"Lets go." Zero turned around, three backpacks shoved into the one on his back. Zero heard shuffling before the three appeared beside him. Zero lead the way to the escalators, only to arrive at the seen of multiple dead creature bodies. Zero ignored all of them, as he was the one that had killed them all. What the three didn't know, was that Zero had already cleared most if not all of the fifth floor. When they had been simply sitting by his stash, Zero had killed over 15 of the creatures, all but one having a Shade of their own.
"How many souls did you steal!" Zero didn't even bother to acknowledge Linda's words as he made started walking down the unpowered stairs. As they made it half way to the 4th floor, there was a loud clatter from bellow. Everyone paused at the sound and crowed down so they were hiding behind the escalators small walls. Zero was suddenly tapped on the shoulder, however he ignored it as he tried to focus on listening to the creatures. When the tapping didn't stop, but rather it got more intense, Zero turned around to find it was the smarter one that had been tapping his shoulder. "Are you going to go deal with it?"
Zero softly scoffed at the expectation of the man. "The creatures we fought before have long tongues that can reach anything in its sight. Not to mention they are smart, meaning they will group up to kill something. Add that onto the possibility of an unknown creature appearing and pinching me between the two, or worse, joining them in their attack. How is your group a scavenging group?" There was silence thought the group, however Zero was confused as it seemed to be more then simply embarrassment. Zero looked at Linda, who was uncharacteristically silent. "Why are you suddenly so quite?"
Zero didn't move until finally the smart one spoke up. "This is our first time as a scavenging group..." Zero staired at the three before speaking. "Obviously. But that isn't the secret you are keeping. Now spill, or I will simply kill all three of you for lying to me." The three must have seen that he wasn't kidding about killing them, because Josh instantly spoke. "We just joined your group!" "Explain." The smart one took over for Josh. "We arrived at the high school after finding our parents bodies. It was a sad ti-" Zero cut him off. "I don't care about your sad backstory. We all have them, Fast forward."
He seemed offended, but quickly continued. "We found each other and decided to head to the high school, as it was somewhere we thought others would gather. We were brought Infront of Gem, were she said our small figures would be an asset to the group. After finding there was a scheduled scavenge run the day before, we got the information out of the team that was support to go before arriving at the front doors first. You know the rest."
Zero heavily contemplated just killing them as they were head weight, however if Gem took in an interest in them, he couldn't simply kill them. "Girl, If you don't stop acting out, I will kill you. Josh, other boy, same to you. I wont kill you, however scrap the rules you have heard up until now. If you are going to be following me, then there are new rules. First, no talking unless necessary, I will not be killed because you cant shut up. Second, you don't break formation, EVER. I don't care if one of you gets badly injured and falls unconscious. If one of you goes to save the other, we could all die.
"Third, You take the souls you kill. If you kill something, the souls are yours. That also means that you don't rush for souls I kill. If I see you stealing my souls, I will kill the entire group." Without checking if they understood the rules, Zero turned and continued down the stairs at a crouch. When he arrived at the 4th floor, he checked around before peaking over the railing, finding there was a single eye creature and what looked like a wolf. As Zero looked the wolf over, he found it had no skin.
The head of the four legged creature was skinless as well. There was suddenly a gaging sound to his right before it cut off. Zero looked at the source, finding it was Josh. Zero quickly looked back at the creatures, only to find the wolf one was missing. "Abov-!" Josh's outcry was cut off as something slammed into Zero's shoulder before latching onto it.
Zero screamed out in pain as he slammed into the other railing before being sent through it. Zero's view changed to that of the malls ceiling, and he realized the wolf creature had just shoved both of them through the railing. Without hesitating, Zero pointed his right hand up and willed the Seeker Beam to target the eyed creature he had seen before. The beam shot out of his entire hand before flying through the floor before a loud scream was heard. Zero didn't know if it would work, however he willed the beam to imbed itself into the creature and stay there. Zero thought he had hope as the beam stayed for a moment longer, only to curse as the Seeker Beam disappeared from his finger, meaning it wouldn't work as a make shift grappling hook.
With the last option remaining, Zero twisted so his body was above the wolfs. The wolf, as if it had no intelligence, just simply continued to munch on his left shoulder. Zero closed his eyes just before the two made impact with the ground. 'Should I try something different this time around? Maybe I will go after the sniper, Of course I would have to learn how to shoot one.' Zero's thoughts were cut off as everything went dark.