. 

The latter doesn't bother to say ‘that's what’s so bad, stupid girl’ when Charlotte hastily retakes her place, but Kevin's eagle eye tentatively pins him with a mixed look of confusion and anger. The rain makes him blink, the yellow light of his eyes flickering as the silhouette of long lashes interrupt it, another little bit of humanness that plucks at Charlotte's heartstrings. 

As mentioned, there are numerous other survivors frantically milling about the slowly flooding place, but Kevin and co avoid them just as much as they avoid the shamblers. One rescue mission is enough, one continuous interaction with a stranger, and a human to boot, is enough to drain Kevin's batteries and keep them drained. Daddy will make remarks, come what may, but Kevin cannot be declared a complete and utter failure so long as he manages to keep one person relatively alive, the same person he originally indicated, vaguely, to be under his protection…of course it helps that that person is English, like himself. He knows what to expect there. Other people might have guns. Other people might get in his space. Other people might ask him personal questions. 

The desire to listen to genuine dialect from the Isles, as opposed to the caricature his coach speaks, forces Kevin to declare a tiny Chinese noodle shop like a glass box, to be the safe location they are searching for. 

“‘Ow do you suppose infection works? Do people even get infected? Maybe it's in the rain. Maybe it's an invisible curse 'cause not everyone became a zombie when whatever ‘appened, ‘appened. And if you summarily execute people who might be infected, that doesn't make for a trustin’ atmosphere.“ Charlotte says, remembering the foul blast of air she received to the face from the zombie child in Reception. Nothing feels out of the ordinary with her body, except for the ache in her arm and shoulder, as well as general fatigue. Zombies don't appear to feel anything, and she's yet to see someone or something turn. 

The guys ‘preen’ each other, just like monkeys, but without any monkey humour. They can't be as effective as all that, she thinks, considering no one removes any helmets or, ahem, disguises. In fact Lord Flash receives at most a sort of frisking from his apprentice, while Kevin goes so far as to take his coat and shirt off, which Charlotte isn't complaining about. Suffice to say, it's all very arbitrary. Unlike what happened to her, anyway, but that's your typical bully hazing ritual. She should probably be flattered. 

When it comes to her turn, there's a slight pause as the men appear to lock horns with each other, with their eyeballs being the horns. Kevin wins out, which astounds her immensely. 

He wins out, but appears absolutely aggrieved at the idea of touching her, leaning back to a ludicrous degree while storming across the six or so feet that separates them, his gloved hands held up and close to his chest. The expression he's wearing under his mask is easily imagined. Outside, a zombie emerges from the orange smoke to thump against, then ooze across the glass, leaving pieces of its lips behind. 

“I'm no chojin supermodel, but I'm not that ugly, Mr Mask.” a smile jerks at Charlotte's lips. Kevin really is a bit of a comedic character. She used to think he was merely hot and cool, but it turns out he's funny too, the ultimate trifecta. That smile dies the instant her gaze moves beyond the borders of the pretty young man, to catch the pretty eyes of his coach. ‘If looks could kill’, is not the right phrase, as he's clearly not angry, anger would be comforting, no, Lord Flash is merely mildly irritated, like one is at a fly in the room. 

Stepping into the ring with the bull, in his trademark half dead but extremely bold fashion, Kevin takes hold of Charlotte's head, much more gently than Lord Flash did when he was checking for wounds. “Stop calling me ‘mister’, you make me sound like a middle aged school teacher. I'm never going to teach anyone anything, let alone step foot in a school.”

“Incorrect, Kevin Mask, as you attend my school.”

“That's different, Lord Flash, and you know it.”

“I fail to see how. I award gold stars. I make you sit in a little chair. I apply corporal punishment. Is that not what schooling consists of?”

“No. Have you never been to school, man?”

Lord Flash doesn't answer, but a small frown appears between his eyes.

Unlike him, Charlotte has been to school, and with this unlooked for airing of what occurs backstage, as it were, she thinks she can maybe use the knowledge acquired to save herself from friendly fire. There's two sorts of mean teacher: sadistic bullies, and idealists with dashed expectations. She's hoping against hope that Lord Flash is the latter.

After applying just the cranial check, plus a quick glance at her fully clothed body, Kevin lets her go. “She's clean.”

“So should I call you ‘Kevin’ then?”

“Call me ‘Dingus McGhee’ for all I care.”

“Okay, Dingus.” Charlotte smiles, and while Kevin doesn't return it, nor do anything else typical of normal people, he does make a strange noise in his throat, which is something. 

 

                                                                                                        🧟‍♀️

The border between Nakano and Shinjuku finally appears, as a train station, complete with the still smouldering reticulated bodies of trains all piled up like an unravelled spool of steel tape measure. They spill beyond bounds, and over and through the platforms, bodies and debris like sad cherry blossoms littering the ground around them. Zombies prowl the soggy remains, fruitlessly.

This scene of disaster appears to hit Kevin hardest, and not just because his little group has to go out of their way to circumnavigate the area, inevitably proving Lord Flash right for the third time when Charlotte can't spin out of the way of an incoming horde fast enough, slipping and tripping up Kevin, who wallops her in the face with his arm. Instead of attempting to remove the onrushing zombies from circulation by himself, Lord Flash picks up his companions, and leaps onto the vacant roof of a Don Quijote occupied building. 

Zombies crash against the face of the higgledy-piggledy building, necks wrenched upwards, moaning at the crowned head peering over the edge of the roof at them. Soon they will shuffle their way through the open doors and up the stairs. “Kevin, provide me with a rock.” 

“Urrgh.”

“Comrade, I require your geological assistance.”

“I think Charlotte's dead.“

“Hmm?” little stones crunch and clatter as Lord Flash strolls over. His shadow extends across the fallen girl, and the boulder that is Kevin, crouched beside her in an attitude of distraught defeat. 

After staring for ten seconds while moaning intensifies, Lord Flash strolls back towards his former position. “She's not dead, merely unconscious.”

“How do you know that, you didn't touch her. She looks dead to me.”

“She's not dead, but will be forthwith if you don't promptly assist me.”

Leaving the body of the girl where it lies in a puddle, Kevin obeys, participating in hailing rocks down on the abnormally soft skulls below him. Finding this activity extremely amusing for some reason, Lord Flash begins giggling, high pitched and megalomaniacal, his voice mixing strangely with the still pouring rain and the roar of fires. This is nothing new for him, so Kevin is no more disturbed than usual. Occasionally he looks over his shoulder to make sure nothing has broken through from below onto the roof without him knowing about it, and during one of these checks he's just in time to watch as an arm of the horde forces its way through the door, using their combined body weight to simply burst it. Waves of zombies along with waves of Donpen and Donko plushies spill over the ground, never ceasing their endlessly restless movements towards beating hearts. 

“I would never counsel retreat during battle in a normal situation, but this is not a normal situation. Do not engage, Kevin. Follow me.” without wasting time on further remarks, Lord Flash scoops Charlotte off the ground, flinging her across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, before leaping off the roof onto the next one, skipping along as a confident young girl does down a pavement. It's much more difficult for Kevin to follow, because self-esteem issues means he can't find a comfortable rhythm. 

That one simple trick takes them further in a short space of time than at any previous point since the outbreak began, but it's not a viable long-term solution, the buildings of Tokyo are simply too varied in height, and the men must return to street level after only a minute of fun times. The tiny back car park of a Lutheran church affords good opportunity to discern if Lord Flash is right for the fourth time, although how Kevin is supposed to tell whether someone is alive or not, is beyond him. He stares at the supine body lying on the tarmac, and contemplates his incomplete skill set.

After he drops a damp pink penguin toy onto her belly, Charlotte assists him by waking up, and then throwing up, onto his feet. Like he knows what's in his coach's mind, Kevin preemptively throws an arm out to keep him back. “She ran into my elbow. She's not been bitten.”

“If she had done that, Kevin Mask, she would indeed be dead. Most likely she ran into your triceps, while it was relaxed.”

“...Okay. You agree that she has a concussion, then?”

“I can't know without performing a medical examination, and I can't execute one right now because I'm in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.”

“You're not going to kill her though, right?“

“I don't know who you think I am, comrade. I've never killed anyone in my life. “

A gurgled laugh comes from the ground, where Charlotte is struggling to sit up. Eww, her dress is stuck to her and making sucking noises. Sadly, her damaged arm gives way before she can rise, dropping her back to the unyielding surface of the black tar, her head flopping onto Kevin's dirty boot, where she lies, panting, sure she's going to be killed, and if not killed, then left behind. “I'm sorry, I got in the way.”

“Shite.” Kevin looks at her, then looks at his coach, who looks at her. 

“Why are you looking at me, Kevin Mask?”

“Errr, no reason.” 

“So, what are you waiting for? Help her up. We don't have the luxury to spend our leisure time faffing around in car parks.”

“You-you're not going to be weird about it? You're not going to tell me to leave her here?”

If it were possible for a big burly wrestler in a mask to look like a scandalised 50's housewife, then Lord Flash would be the one to make it happen. He twists his body away in a very feminine manner, as if Kevin's opinions and observations, and by extension Kevin himself, are icky snails, or dead rats, or spiders, that Kevin insists on showing him. An accompanying expression twists his limited features. Even to Charlotte this silent display is affecting, and it's not even aimed at her.

“Kevin, I am aghast at the things you appear to be thinking about me in the privacy of your mind. Truly aghast. Men don't have their feelings hurt, but if they did, you might just hurt mine. I am a huge woman lover. I love women. I respect them. I've been known to address a word or two in their general direction. I can't believe I'm treated as if I'm somehow a misogynist.”

“I, no, I…” expelling a sigh from deep down, Kevin stands up, rough and cold and uncaring, the brushing off of himself done with the utmost of attitude. Snorting, he pops his collar and stuffs his hands in his pockets, walking off with head held high. 

 

                                                                                                         🧟‍♀️

 A new threat adds itself to the pile, an entirely unexpected one. It at first appears like the excursion into the apocalypse is destined to be a short and sweet one, as upon approaching the centre of Shinjuku, trucks emblazoned with the logo of the EDF begin emerging out of the smoke and mist, appearing amongst the wreckage piled up around the bases of high rise buildings, not always wreckage themselves either, spent shell casings and zombie corpses littering the roads. Some of these trucks are smouldering, have been compacted or torn apart, or display massive holes in their sides, but that's to be expected with chojin about. 

Kevin, who has not said anything to his companions since the Lutheran Car Park Ordeal, groans and huffs, sinking his head between his shoulders. “Earth Dumbass Fracas. That's what I call them. Name a time they have ever been useful. I'll wait.” he says, apparently to no one in particular, but actually to the goons following him. He's not wrong in his low estimation, because as soon as the trio slowly reveal themselves, via their leader, to the first group of camouflage suited soldiers in their path, the men shoot at them with automatic rifles, causing Kevin to dodge back around the office block corner he'd edged past with his hands half raised as a sop to idiocy, twirling more gracefully than any ballet dancer. Shouting at them to stop is no good, bullets hit the wall, spraying concrete dust and chips in a hail of mindless hostility. 

“What did I say!“ Well, not all shouting is no good, as he shouts point blank at the two people behind him. More soldiers rush out of a nearby 7-Eleven, visors down and rifles up. As with the idea of leaving money on counters, there's no more umming and aahing over what to do about the rescue human. If leaping, hopping, or running has to occur, one of the men picks her up, and off they go. This is one of those times, as showers of bullets have a far greater range and spread than the average zombie. This time it's Kevin who does the honours, the studied laissez-faire casualness of his movements belaying the fact that he is careful not to puncture Charlotte's soft pudding flesh with the various dangerous design elements of his helmet. 

 

Chapter 5: 👁You’ve Pissed Off Ramesses II🧐

Summary:

Big sad

 “Shibuya and Minato are going to involve even more negative experiences than Shinjuku, comrade. I advise caution.” after being fired upon like two of them are not mega-celebrities the universe over, the trio cautiously slither down what was once a busy thoroughfare, like a troop of depressed ducklings, not even able to hunker down behind trees in case a zombie falls out of it and onto their heads. They stop at an abandoned FamilyMart for drinks and snacks, and only then does Kevin reply to the statement by his coach.

“Do you have a better idea, Lord Flash? Shall we walk all the way around the other side? Skip over the water mayhaps? If you can secretly fly or grow to become five hundred feet tall, now is the time to reveal it.” Possibly Kevin intended to be subtle, but he’s too riled up, so when he scrutinises his coach over the top of a drinks fridge and the six pack of Evian water sitting on it, he does so as a statement piece, leaning down and narrowing his eyes till they can barely be seen in the dark of his helmet. It’s a pantomime of suspicion, but it seems not to bother Lord Flash in any way whatsoever.

“Yes, I suggest leaving the city and waiting for your father to send word. That’s what I would do, were I alone. Crouching in forests is a fairly entertaining activity. I cannot effectively fight without knowing what is going on. Also, unlike with us, one fast moving piece of lead is enough to send your porcelain doll to a place from which it cannot be recalled.” He can’t help but turn a nasty Look on Charlotte at this junction “…Otherwise I suggest taking over the Imperial Palace in order to go out in a blaze of glory.”

Having to stand right beside Kevin at all times means Charlotte cannot hide the blush that suffuses her cheeks. It was a douchebag statement and forty-fourth assassination attempt, but being described as a porcelain doll is still somewhat flattering, in a creeptastic Victorian way. At this point she’s unsure why Lord Flash is still bothering, as Kevin only appears to grow more and more pissed off each time his trainer attempts to pry her off the hull of HMS Kevin Mask, and he clearly doesn’t want to blatantly be responsible for her sudden non-existence. Maybe it’s just a catty habit. 

“Man, you just don’t want to have to do another weigh-in.”

“That is the most ridiculous and insufficient answer I have ever received to anything I have ever said, Kevin Mask.”

“Well, comrade, I find that difficult to believe, since you yap so much you must surely have received more answers to your statements than there are words in the dictionary.”

Something in blood red eyes shifts, and brightens, tiny muscles around them making them widen to a subtle, but eerie extent. The expression is enough to hitch the breath of the people in its path, and that’s before they realise that’s it’s suddenly become very, very cold in the little grocery store. 

“So I ‘yap’, do I?”

“It’s just a word, Lord Flash. Don’t insist on taking it the wrong way.”

“Indeed, and words have meanings. ‘Yap’ means to ‘give a sharp, shrill bark’, as a small dog does. Or in slang it means to ‘talk shrilly, noisily, or foolishly’ emphasis on the foolish...I suspect you are using it in the slang sense, since I am clearly not a canine, small or otherwise.”

Placing a can of iced tea on the fridge, Kevin slowly pushes it towards the man, his intense gaze trying to reclaim his friend’s. While they’re having a tiff it's a good time to be ambushed, so Charlotte picks up a nearby toothbrush with her left hand, clutching it in her fist like a dagger, ready for anything.

“I don’t mean to imply any of that-”

“But you did mean to indicate that I speak too much, and not to any benefit of those thus spoken to.” Lord Flash’s voice is gentle, and soft. Not good, not good at all.

“Aah-”

“That’s what I thought.” the injured party steps sideways, silently and smoothly, into the narrow walkway between the freestanding shelves, and the refrigerated ones against the walls. He doesn’t wear popable collars like his student does, but the act is implied in his stiff body language. 

Surprising everyone except Lord Flash, Kevin, upon sensing that the real captain of his ship is about to put a fatal hole in it, dodges into the man’s way, clattering up against the walls, making puffy pink desserts fall and litter the floor. They look very delicious, so Charlotte snatches one, pulling the plastic dome off and getting to work. 

“What are you doing, Kevin.”

“I might ask you the same thing, Lord Flash.”

“I think it's rather clear what I’m doing.”

“You can’t.”

“But I can. One cannot compare a proud chojin warrior to a small and annoying dog, and expect to get away with it.”

“....Listen, you’re my second, you can’t abandon me, especially not over something so stupid.”

The strange man Kevin is attempting to obstruct, cocks his head, with another metallic crack of his neck. “A second is only of use for a match, and I see no indications that the one we have been training so hard for, will appear.”

“But- but…you, hurgh .” heaving a breath, Kevin looks around, as if for hope. He catches sight of Charlotte, happily nibbling away at her treat, and his eyes flicker, another odd sound coming from his throat before he turns back to the problem at hand. “We’re partners.”

“Wrestling partners. I see no wrestling occurring here. And I have been insulted.” and with that Lord Flash glides backwards, pivoting and taking another route outside, in the process slapping to death a zombie trying to enter.

All the time he is walking away, Kevin follows him with his eyes, and his body, which turns on the spot like a sunflower, a confounded, devastated look on his metal face. 

Thinking how nice it must be to be so tall that one can look over the shelves like they're nothing, Charlotte waits for him to go after his friend, and when he doesn’t, prompts him.

“Aren’t you goin' to go after that silly billy?”

 “What? No. Are you mad? That’s not how men work. Lord Flash is not a schoolgirl. I’m not a schoolgirl. This isn’t a playground, it's a killing field.”

“Now you sound like him.”

“Naturally. I’ve spent all day, every day with him for months.” lifting a hand to his mask, Kevin attempts to chew his nails through both steel and leather. “Well, that was shit. I’m going to die now.”

                                                                                                        🧟

“Can you not just ring em and say sorry, Kevin?”

“You don’t know our Egyptian pal like I do. One does not simply apologise. He’s not normal.” and to be honest, Kevin does not apologise to anyone, but that part goes unsaid. The duo have left the wide open road in order to shamble about in the narrow shopping arcades, alleys, and side streets, all leading vaguely, in the direction of Chiyoda, apparently so Kevin can fulfil his prophecy of swift deceasement. 

“Wait…'e’s Egyptian? I thought 'e was Russian? Crypto Russian?”

“No, it’s a reference to- ag, nevermind.” a zombie with a missing jaw lurches out of a flower shop, straight at Charlotte. It’s taken out without much interest. That’s all well and good, but with only one pair of super eyes and one pair of super hands they are at an abominable disadvantage, at least when it comes to successfully defending an essentially helpless being for any length of time. A few well advertised zombies are okay, anything more or greater than that and Kevin has to make difficult choices. Time and time again he resorts to tossing Charlotte onto something out of immediate reach of the horde, such as a giant sun umbrella. This tactic often leads to bruises, and near misses, such as when she tumbles off an umbrella onto the ground, drawing zombies from Kevin, to her. Reprising his cool move from the day they met, literally yesterday, he runs back and leaps into a dive, sliding across bricks, overturning plastic chairs and undead, trailing sparks, wielding his sling shot as he goes.

A body crashes onto Charlotte and she hastily kicks it off, using her toothbrush as leverage. Things crash and explode around her, as Kevin takes out his frustration, and other feelings not to be named, onto the supernatural insurgents.  

“Aaaargh!” he flings a zombie into another zombie, and through a wall of a lawyer’s office. “Aaaaaaargh!!!”

