Atlanta

I was currently waiting, propped up against my humvee while Morgan, Rick and Duane all said their goodbyes. I just say that Rick is a strange one, he just met these people yesterday and he already trust them so much. Hell, he only met me some 30 minutes ago and he's ready to accept my help to find his family. This guy really needs to wake up to the world, I could have easily been part of another group looking to do less than nice things.

I suppose that's just the luck of this Rick guy, old Deputy Dumbass. Wakes up from a coma to all this mess, walking down streets not getting attacked at all. Well besides Duane and his shovel I guess. Oh hey, it looks like ole Leon didn't make it. Can't really say I'm surprised after knowing what kind of officer he was.

Rick pops him and walks back to the humvee as Morgan is getting into his weird jeep thing.

"You good? I know that was a fellow officer and all." Another pro to having a mask that covers most of my face is not having to completely shape my expressions to people. Just the tone of my voice is enough.

"Ya. Leon may have been an idiot, but he didn't deserve to stay like that." I nod and gesture with my chin for him to ride shotgun as I entered the driver door.

"Well let's get out of here, little ways to Atlanta." He returns the nod with a thankful smile and takes his seat. The engine rumbles to life and we peel out behind Morgan, sending farewells via horn taps. I gotta say I'm really looking forward to traveling with Rick, though the zomb- er walkers seem to avoid him as much as they do me. Maybe I should have went with Morgan?

Nah, he seems like the type to play it too safe and cautious. Rick will have to do until we reach his family, hopefully they have a group. Group equals people and where there are people there is drama, and where there's drama there is fun to be had. And I do enjoy a bit of fun.

"So are you ever going to take off your ninja gear?" Rick asked from my right, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"I prefer to keep it on, especially when danger could be around any corner." He seems to mull over my words.

"You should stick to your cowboy hat there, this is my style and I don't need you copying it." He laughed at this and flashed a genuine smile.

"Haha, no worries Will. The ninja get up is all yours." I force out a little chuckle as I keep my eyes on the road. I forgot how exhausting small talk was, another reason I like groups as I can easily slink to the back and not draw much attention.

"So Will?" Rick starts again and I suppress the sigh that I really wanted to release. Maybe I should knock him out and claim he just randomly fell asleep? Ehhh, maybe next time.

"What's up Double D?" He looks over to me with a confused face.

"Double D?" And I could feel my lip pull into a smirk.

"Double D, Deputy Dumbass. Like it?" His face seemed to indicate that it was the exact opposite and I just shrugged off the frown.

"Beggars can't be choosers Double D, could be worse." I see his eye twitch slightly, but he lets it go and gets back to his original question.

"I heard stories about your… endeavors around King's county and the outskirts of Atlanta, but why did you start doing it?" I look at him out of the corner of my eye. I was taught by Marcus to be naturally suspicious and a question like that would have normally raised all kind of flags. However I guess Rick just has some kind of aura to make people want to talk to him. I mean shit, even I'm talking more than I normally would.

"Comic books." He turns to me with a dumbfounded face.

"What?" I just nod my head to his question.

"Yup, I thought the vigilantes in the comic books were cool."

"That's all it was? No tragic backstory?" I popped a small smirk I could see.

"Rick, lets not ask questions we already know the answer to. It's a waste of breath." His words seemed to finally click and he looked genuinely sorry. It was always strange to me how people could feel such emotions for people they barely knew.

"Sorry, Will. Guess it slipped my mind." I just shook my head.

"It's no worries, Rick. There's been a lot going on and you got other things in your mind." He nods at that and the conversation finally stops. Sigh, finally. Should have known something like that would kill the conversation. Looks like I spoke too soon, should I kill this guy? Damn, I'm escalating quickly. From just wanting to knock him out to now wanting to kill him.

"Hey does that radio work? We could try calling over the emergency broadcast." I just shrug and toss the talking piece to him as he begins to fiddle with it. Ah well, maybe he'll be distracted by that until Atlanta.

-

-

-

Failed radio calls behind us and my precious humvee parked into a hidden spot just off the highway, we now found ourselves walking the streets of Atlanta. I was really beginning to think we were similar in how we just don't seem to attract walkers. I thought for sure we'd be killing them dead fuckers left and right when we got into Atlanta, but it's been pretty much a ghost town. So much so that I've even resorted to reading one of my comics while we walk.

