CBvsLotU - Ch89: Terminal Departure (Patreon)

Chapter Eighty-Nine: Terminal Departure

“Anyone else getting the feeling that we’re hostages instead of survivors now?” Jester mentioned to Zoey and Xian Mei, keeping her weapon ready and her voice low.

“You mean with Baroness in charge?” Xian asked.

Jester nodded.

Zoey frowned. “I mean, Azura did vouch for her. She was always trustworthy.”

“Yea, but she didn’t exactly make it too far after putting in that good word for our new leader,” Jester pointed out. “You figure that’s a coincidence?”

“Could’ve just been bad luck,” Zoey replied. “People die in this place pretty much on the regular. None of us are safe.”

Jester shook her head, turned and spat on the floor. “I still don’t like her. Something about her story just doesn’t add up. Like, Azula supposedly put up a fight with a group she’d swayed to her side. But she had some heavy hitters on her side and none of Baroness’s little glee squad even has a scratch? Sounds to me more like a slaughter than a straight up fight.”

“Good point,” Zoey conceded.

“And what about Leaf? Stocking? She didn’t say they were in the group that attacked her. Haven’t seen either of them since we left the church.”

Xian and Zoey shared a look. “Leaf was with us,” Xian admitted. “For a little bit, anyway. She went to go find the bathroom. That was the last we saw her.”

“Maybe she was actually going to rendezvous with Azula,” Zoey suggested.

“If she’d been in Azula’s group, why wouldn’t Baroness have just told us that?” Jester pressed. “And if she just fell behind or got into trouble somewhere in the church, why didn’t we take any time to try to find her? Whole thing just sounds crazy suspicious to me.”

Xian shrugged. “What can we do?” she asked. “Stage our own coup? A little late for such a thing. We’ve arrived.” She motioned to the airport just in front of them. “Once we’re out of the city and away from this nightmare, we can all go our separate ways. And whether we’re truly guilty or not, I’m sure we’ll all regret some of the choices we made during this ordeal.”

The airport was tucked into a corner of the city, sitting on the waterfront with runways extending along the coastline while the terminals and hangars rested further inland. The air traffic control tower stood at the tip of the arrowhead-shaped airport, a large main terminal running down the center with small terminals extending down the northern and southern branches. For such a large point of interest, there was a disturbing lack of zombies or other monsters. As the main group of survivors moved into the main terminal, whatever distrust they had for Baroness faded away as their tensions redirected to the eerie lack of apparent threats.

They cut through the main terminal, not wasting much time on exploration or sight-seeing. Exiting through the opposite end of the main thoroughfare, they made their way out onto the tarmac. There were plenty of planes waiting for them, but it became obvious why the airport wasn’t being more heavily defended judging by the wrecked state of the aircraft.

“Keep looking,” Baroness called to the others. “They can’t all be destroyed.”

The group spread out, desperation rising to meet their waning hope. The tension rose for several silent minutes before Kara Thrace’s voice rang out. “Got one!” All eyes went to the blonde, her arm pointing to a small passenger plane that had seemingly been forgotten amongst the wrecks. It would be a cramped fit, but the plane would get the job done. No one dared mention that if they’d not suffered as many losses along the way as they had, the plane would have been hopelessly too small to hold them all. Instead, they headed for the plane, quickness in their steps.

They caught sight of the monster moments later, proving that nothing good in the Necropolis lasts for long. The thing looked like a zombie, but if a zombie had a crippling addiction to steroids. The hulking beast towered more than ten feet in height, rippling with muscles so large that they’d split open his skin in numerous places across his body. As if to reinforce the steroid theory, his cock was decidedly smaller than the average among the nightmare creatures in the city. The Muscle Man made up for his deficiency in raw fuck power with a persistent rage, angrily attacking anything that got near him. Worse, he was between the survivors and the plane. Worst, his first act upon seeing the group was to turn towards the plane and grab hole of a wing in his beefy hands, hefting their only means of escape into the air and flinging it in their direction.

By the time Jester realized she was fleeing in the opposite direction of the rest of the group, it was too late for her to turn back. She kept running, heading for the water. A couple feet from the drop off, she hit a solid mass that knocked her on her ass. “The fuck?” she gasped, staring at the crackles of energy running across the Necrotic barrier from her impact. Her mind was still struggling with what the hell she’d run into when the plane hit the tarmac. She’d managed to get partially to her feet when the ground rumbled beneath her, nearly throwing her back down. The plane exploded a moment later, flinging her against the barrier a second time. She turned back, catching sight of one of the plane’s engines shooting like a rocket in her direction. Jester managed half a scream before the engine hit her, splattering her across the Necrotic barrier before causing a smaller explosion that transformed her into a blackened smear.

Zoey glanced around, concern on her face. “Where’s Jester?”

Xian frowned and motioned to the burning plane wreck.

“Fuck,” Zoey gasped. “You think she’s okay?”

“Are they ever?” Xian muttered back.

The Muscle Man let out an angry yell, his fury stirred by the lack of death the plane explosion had caused. With a sizable group of life still gathered before him, he stomped his way towards them, intent on smashing and crushing all of the women into gooey paste. The survivors with weapons opened fire on the beast. The bullets didn’t do much damage, caught in the dense muscle tissue covering every inch of the monster’s body, but he did feel pain from two of the women. Kylie Griffin and Maddie Fenton’s anti-ectoplasmic weaponry proved surprisingly effective against the Necrotic energy permeating his mutated flesh. The Muscle Man turned his full attention on the pair, determined to put a stop to the pain he felt.

