Chapter 6

"So who are you?" The old man asked Lili after they arrived back to their base.

"I'm Lili, thank you for helping me escape those damned cannibals." Lili responded shaking the old man's hand in gratitude.

"Think nothing of it young one, any friend of the metal head is a friend of ours and we protect one of our own whenever they need the help." The old man said respectfully shaking off Lili's gratitude.

"Hey Ironman come over here and bring the newbie I feel like kicking your asses in cards and taking your non-existent money away from you, so what do you say wanna lose?" The drunken man asked placing his arm over The knight and Lili's shoulders after sobering up from being dragged back to the base.

"Sure I'll be happy to take your money away from you." The knight responded to the normally drunken friend of his.

"I guess it'll be fun, so sure" Lili followed up with some skepticism to the request.

While the three of them walked away to the table the other three were sitting at a sight caught The knight's eye. Sitting at the table behind the group was a single person reading a book, at her side was a long bow and a quiver with different forms of ammunition and a crossbow sitting on top of a sea of books waiting for her attention.

"Hey uhhh who's that with the archery kit sitting at the table over there with the hundreds of books." The knight asked the alcoholic man while whispering in his ear.

"Ohhhh you're talking about Crow. Well she's essentially our resident medieval sniper. The shots she can make with her crossbow, longbow, and shortbow are a thing of legend. I swear the amount of times she's saved my life from afar is enough to blow your damn mind. Anyway why you asking? Want me to introduce you to her?" The drunk rambled on while The knight was distracted by staring at Crow which caused him to barely hear and comprehend what was being asked by the drunk he called a friend.

"Wait wha-" The knight stated too late.

"Hey Crow! Come over here I wanna introduce you to someone who asked about you!" The sober drunk screamed out before The knight could stop him.

Suddenly plenty of eyes were on The knight as he began to sweat from the stress of having so many people's attention when he wanted to be invisible. Crow scowled as she heard whose voice was calling for her taking her attention away from the story she was reading. Closing the book revealed a title that dripped blood onto a white castle stating 'Do Not Read'. Getting up slowly from her seat her hand inched toward an arrow from her quiver as she stared annoyed at the sober drunk who began to show a comedic fear of his face instead of a smile.

"Woah hey now, let's talk about this calmly. Please for the love of god put down the arrow." The drunk pleaded putting his hands In front of him as if to shield him from her while slowly moving backwards.

After the drunk got a couple of steps back he grabbed The knight and hid behind him getting some chuckles from his friends and full blown laughter from Knuckles. When Crow got close enough The knight raised a single hand to greet her before the drunk pushed him forward and ran away surprisingly quick for a man who seemed to be drunk more often than sober. The knight although he was pushed forward had enough control over his body to not fall on top of Crow like some stereotypical romantic protagonist. Crow side stepped The knight regardless of his control not giving him even a glance as she kept her focus on the drunk and her desire to hurt him. Aiming her shot she chucked the arrow at the drunk catching the side of his pants and sticking it to the floor tripping him. Satisfied with her work she walked up to the irritating man on the floor who was struggling to get away, but also being careful as he knew her wrath would only be worse if he broke one of her arrows. All she did was collect her arrow as he gave up with his arms over his head in fetal position waiting for punishment.

"Uhhhh what was all that?" The knight asked the group at the table confused by what had transpired.

"Hah woooo don't worry about it, this happens all the time." Knuckles answered after his attack of laughter.

"Are they, you know?" Lili asked with a small smirk on her face.

"No no no no no! She absolutely hates his guts. I don't think she'll ever see him in a romantic light even if they were the last two beings left. They'll still save eachother, but that's because we're all family here. Oh also gotta give you a warning she's mute so give her time to write her response to you down, but she also just might not respond at all." Knuckles answered.

Crow returned to her seat and put her arrow back in the quiver before spotting The knight still staring at her. She gave him a slight smile before returning to her book as the drunk crawled over to the table in pain like a soldier crawling through an enemy's territory. Lili just chuckled at the two idiots as The knight looked like a love struck puppy and the drunk looked like he was trying to do his best to get to The table while hiding from Crow which he was.

"Oh by the way I'm Lili and I don't believe I've gotten any of your names." Lili said to the group when the drunk finally arrived sitting in the seat reserved for him.

"Well people around here call me knuckles for the way I bash the zombies' heads in with my brass knuckles." The giant red head exclaimed brandishing his weapons as if they were a pair of prized trophies.

"My name is Sandra and might I say, it is lovely to meet you. We're always happy to gain a new member here." She said as she glared at her brother who started to make a lot of noise.

