Chapter 2: Ch. 2 Starting A Thing
Richard woke up with a mild headache, it took him a second to realize that he was sitting inside the house on one of the chairs, his mom and wife standing over him, with a bat and a gun. He sighed and held up a hand "I'm fine, let me explain what happened?" he said before they could say anything. It took him ten minutes to explain, leaving out the reduced attributes thing. Of course they didn't believe him, so he put his hand out and a cup from the kitchen went flying into it. "Wait, you weren't kidding. So we can really have powers and things like that?" he nodded as he sent the cup flying, it didn't land on the table like he wanted, instead smashing into the wall. He winced "Sorry, need to learn to control that." as his mom gave him a stern glare.
"So we have to go out there and kill ten of those things before we can gather enough Essence to be integrated into this system?" Richard nodded again "It calls itself the Multiverse System, but yeah basically. Once you do you'll be knocked out for at least an hour like I was, but then you can gather Essence from the Zombies and use it to get stronger and gain abilities." He explained. His mother just shook her head, but his wife and oldest son both grinned "So it's kind of like an RPG where you can level up. Are there classes you can gain?" his son asked and he shook his head "No, it's just your personal Attributes and Abilities you can gain. But if you're going to try and get access then I am going with you, I don't want any of you to get hurt doing it, these are Zombies we are talking about." his son nodded as his wife sighed "Well alright, Matthew you're going out there with your dad, then I'll go, we are all going to have to survive this thing the best way we can and this seems like it will help." then she leaned over and kissed Richard's head, "I'm glad you're alright babe. You had us worried." He chuckled as his headache began to go away.
Richard headed back outside with Matthew and watched the road carefully, he had two kitchen knives in his hands, letting Matthew use the bat. They continued to the end of the property line where the gate was and looked around, seeing Zombies shuffling around, not a lot, just 5 or 6. "Alright kiddo, I am going to get their attention, I want you to stay here and only hit them across the fence. Remember, smash their brains or knock their heads off their shoulders." Matthew nodded and choked up on the bat. Richard looked over to the driveway sides at the lava rocks that were used as a guide and were also used to 'Prettify' the property. He chuckled to himself, then grew serious as he grabbed a couple with Telekinesis, then launched them at the Zombies, every one of them missed. It did however grab their attention so he shouted out "I'm over here you nasty fuckers, come get some." They all turned to him and began shambling over. He heard a few more distant gunshots as they made their way to the gate.
Once they were close enough Matthew began using the bat and smashing their heads in. It took him less than a minute before the Zombies were all dead. There were only 6 bodies. "We need at least 4 more. Stay here." Richard said as he opened the gate and looked down the road to his closest neighbors house, it was about 2 acres away, not far. Sighing to himself he began to jog over, he heard someone scream and the telltale moaning that came with Zombies. When he got to their fence he could see it had been bent in and snapped, there were somewhere around 40 or so Zombies there. 10 of them lying on the ground, not moving. The ones not moving had bullet holes in them, the rest were trying to break down the door to the house and trying to climb through the now broken window. He yelled out at this sight "Hey you ugly bastards, I'm over here. Catch me if you can." And to emphasize his point he lobbed another of the lava rocks at the Zombies, this time it smacked one of them in the back of the head, snapping it forward with a loud crack. The Zombie disappeared and turned into red smoke that entered into his body. The rest of them all turned at once, then began to give chase.
At first he started to run, but then realized that the Zombies weren't very fast and if he got too far he would have to get their attention again, it took a few minutes but he was able to make it back to the gate, open it and close it behind him before the Zombies got there. "Alright kiddo, kill ten of them, then I'll bring your mom out here to do the same. Then see if pops wants to as well as my mom." Matthew nodded, then began smashing heads like a kid would, no form and a lot of exertion that isn't needed. It took him a couple of minutes before he killed them, but when he was done there were over 30 left, a few more had come up since they started. "Alright give me the bat and send your mom out before you pass out." he said as Matthew nodded, the mist flowing into his body from the Zombies. A minute later his wife was coming out of the house, she was moving slowly, watching the Zombies carefully as she did. When she got to him he grabbed her hand "Come on babe, we have kids to keep safe, I need you." she nodded and grabbed the bat from him, then went to work. It took her about a minute, then the red mist flew into her as well. "Alright, let's go back inside, we will have mom and pops finish off these Zombies while you and Matthew are out of it, I'll keep an eye on the babies." she nodded and leaned on him as her body began to grow heavy to her.
Matthew was sitting in his computer chair, his face on his keyboard as Richard set Phyllis down on the couch and laid her on it. Then he turned to his parents "Alright, mom I want you to shoot ten of them, once you've done that pops will kill the rest with the bat, then both of you touch a corpse of one of the ones you killed and accept the essence. You'll know what I mean when you see it. Then high tail it back here before you pass out." They both nodded and headed out the door. He heard 14 gunshots go off, then a couple minutes later pops was carrying mom into the house "She missed a few times, but she got the message like you said. I did too, so I'm taking her into the room before I pass out. See you in an hour." Richard nodded then turned back to the babies who were all sitting in the front room playing with Juniors cars and Penelope's dolls.