“What? Are you okay? 'Ave you been bitten?” without thinking, she runs over, stumbling as a stitch sends a bolt of pain through her hip, making her fall to her hands and knees. “Aaah.”

Instead of responding, Kevin hops backwards onto a chojin zombie's back, perfectly pulling off the most gory version of the Olap, unprompted and unnagged, before upending a bottle of water onto himself, sluicing off the resulting blood. Red creeps along between the gaps in the bricks, mixing with the rest of the offal. 

 Some minutes later the pair can be found walking fast past a large shrine from which a great deal of gunfire sounds, their caution dulled due to a temporary lifting of the rain. In the smoke, Kevin’s eyes look sickly, restless and puss yellow. As a whole he looks sickly, his once glorious mane of hair a tangled mess, his person smelling like wet dog, sweat mingling with acid rain, dirt and blood, his clothing already on the way to tattered. Charlotte looks little better, but as she’s not villain coded, she simply looks pathetic, rather than dangerous. He’s yet to respond to her question, and she gets the feeling that it's best not to speak right now. 

                                                                                                       🧟

 Shinjuku Gyoen is where Kevin decides to make his last stand as the sun prematurely plummets over the edge of the horizon, taking all warmth and hope with it. Smacking  a path through the zombies who have yet to find their way out of the garden, he plops himself down under a fir tree, and pulls a collection of mini bottles of whiskey and other assorted spirits out of his pockets. 

“Kevin, this is not a good place to spend the night. It’s too open. We need to get into a ‘otel. Even the National Stadium would be a better choice.” Charlotte keeps spinning, searching the rapidly deepening night, feeling her insufficiency. 

“Hrmpf.”

“Kevin…you ‘aven’t been bit 'ave you? You were screaming in pain earlier…do I need to preen you? Don’t worry, I won’t twist your ‘ead off.”

That earns her a grunt of sarcastic amusement, but her companion makes no move to vacate the area, instead he looks ready to settle down to a good old fashioned pub crawl, but without the pub, bottle after bottle pouring its fiery contents down his throat, a pile of empties rapidly growing next to a leather clad thigh.

“Kevin, if you get drunk now, we’ll die. At least, I will. Also, it’s cold and we're both soaked.”

Yellow light flickers, little night flying bugs already being attracted to them. “...Catch.” A glinting bottle sails through the air, and is reflectively caught by Charlotte. With her bad arm. Agony shoots through it, followed by chilling numbness. The hissing and grunting she makes freezes the chojin in the act of unscrewing a fresh lid. “Have you been bitten?” he asks in a dead voice. 

“No. You accidentally wrenched my arm out of its socket yesterday. It's still a little tender.”

Climbing to his feet, Kevin stomps over, circling her, much like a wolf, or lion. “I would have noticed something like that. It looks deformed when that sort of thing happens, but I might’ve torn a ligament. I’m not a medical expert. Flash-” jerking his head and looking away quickly with a sharp inhalation of breath, as if she could see his face anyway, Kevin stares out into the dark, barely lit by a rising moon occasionally leering through clouds and smoke. The city is not quiet even now, but it's not so loud that Charlotte can’t hear him gulp, swallowing nothing, over and over again. Nothing comforting comes to mind to say, but she knows that even if it did, she’d mess the saying up, and what should be a tender caress, would change into a smarting blow. 

                                                                                                          🧟

 Whatever emotional difficulties he’s going through subconsciously guide Kevin in his choice of night time roost, because he chooses the narrowest, tallest hotel in the area, sloppily destroying each and every shambler who has the misfortune to still be oozing around it, forgoing his slingshot and bricks in favour of decapitations with a broken off piece of pipe. The danger of this makes Charlotte gasp and remonstrate with him, but he ignores her. 

His choice of twin bed room would have been magnificent, had most of Tokyo’s lights been on, but as it is, the windows display a moving wall of black interspersed with blooms of red and yellow, flares of fire making Charlotte so nervous that she draws the blinds, which is not as helpful as she’d like. Without his partner, Kevin is silent, and subdued, doing little but lie on his bed, smoking and drinking, although it's obviously difficult for her to tell if what she is seeing is normal or not. They have plenty of filling food from their FamilyMart excursion so she offers to heat some up for him in the premium room’s microwave, using the power supplied by generators she’s sure won’t be around forever. “You’re a big guy, you need to eat bigly.”

“Hmpf. Fine.”

The paper plates he receives arrive full to the brim with every kind of diet busting deep fried, breaded, skewered, pastry covered item they have, topped with a blue flower each. Kevin does remove this decoration, but not in a particularly contemptuous way, placing the flowers on his bedside table. After ten minutes of munching, and a round of tea, he does something utterly astounding.

“Don’t you have family to worry about? You haven’t rung anyone.”

The smile she turns on him from her spot on her bed, is faux bright, just like her voice. “Foster care. I left at sixteen.”

”Oh.”

“It wasn’t so bad, but…you know.” she shrugs.

“Yeah. I know.” Kevin doesn’t shrug, or make any movement, beyond transferring the focus of his gaze from slightly beside her face, onto it. 

 

Chapter 6: 🐧Bird Bitches🦉

 Before it's her turn to take watch, Charlotte awakes, a rhythmic yet discordant sound worming its way into her dreams, disguising itself as the lapping of the water at Whitby beach. Whitby, such a far away place now, where she'd go for the annual Goth weekend. Her mind is slowly drawn beyond English shores, across the oceans, to another island, to Japan, where it's stuffed into the little box her body is occupying, her memory sharpening, recalling everything. 

The sound resolves into sobs, soft masculine sobs, as of a teenage boy. She doesn't need to open her eyes to work out this mystery. Doesn't need to waste time trying to convince herself a child, or child zombie, is living in a cupboard. It's Kevin crying, and that knowledge is acutely embarrassing. Sad too, of course. What to do, what to do. An American or some other member of a more exuberant and extroverted race would not experience the problems she's experiencing, or so she supposes. Films and books and educational seminars have told her about the importance of expressing empathy and compassion, but in real life that goes so poorly it's as if she's been taken for a ride. And Kevin, well, the whole world knows about him and his issues. 

The gloss of celebrity has not quite worn away, even after two days worth of life and death situations, and the attendant filth and privacy compromises that have to be made. Kevin is still a demi-god to her, a chojin, a member of the upper classes, rich and beautiful in so many ways, and while some things endear him to her, other things only make her feel awkward, insufficient. They do not exist in the same world or on the same level, and never can. There is nothing she can do to make him feel better. 

 All this she knows, but instead of remaining a dead log, she moves a foot, like one would in one's sleep, hoping he will do something to save himself from embarrassment. If the sobs don't stop in a couple minutes, she'll mime turning over as if entering a doze, but luckily, Kevin sniffs, and gulps, and softly blows his nose, his sadness submerging back under his skin. It occurs to her that she possibly missed an opportunity to get a glimpse of his face. Oh well, it's not the end of the world. 

 When he wakes her up, there's no hint of tears, and for a moment she could believe she’d dreamed it all up, were it not for the look in his eyes.   

                                                                                                        🧟

 

 “You need to stay here.” says he, over a makeshift brekkie of rice balls and Haagen Daz ice cream. 

“Huh?” having located a long forgotten hairbrush in an otherwise empty drawer, Charlotte, standing by the window, is applying it to herself, while trying desperately not to offer it to Kevin. They took turns taking baths, and of course Kevin somehow came out more clean and shiny than she did. He didn’t brush his hair though, and the tangles are giving her anxiety.

“It's dangerous on the streets without…without backup. I can't see out of the back of my head, and sooner or later something is going to happen. Here you can stand your ground until everything goes back to normal.” a rice ball disappears from existence somewhere between his hand and his mask, Charlotte’s heart doing a little flip when he glances at her, a normal thing to do during conversation, but which feels like a big deal for him. 

“If I stay ‘ere, somethin' is going to ‘appen even quicker. Maybe you’ve noticed, but I’m not a fighter.”

“You threw a rock yesterday.”

“But nothing exploded. I didn’t even land the shot.”

“Practice makes perfect. That’s a training mantra.”

“I’m never gonna be strong enough to explode a zombie's brain though. I can stab one, but I’ll get wrecked in the process. If you leave me 'ere, I'll die like two minutes after you turn the corner. I don’t want to sound lame or gay or anything, but I need you, Kevin.”

A strange sort of bubblegum pink rash shoots up Kevin’s neck, remaining mostly unhidden by his hair. Five minutes after it vanishes, and he still hasn't replied, Charlotte realises the ‘rash’ was a blush. He seems to realise she is pondering this, because he stands up, hands in pockets, looking even more gigantic than usual. Having begun by facing the door, he turns in fits and starts to face the general direction of the window. “You humans are so incredibly useless. I don't know why we bother to spend our entire lives looking after you. I understand entirely my grandfather's point of view. Why would anyone marry a human, unless they enjoyed being dragged down. Which I do not. Must be in order to have something other than themselves to blame the failure of their children on. ”

The words sting, but Charlotte holds back any show of hurt. Well, she holds back any voluntary show of hurt. “That's what the strong do. They protect the weak.”

It's clear Kevin only responds in order to be more of a douche, his nose rising to point at the ceiling. “For what return, may I ask? Do you know how many chojin die a year? For what? A bit of cash and a complimentary mug with their face on it? How rewarding.”

“For the reward of knowin' they did a good deed.”

“Is it a good deed though? How many killers and rapists are saved by chojin just because they're human and part of the mob.”

“Good people shouldn't be punished because of the bad.”

“Hrmpf, and strong people shouldn't be brought down because of the weak. If you go out there, you're going to get me killed, but you're going to die anyway, so what's the bloody point? We'll both be dead in some alley, or shambling around with the others.” 

Charlotte’s face twists into a knot, all weirdness over interacting with a celebrity gone. “Don't make excuses. Just tell me you want to abandon me like Lord Flash abandoned you. Wow, if everyone's as flaky as we are, then the world really is over, and I don't even matter, I'm not a superhero.” she expected Kevin to huff and walk out the door, and he does exactly that, nudging it closed behind him.

Accepting her fate with the deceptive calm of the terrified, Charlotte sits down on her bed and looks down at her toes, mind gone blank. But Kevin has not actually left the building, he's down the hallway, glowering at a vending machine while jabbing at its buttons, enacting the childhood he never had the chance to have.

                                                                                                         🧟

 When he eventually returns though, in the midst of a sulk, he is accompanied by his classic standoffish rudeness, foregoing talk of what to do next, because he doesn't know, but is in no way going to let on about that fact. “Lord Flash did not abandon me.”

“So what was that then? What do you call walkin' away in the midst of a survival situation?” genuinely curious and immensely relieved, Charlotte puts no spice into her voice, her question being delivered mildly.

“He went to scout the area.”

“Where’s ‘e now then?”

“I don't know, I'm not his keeper, he's a grown man.”

“Aren't you afraid somethin' bad ‘appened? Why’s ‘e not been back?”

“No. He is something bad, which happens to other people. Zombies and EDF losers, in this case-”

That's for sure.” says Charlotte, muttering under her breath.

“-and he's not been back because, uh, there's a lot of city to cover.” the break in Kevin’s voice lets him down. 

“...So are we gonna stay 'ere or are we gonna go die like men?”

“You’re not a men.”

 The dumbass duo actually manage to make it into Shibuya, where Kevin is immediately shot, chojin busting bullets punching through the indispensable smoke. Shot because he saw out of the corner of his eye, the silhouette of a soldier leap out of an intact truck, and turned to swing Charlotte out of the way, taking a couple bullets to the shoulder and arm, expensive blood splattering the anonymous pavement, an agonised groan breaking past the barrier of his lips. Unable to fly like the big boy Boomer Legends, he hugs his human to his chest, leaping straight up, aiming to sail over the lip of a balcony of the most depressing and brutalist block of flats imaginable. Only, he misjudged, and crashes through it instead, landing on Charlotte, the masonry he destroyed, falling and braining the soldier below. Gunfire ceases.

“Arrgh...are you dead?”

“No, are you?”

“Not yet.”

“You can, um, you can get off me.”

“Oh, yeah.” 

They’re more badly hurt than either lets on, with Kevin spilling gouts of blood across grimy concrete, and Charlotte unable to fully expand her chest. Remaining tumbled on the floor of the narrow balcony of an apartment is a good way to get eaten suddenly, so Kevin heaves himself to his feet, careful not to poke his head above the lip of the balcony, careful to push Charlotte away from the hole and out of view of the street. Busting the door down with his intact shoulder, he staggers around the little flat, discovering it to be empty. 

Being unwilling to advertise her pain, Charlotte flops stiffly down on a two seater purple sofa that takes up the majority of one wall, panting as she tries to get her breath back. Perimeter search complete, Kevin wanders back into the room, one half of his coat already slimy looking and all stuck together. 

“Did you find a first aid kit, Kevin?”

“A what? No.” 

“You’re bleeding.”

“Huh?” Kevin glances at his shoulder, his eyes bulging at the sight of the hole in his precious coat. “Bastards. I killed a man for this coat…well, he came at me and I took it off his corpse as spoils of war, but the principle remains.”

“Must've been a big guy.”

“Yup.” stomping across the tiny room, leaving little red drops like a trail of crumbs behind him, Kevin looms over the sofa, lacking the self-awareness to see that his position is rather unnerving. “I suppose that’s another blasted win for Flash. I can see that for the rest of my life he’s going to keep stacking wins against me, even when he’s not around.”

“Shouldn’t we sew your wounds together or somethin'? That’s what they do in the pictures.”

“You’d never be able to get the bullets out.”

“Bullets! I thought there was only one!”

The yellow, uh, orbs (teeheehee) looking down at her, narrow, then widen. “Don’t worry. I’m not human, remember? Also, I’m evil. Being evil grants a defence bonus.”

                                                                                                         🧟

 Kevin may believe what he said with all his heart, but it's not in fact true, and he becomes progressively more and more tired as they amble about the endless concrete warren, his movements slowing down until he begins throwing punches like a drunkard. 

“Are we still goin’ the right way?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, for Pete’s sake. I know this city like I know my own face.”

They’re actually completely lost and walking in the wrong direction, incidentally, directly into a horde. It goes to show that you should always do what the movies tell you, because Charlotte notices the undead mass oozing down the tree lined avenue they are on waaay before Kevin does. The horde moves the way dough rises, slowly blocking all routes with their puffy, bacteria engorged flesh. When Kevin does take notice of the moaning, groaning and stomach churning stench wafting down the long stretch of pretty tarmac, he slips into a semi-delusional state, believing he can take them all. 

“My chance to prove how much better I am than Daddy, has finally arrived. Watch this. Witness this, even.” he says, cracking his knuckles, and rolling his shoulders, a small ‘ouch’ interrupting his warm up ritual. He could take them, for sure, but his coat may not survive, or his proudly non-zombie status.

“What about me?”

“Huh? Oh.” lifting Charlotte off her feet in a style very carefully not that of the Bridal, Kevin hops into a tree nearly bare of leaves, and thus obviously bare of undead. Undead humans, that is. While he’s situating his girly burden, zombie tits and sparrows roar from the next tree, their bloody black eyes exuding the most intense malevolence yet seen from a villainous group. They haven’t so much lost all awareness, as gained a malign intelligence birds do not have in life. The little dive bombing supernatural plague vectors force Kevin to rethink his plan, causing him to push back off the trunk and back down to the ground.

“Never mind, proving that I’m better than Daddy will have to wait, possibly forever. No one can take on a bird army. Not even Daddy. Not even Lord Flash.”

The only thing to do is run as a cloud of feathered demons arise out of the local shrubbery, but the way is blocked by the swelling waves of rotting mankind, their arms already up, bony fingers cocked. Stomach acid pours from their jaws, mushy eyeballs rolling, sometimes right out of their heads. Turning too fast, Kevin slips on a crisp packet hidden in a puddle, crashing to one knee. “Shite.” even now he checks his clothing when he stands, but no hole has marred his expensive trousers. “Have to hopscotch it and hope for the best.” he says, adjusting his one armed grip on Charlotte. A bird kamikazes into the side of her backpack, aiming for her head, and missing. More of them dive, black dots falling from out of the overcast and smoky sky. Sprinting for the wall of dead flesh, Kevin prepares to spring, at the exact moment as another huge thing develops designs on the horde. A droning whine heralds the falling of a superhuman star, a chojin zombie diving straight down from five hundred feet up, launching itself through the horde like an orca whale amongst a pod of dolphins. It ploughs up tarmac and flesh, landing a glancing blow on Kevin, knocking him head first into a concrete embankment, and out.  

Chapter 7: 🧟‍♀️Certified Boogeyman -173🧟‍♂️

 When Kevin’s body goes limp, it goes limp on top of Charlotte, who also suffered from the bone jarring impact of him hitting the wall. One arm remains free, but the most she can do is shove his gargantuan shoulder half an inch to the left, before it inevitably sinks back. The pain in her chest is phenomenal. Something goes crack and then pop, stunning her for an unaffordable instant. Wiggling her legs is not possible, and if the zombies don’t get her, she’s going to suffocate under the weight. 

Beyond them, the undead chojin is still making a smoothie of its happy meal, performing spinning moves it didn’t have the talent for in life. It seems to have no preference for still living flesh, unwittingly prolonging Kevin and Charlotte’s lives by mowing down the human shamblers, who do have such a preference, and who mindlessly follow their noses towards the collapsed man and woman. They do not put up a fight against their bigger and badder cousin, failing to notice when it tears their legs out from underneath them. The birds have also gotten in on the fun, and being more intelligent than any humanoid zombie, are dive bombing the dead chojin, tunnelling through its rapidly decaying flesh, emerging on the other side with bits of pus infused liver in their beaks. 

For a biologist this spectacle would be very fascinating to watch, and though Charlotte did think about applying to university to study some sort of animal based degree, she is not thinking about behavioural patterns at this point. Kevin’s body remains an absolute death trap, even while unconscious, his bulk quickly cutting off her circulation, his helmet in proximate danger of taking out an eye or ripping the flesh from her cheek. There’s definitely no fannish dreams being fulfilled here, celebrity is gone in the face of putrescent extinction. Again and again she tries to shove him off, with less effectiveness each time till she runs out of strength completely and can do little more than lie still. “Wake up!” she whispers, barely able to focus, listening to the carnage, trying to detect underneath it the slushy sounds of approaching feet. Too nearby for comfort, lukewarm viscera fall to the ground from a torn open gut cavity, unleashing a deadly cloud of noxious gas, but the stench of so much unnatural death in one place is enough by itself to knock someone into the next life. 

Deciding that she and Kevin are going to die if she doesn’t try something else, Charlotte breaks a cardinal rule, both of her homeland and of Kevin personally. Thrusting a small hand under the lip of his helmet, she makes a fist and lever-wrenches the thing up and off far enough to expose a pretty ear, the metal cutting into her forearm in the process. But that’s not all. Without any hesitation she heaves herself off the ground as far as she can, and bites the top part of his ear, clamping her teeth hard into the fleshy part below the ridge of cartilage, her tongue tasting iron on the row of surgical steel earrings he’s been keeping hidden from the world. A tremor runs through the massive man, and she only just manages to let go in time before he wakes and bolts upright, narrowly avoiding taking her head with him. A fatality or mutilation is avoided, but he does elbow and further injure her chest when he leaps to his feet, shoving his helmet down instinctively in the process.