"Do you really think it's the best idea to be reading that right now." Rick asks exasperatedly. I peek out over the top of the comic at him and send a glare.

"Reading Daredevil helps get me in the mood to fight. Now keep your eyes on the look out, wouldn't want to stumble and fall." He snorts, but right on cue, he kicks a bit of debris and would have fallen had I not grabbed him. Eyes still on my book, I breathe out.

"I did warn you after all." He just shakes his head and readjusts his grip on his gun and keeps walking.

"Kids these days show no respect." I heard him mumble to himself.

"You gotta earn respect to receive it." I quip and he spins his head back around to me.

"You heard that?" And I just nod.

"Yes, my hearing is quite good." He doesn't respond this time but gets back to looking around and down the different streets. Hmm I feel like I'm hearing a faint humming sound, so I peek out over my comic book and start looking around. It's starts to get louder until it's the unmistakable sound of a helicopter flying overhead. It seems Rick started to hear it too and now he's jogging down streets trying to catch a glimpse of it, but we're in a jungle if skyscrapers, unless that thing comes right over top of us we probably won't see it.

However I follow after him anyways, maybe this will lead to some fun? My sword arm is practically begging to be swung and my trigger finger is feeling a little itchy. Rick takes a corner too quick and stumbles, as I catch him like I did earlier we come face to face with a horde of what seems to be over a hundred zombies.

I felt my mouth widen and curl upwards. My heart beat quickened due to the excitement I was feeling, and I laughed inside my head. Hahaha I should have known not to doubt ole Double D! He was just trying to get us to the funnest possible scenario he could! One zombie came forward at Rick and in one smooth motion I jerked him back and swung my previously sheathed machete in a horizontal swipe, removing the zombie's head.

"O-oh shit." Rick muttered as he turned and began to ran back the way we came and I followed him still laughing on the inside.

"Damn Double D you really know how to throw a party, are all these guys your friends? Don't you know about paying to enter man?" I yell out to him as I join him in his sprint away from the herd.

"Not the time Will!" I can hear the shakiness in his voice as he keep sprinting down the street and zombies spilling out of alleyways. This! This is the kind of stuff I had been waiting for! Silenced Pistol in my left hand and my machete in my right, I kept close behind Rick and downed any walker that got too close.

Rick we gotta get you some running lessons, there's no way you should be stumbling this much. He had stumbled and fell right beside this tank as a group of walkers started to surround him. I grab the bag of guns he dropped and toss it up on top of the take before doing the same with Rick. He's surprisingly light after his little stay in the hospital.

"Get in, I'll be right behind you." I say as I slice off another head belonging to a walker going for Rick. Letting off a few rounds into the closer heads before reloading and hopping up on the tank myself. Rick finally makes his way through the top entrance and I start following in after him, taking a few more walkers out with me before shutting the hatch.

Coming down I see Rick sitting beside a dead soldier and smirk.

"That's not a good place to be sitting there Double D." He looks at me confused while breathing heavily.

"What do you m-.." he gets cut off by the 'dead' soldier starting to move, only for it to get a throwing knife to the eye socket and slumps back down.

"Now, take his 9mm there and check his pockets. He may even have a suppressor on him, though with the way you prance about the town I guess you don't want one." He gives me a half hearted glare before giving a faint sorry and then searching the dead soldier. Eventually coming up with the pistol and a grenade, sadly no suppressor.

Then a voice came over the radio.

"Hey you. Hey dumbasses, ya you 2 in the tank, you cozy in there?" Haha seems I'm not the only one that realized he's a dumbass. Wait he said dumbasses, whose this fucker think he is. Bah! I guess it's to be expected when traveling with Rick, I'll leave the conversation with him while I read my comic.

Couple minutes goes bye with the voice giving us directions on where to go once out of the tank. I hope things continue to be this fun, I haven't felt this excited since I beat up one of Marcus' military buddies a year before he died.

Rick now has a mini shovel that has a pretty mean edge to it and goes to open the entrance but I stop him.

"Let me, just try not to stumble and fall once we get up there. I don't have enough ammo to take every single one of them out if you break an ankle." He sighs and then gives me a reluctant look before stepping down to let me climb up.

"Fine, but don't get hurt. I couldn't live with myself if a kid got hurt helping me." I tilted my head slightly.

"You know I'm 21 right?" He chuckled softly.