"Welp now that you've heard from my dear sister and her freakishly giant husband I guess it's now my turn to introduce myself. I'm Dion short for Dionysus." The drunken said pulling four bottles of beer from seemingly thin air and popping all of them open at the same time before drinking them rapidly as if they would disappear just as quickly as they had appeared.

"Oh enough with that made up story Dion, mom and dad didn't name you after the greek god of parties and alcohol that idea just came to your head after being a goddamn alcoholic." Sandra said irritated with her brother.

"I'm Ghost." A deep voice uttered out getting completely and utterly to the point.

"Wow! Has anyone told you you're voice really doesn't match how you look at all?" Lili said surprised by the deep voice coming out of a relatively small in stature character like Ghost.

"Yes, multiple times especially before this whole mess we're in." Ghost said tired as he saw Dion drink six more bottles of beer in rapid succession accompanying the four previous bottles he already drank making a mess as he went.

"Dion please clean up this mess you're making." Ghost asked to no avail as Dion was too far gone into his drunken state.

"Yill jet toit ater" Dion slurred his attempt at saying will get to it later which confused Lili greatly.

"Wait did he just get drunk off of only ten bottles of beer. He spilled most of it on the table how in the hell is he possibly drunk?" Lili exclaimed once again getting surprised by members of the group.

"Well despite my brother's daily drinking habits and his alcoholism, he has virtually no resistance to alcohol meaning the tiniest bit could and will get him wasted beyond belief much to our annoyance. I swear how can a man who drinks so much alcohol have such a small tolerance to it." Sandra said about her brother who was beginning to sway back and forth in his seat.

The knight suddenly stood up from his seat as he had been staring at Crow all this time barely paying any attention to what the others at the table were talking about. Sandra had a look of amusement on her face as she recognized where he was going. Ghost had an uninterested look on his face preferring to give Dion the stink eye for the huge mess he was continuing to make on the table. Knuckles had a look of pity on his face while shaking his head slowly.

"That poor poor boy, he's going to get his heart broken and end up a drunken mess like Dion over here isn't he." Knuckles claimed having no faith in The knight at all.

"Nahhhhhhhh he's gothisss, yous hear meh metalman yousa gothhisss go an geh your girl whoooooo." Dion cheered in his drunken attempt at being a hype man for The knight.

"Don't mess it up." Lili said simply slightly amused yet showing some indifference to if he succeeds or fails at his venture.

The knight continued onward not showing a single hint that he had heard his companions' words of wisdom to him. As The knight took step after step towards Crow and the table she was residing at the nerves only grew. His armor began to feel as if it was scorching him alive like a piece of chicken in an oven. His mind started racing with possible endings to his upcoming action with the most prevalent one being him stuck to the wall with arrows pierced in his flesh keeping him there. He worried that Dion's influence in him would cause Crow to hate him as she hated Dion. No matter how outlandish and unfounded the ideas were they kept coming, popping up like parasites in dirty water. Although it had felt like eons to The knight just as quickly and suddenly as he left his friends' table he had arrived at Crow's.

"Uhhhhh hi Crow right? Ummm uhhh I'm metal man, I mean I'm iron man, no wait uhh I'm metal head, wait no fuck uhhhh that's not right ummm you know what you cab just call me whatever you please to. Everyone else seems to do so." The knight said while sweating buckets in his armor at the rather weird and awkward introduction.

"I think I'll simply call you The knight and yes the people here do call me Crow." She had written down for The knight to read at his leisure.

"Hmmmm The knight, I kind of like it, it has a nice ring to it. Wait why The knight tho? Huh shit! I forgot I'm still wearing this knight cosplay. No fucking wonder people have kept calling me names relating to metal." The knight said to himself as if he had finally cracked some huge code that was being kept a secret from him.

While The knight was having a crisis Crow was watching him with amusement cracking a rare smile as he beat himself up over being an idiot. Crow began writing her next message as The knight finally calmed down.

"What sort of weapons do you use to dispatch the undead?" Crow wrote on the paper before handing it to The knight who was now calm.

"Hmmmm weapons? I just use my hands, feet, and head. It's the easiest and most fun way to fight zombies." The knight said completely serious and happy.

This caused Crow to raise both eyebrows as a hand to hand fight with zombies was incredibly dangerous especially without a melee weapon of some sort to help out. Knuckles was their hand to hand fighter and even he with his giant frame and amazing strength used brass knuckles as weapons to help him take out the zombies quickly. Nobody in their right mind would even dare fight zombies close up without a weapon especially if they had to fight a group of zombies, it was simply a death wish.

