Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



I watched as fear entered the zombie's eyes the closer my flames got to his feet. In fact, he even broke eye contact with me in order to watch the flames eat up the ground between us. I clicked my tongue, bringing his attention back to me as I widened my smile, showing off as much of my own teeth as I could. 

Of course, I was still wrapped in the lavender flame as I allowed the fire to go where it wanted to with free reign. It rushed at the Alpha stopping just short of his feet and raising up like a tide of its own.

'Wang Chao, if you can hear me, get Liu Wei to breathe some air into the clearing. Make it wrap around my flame like a fire tornado,' I said in my head, hoping that Wang Chao could hear me. I wanted to make an impression on this Alpha so that if he ever saw me again, he would know to stay away.

When I felt the air around me start to whip up into a frenzy of its own, I burst out laughing. There was always something freeing about getting into a dominance battle with a zombie. You could shuck the human trappings and tap into a baser version of yourself.

I continued to laugh as three purple fire tornadoes raced across the clearing, two toward the zombie horde at the entrance and one that continued to circle where the men were. When the Alpha saw the fire tornadoes cutting him off from the rest of his horde, I could practically smell the fear coming off him in waves.

I parted my hands, moving the flames away, and allowed him a safe path back to the entrance of the clearing. He took off, almost turning into a blur with how fast he went. Within seconds, there were no more zombies in the clearing and I could hear Hades meowing from where he was left with Wang Chao and Liu Wei.

The coast was clear and we had won.

I called back my flames, allowing them to reabsorb into my body, and marveled at their color. I had never seen purple flames before; I hadn't even heard of anyone with them. Even the strongest fire user that I had ever heard of in the past only had red flames. I would have to experiment with them when we got back to the ranch.

The air started to die back and I turned around and made my way back to where the boys were waiting.  I slipped back between the two RVs and faced the men. While I had a huge smile on my face, they clearly were not as impressed about the situation as I was. In fact, they looked downright pissed.

"Are you going to explain yourself?" Asked Liu Yu Zeng from where he stood beside his brother. I raised my eyebrows and cracked my neck.  I was no longer facing the Alpha so I would have to bring myself back a bit and not think of everything as a challenge. This was the worst part getting into a dominace battle with an Alpha, coming down from it, and wrapping part of you back into the chains of civilization.

"What is there to explain?" I asked, holding back my temper at being questioned.  Taking another breath, I pulled out a Snickers bar, praying that some form of chocolate would help me take a step back and not bite off the men's heads.

"What was that?" Asked Chen Zi Han as he walked up behind me, his gun resting on his shoulder.

"A different type of battle," I said with a shrug. Honestly, I was surprised that the zombie was willing to do that. In most cases, the Alpha would stay back until his or her horde was completely destroyed before backing off. There were not many that would be willing to stand up for the rest of their team by putting themselves at risk like that.

"As cute as your half-answers are, Sweetheart, you are going to have to give us a bit more than that," said Liu Wei and he took a step closer to me and enveloped me in his arms.

I shook my head, still trying to clear it. "It was a dominance battle between me and the leader of the horde.  They are normally just referred to as the Alpha," I said, assuming that that would be enough for the men. "Once you guys get a handle on your powers, you could do them too, they are just a bit tricky and not many Alphas would be willing to risk themselves for it."

"You are about as clear as mud, little girl," grumbled Wang Chao as he pulled me from Liu Wei and into his own arms.  I could hear the frantic pounding of his heart. Huh, I guess I scared them? Confused about how I could have scared this Prince; I was not expecting the hit to my head.

"Yes, you scared us," said Wang Chao as he took one hand and tipped my chin up enough that I could look into his eyes. "Now, could you carefully and clearly explain what just happened for those of us in the class that have not been through a zombie apocalypse before?"

"Sorry," I pouted, really not trying to upset them. "The zombies are more animal than human or mindless beings. So there will be ranking fights between the member of a horde to determine the one at the top, and that one would lead to a horde is called the Alpha. Just like the leader of a pack type thing.  Sometimes, they will issue a challenge to see who is the more dominant one in a battle. Since we had wiped out most of his horde, he issued an Alpha challenge to save the rest of his team."

"And if you lost?" Demanded Liu Yu Zeng.

"Then one of you would have fought him or would have given him our team to control as part of his horde."

"And when you won?" Asked Chen Zi Han.

"If I had killed him, then technically I would have been the new Alpha of the horde, but because I had allowed him to live, he remains the Alpha but will steer clear of us in the future," I said, a yawn coming out.  My fire display was impressive, but I needed Liu Wei to help at the end because I was becoming too drained to keep it up. Luckily the Alpha didn't realize that I had help or he would have killed me on the spot once my flames were extinguished.

"Now let's get onto the road and get back to the ranch," I said, as I made sure all of the men were out of the RVs before I vanished them.  I would take them out once we got onto the highway, but for right now, they could go back into my space. What? I needed to save gas where I could. That was a lot of RVs and ATVs.

The men formed up into their lines again, this time, the two groups were somewhat intermingled.  I don't know if that was something that they did a lot, or was something that they worked out while I was in battle. But frankly, I didn't care.

Pulling out a couple of peanut butter cookies, I lead the way out of the clearing in a leisurely manner, not worried about what was waiting for us on the other side of the forest. After all, I just defeated the Alpha of this area, what else was there to worry about?

The four men fell in line on either side of me and their men behind them.  As we exited the forest path and stepped back onto the highway, I took one last look behind me at the skyline of City B. I didn't know what actually happened to all of these cities when they rose or fell, but I found a new sense of hope as we left behind the soon-to-be zombie paradise. Hopefully, we would never have to come back here in the future. City A rose as a safe haven for humans, and I couldn't wait to get back home and just relax. There were a lot of cake recipes that I wanted to try out and a harvest to process and put away.

Home was calling me with the same lure as a siren and I sighed as I started walking in the direction of City A. "There is nothing else that you guys are going to spring on me at the last minute, right?" I asked, looking at Liu Wei and Wang Chao from where they stood on either side of me.

Both men shook their heads. At least I knew that there were no more family members to rescue. Liu Wei's important people are with us. Zhang What's His Face was lost somewhere in City B, and all of Wang Chao's family was back in City A. All in all, I could rest and eat sweets as soon as we got a bit further away from the city and I could take the RVs out.

Happy and content in my own head, I didn't pay attention when the boys came to a dead stop. Wang Chao quickly grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back, causing me to stumble a bit. Looking at him, it took me a few seconds to see that he wasn't even paying attention to me. Instead, his gave was fixed firmly in front of us, and the line up of soldiers, complete with fatigues and weapons pointed at us.

"Ah, fuck."