Location: Dead Zone - Regraccon Police Department
Word Count: 2269
Death had sought a way out of this place ever since he first arrived in this strange land. A way to get back to his own world so he could finish the mission he set out for in the first place, to free War from his imprisonment by the Charred Council. Despite his efforts, however, he was not able to achieve this task and nothing he has done so far brought him any closer to finding a way back to his world. Death has since redirected his goal to rejoining the former group he was once apart of. There was still so much of this new world that he did not yet understand and he thought seeking his former partners would be beneficial given that they probably knew more than him. He still remembered some of them, especially the two he fought beside in that canyon, Zer0 and The Courier. Death had to venture back to the place he originally abandoned the group and follow along the path that they took, utilising clues and whatnot to do so. Eventually, The Rider was able to track the trail of the group into a dark, nightmarish area ripe with all manners of evil known as the Dead Zone. Ghouls and monstrosities of all sorts were very much prevalent in this area and Death regularly had to fight his way through the creatures just to navigate through the place. It was a difficult task as ever since he first awoke in this strange land, he had become weak, not as strong as he once was. Most of his capabilities that he had prior were lost or weakened and he has not been able to regain them as of yet which meant that he had to fight hard just to survive.
Luckily, he had begun to get closer and closer to the source of the trail he was following. Soon enough he should able to reach the group he was attempting to meet up with, wherever they were. The Reaper had eventually found himself in some form of subway station. As usual, there were a few unholy creatures lurking about that Death had to quickly dispose of. It took some time due to his weakened nature but once it was done The Pale Rider was about to continue on his search for this group when he felt a presence that made him stop in his tracks for a moment, a familiar one at that. It felt as though this presence belonged to something he had faced back in his world but he couldn’t quite place exactly why. He waited for this presence, whoever it belonged to, to reveal itself.
From beneath his bony mask he scoured the station with molten orange eyes. With the wandering dead that pervaded it slain, themselves far meatier than the ancient corpses strewn about the post-apocalyptic earth he knew, a profound stillness filled the entire place. In the dusty silence the horseman could hear even the most subtle noises as if they were thunderclaps.
Drip-drip-drip went a sprikler system near a jagged seam in the concrete ceiling, its pipes no doubt damaged by whatever rupture left the crack. The faintest whistle of wind passed over the exit a few hundred feet away, where stairs led up to the surface.
Naturally, when ponderous, plodding footfalls began to echo through the station, he could hear them clear as day.
The sudden loudness proved to be a problem, however. The noise resounded through the whole area, its source nearly impossible to locate. Death did not need to wait long to find out, though. An explosion of bricks and dust from one of the walls shattered the ominous peace that had settled over the station, and through the opening heaved a hulking
mound of misshapen flesh. It had no eyes, but it could sense the horseman, and it released a wordless, guttural bellow that shook the underground. Putting one pimpled trunk in front of the other, it approached, its cages clutched like massive flails ready to pound Death into paste.
The Horseman immediately jumped back in response to the lumbering abomination moving his way towards him. One quick glance and Death knew this would not be an easy foe to take down, especially not in this weakened state he was still in. He was going to have be careful with this encounter or this could turn bad really quickly. From what he was able to gather on the beast’s appearance, it would not be easy for him to cut through it with his scythes like he had been able to with the monsters he had encountered previously.
Faced with an overbearing foe, Death chose to bide his time and wait for a good opportunity. The jailer, however, charged forward, letting out and then swinging one of its chains. A bulky, dented cage flew up in an overhead arc, careening down at the Horseman from above.
Seeing the attack coming due to his patience, Death rolled to the side to avoid the blow. He saw this as an opportune time to counter attack while the creature was recovering from its attack. The Horseman used the beast’s arm as a way to get closer to its upper half. Once up there, Death began swiping his scythes at anything that seemed even remotely like flesh. He wanted to see just how much damage he did to this thing while also making sure to look out for any sign of a potential weak point. He didn’t have much time left before the beast would recover and notice exactly where he was so The Reaper prepared himself for another possible attack, if that creature could even reach up here.
Death’s scythe-blades cut deeply into its blobby skin, drawing copius amounts of vile brownish blood, but they didn’t seem to hit anything vital. The Jailer swatted at him ineffectively, bulky and slow. Only when the shriveled yellow corpse inside the cage on its chest mimed a thrashing motion did the demon take real action, bucking like a wild bronco to throw Death off. It threw one of its cage-flails over its shoulder, trying to crush Death if he didn’t get off.
The Jailer attempted to get The Horseman off to no success but what really caught Death’s eye was the corpse that was inside one of the cages attached to The Jailer’s body. The beast seemed to mimic whatever action the caged creature performed and he made sure to take note of that. The frantic bucking and swaying the abomination had started forced Death to latch his scythes into its skin to keep himself steady. It had worked and he wasn’t in danger of being thrown off anymore but that was before he noticed a rogue cage flinging back straight at him. Death managed to pull his scythes out of the gross flesh and in front of him to block the impact but the force of it sent him flying off The Jailer anyway. Luckily, he landed on his feet and it took only a short moment for him to steady himself, ready to continue the fight.