Lacking ranged weapons, Black Orchid and Laura Matsuda moved in close to the Muscle Man, dodging the swipes of his fists and the stomping of his feet as they delivered powerful strikes to anything that looked like it might be a weak point on the creature. The monster’s anger surged, infuriated by his seeming inability to catch either of the nuisances raining down blows across him while Kylie and Maddie continued to blast him from afar. His rising anger gave him the strength to push through the pain he felt, but it didn’t do him any favors in regard to strategy. In the end, it came down to some unfortunate luck. As Laura focused on dodging and striking, she neglected to notice the state of the terrain she was fighting on. Her legs wobbled as she came across a patch of shattered tarmac, throwing her off balance for a few damning moments.

The Muscle Man took full advantage of Laura’s disoriented state, lunging forward and snaring her ankle in a bone-crushing grip. The woman let out a terrified scream as he yanked her into the air, turning and swinging her back to the ground. Her scream ended in meaty thud as her body hit the tarmac with enough force to shatter her ribs. A pained wheeze poured out of her as the mutant zombie yanked her back into the air, arms and leg flailing like a rag doll as her snared limb snapped free from its socket. The second slam into the ground ruptured her breasts, spraying hot fat and torn flesh across the ground. Her jaw was jammed backwards, spraying bloody teeth as she was given an absurd overbite. The Muscle Man did not relent, lifting her up and flinging her back down a third time. Laura’s skull gave out, exploding across the already gore-soaked tarmac. Peeling her twitching remains up, the strain on her dislocated leg proved to be too much. Her skin tore, leg ripping free from the rest of her and sending it tumbling back to the ground. The Muscle Man gave the severed leg a glare before shoving the muscular thigh into his mouth and biting away a large chunk of meat.

As the Muscle Man turned, eager to kill something else, Kylie and Maddie focused the beams of their weapons into his face. He let out a pained yell, stumbling backwards. Mugino moved in to lend her assistance, focusing her powerful beam into the creature’s face as well. Gritting his teeth, the hulking zombie stomped towards the trio, leaving cracked indents in the tarmac with each heavy step. The pain consuming his head was overwhelming, nearly blinding him, but he lacked the mental processing to consider retreat. He managed a few more steps before the damage became too much. The combined efforts of the three women tore his head to pieces. His bulky figure stumbled about aimlessly before twisting and falling to the ground with a thunderous sound.

Baroness didn’t let the group recover long from the unexpected attack or the loss of life. She moved past the dead Muscle Man to where the plane’s fiery wreckage lay. There was no doubt that the vehicle was useless scrap now, but the loss didn’t sting quite as badly with the discovery of the barrier. The charred chunks of meat that had been Jester still clung to an area of the invisible wall. “Mugino,” she called, pointing to the unseen obstruction. “Cut through it.”

Summoning a fresh Option, Mugino did what she could to penetrate the energy field. After several minutes, she gave up. “I’ve got no idea what that thing is made of, but it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”

“So that means we’re stuck in this fucking hell hole,” Claire yelled, kicking a chunk of smoking plane debris. “That pisses me off!”

“That explosion will likely draw even more creatures to this location,” Jean Grey said. “We’re not going to be safe here for long.”

“Ask Jester and Laura how safe we were here to begin with,” Jessica Jones muttered. She rolled her eyes and turned away. “God, I need a fucking drink.”

“What’s your next plan, new fearless leader?” Kylie asked Baroness.

Baroness could see the way the tide was turning and motioned for Lola and Nena to be on guard, in case things got violent. She disliked the situation just as much as everyone else, but she pushed aside the hopelessness she felt and turned her mind towards action. “Jean’s right. We’re likely going to have company very soon. We need to use that time to prepare our defenses. If we can’t leave, our only option is to fight. Make this our city.”

“Oh, yea, cuz fighting these things head on worked out so well back at the Bunker,” Jessica grumbled.

“They surprised us at the Bunker,” Baroness pointed out, leveling a firm glare at the woman. “And we had the misfortune of being under the rule of poor leadership. This time, we’ll be ready for them, unified. We’re not fighting for survival anymore. We’re fighting for superiority. Domination. After all we’ve seen, I doubt this place has much more in the way of surprises for us. We use what we’ve learned to beat them, destroy them, once and for all.”

She could tell that the general mood was still low, but some of her words had gotten through. Besides, it wasn’t as if they had much of an alternative choice. “So let’s get to work,” she said, getting down to planning their defenses. Taliyah, Jean, Jessica, and Mugino’s powers made them prime candidates for securing and fortifying large portions of the airport. She directed a few of the others to move several trucks and fuel tanks towards the main terminal. As the survivors got to work, Baroness debated the best strategy for the defenses. Constructing a solid wall would provide excellent cover, but there was nothing to stop the creatures from focusing on a single point, breaking through and swarming them. Alternatively, she could organize a weaker frontline with a series of pre-established chokepoints in the hopes that it would funnel whatever monsters arrived into confined areas where it would be easier to fight them from a distance.

The clock was ticking. She needed to make a decision.