Proving grounds

"You're right." Alistair suddenly said in perfect Japanese, presumably in response to Akira. "It would be rather foolish of this man to fight all of us by himself." Then his face turned grim. "But your information is slightly incorrect. We are, in fact, the ones that are outnumbered."

—

It was difficult to tell, but they were there. Only just now would they be "crawling out of the woodwork" so to speak. Figures in the shadows. Dozens of them. If not more. Some could be seen in the alley ways. Others through windows in nearby buildings. Yet more on rooftops. They were completely surrounded. Exactly where he wanted them. He had not realized Zanyi did not speak English - or at least, he didn't seem to, considering he apparently hadn't understood a word he had said. But that didn't matter. He didn't particularly like Zanyi anyways. He didn't know why Vardas allowed him to join them, but then again Vardas always seemed to have some sort of supernatural sense about things. Garreth assumed it was just for a reason he couldn't comprehend.

But Zanyi would surely be useful here. He knew at least two of his opponents were strong. A couple of them he hadn't recognized. The red haired teenager had potential from what he had seen - and the girl that she seemed to be in a bit of trouble with was someone he was hoping could join them. Yes, with her on their side there was no way they could lose.

"You should listen to that guy." The black clothed zombie man made a casual wave towards Alistair. "You are in my territory, now. You're far outnumbered. But I'll cut a deal with you guys." He 'looked' at Suze. "Leave this girl. And Alistair. The rest of you can do what you want. Fight Zanyi for all I care. All I want is these two."

—

Alistair looked confused. He turned around to see if perhaps the black robed guy was referring to someone behind him.

Sorcha looked around, what had started as a simple follow had become quite the gathering. She, of course recognized Alistair now that she could see his face in the glow of the streetlight. She saw that there was not one but two of the boogeymen that she had run from. Two?? How the...? Wow, he must have more mojo then she had first thought. Then there was the stranger, dressed in black, too many people, and the only one she thought she could rely on right now, with the absence of Naka, was Alistair. As she gathered her courage and started slowly walking towards him she started to say"Hey Alistair, long time no see...." when she felt the hairs on her neck stick straight up. Uh oh, she thought to herself, this was going to get bad, real bad. She noticed four figures exiting the alleyway and heading towards the group gathered. She quickly pointed over Alistairs shoulder at the oncoming group and muttered,"trouble coming up behind you"She immediately brought up her arms and surrounded herself with her force field. Stepping to the side of Alistair she went on the attack and threw ice shards at the oncoming figures. She wasn't sure where everyone was at that point, she just knew, deep down that things were going to get really ugly fast.


—————————————————————-

Suze didn't understand most of what was being said, but she did notice that there was a whole lot of gesturing towards her. She was trying hard to access mental paths to find out what the heck was going on when she noticed that the brat had walked towards that other goody two shoes Alistair. She felt and saw the numerous black clad figures that were coming out of every open space on the street and wondered who they were after. She figured it had something to do with the man that said he wanted to kill her earlier, but for now was paying attention to someone else. She was extremely glad that he seemed to have forgotten that little statement. She saw that stupid red haired weather storm go on the attack and shoot something beind Alistair. Oh great! Why did she do that? So much for getting out of here unharmed. Wait, she thought to herself. If Sorcha was attacking and if they went after her then maybe she could slink away. Yes, frankly she didn't care what happened to Alistair or Sorcha. She was only concerned with her little old self. She took a step back, and hiding in the shadows silently hoped that everyone would even forget she was here.

The group would find their zombie-like enemies surprisingly easy to bring down. The ones hit by the ice shards fell over instantly, barely making any sort of effort to avoid them. The bursts of wind caused by Nakata and his group either blew the zombie men away or cut them down. They stood little chance.

—

Alistair drew his sword, a look of aggravation upon his face. "Truly, can one not take a stroll though the night without bad guys forcing themselves upon them?" Sorcha did a rather excellent job of removing the threats before they had even gotten close, however. But something about the situation wasn't right. He felt no emotion coming from them. Sure, many people were able to train themselves to "rid" themselves of emotions, but it was impossible for anyone to truly be emotionless. Unless, of course, they weren't sentient beings. Obviously undead would be the first thought that came to mind, and he decided to test this theory when one of the zombie men fell from the top of one of the buildings with clear intent to land on him.

His reflexes allowed him to easy step out of the way, and a single slash of his sword, which was now covered in a shining, golden light, the creature would barely be cut in two, his upper body severed from his lower. Without any sort of noise the creature fell to the ground apparently lifeless. However, Alistair's arm went with it as if he couldn't take the weight of the creature. He managed to recover before falling over, but not without his arm feeling the pain of a strained muscle. His blade hadn't cut through the man as easily as he had expected.

This meant the "zombie men" weren't actually zombies.

—

Garreth turned towards Nakata and he heard a slight bit of laughter coming from him. The sound was muffled though, again as if it came from some sort of speaker or through a microphone. "I agree, young Oyabun, homework truly should be done before demands are made."

All of the zombie creatures Sorcha, Nakata, and his subordinates had harmed began to stand once again, as if nothing had happened. Had they been cut, the two separate pieces rejoined back together again through some form of regeneration. "You underestimate the powers that you face, Yakuza." He continued, as dozens more of these zombie men appeared on the rooftops, peering around the corner of the alleys, and making appearances in pretty much every nook and cranny of the dimly lighted city street. "My army is far greater in number than your's. And mine does not feel pain." Many of the zombie men now fell from the rooftops, intent on landing on any of the group below (the obvious exceptions being others of their kind, Suze, and Zanyi). They made no sort of vocal sounds, and moved as if they were dolls. All of them were clearly made of rotting human bodies, but they did not act at all like your typical zombie from the movies.

They used mainly brute-like tackles and other such moves for attacking. But at least a few of them came equipped with knives. However, these knife-wielders seemed to hide this fact until they were able to hide in a group with their own kind, using the knife to attack when the other zombie men made it difficult to tell just what was going on.

—-

Alistair took note that, out of all the zombie men that had stood right back up, the one he had taken out hadn't. It simply laid there, making no move whatsoever. He found this peculiar, considering his Shining Blade clearly had no effect on the corpse. Or at least, no physical effect. The others' attacks had clearly not been at all effective, but somehow his had been. He certainly didn't have enough stamina to use his Mantra on every single one of these creatures. There had to be another way...

"Shoot them again, with fire, Miss Sorcha." He said, just barely loud enough for her to hear him.

Sorcha was frantically looking around, trying to process the sheer numbers of enemies crawling out of the woodwork when she just barely registered Alistairs whispered command. She wasn't one to question too much when there were others around who did the thinking so much better than she did. She trusted Alistair, not to the extent she trusted Naka, but after Egypt she knew she could rely on him in battle.
She aimed for a body falling from the roof of a nearby bakery and immediately hit him with bolts of fire. She scored a direct hit and noticed that when he landed he didn't seem to get up like some of the others. Maybe fire was the key? She just didn't know. She figured the best way to conserve her energy was to send out a wide burst of flames into a group instead of firing off one fire bolt at a time. She looked around and saw a group of nine zombies headed towards her. Gathering her anger around her she transformed it into a staccato of fire "bullets" that hit the group as they got closer.
The flames made contact and instead of screaming or reacting the creatures continued to advance as even their clothes started burning. She did notice however, that they slowed down as their legs actually started to burn and the flesh and muscle disolved in the heat. Surely that would stop them? Thankful that she had her force field up and that it would protect her from immediate harm, she continued to aim for the larger groups trying to at least stop them from attacking. She was sure that she could go on for a bit more, but not indefinitely. As she thought this she felt a weakening of her shield from behind. She whipped around and noticed a zombie with a blade trying to get qt her and from what she could tell, he had managed to somehow puncture her field. She didn't know how to fix it and still fight, so she brought the whole thing down. As he moved towards her blindly swinging the dagger she stepped backwards and into two creatures who had stepped up behind her. Well hell's bells, this sure wasn't good. She elbowed thing one and made him stagger back and then turning around kicked thing number two in the stomach making him fall. "Alistair, Naka, anybody on my side of this little playtime. I am more than happy to share my toys if one of you would consider helping me out with the playground bullies"


———————————————————————————


Suze was simply not used to all of this physical violence. She preferred to do damage to people in their heads. It was so much cleaner and less chaotic. She did briefly wonder why she was being left alone and shrugging looked around to sit and watch. It was almomst like watching a bad "b" movie. The only difference was that your average movie goer was probably rooting for the bad guys. She was enjoying the attacks on Sorcha and crew and sincerely hoped that things would end the way she wanted them to. With the favorites out of the picture then she would be free to create her own little mayhem.
She finally located a bench and walking over to it sat down. She had tried to access some of the minds in the melee but was unable to. She wondered if the creatures brains were not functionable or if they even had brains.
She oddly felt safe in this little battle and smirking decided it was a good day for some entertainment.

The zombie men made no reaction whatsoever to being burned by the fire - except for any physics-related consequences associated with the attack (falling over, getting knocked down, etc). They did not regenerate any of the damage taken from burning, but they would continue trying to assault their targets as long as possible, clawing at them from the ground if need be. After a significant enough of fire damage dealt to them, they would simply stop moving. At no point would one ever cry out or make any sort of vocal noise.

The dagger-wielding man made another swing at Sorcha, but the weapon was suddenly knocked out of its hand as it was smacked out of the way by Alistair's sword. He had thrown the weapon, not being confident enough that he would make it in time to help her. The sword bounced off the zombie man's hand - which had been nearly severed but quickly regenerated regardless - and fell into Alistair's hand with perfect timing as the young man ran to get into melee range, using the momentum from his running to place a well-aimed kick into the head of the enemy. It would stagger and fall over, the hood on its face falling off to reveal a nearly completely decomposed human skull.

Before he would have time to react to the sight another zombie man had jumped off one of the nearby buildings attempting to land on him, a dagger in its hand. Alistair easily sidestepped out of the way, spinning his body so that, when the zombie man landed where Alistair once was, Alistair would now be behind him instead. This quick action was followed by a Shining Blade invocation which cut the man's head off, and the body would slouch over no longer moving.

The one he had just knocked down a moment before however, had already begun to stand. This was getting ridiculous. They seemed to be human bodies - or at least, the ones he had fought were - but they weren't undead? Nor did they make any sort of vocal noise, which undead typically did. This left only one option.

"They are puppets being controlled by someone hidden." He said, taking a stance as the standing zombie man prepared to strike at him. "Surely the puppeteer shall run out of stamina and lose control. As such, this is an endurance battle."

—-

Garreth was easily lit aflame by Nakata's attack. While he had made a clear effort to dodge, it simply was not enough. In fact, this last effort seemed to have been barely better than the rest of the assailants. As the cloak around the man burned away it revealed only another puppet zombie — surely not the real Garreth. The electrical equipment he had been using to communicate would surely burn up as well.