For the next hour Richard did nothing but work on his Telekinesis, he used it to manipulate a few of the dolls, working on fine control. It didn't come easily and by the time an hour rolled around he had only managed to make one of the dolls dance, but it wasn't anything to be excited over, a few jerky movements that resembled more a strange robot than anything. Matthew was the first to wake up. The smile on his face let Richard know it worked. Phyllis woke up a few minutes later, then mom and pops. "Alright guys, you've all been integrated into the system, did it give you any special abilities or anything?" They all shook their heads. "Did you guys go through the abilities you can get?" Matthew was the first to speak up "I wanna get Flight, but it costs 40 Essence." Richard nodded "You'll want to level up some before you do. You get a stat point every time you level up, which you can use to enhance your attributes." Matthew nodded as Phyllis said "I'm going for Energy Blast, it's 50 Essence" his mom wanted to go for Energy Bullets which would cost 30 Essence and pops was gonna go for leveling up more than anything although he had his eyes on a few abilities he saw.
"Alright so we have a plan, so what we need to do is gather as much essence as we can. Will you guys be alright staying here with the babies for a bit? I'm going to go see if we can scrounge up a few more Zombies." Phyllis nodded as did mom and pops. Matthew spoke up "I wanna go with you, if mom is okay with it." Phyllis looked at Matthew then Richard, who nodded "Alright but you will stay back and be safe, remember this isn't a game. You might want to get stronger, but you need to keep your wits about you." Matthew nodded as he got up, then Richard walked over to Phyllis and kissed her on the cheek "I'll keep him safe, no worries." Then he turned to his mom "You're going to have to snipe a lot of Zombies for your ability, so keep watch on the property." she nodded and patted her rifle. "Alright kiddo, time to kill some Z's.
They headed to his car first, where he grabbed the fire axe he kept in the trunk, then headed out of the gates and began walking towards the neighbors house on the other side of their property. Richard kept a few lava rocks floating around him, while holding the fire axe in his hands. He was still training Telekinesis, trying to learn how to master the fine art of manipulation. The most he could do though was keep the rocks spinning above his head in a circle. They came closer to the property and could hear screaming "The door won't hold much longer." a young man's voice yelled out. Then a woman's voice chimed in "Keep pushing, I can't hold it by myself." He turned to Matthew and nodded then picked up his pace. They got to the property and saw more than 50 Zombies all trying to get into the house. The windows were shattered, the door barely holding. It looked like furniture had been moved in front of the windows to block off the Zombies from getting in there, but there were at least 10 of them trying to push against those in front of the door.
Richard sent his lava rocks flying one at a time, hitting one Zombie in the back of the neck, then another blowing a hole through it's chest and the last slammed the head of another into paste against the wall of the house. Matthew was staying behind Richard, bat at the ready. Richard grabbed more rocks from the yard and sent them flying. Most of these he wasn't able to do as much damage with because the Zombies had all turned and were shambling towards him and Matthew, throwing off his aim. They ran back to the gate and locked it as the Zombies got closer, then both went to work. It took them a few minutes and a lot of swinging their weapons to kill them all, but they managed to finish off the Zombies easily. Gates were a wonderful thing.
The bodies all disappeared in a red mist and flew into Matthew and Richard, Matthew getting 20 Essence and Richard getting 32. They unlocked the gate and walked up to the house "Alright guys, it's safe out here, you can open the door." He heard shuffling before the door opened slightly, a man who looked to be about 20ish popping his head out, his blonde hair sticking to his face, likely from sweat. "Did you get them all?" Richard nodded "It's safe for the moment, but I have a few things to tell you guys."
They were sitting in the front room of the house, the couch having been put back away from the window as Richard finished showing them his gift. The blonde haired kid who they learned was named Henry was bouncing with eagerness, "I can't believe this is real. If I had a weapon I'd be out there killing them right now." Richard shook his head and chuckled. "It's not that simple, but for the most part yes that's what you need to do. Problem is they won't die unless you take their heads off, that one I blasted in the chest was at the gate trying to get at us and if you don't have a safe way to keep them contained before you try and kill them you can be overwhelmed. I am assuming from the lack of gunfire from over here that you guys don't have a gun?"
They all shook their heads, there were 7 of them total. Three women and four men, all in their early 20's and looking like hell. "Then you'll have to get up close and personal and that's going to be dangerous. Luckily these ones are slow, so you can outrun them, but if you're going to do this, bring them to your gate and lock it, then do it safely. My family is right over there," Richard pointed in the direction of his house "The kid and I are going back for a bit, but I will be out hunting the Zombies throughout the day, I just have a few things to take care of first. If you don't feel safe here, come over and we will help you out." They all nodded before Richard stood up and headed for the door. Then one of the girls came up and hugged Richard from behind "Thank you for saving us, we would have died without you." He patted her arms a few times "No worries kiddo, just stay safe." then he headed out the door with Matthew following behind.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone