Chapter 69

- Xenon, Earlier -

"Andrea, Amy, can I talk to you for a second?" I asked them aside to speak with them.

"What's up?" Andrea asked me with a raised eyebrow.

"I need you to get into those towers. Stay there, and keep an eye outside." I explained. "We don't need any surprises while in there.

"Why can't we go in with you guys?" She was offended at my words, but Amy seemed to accept them quite easily, as she nodded her head.

"Two reasons." I said calmly. "We do need someone on the lookout. Dave and Randall were able to stalk us easily, who says nobody else would. I'm afraid of getting ambushed when we're busy dealing with the walkers inside. Take one of the rifles with a scope, the towers are a good vantage point." Andrea seemed to be excited at the prospect of using rifles, as she was never allowed to use one before.

"What is the second reason?" Amy asked me curiously.

"The prisoners will target you." I shrugged.

"We can take care of ourselves." Andrea glared, challenging me to say otherwise.

"Of that, I have no doubt." I shook my head. "But I don't want to risk it."

"We'll do it. You can count on us." Amy nodded solemnly.

"Thank you."

**- Xenon -**

We gave each of them weapons to choose from: hatchets, machetes, crowbars, hammers... Tomas took a crowbar he found to his taste, Andrew a bat, while Axel, Oscar, and Big Tiny settled for axes and hatchets.

"Why do I need this," Tomas gestured to the crowbar, then to his gun. "When I've got this?"

"You only fire a gun when your back's against the wall." Daryl said, giving him the 'are you an idiot' look. "Noise attracts them, and you don't have a bullet for every walker."

"We'll go in two by two. I'll be at the front with you." I pointed to Tomas, their leader. "Shane, Daryl, and Jim will take the rear. Dave and Randall will cover the sides. Hold formation, no matter what happens. Any walker gets past, we could all go down."

"Aim for the heads, these things only go down with a headshot." Daryl added.

"You ain't gotta tell us how to take out a man." Tomas scoffed at him.

"Aim for the brains, that's the only way to kill them." I pressed, but I could see they didn't believe it. This is about to get entertaining it seems...

- 15 minutes later -

We came in contact with three walkers as we entered the cellblock. We've decided to let them handle these to get some experience in dealing with them. I was right. It is entertaining to watch them struggle to kill something seemingly undying. They started throwing insults at the walkers, daring them to come to them, stabbing them to the stomach, throwing punches at them... We were dumbfounded at the sheer stupidity on display.

"Dave, Randall, show them how it's done..." I gestured to them. They've clearly noticed I was singling them out of everyone else by now, but they didn't object and quickly disposed of the walkers.

"No more prison riot crap." Shane warned them. "We don't got time for this shit."

"That was amusing to watch though, so small victory there." I chuckled. "Let's move on. Stay in formation this time."

We slowly advanced through the cellblock, until we reached a turn, where we could hear growling sounds close by.

"One clean hit to the head and get back in line." I warned again, and it seems my words had a better effect this time around. When the walker came into range, Oscar charge in with a strike to its head, before coming back to us, the others mimicking the motion. I had on each walker close by, and each one of the prisoners in case they tried to do something stupid to get us killed, which is exactly what Big Tiny was doing. For a big man, he sure was a coward, as he was slowly falling back to the side, leaving the group to stay away from the walker. His loss though, I knew for a fact there were two walkers coming from there.

"What are you-" Shane was about to tell him off when I stopped him.

"Leave him be. He's got a death wish, let him try his luck." And sure enough, two walkers jumped on him from behind, one of them managing to bite him before he could deflect them. "See." I shook my head at Shane.

I helped the others wrap up before we all went to help Big Tiny.

"He was bitten!" Randall said hysterically, pointing at him.

"I'm telling you. It's just a scratch, I don't feel nothing." Big Tiny waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm sorry, man..." Daryl shook his head.

"I can keep fighting!" Big Tiny exclaimed.

"Is there nothing we can do for him?" Andrew asked worriedly.

"Nope." I shook my head. "You've got a few hours to live at most."

"I'm fine!" He said nervously. "Look at me, I'm not changing into one of those things, alright?"

"Man, there gotta be somethin' we can do." Oscar said. "How about we just lock him up?"

"Yeah, quarantine him." Axel nodded.

"We gotta do something!" Andrew pointed at me. "Why you just standing there, we gotta save 'im!"

"There is nothing we can do." I said coldly, glaring back at him.

"You son of a bitch..." Andrew glared at me, his grip tightened around his bat.