The timing was providential, because as he turns in headache ridden confusion, his violent movements knock down a wave of zombies who were a few inches away from hungrily falling on his back. Current events restabilise themselves in Kevin’s mind. The odds stack themselves up in an instant, he’s surrounded on three sides (and the sky) by flesh eaters, all of them intensely interested in sampling his spleen, and that of his gasping pet. Picking her up, he intends to try his initial idea again, his eyes shifting between human, avian, and chojin zombies, but while he’s looking around, his dangly earring gets stuck in his clothing, guaranteeing certain death as he yelps, dropping Charlotte so he can desperately try and untangle it.

At this stage his Little League Coach decides that practise is over for the day. 

A postmodern day Moses parts the Red Sea in an exceptionally ‘extra’ manner, a gore and limb strewn tunnel opening up in the midst of the horde, a horizontal twister originating from a distant block of buildings, travelling across a railway line and through a chain link fence, across the road, to end just before a beleaguered Kevin. Bodies go flying or explode where they stand, heads disintegrate and flesh shreds. Any bird that flies into the vortex ceases to exist.

Having ceased moving once he reached his destination, Lord Flash rematerlises as a visible entity, but appears totally unruffled, his clothing totally pristine, despite standing surrounded by the horde, the remains of which who continue to shuffle past him towards his protege. Naturally, he snaps their necks before they can make themselves a bother. Even though he cut down and continues to cut down numerous members of their flock, the human zombies pay him no mind whatsoever, a fact that does not go unnoticed by the other two. He looks back at the chojin zombie, who is gradually being pecked to pieces by the black cloud of birds mobbing it, then returns his gaze to Kevin, whose eyes are betraying him into misty blindness. “Comrade. I’m so sick of being shamed.”

                                                                                                         🧟

 “Are you a zombie?” probably a bad time to ask such a question when the one you're not sure is human or not, is listening to your chest, thankfully by medium of stethoscope, and not by placing the spikes of his helmet right below the soft part of your jaw. 

A scarlet eye rolls away from considering a ‘uses of the humble dumbbell’ poster on the blood splattered gym wall opposite the impromptu examination zone. Going to a hospital would result in extreme failure, so Lord Flash chose the next best location. “No, silly girl. Do I look like a zombie to you?” 

Charlotte studies the bone white ‘skin’ and blood red eyes, and makes an appropriate face. “Sorta, like. But maybe more of an evil skeleton man? I dunno, I've never met either.”

“You still haven't. I'm a member of neither class, I can assure you.”

“I saw them ignorin’ you, man. That's not normal. Ow, don't poke me, please.” 

Lord Flash stands up, dusting his hands off after having to touch his arch enemy. His stare remains fixed on her, not a shred of discomfort, shiftiness, or guilt in them. Behind him, Kevin stomps out of the gym’s kitchen, his upper body naked and swathed with thick layers of bandages. Two tiny spots of red mar the perfect white. He sniffs loudly upon catching sight of his companions, and backs back into the room he came from. 

“They ignored me because I don't smell like mouldy roast beef. Also, two of your ribs are cracked and four are broken. I'm surprised you have breath enough to question me with.” a yelp from the kitchen drags Lord Flash’s attention away, as well as his body. 

Slightly wary of being alone, or of letting him be alone with his student, who he is sure to immediately begin subverting once again, Charlotte shuffles after him once he’s slithered out of sight. Why he has returned is no mystery. As a trainer you'd be mad to let Kevin Mask die, the real mystery is why he even took such a disastrous risk in the first place. Then again, chojin do seem to have very thin skins.

Actually, him leaving is no mystery either, because she eavesdrops the answer as soon as she places her ear to the flimsy wood door of the kitchen. 

“I knew that chojin, or at least, I drank in the same bar with him. I wonder what happened that caused him to be murdered by birds.” Kevin sounds a little contemplative, a little morose, but that could be because he's having his wounds ‘poked’. 

“Mmm, interesting. Kevin, I see you are incorrigible.”

“Huh?” metal bongs, as if Kevin is using a counter as an examination table, which he is. “Listen, I'm sor-”

“Tsk tsk, never mind that. I am referring to your inability to let go. It would be amusing, if it wasn't so irritating.”

“...”

“I suppose I shall be forced to acquiesce to your choice, in this case as in so many others. Let no one say I am not magnanimous. Because I am. I hope you understand that multiple gunshot wounds are the least injuries this path will lead you to acquiring. Better men than you, such as your father, have had half of their substance carved away after becoming enamoured of the coveted double X chromosome. Da, I've witnessed it happen too many times to count. Very sad, very unfortunate…very avoidable. And understand, I would not be so lenient if I foresaw the finals taking anything less than six months to come to pass. No doubt you shall be sick of her, or she will be dead, long before then.”

“...What are you on about, mate?“

“Comrade, there is no need to plead ignorance. It happens to the best of us at times. Even me. It happens to me often, in fact, due to my superior heart. Not that I allow that in most cases it has anything to do with the cardiovascular system, except indirectly. Anyway, I've never been shot over it. I'm a gentleman.”

Metal bongs again and Charlotte can almost feel the embarrassment radiating off Kevin, as she can feel the heat, which makes loose strands of her hair fly about. She gets what Lord Flash is saying, and surely Kevin, with his hypercool chojin intelligence, gets it too. It's extremely embarrassing for her as well, as she's sure he's about to retch, or do something else to show his disdain for the concept his coach is putting forth. 

“Did I ever tell you that I enjoy your company, Lord Flash? No, because I've never been involved in a serious undead incident before, and only a serious undead incident or similar horror could cause me to unstiffen my lip. Excuse my obtuseness, I don't have your life experience.”

“Hmm, yes, well. I enjoy your company likewise. In measured doses. Regardless, while I was away, I came into contact with friends of yours-”

“I don't have any friends.”

“It's a figure of speech. Are you going to let me finish?...Outside of a library I was engaged in looting, I came into contact with Kid Muscle and retinue. At first I confined myself to observing their sluglike progress across a salt pan city, but eventually I had to intervene. They were on their way to breaking Meat out of hospital, naturally, as the world cannot continue to exist without him, but I advised them to rather turn around and cower in the closest suitable ditch.“

“Did they take your advice?“

“Regretfully, no.”

“...I hate to be the one to be ‘that guy’...but perhaps we ought to trail them, maybe even help. They will have their life expectancy sorely cut otherwise, and Meat is the key to everything, otherwise you wouldn’t have sabotaged him the way you did, using my poor body as a flesh puppet. We ought to assist, as those idiots couldn't defend a polar bear from a baby bunny.”

“Kevin! Whatever has come over you? What happened to your bloodthirst? I was more than charitable enough towards them. There’s no need to go on a rescuing spree, and two trainers in one pot ruins the stew. One annoying flesh blob is burden enough…Is this about a girl again? Why can no one keep their focus? I also ‘like’ specified people, you know, but I'm strong enough to never ever interact with them, for the sake of my art. I intend to die alone on a barren planet when the end of the universe eventually arrives, as you should too.”

“I don’t like any girls. I don’t like anyone. Except you.”

“Of course.”

Having heard enough, Charlotte slinks back to the fold up steel chair on which her examination took place.

                                                                                                          🧟

 Waves of shriekings and groans and intolerable stench collaborate to drive the chojin, and their servant, from their snatched moments of repose, escalating Kevin's sudden stroppiness to another level. He has his beloved coach back, yes, but things are still not all plain sailing on HMS Kevin. “Am I to wander up and down this God-forsaken city all day and all night? I ought to be training!” While he's speaking, an exceptionally plus-size sumo wrestling zombie heaves ho in his direction, drawn by the bellows. Kevin kicks it away without interrupting his rant. Lord Flash has come with the drugs, along with the badassery, and both of his injured fellow travellers are wandering around buoyed up by some sort of opiate, meaning they don’t make many negative remarks on him being ignored by human zombies, or on him no longer bothering to hide how fast he can move when encountering hostile EDF. Many, many necks are snapped, human and zombie, but the sound simply enters the constant background din of the city.

Although the concepts of whispering and stealth appear to be foreign to chojin, Charlotte resolves to maintain her own personal ability to keep it down. “I don't think there'll be a match at this rate.” she says, at a volume barely audible to herself, when a familiar Shibuya dog statue appears, headless and shattered on the ground, the famous crossing the emptiest it's ever been. The men have no trouble hearing her, looking either straight or over their shoulders with a mix of horror and disgust written in their eyes and on their metal visages. Even the zombie specks shuffling around in the near distance seem aghast.

“My destiny is to be chojin champion.”

“And my destiny is to live through, I mean, assist him to become chojin champion.”

“Okay. But the world's ended, like.”

Repeated authoritative statements made by a female is too much for Lord Flash to handle, and his eyes widen to a frightening extent. “It has not ended. It is experiencing a particularly bad flu season. There is still time to recover before the Finals, which will surely be reinstated promptly.” he turns to Kevin, speaking to his back. “ You might make use for the purposes of training, of the next playground set we come across. I would suggest we go for a jog with this child on your back, but I fear she's far too light to be of any use.”

“I'm not that light. I weigh nine stone. It was a real bugger to find anythin’ that fitted over ‘ere. Also, I’m injured, Doctorman.”

The withering looks she receives for this temerity are incredible and indescribable, even from Kevin, who up till now had been more or less normal, even after being shot. She can’t understand why he has suddenly turned distant and pissed off. However, he raises a good point, one which Lord Flash picks up and elaborates on. “The next fortifiable chojin gym we encounter, we shall commandeer for the night, Kevin Mask. ”

“Why don’t we commandeer a car and arrive at HQ in style? I can drive. Surprisingly.” responds Kevin, his eyes attracted to a very pretty, very sleek and blue sports car parked on the other side of the street under an overpass, a car which a group of male zombies are standing and staring at in silence. 

“Because a car is a moving tomb. There are too many obstructions, if it is shot it sets on fire, you and I can barely fit, and the child will become trapped in it, necessitating an unnecessary rescue…and I don’t trust your driving. I can also drive, but you won’t like how I drive.”

“And these days you need keys.” peeps Charlotte. Lord Flash has yet to make an attempt on her life, and since that is going against his entire modus operandi, the relief is exhilarating.

 The lightless monolithic buildings continue to oppress. Now and then they come across one which still puts forth light, meaning it is usually an anime emporium, cafe restaurant, or game parlour. There is so much food available that the chojin begin to be picky, and there’s no one so picky as a chojin wrestler slash bodybuilder. Luckily, they can't be that picky, as literally nothing meets their high standards. It’s kinda funny, the way the trainer rants and raves over protein content and micro vitamin intakes, promising death to all and sundry for this sabotage of his diet. One Humanity Point even accrues for him in Charlotte’s eyes. It turns out it was the constant murder attempts that was retarding his ability to endear.

Chapter 8: 🦸‍♂️An Hero🦸‍♂️

 The closer the trio spool to Minato, the more EDF there are infecting the streets, so much so that while he could run around snapping all their necks before they even notice his presence, Lord Flash decides that so much wanton human destruction might eventually disturb his companions to the point where they decide he's not merely some mild Anglo-Russian toff, but an extremely proficient serial murderer, so the troop are reduced to stealth, crawling from shop to shop, roof to roof, and alley to alley. 

Now that no one is attempting to assassinate anyone else, and serious business has been declared, the trio’s movements are much more coordinated, much quicker, much less robotic, much less likely to result in undead death even if someone slips in the constant rain, as Lord Flash takes his true position at the head of the column, commanding Kevin to watch the rear, both of them adopting a bent over posture that Charlotte, with her broken ribs and less outrageous height, can't and doesn't need to. As a fellow rear watcher, she meekly follows, meekly obeys, meekly steps aside whenever zombies fall out of broken windows or crawl out from behind vending machines, and attack. 

As she's still not aware of much of their lives outside of armageddon, she listens intently when they begin speaking about the miscellaneous aspects, which they do constantly, rarely shutting up, something that is very amusing and interesting, much different to what her stoic image of them was from the TV and merchandise. Apparently their nest was located in the city centre. “What if our hotel is full of accelerated rot? What if my supply of Quacker oats and Darjeeling tea has been purloined. Lord Flash, you don't understand, I need them.” shouts Kevin, battling with the soggy weather, like a true Englishman.

“We'll find another. We'll purchase more. First, we need to locate Kid Muscle and hangers-on.”

“They're imported! I have an account!” Kevin snaps his fingers over and over. “That's it, we need to liberate certain key locations because so far I've not been impressed by disaster response. These locations, in order of importance, are: The British imports store. Harley Davidson Shinjuku. Our gym. Our hotel. Disneyland.”

“Disneyland, Kevin?” Lord Flash glances back briefly, giving the impression of a raised eyebrow, which raises further when his student attempts to shiftily glance at him, but fails, looking very shifty indeed. Thanks to their masks, Charlotte must infer most of this, doing very well at the task, as she's never met a pair of men who are more like actors than they are like real people, every movement and expression and tic of the voice exaggerated. She imagines their brains must be chock-a-block of edgy rainbows and black unicorns.

“It's a strategic location of paramount importance. Come on, you know about strategy, Flash. That's your whole thing. That and ruining my favourite pair of trainers.”

“Hmm. To be honest, I'd rather give up on Tokyo as lost and flounce around the local countryside for a while, that is, if this debacle intends to override the Finals. This city is the worst one in which to hold undead festivities. If I wasn't constitutionally incapable of it, I might be in fear for my life. As it is, I only fear being laughed at.” the man could not sound more bored, even his most watchful gaze is half lidded.

“You and I need to visit Disney- ah, umm-” Kevin coughs, demurely. “As I was saying, we need to liberate Disneyland. Yes. For PR reasons. After that we can watch nature and fish and do whatever for as long as you like. No doubt there are plenty of children trapped under brightly coloured rubble in the theme parks.” though ordinarily stiff and inexpressive, Kevin cannot help hunching his shoulders and rubbing his hands together in muted glee, suddenly morphing into his maternal grandfather. “Kid Muscle will be forced to cease tweeting about me being a batshit insane murder-jerk if I save some children.”

“Mmm, great minds think alike, Kevin. Such a route is endlessly profitable. I myself have partaken of the tactic on numerous occasions.”

 At the junction of This Street and That, the trio are bombarded with not one chojin zombie, but three, two of them falling off a smoke obscured suspended train track where they had been fighting each other into a tie, and one barreling out through the wall of a 7-Eleven. Naturally, they make for the weakest target.

Without consulting each other, at least in verbal format, master and student lock arms, Lord Flash pivoting on one foot, swinging Kevin around and flinging him at their human donkey. Like she is a puff of meringue, that's how easily the would-be Champ picks her up, with one hand, dashing away and placing her onto a concealed and narrow lip of brick encircling a building, with only an air conditioning unit for company. “Stay there. Don't fall.” he dashes away to assist his companion. The wisdom of his strategy is evident, but that doesn't mitigate the resultant fear or stink from accumulated rotten leaves, bird carcasses, and garbage. She peeks her nose over the brick wall. 

Back in the brawl, the chojin duo continue to exhibit an almost supernatural level of cohesiveness and synchronization, though it is unlikely that ‘zombie attacks’ were something they trained for. Lord Flash leads, calmly, but with noticeable arrogance, slapping or kicking off first one head, and then a second, utilising elegant spins and leaps, seeming to have eyes in the back of his head. In the interests of good child rearing, he allows Kevin to remove the third cranium, which he does with a move that bears an extremely close resemblance to something one would see in rugby. Once the three bodies are twitching and trembling on the tarmac at their feet, the intense craftsmanship of the battle gives way a little bit to what Charlotte wouldn't have thought could be underlying it. That is, the men nervously check themselves, as well as their partner, for bites, their movements remaining deliberately slow, while their eyes dart across the body of their counterpart. She can't imagine what would happen if one of them took a hit. Of the two, she's less concerned about Kevin, who insists on wearing a ridiculous amount of thick leather, but a chojin’s bite is like a chojin’s punch.

They declare each other clean, and she's rescued, again, though not in a way a girl would dream of, as Kevin picks her up by the collar, his unused fingers held up like she's something distasteful.

                                                                                                       🧟

 With all the smoke obscuring the light, night threatens to fall fast over the megacity, with no streetlights and little neon to illuminate it, and still no Kid Muscle, chojin or zombie, has shuffled out of the artificial mist, although the trio long ago reached the library Lord Flash looted, staying to loot some more, despite Kevin's protests. 

“Girl, the children's section is over there. I left that side untouched, so I'm not sure what manner of hideous stupidity you will discover over yonder.”

“Hahaha, very funny.” Instead, Charlotte picks up animal books. 

Kevin, loath to touch a book in case doing so diminishes his street cred, sits down at a red plastic toddler's table to smoke and pretend not to be following his coach around with his eyes. 

 Once evening arrives and kicks out the afternoon, the ever present smoke diminishes to a manageable degree as the wind picks up and turns. Chojin can see well in the dark, but humans can't, once again forcing the little group to find a temporary oasis in which to wait for the sun to return after it has abandoned them to their own devices. In a city so jam-packed with buildings, this is still difficult. Noises come from nearly every possible shelter, thumps, groans, crashing. And an upstanding and hygienic chojin man needs access to great quantities of food and water, in-house if possible. They resolve to try a 'love hotel', choosing this kind of accommodation for its extremely short-term nature. One is unlikely to find them overrun, except maybe by bleary eyed salarymen. 

There's plenty of options, but Lord Flash declares that he would prefer a location somewhat apart from the rest of the sea of brick despair and flames, so a hotel perched at the end of a knife shaped piece of land bisecting a road, is the one ultimately chosen. It has the decorative bonus of having numerous smouldering husks of vehicles jutting out of its walls. The theme for this establishment is ‘sexy water buffalo’, with suggestive posters and decals of the animal in question being the only decor beyond plastic plants in plastic pots, and suspect vending machines. Backlash by her companions against the lewdness is expected by Charlotte, but her protectors ignore the disturbing content, their eyes sliding off as if oiled. No doubt they're used to it, spending so much time in Japan, as they do. 

There are a few zombies in the building, but they were human, and easily taken out with the rest of the garbage. Well, not all garbage is so easily taken out. There's gore in the staff kitchen, so vending machine snacks will have to do for supper, a supper which is incredibly tense, as every meal will be with Kevin present. Taken in a barricaded room fraught with unwholesome memories, it has first to be decided who gets to sit and sleep on the one icky double bed, who gets the single uncomfortable chair, and who has to make do with the dust ridden carpet.

“I am a man, I am older, I am chojin, I am rich, I am of higher social standing, I-”

“Your butt is too big for the chair.”