"Are you being serious? That's the most irresponsible and dangerous thing you could do. How did you survive this long without a weapon?" Crow wrote rapidly handing The knight slips of paper with a different sentence on it her eyes expressing fury and worry throughout.

The knight had not noticed her expressions as he read each slips of paper she had handed him. The knight had conveniently forgotten just how dangerous the zombies were to people who didn't share his rather specific blood type. In his mind the zombies were now annoyances rather than the actual threats that they are to the others. He goofingly imagined the different zombies he's seen just fucking about in the city walking in circles around eachother while Bob aimlessly walked around. Crow snapped her fingers in front of The knight's face trying to get his attention to learn of his answers.

"Huh? Oh right! Uhh yea of course I was serious and it's not really that dangerous to me I could handle it. Survival was easy for me I just stayed home for the most part although recently I've found wrestling some of the zombies to be fun." The knight said carelessly as he disregarded how others would feel to hearing about his hobby that seemed like suicide to them.

Her jaw dropped as she carefully heard exactly what The knight said. Anger and sadness began to well up inside her as tears formed at the corners of her eyes. After wiping the tears away she slapped The knight which hurt her hand, but ignoring the pain she continued delivering overhand slaps to him expressing just how angry she was at him. Confused The knight backed up just as Crow was grabbing for an arrow from her quiver. She gave up when she saw it was stuck and that The knight had returned to his friends' table. Calming herself down she sat down again to continue reading her book trying to forget his words. The knight looked around the table into the eyes of his friend's as they each stared at him shocked. Even Dion had stopped drinking and sobered up after hearing what The knight claimed he liked to do.

"Wha-why are you guys looking at me like that? Is there something on my helmet? Or ohhh you guys saw her slap me huh uhhh yea I don't know what I did to anger her like that, must be Dion's influence I guess some of her hatred for him must've rubbed off onto me." The knight said confusion in his voice for just a second before his not very well hidden embarrassment took over, trying to make a joke to disguise how he felt about what had transpired.

"Were you actually serious about what you told her? You weren't trying to make some dumb joke right?" Ghost asked as his eyes narrowed into a deep frown showing that he was displeased with The knight.

"Come on guys our dear friend here surely wasn't serious he was probably just making a weird joke to try and upstage me as the weird one in the group." Dion said awkwardly laughing as if he was trying to convince himself of this fact more so than any one else in the group.

"Uhhh hate to break it to you, but I wasn't joking around. That's what makes everything a hell of a lot more confusing to me. It seems like I've done or said some shit that pissed everyone off, but I don't know what it is. Care to shine a light on it anyone?" The knight asked with an explanation containing more confusion than any other emotion.

"So were you just outright planning on making us care about you becoming your friend just to watch you die at the hands of those zombies you like to "wrestle" with." Sandra exclaimed with pain filling her voice as she looked away before tears came to her eyes.

"Wait up, die? Who said anything about dying? I won't die to simple zombies." The knight stated the fact unbeknownst to the group, while he was telling the truth the others thought of it as arrogance after seeing many succumb to hoards of zombies thinking they could handle it.

"I never once thought that you would be so completely arrogant as to believe yourself some god who could survive the same atrocities that has taken away so many of our friends and family. You dishonor their memory with your words my friend." Knuckles stated with a sense of authority and a slight raise in volume.

The conversation began to turn more heads towards the table as more and more people started to listen in on the argument happening between the very close group of friends. Even the old man grew worried and was about to march up to them and ask then to explain what the problem was before his granddaughters pulled him back. He decided they were right, the group would have to solve whatever problem they were dealing with on their own.

"Hey guys I know I'm new here, but why don't we just drop it? Clearly we're all emotional right now after that whole thing with the cannibals and this idiot doesn't realize a thing about what's going on." Lili said while gesturing to The knight who had his head tilted to the side in confusion.

"I concur for now let's let the matter drop, but we will be dealing with this at some point understand?" Ghost stated to The knight agreeing with Lili.

"Uhhh sure I guess, but to be honest I still have no fucking clue what the fuck is going on." The knight said.

A silence befell upon the table as the onlookers decided that the entertainment was over and went back to what they were previously doing. The old man sighed seeing the tension within the group especially knowing that a supply run would have to take place soon and that group was their best when it came to their teamwork with eachother and the chemistry they held. Not to mention Knuckles was ruthless when someone he called a friend or family was in danger. The old man took one last look around the room before coming to a decision. He would announce the next supply run in a couple of hours so as to allow his people some more time at peace.