Chapter 2: First Battle (Massacre)
James and his drones were still moving through the dead forest and soon the sound of fighting, shouts and roars were more clear and evident. It was coming from their left, so James turned his body to that direction and used the momentum to slide in an arc before standing up and continued running with the rest following right behind him. Soon a forest clearing was a few metres away from James and noticed some flashes of lights and bangs before roars and clashing of objects.
'Guns…' James thought to himself before stopping on the edge with the rest stopping right beside him as well. He peeked through and saw 2 groups of humans fighting one another, one group was clawing and biting and the other were shooting with guns and fighting with anything in their surroundings. The second group was a mix of people with civilians and police mixed with soldiers. James looked towards the first group and noticed how they moved irregularly and had missing skin that had signs of being bitten and ripped off. 'Zombies? Now that is a surprise.' James watched a few more moments before he noticed a small child holding for dear life to their, probably, parents body from behind the second group crying.
James felt his metaphorical heart beated faster and before he could think of anything else, the drone's body moved on itself and bursted out of the forest and charged towards the undead group with the other drones right behind them, not forgetting to release a high pitched screech while sprinting towards them. The Human group was surprised by the movement and flinched at the screech before screaming on the top of their lungs the moment they noticed the drone's appearance. The undead group roared on their own and ran towards the drones and not surprisingly the moment the 2 groups clashed, the superior numbered zombie horde was beaten back as the spinal tails of the drones mercilessly waved and stabbed, ripping them apart while their claws slashed wildly. "What the hell are these things!!!" A survivor exclaimed, voicing out the thoughts of the rest of the group.
Even James was surprised by the action of the drones, and it took him a minute or more to get his bearings and quickly took control of a drone before he dashed towards the survivor group. Seeing one of the unknown creatures heading their way, the humans reaction varied from horror to determination and fear to despair. Some of the quick thinking one's snapped out of their dazed and readied their weapons for the inevitable, mostly the soldiers and some of the more strong willed survivors. James noted their action and commended them for their bravery, but they were not his true target but the one behind them. James felt a sense of instinctual fear and a little bit of carnal desire, behind the group of survivors stood a humanoid infected that looked like random pieces of flesh stuck together from the unruly amount of body parts scattered amongst its body; its height was at least 7 foot tall and its arms the length of an average person's leg, with its hands mix of bone, skin, and nerves. Its legs were irregularly bent backwards and its feet were hooved like a horse but there was no skin or nerves and flesh. Its head was similar to a human yet held no nose or ears, but had a crooked mouth making a permanent smile that reached where a person's ears were. On the top of their head was a pointed horned crown that was similar to a rams that had its ends pointing to its front, its eyes held nothing but blackness only an empty socket with nothing inside.
James saw it silently raised its claw and prepared to cleave its way into the group that had held weapons such as guns and any object that can kill things. 'Not on my watch!!!' James mentally shouted, which caused the drone he was controlling to open its mouth wide and screeched towards it, making those in front to fall on their behinds and the creature to flinch and look towards him. 'That's it!' He inwardly smiled before he used the momentum he built up and moved the drone's body lower into the ground before pushing on the ground as hard as he could and jumped over the survivors a few feets above them before he moved the drones body in a circular motion forward and hunching his body into a ball, making the spinal tails to stop their waving motion and layed on the drones back while pointing the hooked barbed outwards. The drone turned into a rolling spiked death ball and it barreled towards the monster with the momentum unchanging, like time has stopped, everything slowed down to James' perception as he microscopically moved every little movement of the drones body before ordering some to circle around and attack the creatures sides.
And without no surprise, once the drone collided with the creature while still keeping the rolling motion and the barb tips began to work and ripped various skin and pieced together flesh. The creature moaned and groaned before quickly grabbing the drone, stopping its motion, before throwing it to the drone that was preparing to claw the creature's arm with its left arm raised and covered with small knives that stuck out, under the tentacles. But was thrown back with the drone it threw, but another drone managed to get close to it while it threw its brethren. Its right arm raised and wrapped itself into a sharp pointed blade before it thrusted through its arm and stabbed into its upper rib area while it had its tail barbs lunged into various parts of its body before quickly pulling back with some flesh and bone stuck to its tips before falling off. The creature groaned before trying to reach its hand towards the drone, but suddenly a drone came out of nowhere and with the same bladed arm but on both instead of one. It came up quickly from its back before wildly, thrusting and slashing the blades into the creature's back, filling it with wounds such as flesh and bone that melted into the thing's body, ripped and fell on the ground before turning into slime like liquid. 'Interesting, the creature's skin is a pile of flesh and bones from different things, and once ripped off it melts off into liquid…Maybe I can do something the same about it…Further tests need to be conducted.' James thought before ordering the other nearby drones to finish it off.
The drones that were thrown away quickly turned their arms into blades and attacked its side while the drone that was attacking its back was kicked away by the hooves. Seeing the opportunity, a drone used its brethren beside it as a jump boost before jumping high and landed on top of the creature, pushing it down into the ground before roaring and slashed wildly on its head while other drones came close to it before turning their bladed arms into claws and began to rip off anything connected to the creature. The survivor group watched in horror in the background as they watched and heard the creature struggle and groaned or moaned in pain, trying to thrash around but couldn't as one of its arms was forced to the ground by a drones foot and the other was held and slashed continuously before being ripped off.