Lord Flash does not participate in the argument between the other two, instead he nimbly slides past them and takes the bed without further ado, arranging himself with self aware elegance, his jutting knees leaving little space for either human or chojin to occupy. In protest against something or other, Kevin leaves the chair to the peasants, choosing to exile himself over to the opposite corner of the room, back propped up against the colourless wall underneath the single window, from where he aims sad puppy eyes at his mentor. 

Cans of self-heating soup and coffee, along with heaps of crisps and crackers, are handed out to the teenagers by their spandex wearing mother, and Charlotte witnesses strange people eat strangely, complaining all the while. The racket of raging infernos, the constant screech of car alarms, smashing glass, and wretched moaning, continuously breaks in through cracks in the window to provide a soundtrack to dinner. 

“Brains. I'd love to know why zombies crave them. I posit the reason is similar to the way pregnant women crave soil. When I was in the library while you two were being shot at, I searched for any information on the phenomenon, in-between picking up my favourite romance novels, but I failed to discover anything useful.” Lord Flash says, his gaze launching up from his packet of crisps to pin Kevin to an illusory corkboard. The latter shudders, but not because of the mention of brains while he's eating.

“Isn't brain matter all fat? They need energy.”

“An individual brain is encased in a thick shell of bone. If calories are the goal, it's far more energy efficient to attack the midsection first, yet they don't.”

“They're dead. They are not going to win any bloody intelligence contests any time soon. Speaking of intelligence, what are the sleeping arrangements here?” very pointedly Kevin draws attention the free side of the bed by flinging an empty plastic bottle onto it. The bottle rolls, ending up resting against his trainer's foot.

“Kevin Mask, since you're so concerned, and being so patient, you're welcome to bundle yourself up at my side. I'm going to be keeping watch all night, so never fear that you'll wake up involved in some manner of awkward cuddle.”

The room heats up by a few degrees. “What! I, uh, you, er, don't need to sacrifice yourself like that. I told you I'd take a watch. I'm not prissy. I'll have you know I've spent years experiencing interrupted sleep and dream sabotage.”

“No need. I don't become fatigued in the same way you do, and I need you to be the best you can be.”

Kevin doesn't reply, but his teeth can be heard grinding together. At the thought of him having teeth, Charlotte giggles. Such a normal thing, teeth. No doubt his teeth are very pretty, in the traditional English Style. 

 Even though he'd broken character and gone seeking for an invite, and been obliged, amazingly enough, Kevin takes his sweet time actually climbing onto the bed, alleging hygiene concerns and a twisted knee as the excuse for his trepidation. “These places always have bugs. I don't want to get some kind of fungal disease from the pillow.”

A tub of athlete's foot cream is produced from a pocket of Lord Flash's jacket. He laughs and holds it up to his student like a dog treat, his eyes far, far, far too gleeful. It occurs to Charlotte that he's not quite sane. Or not quite human…Or both. 

“I once 'eard someone say that you laugh like Jack Skellington, and it's true, like.“ she says, when he tosses the cream to Kevin before mashing a passion fruit Capri-Sun against his mask, tilting his head back and contriving not to spill a single droplet. Blood red eyes cast themselves her way. The room heats up even further, and it's not entirely Kevin's doing. Lord Flash continues to drink, his throat rhythmically swallowing, saying nothing to Charlotte, but also not breaking eye contact. She decides certain chojin are the sexiest creepiest things ever. In his corner, Kevin grizzles, less bear and more baby. 

Exhaustion and the heated environment causes the chair and lack of a blanket to make little difference to Charlotte's ability to fall asleep, and she's dozing by the time Kevin climbs onto the bed, where he enters a prone position, face down and stiff. Snores begin to escape from him within a couple minutes. Once he's asleep, Lord Flash puts down the bible he found in his bedside table, getting up swiftly and with laser focus. Watching him through almost closed eyes, Charlotte witnesses him first strip his charge of his coat, gloves and boots, which Kevin had kept on for some reason, before going over to a cupboard, pulling down all the hideously coloured, synthetic fibre blankets from inside. Most of these go to carefully insulating the Chosen One, but some of them go to her, Lord Flash displaying the efficiency and ruthlessness of a Victorian nanny when he wraps her up. Acknowledging the caring action feels too daring for her to do, at least while it's only her and him awake, she isn't so quick to trust as all that, so she pretends to be asleep, while doubting that she's fooling anyone. Whether or not she does fool him, Lord Flash requires no acknowledgement, and once done he returns to his book.

                                                                                                      🧟

 Nearby in the Nesting Doll City, everything's on fire, battling the rain, vast walls of blazing oranges and reds block off street after street, shuffling silhouettes are back-lit by the flames. It's staggeringly hot and difficult to breathe, the viewing distance greatly limited by thick, billowing smoke and steam. It's a lite version of rotten, corpse filled hell. Down one of these inferno lined avenues, shambles a mixed pack of young chojin and humans, very unwisely still out at night.

“What would Meat do in this situation?” Kid Muscle asks no one, before slowly frowning, then quickly looking hither and thither, almost breaking Trixie's nose by application of a flailing arm. That would be disastrous, as it's her pretty face and flirting abilities that have kept them all safe from random bullet storms. They've been walking around and around in circles for what seems like days. The hospital was supposed to be right here . “Are we sure he's not with us? I've never gone this long by myself without him coming to spoil my fun.”

“You're a big dummy, Kid!”

“Nah ah!”

“Yeah ah!”

“Nah ah!”

Terry, tired of so much shit, sighs. “Wally's a zombie by the way.”

“Yeah. And? You say that like it's a bad thing. He's living his best life.”

 

Chapter 9: 🎩Bobby Dazzler🎩

 Sometime during the night, the generator cuts off. A bit of a bugger because Charlotte, huddled up in a chair hugging her pink penguin toy, wakes up during that night finding she needs something from the suspect vending machine. While Kevin is not a good choice in any situation when it comes to asking someone for help, Charlotte must ask him because of the two men, he is the one she is least afraid of, despite his constant assertions of villainy. Approaching him while he's sitting cross legged on the bed, eating a very early breakfast, she discovers that his helmet is still black, having suffered the effects of a stupendous blush perpetrated by its owner when he woke up to discover that he'd been cuddling one of his coach’s thick legs, wrapped around it in fact, and the man whose leg it was, had done nothing about this catastrophe to end all catastrophes, turning a page of his romance novel and looking down at his student with marked and malicious amusement. Ever since then Kevin has been experiencing bouts of recurrent flushing, muttering darkly about evil little men. 

He's muttering as Charlotte carefully approaches him across an increasingly soggy carpet, her hands held out in readiness to raise them, muttering about Lord Flash while still sat pressed up beside him, seemingly deaf to the nasty tittering that attends every one of his statements. The more excessive and slanderous his comments become, the more his partner giggles. Charlotte decides that neither chojin is quite sane, which would explain their unlikely association, as well as the various well published antics they've gotten up to, antics she once used to follow avidly. “Kevin, can you ‘elp me with a vendin' machine? I need somethin’ but the power's out, like.” 

“What?” he looks across at his bedside table, on which sits a cluster of unfortunately shaped candles, courtesy of the drawer. Their red light dances across the hot pink walls and water buffalo murals. “No it's not. Leave me.“

“Why are you so unkind suddenly?“

“What are you talking about? I'm always unkind.”

“You were slightly less unkind for about five minutes. Just by coincidence, around about the time Lord Flash was off browsin' the library.”

“That had best not be some sort of allusion to Flash being a bad influence on me and the entire world. I'm sick and tired of hearing it. You think I don't know he's a bad influence? Why else would I keep him around? Certainly not because he fills my devastatingly deep emotional needs for a father-brother-friend. You're not my mother. My mother would never bite me.” although there is little chance he was actually hurt, little chance he can still feel the bite, Kevin rubs at the side of his helmet where the ear Charlotte bit would be, a small whine lodged in his throat. “If this were peace time, you'd be summarily executed for daring to lift my mask, let alone for biting my precious face. I'd tell on you to Daddy.“

“We were gonna die. You were dreamin'.”

“Lord Flash was right there! He would've saved us. Eventually. How dare you. How very dare you. The impertinence! Don't think I'll forget about this. I'll sulk forever, I'm warning you.”

“I didn't know that ‘e was right there. No one's usin’ their phones, and anyways, ‘e looks like the type who wouldn't give out ‘is number to anyone except celebs.”

“SLANDER!!“ Kevin's roar pushes the human back a few feet, her hand reaching out to hold onto a curtain for balance, a curtain which shrouds a false window, a window decal. 

Lifting both legs off the bed, Lord Flash stands, face still glued to his book, which, going by the cover, is a real bodice ripper of the old school. “Girl, I will assist you with this theoretical machine.”

Kevin makes a noise in his throat as if dying, horribly. 

 The corridor, despite being lightly cleaned yesterday, is back to displaying high levels of garbage, which sit in piles, making for a lumpy, careful walk to the bank of vending machines in Reception. Displaying the gentlemanliness for which he is always congratulating himself, Lord Flash takes Charlotte's hand to steady her, wrapping frighteningly strong, eerily hard fingers around her small, soft ones, all of which makes her feel as if she's been dropped in the ocean with a great white shark, without the benefit of a cage. It's there somewhere, but she can see nothing. 

She'd prefer to punch and shake the suspect vending machine for half an hour rather than tell him what she's after, assuming he's going to make some sort of shitty remark, as befits his personality, but no, he doesn't force her to tell him that she needs period pads, instead making her stand back while he punches the glass into itsy bitsy pieces. Embarrassment begins now though, because he stares intently while she scrambles around plucking the items she wants out of the guts of the machine, attempting to obscure his view with her body. 

“Hmm, I suppose we should loot the next pharmacy we come across. No doubt you two will contrive more ways to hurt yourselves, and I'm willing to bet Kid Muscle and company, should we locate them, will require extensive patching up. It will be amusing if antibiotics and rubbing alcohol are all that is required to ward off zombification.” he says, eyes open far too wide. 

“Isn't Meat in a 'ospital?“ shit, now she has to carry these things back with her. However, Lord Flash continues to say nothing about it, so she decides he's definitely over thirty years old, and maybe not as bad as all that. Either that or he's such a chauvinist, that he genuinely has not the faintest clue as to the existence of periods. Either way, he gains another Humanity Point. 

“Allegedly. But hospitals are known zones of infection, and I don't wish to spend any more time in their maze of corridors than need be. In fact, I would much prefer to leap through the window into his room, rather than enter by the door.”

“You're weird.”

“Da, I mean, yesss.”

                                                                                                         🧟

 Another half hour of Kevin sulking goes by. It's pretty obvious what's going on now that he pointed it out, but before he did it seemed like he was simply being his usual morose, stoic self. Nope, now bitterly angry eyes keep darting her way. Nope, not only bitterly angry, more like curious, yet deeply ashamed at the same time. Those sorts of mixed looks from Kevin's sort of young man are all too familiar to Charlotte, and while some of the girls she knew could discover and mine some small vein of satisfaction from them, she never could, there's too much caustic contempt involved. It doesn't matter if a guy thinks your body is attractive, if he thinks the rest of you is vile garbage he wouldn't dare mention to his shoeshine boy. Upset that Kevin should prove no more equal to his upbringing than any equally privileged human, Charlotte avoids looking at him, adding a gust of sadness to the cloud of pique and malice in the room. 

Peace cannot remain unbroken forever, and rowdy voices, some of them distinctly empty of IQ points, batter at the walls, crawl in through the tiny gaps left by the still burning cars stuck in the love hotel's walls, entering in with cockroaches and oily smoke to irritate aristocratic eardrums and nostrils. “Foooood.” they moan, arms reaching for the already looted bank of vending machines. As no one can possibly mistake at least one of those voices, the men of the househotel reveal themselves without applying violence.

“Kid, just the, uh, character we were looking for.“ Lord Flash takes the lead, lest Kevin spout something disagreeable, which he is sure to do. However, the sight of a pair of evil, blood red eyes set in a bone white mask, during a zombie outbreak, attacks Kid's nerves in the most abominable fashion. Screaming, he backs out of the gap he was crawling through, battering his surviving friends to the ground, as well as attracting a horde. With nothing to do but fight, Kevin and partner pull open the door, pluck the girls they find on the other side, through it, and slam it again, a prissy voice ordering them to bar it back up, unless they wish to suffer gruesome deaths forthwith. None of them is stupid so, after exchanging glances with Charlotte, they do as they're told, even managing to use their combined strength to shove a vending machine into place as a barricade. With that done, Charlotte jerks a thumb at the room she emerged from, whose door they barricade likewise. The sound of moaning en masse grows louder and louder, combined with Kid’s frantic shrieks. It's the latter that destabilises the three newcomers, and none of them are afraid to acknowledge the fact in the moment, crying and lamenting that they weren't kinder to him. Perfectly aware of who they are, Charlotte says nothing, keeping to herself in the opposite back wall corner, the corner Kevin also decided was the best one. 

The battle is extremely difficult to follow from inside, apart from the yelps and shouts Kid and a couple of the other guys make, most of the sound takes the form of liquid slaps, moaning, and crashing. It moves away too, retreating down the road, up or down, who knows. 

“Will they be okay?“ someone asks. 

“Oh God.” someone responds. 

 It could be minutes, it could be hours, but eventually the sound of a body or bodies attempting to push through the barricades, breaks in. Leaping to their feet, all the girls rush out to Reception, picking up lamps, chairs, or whatever is on hand to use for makeshift weapons. As the only adult in his right mind currently located within Minato City, Lord Flash uses his words to appraise the hotel's inmates of the situation while still on the other side of the door, not that that stops Roxanne from whacking Kid with a lamp the instant he shows his blood splattered face. 

“I’m okay, Roxy, don't cry! Prince Charming-” 

“Shut up, idiot! How have you not learnt your lesson! How I regret saving your fat arse. Why does Flash torture me in this way. I'd rather the whole world go up in flames than have to deal with you.” a glove-covered hand clamps itself over Kid's big mouth, Kevin scarcely using any lower a tone of voice than his rival. Shoving the younger man into a corner full of a growing number of inexplicably dead rodents, he stomps past into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. The rest of the viscera drenched survivors, those being Terry, Checkmate and Dik Dik, enter Reception, the blood imbuing their clothes weighing them down in ghastly fashion, the latter chojin being mercilessly shoved forward by Lord Flash when he baulks at the cockroach menace. 

“Smashing, human sacrifices secured. Now all that's left is to locate the requisite hospital. What was the name? I'm afraid I didn't note it down. Nor did I watch the news clip.” steepling his fingers in mid air like some sort of flamboyant mastermind on a working holiday, Lord Flash cracks his neck as he turns his head to stare fixedly at each of the male newcomers in turn, ignoring the girls even when Trixie gives him an answer, even when Kiki gives him the correct answer. It's only when Terry parrots that answer, that he considers himself to have been furnished with the required information. It's a ludicrous interaction, and an insulting one at that considering what it says about his opinions on the fair sex, but Charlotte smiles nonetheless, feeling oddly gratified. She accidentally catches his eye, which is bad enough, but then he winks, and she has to face the wall, fearing the heat from her face might peel the paint…or is it wallpaper? Do people even paper their walls anymore? When did we start living in bare stone cells? 

“Hey, why’d you say ‘human sacrifices’ man? That's kinda sus.” climbing to his feet, Kid brushes rat carcasses off his clothes, peering around at his friends like they're going to call him a pervert for finding himself in a love hotel. 

One scarlet iris remains focused on Charlotte, while the other slides away to stare at Kid. “I said no such thing.”

“You totally did! I heard you.”

“You are mistaken, and likely retarded.”

“Ah!” Kid's jaw drops aaaaall the way down, bottom lip grazing the manky floor. Looking to his companions, he seeks support. “You heard him right, guys? He didn't even whisper it! And he was doing the evil pyramid hand pose thing.” Kid attempts to pull off the classic ‘world leader involved in a conspiracy’ hand sign, but fails, his friends gazing at him with profound pity, before the girls turn away in disgust. That puts down any chance he has of proving his thesis, although for the next half hour he continues to insist to Lord Flash that he said what he said, his tone more and more pathetic each time, until an especially potent death glare finally shuts him up. 

                                                                                                        🧟

 Until the sun comes up, no one can safely move around with humans in tow, so people he doesn't like must necessarily coexist in close contact with Kevin, but as Kid wants nothing to do with him, the strangers take over the bedroom next door, where even though they are also present for a zombie fandango, and much less well off, they sound like they're having a much better time than Kevin is. Being chojin in a cheap, dodgy hotel with thin walls, both Kid and Kevin can hear what unflattering things the other boy is saying about him, and were it not for resident thirty year old, Lord Flash, and honorary thirty year old, Terry, they would draw more hordes down on themselves by incessantly yelling at each other. In tandem, the American and the part-time Brit ensure quiet reigns. 

“Take this opportunity to eat and sleep, as befits fleshy organisms.“ declares Lord Flash to the Texan, not able to display a smirk thanks to his mask, but heavily implying it anyway. 

“Um, thanks. Hey, so, you put Meat in the hospital, ya crazy Russkie, so why are you tryna help break him out of it now?” Terry says, keeping the door open only far enough to allow one half of his face to be seen, leaving Lord Flash standing in the corridor with his hands on his hips. 

“I did not put him in the hospital. Did you see me touch him? No. I didn't move at all.”

“You had Kevin drop a plane on his head.”

“It wasn't a plane, it was a robot who could turn into a plane. And he didn't drop him, he threw him, and Meat got in the way. Also, I didn't order Kevin to, uh, make such a statement.” although he would never lower himself to speaking as if annoyed by the lower intelligence of the person he was speaking to, Lord Flash still manages to convey the distinct impression that he is not impressed.

“You signed off on it.”

“And?”

“...Why are you helping us?“

“I'm a card carrying Justice Leaguer, unlike some people. I've been involved with major heroics for the last several decades. I'm interested in saving things, reputations, primarily.”

“That's not a good enough answer.”

Lord Flash's eyes widen, and then he throws his head back and cackles. Terry closes the door on him, with a soft click. 

Chapter 10: 🪓Compiling Shaders🏨

Summary:

Whumptober Prompts 02 and 03: 'Trust Issues' and 'Set Up For Failure'.

 “Be the cancer you want to see in the world. That's what my dad always told me.” mutters Kid to himself, and anyone who will listen. Since he's at the back of the troupe trekking along the watery streets towards Target: Hospital, no one will listen. 

Looking up from his waterlogged shoes (old trainers and not high wrestling boots, unfortunately) he narrows his eyes at the slim and shapely backs of the girls, all of whom are clustered around the trenchcoated form of his arch-enemy, despite Kevin supposedly currently being persona non grata to the Gang. It's true, what they say about beauty and charisma allowing their bearer to get away with literal murder. It's not at all fair, but he supposes Kevin does suffer from the blessing as much as he benefits from it. No one looks below his shining surface, no matter how grungy he makes it, and everyone attempts (and fails) to hang around him because of ulterior motives. It's not really surprising that he's such a prickly mess. 