With a screech, the controller body directed the bleeding Jailer to attack. Three pustule clusters on its swollen left side turned from greenish to angry red, pulsing like infected sores. Wheeling its cage-flail around, the Jailer started windmilling it in a circle, like a gigantic, bone-crashing lasso sending sparks up from the ground as it whirled. With the limited confines of the subway station, the flail almost covered the whole horizontal area, and as the Jailer moved forward it threatened to bash Death with vicious force.
Death, upon thinking about the situation, had come to the conclusion that the creature in the cage was the one giving commands to the bigger of the two. However, there was no way he could get to it with The Jailer still alive. So Death’s first course of action was to deal with this beast and fast. Unfortunately, the creature had started its next attack with a wide spinning sweep. Thinking fast, The Horseman turned and ran up the wall of the subway behind him until he was high enough to where he was just out of range of the beasts flailing. Once he was, Death pushed himself from the wall, launching himself at the monstrosity again. This time he planned to deal with the unusual looking clusters that had appeared on its left side as he thought that it was too obvious for that not to be a weakness of some kind.
A speedy wallrun brought Death out of the way of the cage just in time, causing it to strike the masonry instead in a burst of dust and stone chips. The shock of the impact jarred the Jailer out of its rage, causing the pustules to lose their red color. It also allowed Death to fling himself onto its body and cleave into the luminous warts with his scythes, splattering them in quick succession. Instantly the Jailer slumped over in pain, the skulls all across its grotesque form rattling, and out of the central cage popped the undead, looking bewildered.
The Reaper’s plan had worked like a charm and he had successfully managed to slay the foul fiend. He jumped off of The Jailer as it fell, landing safely on the ground as the large creature toppled over completely. Now all that was left was the one that was in the cage. Death didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks and finished the job quickly, coming from behind the grotesque looking monster and slicing it clean in half.
However, all was not as good as it seemed. The slash dug deep into the controller’s body, but before it could bite clean through, the whole Jailer spasmed to life again, throwing Death off. It staggered to its feet, the cage door slamming shut on its controller, before the undead burned with green, spectral flame. It shook itself like a wet dog, dislodging a couple cadavers that rose, bone swords in hand, to run at Death.
The Horseman rolled backwards to create some distance between the newly summoned minions and himself. This certainly was becoming a much more difficult task that what was initially thought. The minions rushed at him and Death prepared himself to intercept. Cutting them down quickly and effectively, he made sure to keep one eye on the Jailer in case the abomination attempted to strike him again with its cage flail.
Lowly undead made for little challenge, but even as they toppled back into death, the Jailer came at the nephilim once more. It stepped forward as though to swing its cage-flail, but right before it let rip the controller twisted in the opposite direction, and the Jailer lurched forward to try and bash Death with the cage lodged in its flesh-mass.
The Horseman had not expected such and action from the terrible monstrosity and it had caught him off guard a second time. Death moved to dodge out of the way but wasn’t able to make it all the way. A part of his body had been hit by The Jailer’s cage bash and Death sprawled out onto the floor mid-roll due to this. Things weren’t looking too good for The Pale Rider but he picked himself up from the ground nonetheless. He wasn’t about to give up so easily. Death thought to try that trick he had attempted on the creature beforehand. It had found success then, surely that success could be repeated.
With ugly laughter, the Jailer stepped forward to finish Death off. It swung its flail again, sweeping from right to left. The attack flew out to meet him without any regard for his surroundings, including a bench, a couple of trash cans, and a pillar.
Again Death jumped high into the air to get clear of the creature’s massive sweep attack. After which he would land on the thing’s arm and run along the mass of bulbous flesh to get to its warts. Killing the beast now should give him enough time to finally put an end to the true mastermind of the two, who was still safely locked in his little cage. Once more the monster fell, incapacitated, and the caged undead was vulnerable. Just in case, Death checked over the Jailer’s corpse to make sure it wouldn’t come back a third time before turning his attention towards the corpse. The Reaper connected his to scythes together into one long scythe-staff, stabbing the weapon into the thing’s gut and wrenched it. The corpse then split in half, its top half slowly sliding off and onto the ground, finishing the wound he had inflicted on this corpse previously.
Death had won the fight but he had been injured during it, which wasn’t good. He wouldn’t be able to fight that effectively in his current state, not against the monsters that prowled this desolate place.Stepping out of the subway station and back onto the main streets, Death observed his surroundings once more to see if there was anywhere he could take shelter. He ended up continuing along the trail the group he was tracking had left behind that he was able to pick up on. It took some time and Death had to avoid most of his encounters that he would have in order to avoid any conflict and potentially more injury. Eventually, a peculiar building stood out to him among all the others and this was the RCPD. The Horseman thought that if anyone was around, it would be there and so he moved to enter.
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