It moaned in pain almost akin to a whale, before it was abruptly cut off with a drone latching its clawed hands into its mouth before pulling it. The drone that was pulling the creature's mouth open raised its clawed hand before turning it into a blade and stabbed it inside and an audible sound of glass breaking was heard from its throat. A second later once everyone including the drones attacking it heard the breaking glass, The creature moaned one last time before it melted little by little before the drone that took it down to the ground felt the cement road underneath once the upper body melted. 'That's done, but…' James, who took control of another drone, looked towards the survivors with contemplation on what to do next but his thought process was cut off when the remaining zombies roared and shambled nearer to the group of survivors. With a thought James ordered the drones to finish them off.
With a screeching roar, the drones charged towards the zombies through the survivors flank or jumped over them before beginning another slaughter with body parts and blackish blood flying from random directions. James, with his first drones body he controlled, stayed and watched the battle before looking down on the survivors, more specifically on the currently dying parent the child was dearly holding on too. An Idea struck him to get close to the parent and observe the changes or somehow absorb it and let himself analyse the structure of the infecteds blood and brain but the virus will do, as there are many…samples lying around. He moved the drone to reach an optimal distance to the parent, not forgetting how the survivors and soldiers flinched and quickly raised their weapons to prepare for the inevitable. As for the child, as soon as she noticed that the drone was closer to both of them, she quickly stood up and covered her parents body while crying out loud. "NO! DON'T TAKE PAPA AWAY YOU MEANIE!!! GO AWAY!!!" She screamed at the drone a few times before she gained courage to glared into its face while tears streamed like a river on her cheek. 'She kinda reminds me of my younger nephew when one of my friends invited me over for a dinner party…Fun times I say.' He then moved the drones head to the now dying and turning father that was grasping the child's clothes and muttering something like "Get away" or "Leave me", But it was far from audible hence only I and maybe a very sensitive few heard him.
He moved its arm and grabbed the child, such action immediately raised their fear and course as the survivors began shouting at one another or trying to get my attention, while the father was dearly holding onto the child's shoe pleading as tears drop from his face and the child randomly waving her arms in a form of resistance. 'Adorable, but I've got other plans.' He thought before he wrapped one of the spinal tails on the child's waist before letting go and moved her to the side near a female survivor holding onto an elderly who leaned on her for support. 'Now, onto business.' He then looked down on the father who was now silent and said calming words directed to his daughter who was shouting and being held back by the woman and elderly man while tears and snot came out of her. James observed him closely trying to see how fast the zombie virus infects someone, and from the blackish veins that propagated on his body like slither snakes, he'd say that the infection time is quite fast. 'Now to a closer inspection, I need his blood and luckily enough the wound is just in front.' He raised the drone's claw before slowly inserting one of the sharp finger tails into the horrifyingly large gash on his left stomach, if it were deeper the wound would have shown his inside long ago. The Father screamed in pain from the sudden insertion into his injury, but quickly breathed in as much as it pained him and gritted his teeth to endure it. The survivors on the other hand were now frantically shouting to gain his attention, which sadly doesn't other than attract some of the undead that the other drone's slipped pass that was taken care of quickly the moment their attention was elsewhere. The child on the other hand was now enveloped in a hug with her face facing the opposite direction by the old man to not witness the gruesome sight.
James then felt the finger twitched and became a tentacle which began to slither deeper into the fathers body to do something, which led to him groaning and the area of his skin sometimes wiggling like a worm. The humans that noticed were sick of the sight and some even vomited on the ground. A few moments later, the tentacle stopped and information suddenly entered James mind, such as, the father's current blood volume, his blood type, his bodily functions, his antibodies, memories, skeletal structure, and then information about infection and spreading. James noted that the last information may be the virus and from what the tentacle sent back, was like a tumour that spread from the wound to most of his lower abdomen and some parts of his upper thighs. 'Collect the virus and contain it somewhere in your body, I must study it closer to understand.' He mentally ordered the tentacle, which now began to send information to his mind that it was now absorbing the substance into its body. James was confident that the drone won't turn on him the moment the virus was inside it.
The action, however, made the father feel drained and made him groan or grunt as little jolts of pain appeared from time to time. And not long, from the information sent by the tentacle, the virus has been completely absorbed and was now contained in the drones chest area. James raised the drone's hand and let the tentacle slither out of the fathers wound, which caused more of the humans to vomit and feel nauseous from the sight. The father on the other hand, was feeling nauseous and close to fainting but woke up from the feeling of the tentacle slithering out of his wound. The daughter, seeing this, pushed the hand that held her back away and ran towards her father before quickly kneeling and hugging him. She looked toward the drone and opened her mouth to say something, but before she could James noticed a zombie running quickly from behind her and was already a few arms reach away. 'It's fast!!!' With a quick reaction, James raised the drone's claws and swiped towards it while screeching. The sudden activity scared the father-daughter duo and the survivors which mounted on some of them to fire at the drone.
Luckily enough, James' reaction manages to explode the zombies head but the bullets the survivors fired manage to damage the drones arm and some areas of its waist. The drone's hide was hard like steel that the bullets cause sparks to fly and only continuous bullet impact to the same spot did it cause damage to it. Once the firing survivors noticed the headless zombie, they slowly understood what happened and stopped firing. The duo on the ground as well noticed the zombie before looking towards the battered drone's body. 'It's a good thing that none of the bullets hit the chest, I could've lost the sample.' James thought before moving the drone to regroup with the others, albeit a lot slower than normal movement, James noticed that the areas damaged and pierce through were causing slight movement difficulty to the drone. 'At least I found out one of the flaws for the drone, I guess I'll just create a new template for specific versions of the drone that'll be more ideal. Maybe like a caste system that ants use or some similar groups of such.' James mulled over the idea a few moments and quickly noticed that the other drones were already done clearing up the remaining zombies. 'Return and bring the sample back intact, protect the bearer at all cost.' James ordered before he moved his perspective back into the blackness of the pool.
'I time for some testing'