The pair of people the edgy celeb is begrudgingly tolerating, are not cut from the same cloth, even Kid can see that, even apart from the differences in sex and status. The girl's a funny speaking cutey, but most girls are funny and cute in the Prince's eyes, and he wishes he had the opportunity to save a girl and have her be eternally indebted to him, the latter bit specifically. While they were wandering in circles hopelessly, most survivors ran away from him and his homies, even after they saved them. They must not have the right look or something. 

Now, Lord Flash, that's, yes that's, another story. A much more deadly and cunning story than Kevin's, and he is the reason why Kid doesn't trust either of them. Once upon a time, Kid liked the strange trainer, liked him quite a lot. Sure, he was stoic and odd, odd even for a chojin, but also warmish and comforting when he wished to be…but then he had Kevin drop a robot-plane-whatever, on his coach's head. Not cool. Very not cool. No doubt he has similar nefarious, cheating plans for the Finals, if they ever happen. Kid frowns, his narrowed eyes sliding down the man's body. Again, he's absurdly good looking, in a different, more crass, blatant, insecure, and some might say lower class, way to his partner. Kevin goes about projecting his allure subtly, resentfully, but his trainer uses a battering ram to scream 'I'm hot, listen to me!'.

After thinking about it for a bit while struggling along in increasingly wet and heavy jeans, Kid decides he prefers being ugly and uncool - much easier to tell who's a genuinely kind and authentic person that way. A wave of gratitude for his friends makes a huge grin carve itself across his mask. Very big doubt that they have put up with him this long merely out of hope for personal gain from his royal status. 

 Murky bilge water continues to rise. Rise, not fall. It pours out of porta potties, and vomits forth from the mouths of storm drains, then goes on to lift fifty kilogrammes worth of manhole cover out of the ground. Whoopsie, the immense underground discharge channel that exists like a secret municipal cathedral underneath Tokyo, may or may not be in trouble. Surely the enormous pumps are connected to equally enormous generators? It's not something Kid ever took the time to worry about, and with an adult present and another incoming, he doesn't worry about it now. If there were really a problem, beyond the unscheduled zombie apocalypse, someone would say something and tell him that it's time to freak out. 

Why has this particular apocalypse happened anyways? Angrily and anxiously beating the sand out of a dummy in a darkened shed was what he had been doing when he heard there was to be an invasion of the undead, and it was only due to being made suspicious by the uncharacteristic and aggressive touchy-feely behaviour of a pair of women, that he was eventually clued into something not bring quite right. 

When they attempted to bite his throat out, he further realised there was trouble afoot.

“Hey, guys, the Tower's not far from here. And after that is the Skytree. Why don't we go have a squiz?” he trills.

Up at the head of the column, Kevin answers immediately, his voice switching between a high pitched shriek of anxiety, and a low rumbling growl of menace. “Whatever-bloody-for?! Why would I willingly trap myself up a tall, rickety, metal contraption? I can't fly, you know, Daddy never bothered to teach me. Probably because he knew that otherwise I'd fly the nest at age two. Buggering heck…but I shall take great delight in finding out whether your father taught you, Kid.”

The rant loses much of its bite due to Kevin failing to turn around, so Kid responds with brittle cheerfulness. “To have a look around. That's what they do in the movies. We'll see something maybe. Something plot relevant.”

No one responds, the splish splosh of water loudly competing with alarms of all kinds, the thunder of rain, the roar of fire, the moaning of…the moaning of?!

Kid had been told of the existence of a Plan, but hadn't listened to the details, so when Terry and Checkmate go into battle formation, and the girls cower in the centre of the group with their arms over their heads, Kid is confused for a moment. Belatedly, upon spinning around with Kevin's enraged bellowing in his ear, he realises he's supposed to do something with the wall of dead flesh rushing at his back. 

What he does is attempt to run away, but the love of his life, Roxanne, trips him up, dunking him into the water that completely covers the street they had been marching down, removing him totally from the rotten senses of the undead.

With that sorted, his male friends use the Powers of Adrenaline and Extreme Fear, to achieve a level of skill most haven't displayed since their Hercules Factory days. It helps that no chojin zombie pesters them, and all they need to do is knock fragile human skulls off fragile human necks while making sure no girl gets mowed down.

Less cool are the dog zombies, who bark only when just about to snap their bony jaws around a soft calf or forearm. Trixie almost dies at this point, but Checkmate, in knight form, gets in the way of a leaping, dead doberman, the animal corpse snapping harmlessly at his tail, before having its skull shattered by one kick of a diamond hard hoof. Another dog's back leg is caught by Dik Dik, who flings it against and through the wall of a nearby building.

“Zero damage. Nice job, idiot.”

“What are you talking about? It's dead!”

Oh, so you think you're tough shit, do you? Have some birds. Kid lifts his head out of the street river in time to notice a peculiar noise interfering with the general cacophony. The furious, demonic hollering of possessed avians. A black cloud darts through smoke and mist, through fire and rain, stabbing at itself and the zombies just by the by, but aiming for the little group of living persons. Certain zombification flies abroad on feathered wings, can't fight a mass of tiny tennis ball sized foes without someone taking at least one hit. 

But that is when Kevin not only gives an exhibition of his little credited intelligence, but also of his slumbering selflessness. Without making a big fuss, or any fuss at all, he strips himself of his precious coat, wincing slightly when he removes his injured arm from its sleeve, darting a brief glance at his partner to let him know the plan, before whirling the heavy, durable leather around his head so fast that it thrums like a helicopter blade, decimating the rain with the cyclone of air that it generates, as well as decimating the flock of birds, some of which evade the blows of wet air, but not the hideous slap of the coat. More intelligent and malicious then most other breeds of zombie, and also more hungry for easy pickings, they make off for another group of survivors. 

                                                                                                          🧟‍♀️

A building like a red pencil eraser or cheese grater lying on its side, turns out to be the chojin hospital they're looking for. Approached from the back, where it butts onto a narrow street, it appears quiet and abandoned, but the gleeful grin in their leader's eyes says that he expects to encounter opposition. Ordering them into the underground parking, which is a much more quiet location than outside, but flooded on the lower levels, he calls a meeting om the landing of a stairwell. 

“The generators are no longer operational, so neither will be the computer system. Since it will likely take more time to search for physical files than it will to physically search the rooms on the correct ward, it is the latter which we will doing. Some of you may die, or turn into zombies and be put down, but since it will not be Kevin and, ahem, other relevant parties that suffer such a fate, I find this to be an acceptable risk to take.” says Lord Flash, looking excessively scary in the light of the torch he's holding under his chin, huge jagged spikes thrown across the ceiling above his head. 

For no reason at all, he conspicuously stares at Charlotte, and then conspicuously attempts to hide that he did. If she didn't have so many fresh memories of his numerous and varied murderous inclinations towards her, she might think things about this other than that he's once again attempting to pull a fast one. As it is, she blushes, twice, once for his look, and once upon realising that Kevin, standing opposite her, observed his look…Is his helmet a teensy bit blacker than it was a second ago? Surely not. They are standing in deep gloom after all. 

Unaware that the three principal characters are attempting to noodle themselves into a love triangle of sorts, the side characters fail to notice the teen melodrama going on, and ask Lord Flash numerous questions. 

“Can't someone climb up the outside of the building and peer into every window to find Meat's room?”

“Certainly. Nominate a suitable candidate.”

“...”

“That's what I thought.”

“Can't you do it? You're old. You have strong legs.”

“...”

“Everyone and their mother can see how thicc your thighs are. You can definitely do it, man.”

If there had been previously been no intention to sacrifice one or more of them to his desire to maintain a certain brave, ruthless, and competent reputation, Lord Flash's death glare would say that the intention is now set to ‘on’. 

“What? I thought that was the point of yoga pants?” says Kid.

“Kid Muscle, Mantaro, Moron, whatever is your name, you shall be leading the strike team.”

“But I'm garbaaage?! Ask Kev, he'll tell you so. I thought that's why I was rearguard?”

Evil scarlet eyes narrow evilly, no attempt, or faux attempt to hide, made. “Exactly!”

 While the group is preparing themselves for the medical onslaught, Charlotte finds herself isolated slightly, finds herself outside the circle of torchlight, with a massive humanoid form stepping between her and potential salvation, its hands in its pockets.

Glowing yellow eyes, despite their glaring, calm her down.

“You okay.” Kevin can unbend a huge amount in order to ask the question, but not unbend enough to actually apply the required question mark. The question emerges as a statement borne on a peevish tone, but if Charlotte had known him for longer, the mere statement alone would be utterly astounding to her. 

As it is, it's ordinarily astounding to her, enough that she gapes at him, which, added to the overall social situation he's forced to endure, makes him nervous enough to bark an addendum in a much more aggressive tone. “Flash said you hurt yourself ridiculously and-” He glances over his shoulder, but no one other than the aforementioned is staring at him. “-and he patched you up and gave you something for it!”

More statements. If they weren't about to enter a warren of narrow corridors and sick zombies in search of a man who is likely dead, it would be cute, maybe. “Aye to most of that. ‘Ow are you, luv? You were shot. Twice. I guess you were given drugs too?”

“I only take drugs because Flash tells me to. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. I don't need them, shot or not.”

“Okay. Um, it's good that you're so obedient.”

Kevin's voice drops lower and lower as his looks over his shoulder increase and increase. “No, I'm not bloody obedient! Who do you think I am? Do you have eyes? I'm Kevin Mask!? I listen to my coach-manager-partner-flatmate because I want to win. Otherwise I wouldn't pay attention to a single bloody thing he says! He effing lies!”

“You should probably listen to some of what ‘e says. ‘E knows stuff. Much more than ‘e lets on, and ‘e lets on about quite a bit, I reckon, for shits and giggles.”

“I know! I know he does! I live with him, okay? You think I don't know about the giggling? The constant giggling and cackling? Does the world consider my head to be a brick wall or something? I'm pretty, not deaf. I listen to every single word he utters, and journal abou-and j-” Kevin's voice gets tangled up in the threshing blades of his brain, becoming too mangled to continue. Yellow balls of ocular fire blaze brighter, leaving trails behind them as their owner spins, turns his back on Charlotte, and returns to the group.

                                                                                                         🧟‍♀️

 Hospital invasions are something chojin usually do by lying on stretchers wheeled through the doors by medical staff, so Lord Flash's strategy is a novel one. It involves simply strolling through a staff door, bypassing reception, and skipping a couple floors by winding up one of those stairwells with too wide, plastic edged steps that provoke strong existential dread. 

And also provoke strong injury due to the amount of waste products and viscera scattered about.

Even though they get in the way, the girls can't be placed in the back of the column, because at any moment something might leap out of of the rooms they pass, or stagger around a corner, or fall out of a ceiling, or break through a floor, or clamber over a desk. As threatened, Kid leads the charge, with Kevin and Lord Flash behind him, Checkmate and Terry covering the rear. This arrangement aggrieves the ego of the middle child, Dik Dik.

“I'm assuming, by the fact that I'm in the middle, that you believe me to be the least valuable player, Mr Sir Lord Flash? Akin to a woman? The LVP, you might say? I find that highly-”

“Da.” replies Lord Flash, in a more gruff voice than usual, his eyes wide open and scanning every which way, lingering on the centre of plain white doors printed with the shape of red hands, and peering through narrow strips of cracked glass, before moving on.

Numerous zombies did infest the building, and undeath had made all of them, whether patient or nurse, much more lively than they were a few days ago when the world was normal. Most of them were chojin zombies. Now, this fact would ordinarily guarantee at least one member of the group suffering final disintegration, but chojin zombies are flying stomachs, and most of the ‘surviving’ former patients had flown away after eating each other and the nurses, leaving only a few still using the building as a roost. 

Unfortunately, one of these was a chojin known to all members of the group, but especially to our two leading men. In the dramatic, Spanish soap opera way of chojin, after encountering them on a bad and or good day, Comrade Turbinski had a long convalescence ahead of him, despite being a robot, and naturally he would be a patient at a Tokyo hospital, so as to be nearby to hiss and boo Kevin in the Finals. Equally naturally, he has become a zombie, a robot zombie, and upon turning a painfully sharp corner into the ward they assume Meat to be located within, the group spy the shape shifting giant shuffling around at the bottom of the corridor, his reattached plane-wing arms set to ‘slice’. 

Matching sweat drops appear on the temples of Kevin's and Lord Flash's masks, their eyes also matching each other for sudden brightening and then narrowing. Everyone present takes some sort of schadenfreude type pleasure from the pair of bullies being confronted by their now much more dangerous victim…until they remember that that pair of bullies are their main source of protection. The resulting cognitive dissonance creates numerous headaches.

“This is worse than a child.” Kevin mutters, another bead of cold sweat joining the first. 

“WHAT?” shrieks Kid, turning around to stare into his rival's face. “WHAT'S THAT, KE-”

Lord Flash doesn't need to silence the dolt, because Kid's friends take on that burden for him, but it's too late of course, and Comrade Zombie makes some disgusting sound, jerking first his head, and then his body their way. Oil drips, and mechanical bits and pieces fall from him with every movement, pinging and bonging and rolling across the shiny blue floor. 

“Honestly, have some dignity, man!” huffs Lord Flash, looking contemptuously at the nuts and bolts littering the ground, before rolling his eyes, repeatedly. “Outrageous. Youth these days. Must always follow the crowd. What happened to individualism? It's simply not found anymore. Anyway, Kid Muscle, I do believe it's your time to shine. After all that yapping you did at Kevin and I, let's see how you do.” it goes to show how stressful and composure shattering a zombie cataclysm really is, because he goes so far as to shove Kid forward. 

“Qwhat? How am I supposed to fight him? There's no ring!”

The slap-clang of metal boots herald the rapid approach of a giant robot. 

“Use your martial arts. Surely your martial arts do not require a wall of rope in order to be effective?”

Slap-slap-slap!

“Homie! Duuuude ! I don't know who needs to tell you this, but your guy needs ropes in order to pull off some of his moves! I need the bounce of the mat for mine. I am a white man, or Asian…whatever, I cannot jump. Neither can Kevin, but he's a fairy.”

The girls, and Dik-Dik, dodge into an empty room.

“Kevin can beat up whomever he wants, wherever he wants. As can I. Although I prefer the more simple and elegant solution of sudden stabbing-”

Kevin and the guys rush past Kid and Lord Flash.

“My guuuuy! Do you want to die or not, bro?! Cause I think we're in a situation!”

 Eight layers of irony and trauma later, Comrade Turbinski (and part of a wall) has become many little pieces on the floor, and on the street below, oily glass forming a worse version of Lego for the survivors to tread on. Heaving deep breathes, neither Kevin nor anyone else says anything. At least not until a feminine scream compels them to rush into the private room the girls are sheltering in, where they discover Dik-Dik attempting to fend off a old zombie woman with an IV stand. 

                                                                                                         🧟‍♀️

 Meat is not within the maze of a hospital. No, he's too smart for that, instead, he's discovered on the roof after a bolt of brilliance strikes Checkmate. Unlike a certain character from a certain film, he has not suffered unduly from being exposed to the elements, because he used a jutting lip of brick as a barrier, moved whenever necessary, and darted back inside the stairwell when the rain got too heavy. Time has not been wasted, he's the only one who has even attempted to use his phone to contact higher powers, and that is how the group find him, eyes scrunched up, a finger pressed to one hidden ear, the other listening to a robot voice announcing that the number he is attempting to contact, doesn't exist.

Notes:

Brah, that moment, 15 years later, when you realise Warsman as Lord Flash, cheated his way to victory with Kevin.

- First, in the two-legged heat, by being a chojin and Legendary chojin to boot.

-Second, when he had Kevin toss Turbinski to the ground, certainly knowing Meat would do something stupid.

-Third, when he got in the way of the Mach Pulveriser, then lied about it.

Also received special treatment when Kevin was about to be disqualified after his stupidity in the sauna.

Chapter 11: 👽Doomer-Clown Hybrid🤡

 Taking his finger out of his ear and opening his eyes when he feels the reverberating thud of heavy bodies on the roof, Meat looks up without either alarm or surprise at the sight that awaits him, speaking as if his thought is the one that occupies all minds. “We need to contact Robin at all costs.” 

Likewise, Lord Flash wastes no breath on hellos and how are yous. “Uh, no, we don't. I'm having too much fun, er, I mean, I'm barely holding Kevin and these other creatures back from throwing themselves headfirst into the line of fire of every EDF detachment we come across. Attempting to phone home on top of that will result in certain annihilation. Right now Robin Mask is too dramatic for this situation.”

Meat blinks, his glasses making his eyes appear far larger than they are. “Excuse me?”

Lord Flash continues, his already painfully straight posture, straightening further. The eyes of some of those standing behind him, shift downwards, eyebrows consequently rising. “It's about time we constructed a new society. I already have it all planned out. You, Meat, shall retake your original role of seen-but-not-heard mascot. I shall be Chief, um, strategist, minus the continuous, irritating jobbing I suffer from now. Kevin will be Cerberus. The women will be women. The other roles can be unveiled later.“

“...’Scuse me?”

“What is so difficult to understand?”

The pair of trainers continue to speak past each other while their individual charges gaze around nervously, their rooftop view only contributing to their unease. The city is still full of zombies and fire. It's also flooding, geysers of effluent blowing manhole covers hundreds of feet into the air. Often, these come down on zombies, but often they don't. 

“We need to contact Robin.”

“No, we don't.”

“Yes, we do. How else are we supposed to know what to do? Before the power cut out, the TV said over and over again that there was a zombie outbreak. A zombie outbreak is not part of my usual repertoire. Honestly, Flash, you concern me. You seem to think this is a drill.” the all-over look Meat gives his rival says that he's far more than merely ‘concerned’ about him.

“Fortunately, Meat, not all of us are manlet midwits. I have already informed you of what we need to do, but you are welcome to toddle off and locate a payphone if your mobile continues to fail to work. Be sure to relate to Robin in great detail how I rescued you.” and with that, Lord Flash turns on his heel to face his wrestler. “Come now Kevin, let us investigate the Palace.” his eyes slide sideways and down. “Come now, girl.”

Kevin's eyes widen, the urge to double-cross is strong, but he resists. “What? We're just going to abandon, I mean, leave these losers after all that effort? Meat can barely stand, let alone walk.”

“Da, what is the problem?”

“They'll perish five feet from this building.”

“With their coach returned to them, that'll be entirely their own fault. I have provided for their continued survival as well as is humanly possible. Come, let us loot the medical supplies and cafeteria, and then leave.”

As the resident antihero slash antivillain, Kevin glares at each of the group in turn, his gaze stuttering when it reaches the girls, and collapsing when it reaches one girl in particular. After clearing his throat, he raises his eyes to stare into his trainer's. “We can't leave them, Kid will do something stupid that makes necessary my superior training, firepower, and breeding. Think about the safety in numbers angle, old boy. This way one of the others stands a good chance of taking a bite meant for one of us.”