"I'm all ri-" Big Tiny never got to finish his last words, as they were interrupted by a crowbar that came down on his head from behind. Tomas turned the crowbar in his hand looking at me wickedly. With a smile, he went down on him, hitting him over and over again on his head, opening up the interior of his skull, splashing blood left and right in the process. Everybody was visibly disturbed by the sight, but I could care less about it. In fact, I think he did everybody a service disposing of him. Now, we'll only have to fight four of them instead. I looked at Daryl and he seemed amused by the unfolding events. I started clapping slowly.

"As entertaining as this is, our time is too valuable. Let's get moving." I said calmly, pretending none of this ever happened. I could see the respect in Tomas' eyes he felt for me at that moment, but he quickly hid it with a nod.

We kept moving forward, disposing of any walkers we encountered in the way. They were all in small groups of five at most, which made them relatively easy to deal with. We eventually reached a big room stacked with washing machines and laundry. It had two metal doors locked with keys Daryl found on one of the corpses. He threw the keys at Tomas.

"I ain't opening that." Tomas glared at him in defiance.

"You are." I shook my head. "This is your cellblock. If you want it, you gotta open that door." He glared at me, killing intent oozing from him in spades.

"Fine." He finally sighed.

"Only one door, we gotta control how many walkers come out at a time." I warned him, but he didn't seem to listen. They are the front line, so their loss. Tomas struggled with the door, as it didn't want to open at first. "I've got this." He said, before pulling it even harder, which unfortunately opened both doors at the same time.

"I said only one door you twat." I spat out.

"Shit happens." He grinned evilly at me.

I dropped my axe, as it would be useless in such closed spaces with people around me, opting to use my trusty Bowie instead. The first freak to walk in found my knife embedded into its skull in no time, as the others each took care of the rest. We were outnumbered for this, so the rear had to help us as well. It was getting hectic.

That's when a sudden feeling of bloodlust assaulted me from my side. Turning around I found, I found Tomas peeking at me, drawing his crowbar back in preparation. He made a large horizontal swing towards a walker's head that would've also hit my throat at the end of its trajectory. I barely dodged it in time by ducking. Tomas tsked in annoyance. Another wave of bloodlust assaulted me again.

He charged into one of the walkers, taking him by the neck, before throwing him my way. I was expecting him to play dirty, so I was ready to react at a moment's notice. I activated [Empower] to bury my knife in its skull, but his forward momentum made me stagger a bit, falling on the ground. I rolled and got back up immediately. We spent a few more seconds killing the rest of the walkers before we wrapped things up. I walked in front of Tomas, looking coldly at his eyes. This situation could no longer be ignored.

"It was coming at me, bro." He shrugged at me with a smile on his face.

"Yeah... I get it. Shit happens." I stood in front of him, my hand firmly on my knife. We looked at each other for a few seconds, having turned this into a glaring contest. Or at least, that's what he believed as his eyes never backed down. His brain didn't register my movements when the tip of my knife went up to his throat, [Empower] providing me with enough power to pierce it all the way to his brain. Daryl and Shane quickly reached out for their guns, as they understood the situation was no longer salvageable.

"AAAARGH!" Andrew charged at me with his bat. Alas, he never stood a chance. I activated [Empower] on my whole body, drawing the SP expenditure to a ridiculous degree, but getting a significant boost in speed in exchange. Before he knew what was happening, my knife went through his eye, ending his life instantly.

"We don't got no affiliation to what just happened, man!" Axel said, looking fearfully at the guns pointed in his direction.

"Get on your fucking knees." Shane said to the remaining two prisoners.

"Tell 'em, Oscar!" Axel said hysterically.

"Stop talking, man..." Oscar shook his head wryly. I took my gun out and pointed it at Axel first.

"We didn't have nothing to do with them, man! Please!"

"You didn't? You knew." I said 'angrily'. "Daryl, let's end this now."

"Please sir, listen to me! It was them that was bad, not us! You saw what he did to Tiny! He was my friend." He said with tears and snot on his face, a rather disturbing sight for a man his age. "Please! We ain't like that!" Of course not... "Oscar is a good man too! We ain't the violent type, they were! Please... I swear to god... I wanna live..." I looked at him for a few seconds, before turning my gun towards Oscar.

I remember Oscar very well from the show... He was someone who earned my admiration back then for his character... Someone who would look at death right in the face and utter such words... I wanted to hear them...

"What about you?" I asked him coldly; He glared back at me defiantly.

"I ain't never pleaded for my life... And I ain't about to start now." He muttered, displaying uncharacteristic calmness for the situation he was faced with. "So you do what you gotta do."