Upgrade and Disaster

Carl came over the radio to relay some pretty awful news. The large infected on the first floor was on the move. It was slowly making its' way to the second floor. By its movements, it didn't seem to be very fast, but should have overwhelming strength.

On the second floor however, there was an infected that came out of a shop at a fairly fast pace seeing as it had legs like a grasshopper. It was making long strides towards the side of the mall that the group was currently staying on. The group, hearing this was dispirited as their main fighter was currently exhausted and taking a rest. Chris ran back to let Matt know only to see what was happening to him.

Matt was currently laying on the floor, covered in sweat. His veins had bulged up like garden snakes and were glowing an ever so slight color of blue. It was clear that he wouldn't be able to fight any time soon so they would have to be the ones to defend him for a change.

Chris went back and relayed this message to the rest of the group. They made a battle strategy to prevent the grasshopper infected from reaching this floor. Chris and Jessie would stay on the platform that had been created. James would come down from from his spot on the fourth floor with a cross bow to provide ranged assistance and Carl would maintain his position as the eyes of the operation.

James finally reached his position as the long legged infected made its appearance at the staircase closest to the group. As it climbed the staircase with great speed, the two men prepared themselves for the fight. The fast infected made a jump towards the bottom of the staircase which caused it to rocket towards the two men. This surprised them as its' speed made it hard to see it. They both lunged to skewer it, but were too slow as it jumped right past them to land on the floor.

As soon as it landed however, it got riddle with holes thanks to the rapid fire crossbow that James was using. Now that it had several holes drilled in it, it was slower and allowed the other two men to encircle it. They made several attacks on its legs that made it fall to the floor where it was finally finished off. The three finally relaxed a little only to hear the Carl on the radio saying that the large infected had also reached the staircase.

With a change of strategy, James stepped forward to fire as many bolts as possible to slow the large infected down. The bolts did nothing as they harmlessly bounced off of it of the arms of the infected as it used one to shield its face. This one seemed to have a sense of danger and was in turn protected itself. It finally reached the top of the stairs and destroyed sending the three men skidding away.

The infected made its way to the shop were Matt was supposed to be only to find its' prey missing. Before it could turn around, a glowing hand passed directly through its head making it vanish from its shoulders. The rest of the group was rather excited seeing that he was alright.

"What happened to you? When I looked at you last you seemed to be in a fair amount of pain and it looked like your veins were going to explode," Chris said.

"I reach a cap in my powers so my body had to improve to make itself better suited to contain that power," Matt said.

"Is there anything new that you can do that you couldn't do before?" James said.

"Other than my energy flow being better and feeling like I can contain more energy not really. I think that I may be able to project my energy away from myself, but I haven't tried it yet." Matt said.

Seeing the that they were alright, Matt proceeded to deconstruct the two bodies of the enhanced infected or the level two zombies as he had started to call them. Feeling the amount of energy that he gained from the two and the way that his power was flowing, he felt that he might be able to give some of his group the powers that these two infected possessed. That would have to wait until they made it back to base since they were all tired and needed a safe place to rest.

They made their way around the floor collecting the few survivors that managed to hide from the infected and made their way back to the base. Upon arrival, the remainder of their group all met up, except for Carl who was maintaining the video feeds in the security office, to have a quick meal then they would all get some rest. After a few hours of rest, they would work on clearing the rest of the floors and finally fully secure the mall.