“Hmm, you make a good point, Kevin. They do require superior breeding. Mine happens to be better than yours even, as you may have noticed.”

“Also, err, you can't restart society without girls, if you know I mean.”

“No.”

“Err, so what do you want women for then?”

“Dishes.”

A couple feet from the pair, the three girlfriends of Kid Muscle ponder, their eyes like shards of volcanic rock, shards which dig themselves into Kevin's back. “Huh, he's really gonna say all that out loud, is he? What happened to Nice Guy Kevin Mask? I want Nice Guy Kevin Mask back. Never mind Lord Flash though, he was always sorta mean. And weird.” says Roxy, her arms crossing while she observes the Dreadful Duo and listens to their very loud discussion.

“Nice Guy Kevin Mask gets his ass handed to him though. We don't need Nice Guys in a zombie apocalypse, they'll hold us back. They'll try and talk-no-jutsu with the undead, and cry, and we'll all die.” 

“Hmm. I guess?”

Clapping his hands, Meat startles his people, and to a lesser extent, Kevin and Company. “So, a payphone it is then. We need Robin. We need Robin right now. He'd better not be dead. I would ring the King, but he's not so good over the phone.”

Spinning back around in an eerily stiff manner, Lord Flash restrains himself from clapping back, but the urge to do so can be seen strongly burning in his eyes. “You mean he's not so good at planning. Or much else beyond eating, and failing to sire and raise a functioning chojin. But first, we loot. I see your clutch of barely hatched chicks are spontaneously developing injuries without even coming into contact with an adversary. You and I will have to see to that. Or just you.”

                                                                                                             🧟‍♀️

 Looting takes a few hours, as the hospital was disorganised to begin with, and only became more so when its staff changed from dancing queens, into shuffling nightmares. Because there are still unknown dangers present, and because no one wants to acknowledge the Turbinski zombie, a quiet descends over the activities of scavenging medication and supplies, and then the application of that medication and supplies to the Gang. Since two of his own charges have been shot and or battered, Lord Flash checks up on them, applying more opioids to the situation. 

“Here, baby's first morphine gummy. And here, girl, a pill.”

“Why is chojin morphine a brightly coloured teddy gummy while the human version is a pill?“

“Kevin, I know you are an intelligent, fairly self-aware lad. Please, do the maths.”

“...Chojin aren't boring?”

                                                                                                            🧟‍♀️

 “I miss the blue skies. Why is it always so cloudy now? It's lame.”

“That's smoke, Kid.”

“It's lame.” 

After filling their backpacks with worthwhile crap, the group shambled back up to the roof of the hospital, then off via the fire escape, which Kid broke halfway down, dropping himself on his own head, as well as providing yet another opportunity for his rival to look cool and badass by saving the girls from a multi floor fall. Quite naturally, Kevin did not save the boys, so now Kid's friends nurse sprained ankles and venomous looks, which they liberally apply to their inglorious Delft porcelain-looking leader. The trainers needed no saving, but they are both mutually concerned by the slight decrease in the efficiency of available manpower, their heads on a swivel as they herd their charges down a street towards the closest payphone. Ordinary zombies turned scuba divers, constantly emerge from the water that has turned the streets into noxious rivers and streams. 

When a payphone is located, the obnoxiously green object is found behind a still intact sheet of glass with pretty cartoon designs stuck on it. These distract the girls, and most of the boys, acting as a momentary babysitter for Meat as he darts behind the glass. Forgoing use of his phone card, which doesn't apply in electrical outages, he digs coins out of his superhero briefs. 

“Green phone, purdy glass!“ drools Kid, all over the divider, making the girls go ‘ew!‘

“Man, why is Kid an idiot?“ says somebody. 

“God, I hope Daddy doesn't pick up. He'll 'wonder' why I haven't solved world hunger yet.” mutters Kevin, his hands deep in his pockets. “I would have solved world hunger already if I weren't dehydrated. God, bullets, give me at least one.“

“I wonder if the zombies are goin' to evolve soon. I wonder if we'll ‘ave zombie engineers and zombie big boys.” says Charlotte, to herself. She stands so close to Kevin that their sleeves are touching. Absolutely astounding development here. Pure romance. Such is the power of a good crisis. 

“Evolution isn't real.” quips Lord Flash, his eyes rolling down and sideways, his vision narrowly squeezing past his student's extended pectorals to alight on Charlotte's small brunette head. As it was designed to, the remark forces her to cease thinking about zombies, and begin thinking about him, and his eyeliner. Such is the power of controversy. 

Terry turns away from looking down the street and up at the roofs surrounding them. “Big if true, you outrageous Russkie. Are y’all just gonna forget about that by the way, or what? This here autistic Asiatic is a psycho in disguise, They Live style.” By ‘y’all’ he means Kevin, and Charlotte by association, little imagining that his use of an Americanism would only draw the three Brits closer together. They stare at him, quietly and politely aghast. 

Meat slaps the phone down. “I can't get a hold of him. There's nothing on the other side.“

“What places did you try though?”

“Everywhere I could think of. The IWF offices, the League offices, the Robin Mask Association, the National Stadium, the Press offices, the VIP gyms-”

“The divorce courts?“

“-the divorce courts, the premier Kevin Mask fanclub, the next biggest Kevin Mask fanclub, the Emperor's massage parlour. Nobody's phones are working, or they don't know where he is, or any of the other Legends. I thought they had arrived for the Finals already, but they might be staying at a hotel on a space station. In which case we need to find a ground-to-orbit line, or hope to run into someone who knows something.” for no reason at all, Meat turns and aims a very suspicious look at Lord Flash, his eyes narrowed almost into non-existence. 

Kid licks the glass and then points at the sky, jabbing Checkmate in the forehead as he does. Only then does Lord Flash realise there beeth another chojin present who sees crowns as not only a fashion accessory, but as some sort of right. His eyes narrow likewise. 

“I hear you, Meat! Getting old people to hear you is hard!” shouts Kid. “This looks like a job for the Skytree! And the Tower! And the Skytree!”

                                                                                                          🧟‍♀️

 EDF are going through drills in the park near to Tokyo Tower, almost seeming to be dancing with their rifles, waltzing to Westlife, each man lost in a world of his own. Of course Meat floats the idea of having a chat with them, with the intention of finding out why they are the way they are, but almost everyone shoots him down. 

“And you wonder why I had Kevin drop a plane on your head, Meat? 'Twas for your own good. You're a danger to yourself. The best place for you is the hospital. I would have left you there indefinitely, but I have needs.“ says a very aristocratic looking, but thorny bush, a bush unafraid to display its magnificent glossiness for every grateful eye.

A tiny pale bush crouching opposite to the flashy bush, shivers with rage. “I don't wonder anything when it comes to you. I know you throw your toys simply in order to show off.” 

“Hmm, do I scent jealousy on the breeze?”

Bang bang bang!! The EDF begin wildly shooting this way, that, and the other ways, triggering Friendly Fire amongst their own. 

Many such cases. 

“I need an emotional support clown!” screeches an upside down bush with wilted yellow leaves. 

A nonchalantly messy but extremely attractive bush with unusually dark foliage, and an unusual amount of bird corpses littering its frosty branches, sighs, before slightly, very very slightly turning towards an oblivious feminine shrub with curly leaves. The shrubette is small and cute, and the big messy bush creeps closer, but is foiled by an array of goofy undergrowth. 

                                                                                                         🧟‍♀️

“... No one does creepy mascots like the Japanese.” Charlotte grimaces at a pair of alien looking, extended egghead child statues, child statues which are clad in dungarees, each fake outfit decorated with the letter ‘T’. Much cuter bunny figurines occupy the rest of the flowerbed, along with fae mushrooms. The contrast between the fairyland rabbits and the Teletubby statues, is profound and disturbing. 

Inside the ugly squat building (‘Foot Town’ 😑) which the legs of the orangey-red Eiffel Tower expy straddles, are many zombies. Tourist zombies. They queue placidly for their turn up to the top of the tower, confined in a long snaking line by black ropes. The combined Gang and Trio, scuttle past stealthily, and even when Kid trips and clatters through and over each and every obstacle he can, most of the zombies fail to step out of line. The few that do, lose their spots. 

Instead of immediately making their way to an observation deck, the group tour the facilities, but this is because they need to reach the stairs on the roof of the building, the elevators being inoperable at the moment. Also, chojin be hungry. 

There are an alarming number of zombies slobbing about the four or so floors, but not nearly as many as expected, and what zombies are here, are duller than those found outside. They gaze at tiny photos incoherently slapped onto mostly empty blue walls. They sit in unpowered virtual reality machines. They stare at boxes. Some of the more energetic ones attempt to eat everyone except Lord Flash, but are dealt with swiftly. Meat watches, and wonders. Judging by the unruffled and lack of abysmally disastrous atmosphere, there was no chojin visiting the attraction at the time of zombification, or any that were here are long gone. 

First stop: a tiny bespoke cafe, boringly decorated, where there is chocolate, so much chocolate. Slightly melted, stale chocolate. Like they are zombies themselves, most of the group vault over and around the glass case in which the confectionery is imprisoned, the boys shoving bothersome undead through the thin walls. Tiny pieces of fancy chocolate are not enough to fill the guy's bellies, but the girls are delighted, so much so that they momentarily forget about the problematic Tokyo, and possibly, world situation. Tentative smiles are even exchanged between the Meat Faction and Charlotte, who shivers once she realises she is considered to be part of a rival organisation. How her friends back home would hoot and wail in delight. However, her comrades continue to be stiff blocks of salt towards the others, something she doesn't find as odd as she would've before discovering how ill-fitted for social life they are.

“Do you want this piece, Kevin?” she asks, sliding a tiny cube of pure Belgianness across a formica tabletop towards the giant blond person.

“God, no! Who do you think I am? The Candyman?”

“Errr-”

“Okay, fine! Give me!” The cube is slammed full-speed against the grill of Kevin's helmet. No tiny crack is heard, so it must pull off a successful platform nine and three-quarters.

 On the second floor there are located some leftover burgers, pizzas, ice cream, and most importantly, gyudon, all cold and stale and a bit not so lekker, but no less delicious for that. The end of the world has a way of adding relish to the most unappetising meals, and it takes much longer than a few days for fast food to become inedible. A feast is held in the back of a restaurant, where interruption by walking corpse is much less likely. Kid still refuses to keep quiet.

“What do you mean I shout? This is my normal speaking voice.” says Kid, around a mouthful of burger. Girls are too wise to sit directly opposite him behind the row of stinking counter fridges in the kitchen, so he sprays Terry with flecks of meat and bun instead.

“And it's a shout, Kid.”

“It literally can't be a shout if it's a normal speak, Roxy. The zombies aren't attracted by my voice, they're attracted by my face, even though it's under my mask. I'm too good looking for this world, that's what mom always said.”

As responsible adults, the pair of trainers, plus Kevin, have delegated themselves to watching the entrances and exits to the restaurant, and cannot partake of rapidly decaying meat stuff. This doesn't prevent (allegedly) thirty-five year old Lord Flash from talking shit, nor does it prevent (allegedly) thirty-five year old Meat from talking shit right back. 

“Meat, you must be relieved that possessed corpses have broken out of hell in order to spare your wrestler, and yourself, certain defeat and dishonour. Not everyone is so lucky, hmm?” Standing as upright as a soldier, is usually the most intimidating option for posture, except when being cool and lazy trumps it, and for this verbal match Lord Flash leans against a wall by the door, arms crossed, eyes and voice bored. Since this move results in instant checkmate of any rival whatsoever, Meat can do nothing but heavily scowl through the gaps left by the mascot decals plastered across the windows. 

“Do you have inside information about this catastrophe that you'd like to share, Flash? Item 3.7 point 52bxsparkle says: Triggering an apocalypse for the purposes of gaining an unfair advantage, is an offence that can and probably will result in a ban from the Trainer's Association. ’”

“How quaint.”

Meat turns into a scarlet garden gnome for an instant, but remains heroic. “Quaint? What do you mean, ‘quaint’? Why can't you speak English, for once, huh? I'm gettin’ real tired of your double speak. You're not chojin George Orwell. You're not chojin Big Brother. This isn’t 1984, this is 2024.”

“How. Quaint.”

Elsewhere on the floor is to be found Hello Kat merchandise, watered down sake, traditional Japanese inspired gifts aimed at tourists, jewellery stores, and a Ninja Shop which, along with armour and weapons, also sells sweets and orange jumpsuits. The guys don't need to be told that they should arm themselves, their first practice swipes with their katanas being aimed at the zombies that were once the proprietors.

Being too edgy and cool for a katana, throwing star, or armour that doesn't originate from his own family, Kevin stalks around the jewellery store opposite the ninja shop, before pausing and punching in the glass of a display case which contains a pink diamante replica of the Tower. Once the glass is on the floor and out of the way, he looks around, clandestinely, all the while making a funny snuffling noise. This subsonic vocalisation need not go on for long, as Charlotte, who is invariably only ever a couple feet away from him, turns the corner of a counter. 

“What are you doin’, man?“

“Nothing. See this thing?” Kevin shrugs at the pink tower. 

“Yup.”

“Take it. It will be, er, useful. Yeah. You can keep zombies away with the pointy end.”

“Won't it break?” a pale, peaches and cream hand reaches for the statuette, but before it can enter the case and fly over the jagged pieces of glass that remain, perchance to crash land, Kevin yanks the replica tower out of it and hands it to Charlotte.

“No. Not immediately. Hopefully.”

“Okay. Cheers, Kev. It's really sweet of you to think about protectin’ me.”

“Huuuuuuuuuuuur.”

A pair of eyes peer around the jammed open door to watch the awkwardness unfold. 

“Hey, like, are they on a date or something?“

“No way. That's Kevin Mask. He doesn't do dates.”

“Okay, but, like, how do you know?”

“I keep on top of the news. The only time he's in a room with a girl is when it's by accident.”

“I wish I were in a room with him by accident, teehee.”

“Trixie, like, he's our enemy right now, okay? He's full of evil.”

“And hawtness. Evil hawtness.”

“No!” (Yes)

 The third floor features a baby room for women to nurse in privacy. Once it is discovered, the girls titter and talk in whispers to each other while eyeing the various male members of the group. Invariably their gazes focus on certain men to the exclusion of others. Made uncomfortable by having no girlfriend with which to be girly and judgmental, Charlotte stares intensely over a railing at the shuffling zombies below. It can't be all bad to be undead. No more awkwardness. No more relational stress.

For some reason Kevin loses all his patience in one go and yells for everyone to hurry the eff up and stop faffing about or he will sunder this hideous and lame Fellowship forthwith! 

                                                                                                         🧟‍♀️

 A pair of pretty zombies welcome challengers to the immense flight of stairs that will take them to the observation deck. Everyone who walks up the stairs within the many hours allotted for this task, will receive a participation certificate and a pat on the back. Such is the way of the modern world. 

Round and round and round and round and round and round they go, for around fifteen minutes, Kid complaining all the way while being rebuked by most of his friends, and some of his enemies. 

“Gee, it would be handy to be able to fly, right about now…Hey, Kev, why are our dad's so trash? I feel like, I almost understand why, you're always so grumpy. My dad let me do, whatever I want, on top of being, crap, but yours, was just crap.”

“Don't speak about my father that way you hideous runt, or I'll break the rules and go back down this one way flight of stairs and throw you off!”

“But, man, you speak about your dad that way. Also, if you break these rules as, an Englishcuck, you'll explode, hehehehe!”

Kevin is about to commit etiquette induced harakiri, but is prevented by the combined efforts of the coaches.

On the way up to the deck the view of the city is shrouded by a mess of steel links and orange girders, and wouldn't be so great even if there were much to see beyond vapour clouds and rapidly disintegrating infrastructure. It's difficult to imagine how this will improve by having only glass between one's eyes and the horizon. Still, the group ooh and aah as if they are on a school trip.

At the top, everyone receives a flashy certificate stating that they made the trek and lived to embellish the tale. 

“Awww! I wanted the cherry blossoms one! Swap?”

 

Chapter 12: 🕺Are You Okay?🌇

 “Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? Will you tell us that you're okay?” Kid sings into the faces of his friends, alternatively. Male friends, because the instant he tries this trick on one of the girls, he finds himself at risk of taking a one-way flight from the top of Tokyo Tower. He also doesn't try it on Kevin and co. One truly does deserve what one tolerates.

Near the top of Tokyo Tower, because camp for the night is made on the prismatic top deck, where (ordinary) zombie access is severely limited and the view is spectacular. 360 degrees of roiling yellow smoke burnished red in the fading light of the hidden sun. Buildings and ruins of buildings poke through the cottony haze in a way that is much less awesome, and much more creepy. 

“Are you okay, ANNIE?!”

“Shut the eff up!”

“🎵 Aww, Kev, what's the problem? Aren't you allowed to say bad words?🎵…I'm not allowed to say bad words either, but I'm not trying to be a badass.”

From the other side of the huge glitzy, indiscernible modern art structure in the centre of the room, trenchcoat wearing Kevin looks like he's about to snap and begin speed reading from a manifesto. His pair of companions remain calm, knowing that he, like most people in Japan, has no access to a gun. 

Instead of perpetrating a mass murder, Kevin turns, and begins whining at his foster father. “Why did you do this to me, Lord Flash? Why do I have to tolerate that buffoon?”

“Kevin Mask, it is you who pleaded their case. I was all for leaving them to die, uh, I mean, split off and locate an alternate route to success.”

“Why the blasted heck did you listen to me, man! I'm a child!”

Even during a national disaster, hilarity can be found, and Charlotte covers her mouth with first one hand, and then another. Laughing at a teenage boy is a bad idea, but stifling her giggles is incredibly difficult, and the risk of giggling only increases the more she comes to enjoy Kevin's company. Enjoying his company is a form of acquired brain damage, really, a type very few people share. 

 “Is it because we both like Kevin that you've stopped tryin’ to murder me?” she asks Lord Flash while Kevin is busy escorting the rest of the group down the long, long way to the loo. He didn't want to escort them, but he was roped in by esoteric (‘You're going to do it, Kevin, or I'll tell your father you're not a gentleman’) means. Since she didn't need to go, and is still highly suspicious of Lord Flash, Charlotte elected to remain with him. 

Naturally, that vain person considers her motivations to be more plebeian, and at first he refuses to cease smirking at her from the corner of his eye. There's little opportunity for privacy up on the observation deck, so Charlotte must badly endure his arrogant and completely unfounded smugness. “How curious. I have never attempted to murder you even once. If I had, we should certainly not now be having this conversation.” he says.

“Why you always lyin’, man? Does Kev know you're always lyin’? ‘E didn't seem best pleased that time you were caught in one. Do you know your murderous intentions constantly slip into your 'conversation'?”

“You're the fan, you tell me what Kevin knows. I'm sure he'll be astounded and amazed by the answer. I know I am astounded by what I'm currently being told about myself.”

