Chapter: 99
—One of the Last of the Living—
"Ma'am, you should come see this! There's a battle going on in New York," Jarvis—her loyal AI—called out to her over the bunker's speaker system.
Andrea Stark, formerly known as the Iron Woman of the Avengers, was currently in the process of building a new suit. Progress was slower when she had to do it by hand instead of getting help from all her robotic creations, which had unfortunately been destroyed when California fell to the horde of undead.
The world had gone crazy.
A year ago, there had been reports of a strange object falling out of the sky in west africa. Some people claimed it was an alien falling to earth, others just said it was a random meteor. All everyone knew was that it wasnt long later that the rumors of a terrible sickness started originating in West Africa. Infected individuals would catch a terrible fever before collapsing and passing away, only to rise again.
Andrea, like any other sane woman of science, naturally didn't believe the rumors.
Who would? Zombies were supposed to be nothing more than a made-up fictional concept, after all.
But the other Avengers figured they might as well go and check it out, perhaps even get a sample of the virus so they could create a cure. Nobody wanted another pandemic spreading, after all. The captain volunteered to go himself. He was inoculated against every disease known to man, and a super soldier serum also boosted his immune system drastically. They all figured there was no way he would catch whatever was spreading around the continent.
Oh, how wrong they were.
As the captain was touring one of the local hospitals, a little girl walked up to him—except she was no longer a little girl but instead a rotting corpse. Of course, the kind captain was completely caught off guard when the little girl reached over to him and took a big bite into his leg.
What shocked the Avengers more was that not even a few hours later, the captain was sick in bed himself, having caught the disease going around. Andrea immediately had him flown back to the Avengers tower where he could be treated. Except the flight took a couple of hours, and by the time the plane landed, Rogers was no longer among the living. In fact, nobody on board that plane was. Rogers had passed away and awoken as a zombie, proceeding to attack every single person on board.
Then the plane never landed at the Avengers tower; instead, it landed at JFK International Airport, where tens of thousands of other people were all boarding planes to travel around the entire world. And that's how the disease took off so quickly. It didn't take long before zombies were sprouting up across the entire planet, and millions of people were being infected every single day.
Andrea's Iron Legion put up a valiant fight, but the powered intelligent zombies eventually managed to destroy her entire legion of Iron Suits.
And wasn't that a scary concept? Intelligent zombies! Some of the zombies—like Roger's—managed to retain a modicum of their intelligence and superpowers when they were turned. The intelligent undead ended up becoming something akin to generals to the hordes.
Andrea walked over to the screen, and her eyes teared up at what she was seeing. "Oh Bruce…" The Zombie Hulk had basically taken over New York as its territory and hunting grounds. Most survivors knew to steer clear of that area by now, but occasionally some foolish people would try entering the city to search for food or supplies. They all unfortunately ended up being ripped apart and devoured by her one–time closest friend. Bruce, as a fellow scientist, was one of the few people who Andrea ever really connected with.
She expected Jarvis to show her footage of the Hulk killing more innocent survivors. Instead, she saw a being fighting against him on almost even footing!
"WHAT!? Is this live, Jarvis?" Andrea's eyes widened at what she was looking at. The most beautiful woman she'd ever seen with four sets of Black Wings on her back was fighting the Zombie Hulk and actually putting up a decent fight. She could fly and conjure dark purple laser spears that could actually injure him! Even Andrea's strongest repulsor blasts failed to ever so much as scratch his skin!
"It is live, ma'am. And there's more. Look here!" Jarvis switched the camera feed, and Andrea saw another beautiful woman with golden hair and pitch-black armor smashing her way through a large horde of zombies with nothing but her bare fists! A few zombies tried to occasionally bite her, but their teeth always ended up shattering against her armor! Andrea wondered what metal that was made of!
"Do we know anything about these two? The blond one is tall and could be an Asgardian. As for the one with wings… are Angels real?" Andrea asked Jarvis.
"There's never been any concrete proof of their existence, but it was speculated that they could have been another space-faring race similar to the Asgardians." Jarvis said as she continued watching the fight. The black-winged angel took a heavy blow to her side from the Hulk but managed to stab a spear directly downward on top of his foot. The Hulk was pinned to the ground as she rapidly flew around him and started hammering him with stabs from all directions.
Unfortunately, none of them would be fatal unless the angel could hit his brain. Andrea cursed as the Hulk was smart enough to shield his own head with his giant arms.
"Jarvis, open the bunker doors. I'm flying out," Andrea said as she walked over to her armor. It was a bit scuffed up and lacking a paint job, but it still worked.
"Are you sure, ma'am?" Jarvis asked her with concern.
Andrea nodded. Those two were never-before-seen beings on this world. That meant they had to have come from space. Could they have a way off this hellish planet!? Andrea could only hope they did. She had to go help them if that was the case!
XXX
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