"Still a kid in my book." I just shake my head and throw the lid open, coming face to face with a zombie. Shot to the head, then a second as I clear the hole I switch to my machete and start relieving head close to the tank as I grab the gun bag and shoulder it. I place Rick's ridiculous hat on my head too since I don't trust him to catch it if I were to toss it to him.

Cowboy ninja? Ninja cowboy? Cownin? Ninboy? Eh, nothing sounds cool. Maybe one day I'll get a cool name that's not 'King's County Vigilante' I mean that's not even a name! It's just a description. Fuck me.

Timing my shots just after Rick's to make it seem like a steady and continuous fire, we make our way to the alley. All the sudden Rick is hitting every shot and moving like a cat, did I rub off on him? Ugh never mind there he goes tripping again, we really gotta get you out of these boots Rick. Throwing him forward by the scruff of his shirt he gets up into a run and I peek over my shoulder at the group of walkers coming toward us.

We round the corner to the alley and Rick has his gun raised on a little Asian guy, seems Korean, but I don't want to assume. My mother was part Korean though, so would it be racist? Probably since I don't really look Korean, but oh well.

"Whoa! Not dead! Come on! Come on!"

I follow in after them as I push a metal gate closed only to see the walkers starting to bring it down.

"Better hurry, this flimsy piece of shit won't hold'em for long."

They are both on the ladder but climbing a little slow for my taste so I hop up on the outer metal piece that surrounds the ladder and climb up that instead. I mean damn with how slow they climb the walkers might have actually nibbled on my toes. And i am not a toe guy.

I reach a little landing and decide to wait for them and the Asian boy is giving me a weird look when he makes it up followed by Rick.

"What?" I ask looking between the 2 of them and they look at me incredulously before a look of realization crosses the Asian boys face.

"Wait! You're that guy that saved me from those thugs when I was delivering pizza." I look him over for a moment and start to recognize.

"Oh ya, Glenn. Looks like my good deed came back to help me." He smiled and Rick looked at the 2 of us confused.

"About a month or so before the outbreak I had to deliver pizza to a shady part of Atlanta and a group of thugs tried to jump me. Thankfully uh…" Glenn trails off and I speak up for him.

"Will." He nods and continued.

"Thankfully Will was there to save me and even prevented the pizza from getting messed up so I could still deliver it." I give another nod and Rick and just shakes his head.

"Of course you somehow saved the kid that ends up saving us."

"Ah he saved you. I would have been fine, if I didn't have to keep picking you up over and over again." Rick chuckles at that as he shakes his head. Though it's nice to see someone I saved made it out okay, I don't know if I can let that dumbass comment earlier slide. I'm going to have to get back at him somehow for this.

Glenn was just kind of staring at Rick while I was thinking to myself before I spoke up.

"I think he's waiting on your introduction Double D." Rick's eye twitched at the name and Glenn looked to me with a faint smile.

"Double D?" He chuckled lightly.

"Don't ask. The names Rick though, thanks for helping us out down there."

"Double D stands for Deputy Dumbass." I say with a smirk and see Rick's shoulder slump slightly.

"Double D does roll off the tongue pretty good." I nod to what Glen said before Rick let out a sigh.

"Alright, alright. Nicknames aside, can we get out of here. I'm not sure I exactly trust this platform." This caused Glenn to get nervous all over again and behind climbing the second ladder.

"At least it will be the fall that kills us." Glenn says as I begin climbing the outer covering again.

"Well that was cheerful." I say and Rick just shakes his head again, guess he's having trouble with us talking so casually about dying.

(AN: We finally met Glenn and we will be meeting the rest of them in the next chapter. I'm sure you've noticed that I saved the bag of guns meaning we won't be running into the vatos. I have my reasons, mainly because I always thought that was such a pointless thing in the story.

I've been having a little bit of trouble writing because I feel like I keep going out of character with Will. I think this is because I've been writing a different character in another FF for so long. I'll try to get it to be more consistent, but hopefully his personality is obvious.

Also we're somehow just barely on episode 2 with 4 chapters when I only had 2 chapters written that spanned episode 1 and 2 in the previous site. Hopefully that's a good thing and not me adding pointless things to the story.

Alright that's all for now, maybe I'll post another chapter if I'm feeling up to it. If I don't post another one today or tomorrow(my days off work) I'll try to have at least written a chapter and post it during my work days to give y'all something to read. Cheers.)