“Can't you ever give a straight answer?”

“...No.”

Out in the chaos of the burning, flooded city, specks occasionally buzz around and through the smoke and clouds, appearing and disappearing in the evening light. These are gigantic flies of the bloody variety, chojin zombies searching for their next meal, not spaceships, of which there are none still suspended in the air, as if the city is isolated by itself in a pandemoniac void. Quarantined, perhaps. Most of the flying menace keep their eyes, if they still have them, fixed groundwards. Charlotte invariably has her attention drawn to these fast moving blobs whenever they flit anywhere within her visual range, and so does Lord Flash, with the difference that he doesn't turn his head to anxiously track them, preferring to sit opposite Charlotte, cross legged and hunched over like a very angry, very edgy and hulking Buddha, the jewel in his crown, dull, his bright eyes rhythmically moving from side to side like one of those creepy black cat clocks. It's scary, but Charlotte is almost too tired for fear. Isn't exhaustion wonderful? Even fright must bow before it.

“You're concerned about them flyin’ corpses.”

“I'm not concerned about anything except my wrestler's conditioning.”

“That's another lie.”

Remarkable how quickly a mood can sour, and frightful the invisible triggers behind other people's eyes.

Charlotte is a fan, and so the expression and tone sent her way by Lord Flash now is one she is familiar with from the Preliminaries and Semi-Finals. It's one devoid of compunction, one that says all the world is entered into a spreadsheet within his mind, a spreadsheet featuring only two columns - ‘Useful’, and, ‘Not Useful’. He blinks, which she's beginning to understand is not a physiological or psychological reaction, but a technique for deliberately inserting subtle unease into the viewer. It's to make you look around and realise that you have wandered into the Uncanny Valley. “You really ought to cease accusing those bigger and stronger than you, of foul deeds. It's…dangerous.” he hisses.

“I'm glad you understand the difference between right and wrong. I did think your problem is about will, and not knowledge.”

“Girl, you are irritating me, and I'm less inclined than usual to grant you a pass due to youthful stupidity. Cease forthwith, or I shall kick you out of this hideous tower, and make it look like an accident. Kevin will recover soon enough.” a moment passes, and then Lord Flash shrugs to display his nonchalance when it comes to murder, a tiny frown appearing between his eyes, which turn slightly inward. Huh, he's tired too, the ‘How do you do, fellow humans?’ act has become more tedious to maintain. Warned more effectively by the hitch in his falsified body language, than by verbal announcements, Charlotte looks away. 

                                                                                                                  🧟‍♀️

 Dinner consists of multiple courses of pure suffering, served by Kevin, who cannot stand to be in the same space as Kid, and vice versa. The issue is that they can see and hear each other from almost every inch of the observation deck, and they are not allowed to separate from the group and go off to mope on their own downstairs, so the torture is continuous. Snide remarks and slanderous insinuations are flung back and forth like a ball between children, or a Frisbee between master and dog, with each boy taking turns as master or dog. Although neither has any interest in the human ‘property’ of the other, they suddenly become as territorial as Ancient Middle Eastern patriarchs, each suggesting that coach or female theft is perpetually underway, or will shortly be underway the instant they close their eyes or turn their back. Meat and Lord Flash more or less return order during a flare up, but they are also not adverse to prodding their prize bulls on to further bellowing when it comes to a point of ‘honour’. The only reasonable people are the dead weight, the hangers on, the fans. In Kid's case they physically prevent him from battering Kevin with fist and foot, and in Kevin's case Charlotte adds an extra motive for him to not mess up and embarrass himself.

Night falls, and on the other side of the room, Kid and Meat attempt to peer out of the observation window, which is now fogged up. Down on the ground, explosions are occurring. “Hey, is that Rob…no…shit, it's the army. Fighting the EDF…Are those cops? Man, when are we going to be rescued?”

“I'm beginning to think we might have to rescue ourselves, Kid.”

“Yeah, but is there a chance this French thing doubles as a cell tower? Isn't there an emergency Idol line? I'm sure my dad mentioned something like that.”

“It's a radio and TV tower. So is the Skytree, but for digital stuff. I don't know if it could be used for anything else…if only the Warsman were here. HE could jury rig something.” Meat turns and stares, cross armed, at Lord Flash, who stares back. Seriously, he should just out the Slav in the room at this point.

Kid fails to sense a disturbance in the force. “Tsk! Having a serial killer around is a net loss, Meat! No thanks, please don't play Bloody Mary here! You never know with Legends, they have a bad habit of showing up where no one expects them. I don't need to be beaten up during a zombie apoc because my homework is late!”

 The store of ‘fresh’ looted food diminishes rapidly with so many chojin in one place, and Charlotte attempts to restrict herself to vending machine garbage, but under the stress of being in proximity to his rival, Kevin imitates a bird with its chick, not quite throwing up in her mouth, but insisting she eat a cold burger in order to keep up her strength. He does the same with his trainer, but the latter refuses to eat at all. For the course of several minutes, this terrifying declaration completely effaces Kid and the ongoing situation from Kevin's mind. Smoke from outside means the room stinks of fire, and people keep coughing, but he even forgets this indignity in his anxiety.

“What's wrong, old chap? Are you sick? You haven't eaten all day.” To check his friend's health status, he scoots around and gently takes the man's wrist, placing his thumb over the pulse. A worrying look overtakes his masked features, as it does Charlotte's. There can be no good reason for a chojin to possess no appetite, and she and Kevin share similar, if not quite the same thoughts.

“Flash, I think you may be dead.” whispers Kevin, still more than loud enough to be heard down on the lower observation deck. He moves to swap Lord Flash's left wrist for his right, but the latter fails to oblige his burly nurse a second time, turning so that a shoulder blocks off further approach.

“Kevin Mask, don't be so dramatic.” 

“I couldn't feel your pulse, man! I'd say that calls for a spot of drama!” 

“Of course you can't, your own is too loud, it drowns mine out. I can assure you that I am currently alive. If I were not, I would not be castigating you at this present moment, but away in the Chojin Graveyard, performing slave labour.”

“Err-”

“You know it makes perfect sense.”

“Ah, yes, but-”

“Here, girl, take my wrist.”

With a steel girder coming at her face, Charlotte does as told without thinking. It's a chojin wrist, so she can barely wrap her hand around it. That's normal. What's not normal is that it feels like solid plastic, cold, no pulse detectable, very much unlike with Kevin, who, when she was stuck underneath him, twice, pulsed and beat and burned, like a heated, weighted blanket gone very, very wrong. How do you say, ‘I think your arm is a clever prosthetic’, without coming across as rude?

“I-”

“Exactly.” Lord Flash retrieves his limb, ripping it out of her grip. “Now go and stretch your long, stilt-like legs, Kevin. Take a turn around this abysmally voyeuristic room. I won't have my rest interrupted by tossing and turning.”

                                                                                                                🧟‍♀️

 Too bad, Lord Flash's rest is interrupted. Not by Kevin, not by Meat and friends, and not by Charlotte. The pair of thirty year old adults are busy arguing about tactics when it occurs, neither one really seeming to know what to do or where to go, but with only one of them willing to admit it. Or so Meat believes, since his equally timeless rival only ever expresses vague remorse when the cameras are aimed at him and he can score PR sympathy points. They stand as near to the centre of the room as they can get, their backs to their respective ‘sides’, whispering (actually whispering!) covert insults while the Youth sleeps, lying pressed up together like fleshy logs on the hard, partly transparent floor. Luckily, nothing beneath them but an orange glow can be seen at night.

“Fool! Repeatedly dismissing my advice repeatedly leads to poor results. It has taken him many months of pain and trauma, but Kevin has eventually absorbed this universal truth. You, Meat, are allegedly more intelligent than ninety-nine percent of chojin, so you ought to learn this lesson in a fraction of the time.”

“Your ‘advice’ is tailored strictly to self-aggrandisement, like all of your actions and words. I'd be complicit if I didn't object, Nikolai.”

“How daaaaare you. I've been the recipient of the ‘Most Righteous and Loving Chojin of all time’ award, thirty years in a row, alongside the ‘Most Evil and Ruthless of all time’ award. I even show up in person to the ceremonies, unlike Kevin.”

“Yeah, you're given those awards to keep you sweet. Other people may fall for your ‘woe is being me’ act, but I don't. It doesn't matter how often you barge your way into the limelight under the cover of heroics. Also, put some pants on!”

“Wow, Meat, I wonder why I am the only one you attack in this way, when your words apply to the entire herd of my colleagues. Highly suspect. I know we can't all have what we want, but keep it to yourself. And I'll locate trousers, when you put a shirt on. No one wants to gawk at your beer belly.”

“Excuse me?!”

The cattiness might continue all night, were it not for strange crashing, screeching sounds starting up from somewhere below. The men look around, bodies tensing, and some of the Youth wake, including Kevin, who sits up, the light from his eyes diffusing itself throughout the smoky atmosphere, casting the room into sallow eeriness.

“Wha-”

The world drops itself sideways and down, at a speed made slow by adrenaline, although adrenaline is no use to the women, and Kid, who fall towards the ceiling like so many badly packed sacks of potatoes, their heavy bodies completely useless in the air. Kid, being Kid, belly flops onto the window, and smashes it, a lethal mouth filled with jagged glass teeth opening between the former ceiling and former floor. Barely does he manage to hold onto a transparent fang, and stay inside the room as it continues to upend itself. As much as he can in such a situation, the Kinniku prince congratulates himself on ‘saving’ himself, when a size 20 boot rectifies this by kicking him out into the black air, to freefall to earth. 

Chapter 13: 🐭The American Dream🐬

 The fall goes on forever. A couple seconds at least. An agony of terror, to be felt later. With no flight training whatsoever, Kid can only fall like any normal person might, corkscrewing and flailing, plummeting through whistling air without hope. But unlike many normal people, he crashes into something which saves him, coming down on top of a soft and mushy form, which roars and veers away from the tower in a long, semi-controlled arc, getting ever closer to the ground. 

Instinctively Kid grabbed onto the thing before fully discerning what it was, hands twisting in dark brown fur and the remnants of plastics-based clothing. The head of the thing snaps around to glare at him out of dead eyes lit by a hellish fury, and its stubby arms thrash, attempting to bring him towards its fanged maw. In life, Wally Tusket was rather pathetic, but in death he is an absolute horror, preying almost exclusively on other chojin, his tusks stained an ugly rusty red. It was he who crashed into ( through , rather) Tokyo Tower while chasing Sunshine and another deceased dMper.

The shock of recognition is almost enough for Kid not to notice the screaming top half of the Tower falling past him in the dark, to annihilate itself and a swathe of modernist buildings, the horrific sound of steel on concrete giving a few poor survivors, and even some nearby EDF, police, and soldiers, heart attacks, embolisms, and fainting fits. The cataclysmic whoosh of its passing tears him from Wally's grip before the zombie walrus can chew his face off, dropping him into the somewhat soft embrace of foliage in Shiba Park.

                                                                                                              🧟‍♀️

 After a disaster, the world enters a momentary lull, a cheap calm, a rest before necessity forces a tired and disturbed mind to ‘do something’, even if ‘doing something’ is only standing and staring. Wally and prey zoom off, and away, from the massive flock of birds that has risen into the air following the thunderous crash of the Tower. The nigh invisible swarm of hungry avians follows the chojin, a gelatinous dragon slithering through the nighttime ether.

With his brain ever so slightly knocked around, it takes Kid a few moments to untangle himself from vine and branch and bush, and leap to his feet, running back towards the steaming, dust shrouded mast of the tower where it lies, broken amongst the ruins of an office block, a stark and twisted silhouette helpfully generated by the fire behind it. Everything above the Main Deck has been torn off, leaving the Tower looking like a pomaded willow tree. But orange. How this happened, Kid doesn't stop to worry, nor does he immediately recall the kick that sent him out of the shattered window. Perhaps it was an accident, anyway, and if everyone he was so recently hanging out with is dead, then what does it matter.

Expecting every moment to stumble across pieces and puddles of what were formerly friends and enemies, Kid covers first one eye, then both, ending up by running into a lamppost and knocking himself out. He's very blessed that the birds chased all zombies, soldiers, and cops away, because otherwise that murder attempt he suffered, would belatedly succeed. He's lucky too, that fire has not reached the Zojoji Temple. As it stands, he wakes up and continues on his way, using superstrength and sheer willpower to traverse a dangling strut of the tower mast, using it as a shortcut up to the roof of the building on which the rest of the mast fell.

The false Eiffel tower is lighter in weight than the original, so the disaster it's suffered, looks worse than it is. Someone will staple the two pieces back together, when the Chojin Crown and the Zombie Apocalypse are over. The oesophagus that was the stairwell and elevator shaft, remain more or less in place, while the Top Deck is back to being vertically aligned, since it fell against the back of another building, and was forced upwards. With nowhere else to go, unless he wants to wander around by himself, Kid forces his clown feet over crunchy glass, towards the place he last saw Meat and co, expecting the absolute worst all the while. Then again, Kevin was with them, and Kevin is majorly OP. 

After that massive collapse, this part of the city is comparatively quiet. Healthy birds chirp in their sleep, night insects buzz, fire cackles. No cars, no planes, no ships, no trains, no construction, no people - as near to peace as you can get in a city of this magnitude. Only the distant pop-pop of guns informs Kid that he is not the last person left alive. To counteract the oppressive quiet, tears fill his eyes and voice, as he begins to weep without realising it. 

“Roxy? Meat?! Terry? Please don't be dead! Especially don't be smooshed! If you're smooshed, I'm NOT picking up the pieces!“

 No one is as fortunate as Mantaro, as not only is no one smooshed, but no one is smashed. After forty years minutes seconds wandering through a bramble maze of metal, the wind changes, and flings the sound of argumentation in his face. The sort of argumentation where no words are discernable. No identity would be either, were it not for the highly distinctive voices of the principal parties. An angry, incoherent American opposes an amused, clipped Englishman. That is how it's always been, how it will always be. 

Even though he's been born into this weird world, Kid is still utterly shocked to discover that the ‘American’ resolves into his Kinniku coach, manager, friend, Meat, and the ‘Englishman’ resolves into Kevin's Russian version of those things. His eyes slither over the pair of trainers, finding them with all limbs attached, before jerking to either side, discovering everyone else sitting inert and shaky in a heap on the ground, like luggage tossed on the floor of an airport when a flight is late. The group sit near to the giant corpse of the tower mast, but on a more structurally sound portion of the roof, right on the edge. This is clearly a temporary fix, and the argument is about moving away from the crash site. Now that he's closer, he can hear what they're saying. Meat is also in tears, while Lord Flash isn't, but both men are afflicted with emotion. 

“If we move away from here, Kid won't be able to find us!“

“You're welcome to go. You won't catch me attempting to prevent you from budding off from the group during a horrifying situation. Go, die ! Kid has certainly travelled to the afterlife afore you.”

“He fell out of the window, he's not dead!“

“The first part of your sentence does not match with the second, Meat! Learn to think!“ 

“I'm not dead, though.“ Kid says, falling over a rib of steel and onto his face. 

The predictable hullabaloo begins, and when Kid is shoved onto his back, he looks up at pieces of heads and faces, an eye here, an ear there, people hugging and patting him down, too many questions flung too fast, by them and by him. The only people who don't join in on the mutual celebrations are Kevin and his companions. They stand aloof to the side, two of them more or less secretly relieved, one of them glowering. 

“The Kinniku royal gene lives on, I see. Regrettable.” quips Lord Flash, crossing his arms. Only briefly does Kevin glance at him, before he stomps towards the ball of people his rival is contained within. Once there, he stares, but says nothing. 

“How did you guys not die?” says Kid, still lost in the scrum.”I ran into Wally, by the way. He had a glow up.”

“Kid, I know you're chojin too, but did you know that chojin are superhuman, with superhuman abilities? Meat and Lord Flash and Kevin and Checkmate picked us up and leapt out of the Top Deck a millisecond before it hit the ground. Or building, in this case. Meat really needs to rest now, though.” says Roxy.

“Eww! Who did Kev pick up?! Are you totally sure they're still alive?” Kid adds a second question to the first, nonverbally, because he's too afraid of Lord Flash to talk shit about him from closer than fifty feet away. Instead, he makes faces, faces which only his true friends can interpret.

“Kevin picked up Charlotte. And Lord Flash picked up Kevin.”

“😆😭🏳️‍🌈🥸👀😱😱😱”

                                                                                                                🧟‍♀️

Guns - big boy rifles, baby boy revolvers, badass laser snipers- float down the street or act as sunken ankle twisters, dropped when the police, soldiers, and EDF fled the area when the Tower was hit, much like little boys fleeing the area after smashing a window with a runaway stone. These little boys weren't actually responsible for the structural damage to the iconic landmark, but since they are choosing to perpetuate a turf war instead of using firepower to sort out the zombie menace, their consciences may be biting at their heels. 

You know who else isn't sorting out the situation? Chojin. But that may or may not be because the newest generation shows little to no sign of suddenly growing to five hundred feet tall, or flying unaided. The older generations could perform such feats, but they seemingly abandoned the practice the same way they abandoned their children. 

Stuck on the ground like the beefcake he is, Kevin can, at most, leap into the air in order to snag a passing chojin undead, and possibly be infected for his trouble. Clearing slow and shambling human zombies is still doable, but also dangerous, especially when they get stuck inside narrow buildings, underground, or lie face up under the surface of the water. But dedicating yourself to clearing zombies when you have vulnerable survivors with you, is a bad and reckless idea. And there are birds about.

“This blasted flood! What happened to this city's reputation for drainage management? I watched a documentary about it, it's supposed to be good! I'm tempted to go down there and smack a machine or two around!“ Kevin mutters, loudly, sloshing with extreme violence down a street, his head jerking from side to side randomly, as if he resents having to pay attention to his surroundings. Back in the day he could stroll around with nose turned up, which cut down his field of vision dramatically, and cut out most people, but now he has to travel with plebs, head down like them. 

At the mention of ‘smacking a machine’ the man beside and slightly behind him first glances at, and then studies him, studies him like a bug, the red glow of hell flaring up behind his eyes. Beside and slightly behind Kevin on the other side, Charlotte picks up a floating gun. Seeing her do this, the other girls follow suit.  

“Kevin Mask, you are overwrought. You need to relax. I can't imagine that applying physical violence to a multi-million pound machine will improve the situation, but I can imagine that saving a child might. They are the future, and all that rot. Let us turn towards Disneyland, and DisneySea. I wish to take myself to Venice.”

 

Chapter 14: Female Gaze

Even for Lord Flash, discount Venice must wait, as ordinary people require food and rest, especially after having their sleep interrupted, and that means he has another desire fulfilled, the desire to take over the Imperial Palace. 

“The Imperial Family is locked inside the Imperial Palace.” says some young fool. 

“They'd best not be.” he replies in a high pitched growling whisper. The night has entered the wonderful stage of pure silence. Almost pure silence, as Fire and Flood never sleep. As to whether or not zombies do, that is still to be investigated. 

“But what if they are? I think you can be arrested for busting in, man, and I don't want to go to prison. I'm too young.”

“It's a big place, Kid Muscle. Royalty doesn't need all of it, and if they complain about me and my herd of retarded ducklings, I'll be happy to explain to them the true meaning of ‘Red Revolution’, hehe.”

As often happens when his teacher's voice invades his auditory environment, Kevin obeys the Pavlovian response to turn and look at him, just in case there's some lesson to impart. His mind is clouded though, and preoccupied, and when Lord Flash fails to address him, he returns to mulling over a pressing problem. “Why aren't the whatsits working? Are they clogged?” 

“What's that, Kev?“ beside him, Charlotte rolls her damaged shoulder, and immediately regrets it. 

“The bloody machines that lurk underground. I watched a thing in a hotel once that said there's a whole world under our feet, with giant tanks to hold enough flood water to empty rivers. Horrible, giant tanks!” he shivers, vigorously. “Giant tanks you can fall into and die in, like a mouse in a septic tank. That horror is supposed to be worth it so the city doesn't flood, but the city looks flooded to me!” he kicks up a wave of dirty, diseased water to demonstrate. 

“Do these tanks run on electricity?”

“I don't know! If they do, there should be backup power.”

“I think electricity ‘as to be made by somethin’. It's not, like, an infinite resource.”

“What? We're a spacefaring race! There's a planet with my name on it! My dad's best friend is a war robot with a billion kills to his name! What do you mean electricity has to be made??!”

Pavlov strikes twice, recalling Lord Flash from the sedition he'd been gleefully formulating at the expense of everyone else. “What's that, Kevin Mask? I thought I heard you mention your sainted father. I'll have you know he saved my life many years ago, and taught me everything I know. Saved me from the icy streets and a life of petty crime, to introduce me to the glorious world of grand showmanship and groupies. I love nothing and no one, except him. And Kinnikuman's wife. I hope you're not running him down. You know how that displeases me…”

“Never fear, Lord Flash. All I said is that Daddy's best friend is an evil computer.” 

“Oh. That's alright then.” Lord Flash looks away, bored. Behind him, from his comfy spot on Checkmate's back, Meat scowls comically. 

 Dawn is menacing the horizon when the group approach the once pleasant gardens which surround the Imperial Palace like a green moat, in addition to the real moat, which has now grown turgid and…meaty. The grassy waves are full of the dead, but less so of the undead. Still, what shamblers there are are lurking in the cultivated beds, amongst the pretty flowers, and Kid almost dies again when he suffers an attack of simpery and attempts to pick a fair blossom for Roxanne. 

“Stop attempting to lessen my achievements.” snaps Kevin after punching the surprise zombie to a proper death after it leaps, mouth open, from a clutch of petunias. Thanks to an exhaustion headache, he’s extra grumpy.

“I'm sorry not sorry if MY dying makes YOU look bad, Kev!”

“Stop bloody shouting!”

“Both of you idiots, calm down!” Meat, nerves frayed, throws a stone at the pair of boys, an act which quells them. 

The gates to the castle are not guarded, not even by corpses, but further back behind the compound walls the remains of an action scene can be discerned amongst shards of fabric, sprays of blood, and spent casings. 

“Hmm.” Lord Flash does not go into a state of alarm when coming upon the crime scene, but stands loosely, gazing up at the pink and peachy castle silhouette with mild interest, just as if he’s taking a tour. “Hmm.”

In the cause of contrarianism, Meat crosses his arms and huffs from somewhere near his rival’s ankles. “I think this calls for something greater than ‘hmm’, Lord Flash. This is clearly not a secure location.”

“Is it propped high in the air on steel girders, Meat?” 

“Uhh-”

“Then it is a secure location, made doubly, triply so by the complete and total absence of police, soldiers, or space police-soldiers. I can guarantee that if we had followed my fortified plan from the beginning, your wrestler might not have perished in the way he did. Instead, he might have drowned in the moat, but that could happen to anyone not named Chloe or Kevin.”

“I'm not deeeeee-wait…your first name is Chloe? What the heck?” yells Kid from right behind the man. Before any answer can be made to him, he turns and shouts into Kevin's face. “Did YOU know your guy has a hot chick's name, man?” but Kevin is too distracted by memories of his father drowning, to hear.

                                                                                                               🧟‍♀️

 There's no royal family within the palace, or at least, there's no royal family in the section the survivors bunk down in, and few of them possess the energy required to nose about the alternatively garish, alternatively bland but always ugly interior of the Palace. The exterior was not especially prepossessing, but at least it took the form of an Asiatic castle. Inside, it is another story. Lord Flash is horrified to discover that the hideous, hideous rumours he'd been hearing were true, and all that awaits this devotee of class and elegance is knock-off, discount, faux European pseudo splendour, and if he doesn't like that, he can have the beige cardboard walls of a ‘luxurious’ office space. The horror this instills in his soul appears to destabilise him, and he goes off on his own, ostensibly to perform perimeter checks, but really to shed manly tears whilst killing rogue zombies. 

With him out of the way for a while, people settle down to relax for the next day and night, and not even the nearby sound of graphic violence and savage weeping can disturb sleep which is taken by rota. Terry sits up and roasts mouldy bread cowboy-style over a fire he's lit on the fake wood floor, a fire birthed and fed from remnants of vintage furniture. 

The area chosen for rest and relaxation is a parlour near to the kitchens. ‘Parlour’ - like many rooms in palaces and such like buildings, it's superfluous, purposeless, near empty, barely entered except by staff. In a corner, Kevin and Charlotte speak while picking over a huge glass bowl full of cold baked beans. Baked beans, baked beans will never abandon you in event of apocalypse. The gun Charlotte fished from the flood lies beside her. 

“The only thing I'm afraid of is wizard zombies. I don't want to be abra kadabred.“

“I don't think you need to worry about that, Kev.”

“You don't know chojin like I do. Somewhere, somehow, there is a chojin wizard zombie.” Wolfish yellow eyes search the big square room like Kevin's squatting in a forest and not a place of privilege.

“Lord Flash is a bit of a wizard, I guess.”

A silver spoon drops into the bowl, splattering Charlotte with bean juice. “Don't say that!” a hot red flush travels up Kevin's thick neck. “And stop going on about him, would you? When he hears his own name, his ego inflates, and when it gets too big, it explodes and someone dies and I have to visit the laundromat. That cuts into my training time, and it's difficult to smoke in peace in laundromats.” 

Pretty well used to her companion’s needlessly dramatic way of speaking by now, Charlotte, who is still getting over the terrible incident of earlier, smiles mildly, and lifts her own spoon, which shakes strongly. “That one is pretty calm for a psychopath. Calmest, most coherent maniac I've ever met. One of the fan guides I read said ‘e massacred 250,000 weasels for that cloak of ‘is, so I'm not just sayin’ that because ‘e tried to murder me ten times in two days.”

The red infecting Kevin's skin immediately retreats the way it arrived, pushed aside by an onrush of chalky white. “His cloak is made of wool, not mink. And he is pretty calm, isn't he?” he whispers, swallowing, the sweat forming under his mask making him blink rapidly when it drops into his eyes. “You don't think he's…sick, do you? He hasn't eaten for hours and hours. That's not normal. That's something the undead do. He should be deceased or severely disabled by now, but he picked us up like I don't weigh almost a stone more than him.“

“You didn't notice any bites though when you were pattin’ ‘im down, thoroughly.”

“Yeah, but maybe zombieness gets in through the eyes or something.”

“Why don't you ask ‘im if ‘e's alright? I find it a bit odd that zombies don't pay attention to 'im, innit?“

“I did ask him! I almost perished trying and he made it awkward anyway! Besides, people who are turning into zombies never tell anyone they're turning into zombies. I'll have to wait for him to dramatically reveal a bite at the absolute worst possible moment. He loves doing things like that.”

The next lift of Charlotte's spoon is even more shaky than the first, so much so that it catches Kevin's attention. 

“And if ‘e is, what are you gonna do? That one is extremely strong, stronger than ‘e wants to let on, I reckon.“

For a second or two Kevin doesn't say anything, preferring to look away into a shadowy corner. When he does look back, he reaches out and steadies Charlotte's hand, stopping the shaking for a moment. His touch is extremely warm and dry. 

“What's your name?“ he asks, his voice back to its usual faux-confident pitch and volume. 

“Charlotte?”

“Last name.“

“Oh! Kendall.”

Although she can't detect eyebrows, (or eyeballs) Charlotte is sure Kevin raises them. Asking him why he did this in response to her answer might very well constitute ‘making things awkward’ so she doesn't, quite astounded already by how much and what he's said already, and even more astounded by the touch and earlier rescue. 

Instead she goes down a different path. “Soz for bitin’ you, mate.”

The spoon begins trembling again, but not by her doing. 

Chapter 15: Love & Anime

 Meat can't sleep, the zombies, the drama, the rivalry is getting to him, leading to eternal wokefulness where there is only one solution: nagging one's betters. Usually he’d go and nag the Prince, or a photo of Kinnikuman, but that would be dangerous to do with Lord Flash zombies about. Accordingly, he gets up, slowly tiptoes past a loudly snoring Kid Muscle, slowly evades the sentry sitting over his fire, and slowly slides around a dull corner. He's still recovering from the plane fiasco, and needs to take it easy.

Giggles and perfume approach from the far end of a long, navy blue corridor, as well as the flickering light of a candle contained in a jar, which the girls are co-holding.

Meat’s brain sends him a message by mental carrier pigeon.

!!! Oh no, a pack of girls coming back from the loo! Hide!!!

He chooses a fake Louis XIX vase from which a malodorous smell emerges, in which to obscure himself, but when he dives into it, he discovers it's not hollow, but filled with recently dismembered body parts. Rotting body parts. Zombie body parts, neatly sliced up and thrown higgledy-piggledy into the giant container. The unearthly shriek he emits sends the gaggle of girls running back to the loo. 

It's another few minutes of agony, near suffocation, and general suffering before he comes upon his target, Lord Flash, where he mopes in the Empress' abandoned bedroom suite, disconsolate. The room is garish, and clashing in acid green and neon orange set off with cherry red. Loitering within inexorably saps one's life force, but yet Lord Flash continues to wander about, his hands held behind his back, his head down.

“Are you the one filling vases with zombie bits?! Actually, don't answer, I know you are.” 

“Meat, I'm not in the mood.” indeed, Lord Flash looks as sad as one can look while wearing a peppy mask and outfit such as his, his big red eyes all tired and droopy.

“Not in the mood for zombie bits, or something else?” a prickling of unease, greater unease, makes Meat absentmindedly scratch at his mask where it meets his neck. He even steps forward a few feet. Since when is ’Lord Flash’ not in the mood for conflict and peacocking? Unfathomable.

“Not in the mood to listen to your constant yapping. I've suffered a great blow and I wish to recover in peace.” a flicker of the old malice comes forth out of the lightless depths of the aristocrat’s being, as Lord Flash flaps his cloak at the midget invading his personal space, much like a noble vampire would.

However, violence and irritation has never and can never deter Meat from making a pest of himself. From his point of view his fellow trainer is merely a very tall and sinister popsicle, something that greatly attracts his attention for one reason or another. “What blow? Were you bitten? If so, please leave. I'm sure you don't want to get Kevin killed.” he begins attempting to discern whether his rival has or has not a great big bloody chunk missing out of him. 

Strangely, he feels some part of his emotional landscape bubble with something like gladness when the other chojin gives him a contemptuous look from a mental and emotional height so high it ceases to be intolerable haughtiness and becomes an endearing quirk. “No. I've not been bitten, Meat . It won't be the case with you, but the rest of the herd possess enough visual acuity to be able to see if I have suffered mauling, and since they all run to you with every little problem, I would certainly have woken up dead already had they seen the slightest abrasion upon my pristine form.” Whenever Lord Flash speaks for more than half a second, hypnotism happens, so Meat gawks slack jawed at him while he twists back and forth and performs various yoga moves to show that he's clean of suppurating wounds. The horrible room of ultimate horror continues to weigh upon the pair’s souls.

“I will take your inane expression as confirmation that I'm correct.” says Lord Flash whilst in the downward-facing dog position, and with that he gets up and moves on to mope in another room of the Empress's chambers. But Meat is not done yet.

“I know who you are.” he says, jogging after him. Wham bam, thank you, Ma'am!

Lord Flash doesn't pause to deflect the blow, but he does turn his head far too far over his shoulder. It occurs to Meat that this tactic is a show of dominance that it would be unwise to attempt to emulate. “I know, you've been dropping hints as heavy as neutron stars ever since I was forced to save you from the hospital roof. It's, how do they say? Cringe.” says Lord Flash, his eyes widening in intense and undisguised mockery.

Searching for a distraction, Meat picks up a fake flower lying on the floor. “You weren't forced, you chose to save me. None of the others can tell you what to do.”

“Ah!” Miming the behaviour of a girl, Lord Flash turns and slaps a hand to his chest in mock feeling. “How kind of you to acknowledge my accomplishments as a superhero. Of long standing.” rebuke delivered, he carries on walking, requiring Meat to trot after him. This next room is done up in every shade of pink visible to Man. Everything, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the light fixtures - all pink.

“Hmpf. Aren't you concerned that I know who you are? I could say the name at any moment.”

“No. Why would I be? I don't consider myself something to be ashamed of. I'm dressed up this way because of Kevin's issues with his father. You're welcome to unleash that tidal wave, if you like.”

“Err…no thanks.”

“Are you sure? We might inform him together. I'm sure it will be a moment of growth for all three of us. We can wax lyrical about the Power of Friendship, and embrace, manfully.”

“I'm fine, thanks. He can stay ignorant a bit longer.”

“You do you.“

With Meat successfully neutralised, Lord Flash returns to crying over the decor, discreetly, of course, pearly tears gliding down the face of his mask anytime Meat is unable to see it. 

With his back turned, he should be sending a clear signal to the other coach, but no, now that he's engaged in civil conversation with another brain-containing adult, Meat wants to continue engaging. That's just how it is. Perhaps Lord Flash is infected, and dies horribly, and he's stuck with brain rotted TikTak children from there on out? This might be his last opportunity ever to speak about something other than love and anime. 

“So why are you acting odd? Odder? Kevin was moaning and fretting earlier that you aren't eating enough. That's serious. You're probably dying of something. Your own narcissism, perhaps. When did you last perform an oil change?”

“I'm going to have to subsist in a forest.”

“Sorry?”

Although Lord Flash doesn't wear glasses, he turns away from an indescribably horrible set of drapes, to mime the movement of taking a pair off and rubbing his unyielding steel face, thus giving Meat the distinct impression that he believes him to be of subpar intelligence. “Meat, I understand your IQ levels are negatively affected by various factors not under your control, but have you observed what is going on around you? The state of degradation and debasement we have arrived at?”

“The zom-”

Lord Flash’s massive, square and spiky head swings round to a normal position for just a moment, leaving him peering down at Meat in what can only be described as a resentful fashion. “I'm not talking about them. Walking corpses don't bother me. Everyone’s a walking corpse to me. Soon you’ll all cease moving and rot away, leaving me to finagle new relationships out of the dirt and dust.”

“...Err-”

“Nevermind. Huh, it must be peaceful to be so blind. Regardless, if things do not improve forthwith, my brood of hilarious chicks and I will soon vacate this unhygienic city in order to crouch in the woods where I will sit upon them whilst we await salvation from the stars.” Lord Flash does that thing with his eyes which takes him from ‘eccentric’ to ‘psychotic’. “You are not invited.”

…Excuse me? Meat, the mascot, not invited?! Something like an angry expression overcomes the little man's placid face, and he shakes a soft fist at the stuck-up maniac before him. “Who do you think you are? I'm coming anyway! I have as much right to go where I want as you do!” 

A tiny, nigh invisible fold of metal bunches up around where a corner of Lord Flash's lips would be.

                                                                                                                🧟‍♂️

 It’s still early in the morning, and singing comes from the vicinity of the pool of blood Kid Muscle is using as a pillow. “I'm blue, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, da ba dee da ba di, I'm blue-”

Kevin, who is lying back to back with Kid in the puddle of blood, scrunches up his eyes. It’s already extremely difficult to sleep when you’re wearing a heavy steel helmet, and someone singing insane songs two inches away only makes it more so. “I'm going to murder you, Kid.” he says, whispering for no reason. It’s not like there are girls sleeping on aubergine purple and vomit yellow chaise lounges nearby. 

Kid does not whisper, and he replies in a hoity-toity accent reminiscent of a certain someone whose name begins with the big, edgy brother of the letter C. “Don't you know I'm already ‘deceased’, Kev? Your buddy said so, very prematurely, if I do say so, haha!...Almost like he knew something you didn’t, mmm.” 

“Lord Flash knows many things I don’t. That is why he’s my trainer, you smelly fool.”

“Wooooow, is that humility I hear from you, Kev? Can’t be. I must be dreaming, zzzz.”

“Oh don’t pretend! You're such a chil…Kid?”

“Zzzzz.”

Although he doesn’t want to, Kevin half sits up and peers over his shoulder, whereupon he is both annoyed and saddened to discover that Kid has in fact fallen asleep. 

“Kevin! Be quiet!” hisses one of the girls, not his girl, but one of his foe’s. Typical. Instead of returning fire, he acts as if he didn’t hear the rudeness at all, which for some reason makes the girl who hissed at him, blush. To compensate, and perhaps to provoke the reaction she seeks, she begins complaining about another innocent.

“Hey! Why does Charlotte get the prettiest sofa? She’s not even part of the gang!”

Her ploy succeeds where personal injustice couldn’t. Kevin sits up properly, the top half of his body rising like a building being erected by miraculous means under the cover of night, black but shiny where faint glimmers of light strike his helmet.

“Don’t start.”

“It’s nepotism, that’s what it is, Kev!”

“You don’t even know what that word means, you daft bint.”

“Daft? Don’t call me daft, you pointy nosed wannabe tough guy!”

“Pointy nosed? Why you…I imagine you’re attempting to call me superior, ‘posh’, high and mighty, with my nose in the air?”

“Aaah-”

“Thought so.”

Charlotte, who is sweetly asleep, doesn’t hear any of this.

Like a shark drawn by a single droplet of blood in the whole wide ocean, Lord Flash and Meat are inevitably drawn to the sound of teenage tomfoolery. Naturally, with his longer legs and ceaseless urge to destroy, maim, and kill, Lord Flash is leading. When he enters the room, he stands just inside the massive doorway, and looks around, his laser beam eyes sweeping the prone young bodies, his body eerily phosphorescent in the almost non-existent light.

When his voice arrives, it is like a blizzard of ice or a furious hail, striking defenseless flesh, not excluding that of his ‘chicks’. “Children, we are abandoning this hell hole for a hotel.”

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Good Charlotte