Maids VS Apocalypse

"Alright," Producing the tablet from before, Ramsay began tapping on it. "Let’s try this again."

"Hold on! Wait!" Mark quickly jumped to his feet. "At least let me-"

"Think fast."

The Sergeant jumped a few meters in the air and landed on the walkway of the second floor. In the corner of his eye, Mark noticed the pink glass wall blocking another cell vanish.

The creaking sound of the retreating metallic bars pierced his ears and forced him to realize he didn’t have the time to complain. With a single thought, an AR-15 appeared out of thin air and fell into his hands.

The first time he held a gun in his life was in the shop a few minutes ago. Ramsay had given him a few pointers, but even then he still felt far from prepared.

The second prisoner was a bald black man who looked like he had spent one too many hours in the gym. Without making a sound, he lunged in Mark’s direction with an explosive dash. If not for the red glow in his eyes one would still think he was a normal human. But he was not.

A threat was registered in Mark’s mind, and before hesitation could hinder him, his finger squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

The first bullet went flying and the recoil threw the rifle back, its butt striking the unprepared Mark’s shoulder. He had to adjust quickly and tighten his hold on the grip all while raining bullets on the charging black man.

As the distance between them decreased, more shots found their target. One of them struck the prisoner in the head, snapping it backward. An instant later, the force driving him forward seemed to vanish, his knees buckling as he folded on himself. By then, the System message announcing the kill had already appeared.

[You have defeated a Fallen Human (Fallen)]

[+17AP]

"Finally!" Came a shout from above. "Was that so difficult!?"

Mark looked down at rifle in his arms. He then directed his gaze at the Sergeant. Ramsay seemed to realize what was about to happen, his eyes widening as he prepared to shout. Before he could, Mark aimed the rifle and pulled the trigger.

Bullets went flying, a cacophony of clangs following as they struck the metallic walkway. Ramsay was already on the move but Mark wasn’t letting him out of his sight.

To avoid consuming MP, an Awakened had no choice but to rely on weapons and equipment. That was the lesson taught to him by the general. And what was the weapon anyone could use with little to no training and still achieve great effects?

That’s right: it’s guns.

In most monster apocalypse stories, normal guns are usually phased out at the start for one reason or another. Because of that, Mark was surprised when the Sergeant told him to get comfortable with using one.

Turns out most lower Rank Fallen could be taken down with a few bullets, and the same went for Awakened. There was no better proof for that than the way Ramsay ran when he started shooting at him.

For someone who’s supposedly twenty-seven times stronger than the average human, the Sergeant was far too slow, so much so that Mark could easily follow him using eyesight alone. Whether he was able to react to that was a different story, however.

Ramsay leaped into the air and over Mark’s head, landing right behind him. He was about to charge at the youth when a strange TANG sound drew his attention to the floor.

"Mothe-"

A sharp explosion and a powerful burst of light. At this point, flash bangs have become a favorite of Marks. All it takes is to sneak one close to his opponent without their notice, and by the time they realize what it was both their hearing and sight would be gone.

As soon as the light began to fade, Mark turned around and was about to resume the shooting when he noticed the Sergeant was gone.

"Alright, I get it already." A hand fell on his shoulder. "Sheesh. Maybe giving you guns was a bad idea after all."

Mark turned to him with a glare.

"Okay okay!" Ramsay held his hands up in resignation. "Sorry for not giving you proper prep time." Seeing that nothing had changed, he thought some more before adding "And sorry for smacking you on the head."

Thanks to his Force Field, the blow wasn’t lethal. Even then Mark was still pissed about getting smacked in the head. Seeing the Sergeant rub his eyes with an irritated grimace, he decided to call it even and shrugged the hand off his shoulder.

"Didn’t you say you never shot anyone like a minute ago?" Ramsay clicked his tongue. "And here I thought you would have trouble killing those things."

Mark glanced at him then at the Swiss cheese of a prisoner on the ground.

"They were infected, right?"

Ramsay kept his gaze on the youth for a few seconds before sighing and shifting his sight to the headless blob that was once a man.

"Lank Kofsky. He ran a sex trafficking ring. Some of the victims were underage." He turned his eyes to the second one. "Fredrick Michonne. Serial rapist. His targets were mostly homeless people so it took a long while before anyone did anything about him."

Mark’s jaws tightened as a strange bitterness rose to the back of his throat. He had already concluded that the prisoners must’ve done something to end up in their cells, but hearing about their crimes made the image even more vivid.

He remembered what the Sergeant had told him before about the difference between Fallen and mutated beasts. While the latter were mindless animals to begin with, the former always had a human origin no matter what their appearance might suggest.

The Fallen were creatures of pure evil whose only purpose was to commit atrocious acts. Their kind never deserved any sympathy, but one thing made it so some are far more despicable than others.

"With the advent of the LRGS, it takes a lot for Madness to get a hold on someone compared to before," Ramsay explained. "Only the most irredeemable monsters whose conscience had long since died lose themselves to the Whispers. They were monsters to begin with. All that happened was that the darkness inside them manifested in a more recognizable form."

Creatures like Malarak’s Spawn might have been born in their twisted lizard-like appearance, but in most cases, those ruled by Madness were always people who succumbed to it, losing their sanity to the darkness in their hearts.

The two prisoners he had just killed were an example of how it looks like when that happens. Though they still retained their human appearance, their minds were long gone, replaced by the unrestrained desire to commit evil.

"... I see..." Heaving a sigh, Mark gazed at his surroundings, counting the number of cells sealed with the pink glass walls. "Just twelve? I thought there would be a lot more."

Ramsay broke into a coughing fit as if something got caught in his throat. After a few seconds, he heaved a sigh.

"We... actually killed everyone else."

Mark raised an eyebrow.

"Well, only the most horrible criminals turn into Fallen. If that doesn’t happen it means the vaccine worked."

"So? Isn’t that the intended purpose?"

Grimacing, Ramsay looked away and scratched the back of his head.

"Just because someone awakened safely doesn’t mean they turned into a good person." He smiled wryly. "We don’t have the time or the resources to deal with Awakened criminals so..."