A crumbling tower (1)

"...How did things get to this?"

"How did things get to what?"

Curiously glancing at me Cherry carried the same dumb grin on her face as if there was not a bother in the world.

Which from my experience was just a bold faced lie

Plucking the strings of her bow like a harp, she hummed a little diddy while glancing at the arrow slits within the crumbling tower.

"Yes... I do wonder how did things develop this way." A feminine voice similar to Cherry's let out a drawl and caused my eyes to turn to the side where a familiar figure crouched

And by familiar I mean identical

Ella Eisengard, the twin sister of Cherry Eisengard calmly rubbed the wood of her own bow.

Using a cloth to oil the wood and prevent spoilage, she took care of the weapon as if it were her own child.

Which placed in contrast with Cherry who was plucking the string and applying undue pressure on it was a mirror opposite.

Honestly speaking, if it weren't for the fact that these two acted like polar opposites I wouldn't have been able to tell who was who.

It certainly helped that one of the sisters had short hair and the other had a pony tail

It also helped that one of them was glaring at the other as if they wanted to murder them while the other was blissfully and airheadedly admiring the foliage without a care in the world.

"So Sister..."

Speaking through gritted teeth, Cherry's brown eyes turned to Ella's own.

"Yeeessss...?"

"What compelled you to make such a stupid plan?"

She tilted her head. "But it's simple no? Get in, kill the captain, get out."

"And how are we going to get past the Bronze and Iron Order?"

"We just get past them."

"And how are we going to get past the Elites of the Bronze and Iron Guard?"

"We just beat them up."

"And how are we even going to make sure that the Captain stays where he is?"

"We use something he can't ignore."

"And-"

"Ella." Interrupting Ella, Cherry couldn't help but tilt her head like a lizard, her brown eyes drooping in confusion "Why are you so against my plan? It's simple, get in, get out, it is just that simple!"

"..." Staring at this dual sided exchange I couldn't help but try and interject after hearing how simplistic her plan to rid the Elite Zombie of his head was.

"That's exactly the problem though Cherry, I don't think its wrong that you simplified the plan, but what about the intermediate steps? How do you think we're going to get past the army, the elites and finally to the Captain? You can't bake a cake with just the ingredients and the tools."

"Cake? Where's the cake?"

"...Grah!" Suddenly lunging at her Sister in frustration, Ella mimed choking her out before settling with squishing her cheeks with reckless abandon all the while Cherry just let it happen.

'...She reminds me of a dog.'

Dumb as bricks, stubborn as a donkey, extremely short attention span and hella squishy.

'Yeah that just about sums up Cherry.'

Recalling how all the dogs I knew of were nothing more than the squishiest fluff balls on the planet I slowly placed my hands onto their shoulders and separated the two.

"Sorry ladies but it seems that the time to think up of a better plan is over."

"And why is that." Ella looked disgruntled as she looked at me, reluctantly moving her hands from squishing Cherry's cheeks.

'I swear my relationship with my brother wasn't this good.'

Gesturing at the numerous arrow slits, beyond the holes in the crumbling tower one thing and only one thing could be seen.

Or to be more accurate, it was many variations of the one thing called the undead,

"We are surrounded by the army."

*Grrr...

"See? I told you I would get something that the captain can't ignore." Joyfully chirping, both of our gazes bore into Cherry as she sat blissfully unaware of how painful the near future was going to be.

"...You're crazy."

"What she said."

"?" Tilting her head in confusion Cherry gestured at the window. "What do you mean? Isn't it normal to get something to catch his attention? You said you wanted to get something to catch his attention so I got something."

Hearing the implied action within her words I scrubbed the back of my head vigorously.

"I might be going crazy, but I think I just heard you say you created something to catch the Elite Zombie's attention on the spot?"

"I got something, and he's not an Elite Zombie, he's the captain!"

Chirping loudly I just ignored her last words and focused on her first words.

'On second thought she might be dyslexic.'

'Yeah no I'm just coping.' Slapping my face, my skin turned red as the stinging pain in my face awakened from the chaos in my mind.

*Slap!

"Why did you do that sister?"

"I saw that Slade did it and became more alert so I just tried it and it worked."

Rubbing her face Cherry tilted her head as Ella rubbed her hand and put on her equipment.

'Why am I your excuse?'

Griping about that small fact, I followed her example and began to reorganize my inventory.

And thanks to my previous encounter with the undead horde I was able to find out what was useful and what wasn't.

Long ranged items weren't useful for obvious reasons as the undead certainly liked getting up close and personal.

Unless they could fire off shotgun blasts or act like a machine gun I was going to give a hard pass to my newly gained bows and kunai.

A shield was a must since everywhere you go you were inevitably going to get hit, might as well make it so that you don't get hit as much.

Especially since these undead could turn a scratch into a laceration just by brushing with me so say hi to the Ramparts and the Ice shield.

And finally weapons for a melee.

'These are simple really.'

Placing the blood sword and the Broadsword for some crowd control, the final things involved my gadgets.

But they were just simple and involved both the tonic for emergency healing and the grenade for some extreme aerial movement.

*Grrr...

Pink rotting face poking through the arrow slits I felt a chill crawl down the base of my spine.

Dodging on instinct I soon regretted my own instincts as I cringed inwardly.

*BOOOOM

Ears ringing from the sound of an explosion, the walls of the already decrepit tower burst inward as dust and stone went flying all over the place.

Cringing inwardly I thought.

'Shit, I shouldn't have done that.'

Turning my head back as the dust suddenly blew away with a gust of wind, I was relieved to find that the two women hadn't been turned into fatally wounded half corpses.

My instincts may have saved me, but they weren't really that good in saving others

Feeling a bit of relief, that one unit of my relief instantly turned into five units of stress as I realized one thing.

'Where the hell did that bomber come from? This is a tower several stories off of the ground!'

Answering my question with a groan, one undead with rotting hands and skeletal features climbed upwards and lifted themselves up towards the top of the crumbling tower.

Dazed eyes scanning the area, the very moment that they landed on the trio a growl came from the throat of the zombie as it screamed.

And in the very next second a hand grasped at the zombies head, several more undead using the previous one as a makeshift ladder.

'Well this reminds of that movie.'

Unsheathing the blade of my flaming blade, the blood on the blood sword ignited into a crimson fire while I stared at the Undead shambling towards us in a menacing manner.

And guess who was in the neighbouring tower like the annoying bastard that they were?

"Look! There's the captain!"

'Yeah. I don't like you anymore.'

Undead blocking my vision, zombies with green limbs and rotting flesh wildly ran at me, their many undead brethren climbing up the side of the crumbling tower like that one scene from Z Day.

+++

So for the one guy who mentioned that he had his hands sink into the ground from the flame I did some rereading and can confidently say that it was because of the fragment of flame the past MC got.

Tree that states that this is an entirely different novel with a more coherent plot.