open!

[shootingshields]

Characters: Peggy Carter, open!
Date: throughout Turtle Dive Event
Location: Various!!
Situation: Various!! Comments will contain threadstarters, but also feel free to start your own. c:
Warnings/Rating: violence against zombies. also i have no preference as to whether you reply [action] or prose.

Comments

[shootingshields]

She follows the flashlight as it moves around, taking note of everything it passes by. Dead bodies included.

"My concern is whether the barrier will hold up. I suspect it's designed more to keep water out and oxygen in above being a shield to walking corpses."

And their numbers just seemed to keep growing. "I'd ask the primary method of fighting them off, but knowing our luck, it'll be something completely different than what you're used to."

[histruename]

Hellboy falls silent for a moment, mulling Peggy's words over. He's heard of people already able to venture in and out of the barrier, so he knows these creatures getting through isn't a matter of how but when. It's what has him so edgy in the first place. But far as fighting these guys go, she has a point. Though it's not something he's all that concerned about.

"Punch 'em til they stop moving works fine for me," he says as the flashlight beam catches the shape of another floating corpse. A woman, half her ribcage rotted out and her lips pulled back in a rictus grin. Its milky eyes flash in the dim light like boiled scallops, fixing on the promise of a potential meal. She awkwardly paddles herself to the barrier with limbs stiff from rigor mortis and presses herself against the invisible wall, teeth gnashing in hungry frustration.

The sight of her naked, rotting breasts and the soullessness in her eyes awakens an ache of sadness in his chest. That's not a fate anyone, alive or dead, deserves.

"Damn," he mutters, clicking off the flashlight, hoping that will make the thing lose interest. The barrier's holding up for now. That's the important thing. But if and when this thing quits, they need to be prepared.

He turns to Peggy, his eyes giving off their own dull, golden glow. "They look like zombies to me. So I guess the question is, what's re-animating them and why?" Either they've got a necromancer on their hands, or this place is just that damn cursed. "Either we figure that out and stop it, or we're gonna need a hell of a lot of firepower."

[shootingshields]

The sight of the corpse draws Peggy's mouth into a thin line - she's not unfamiliar with dead bodies in the slightest. Just reanimated ones, and it's enough to set her on edge, even if she hides it well.

She turns towards Hellboy after he flicks the flashlight off, hand unconsciously reaching to brush against her gun in its holster. She's not confident in the slightest about the barrier's ability to keep them out forever. "Perhaps it relates to the turtle. They were all lifeless until we reached the ocean floor, after all. Or perhaps they wait for it to come down, in a nature of the world sort of thing. There are far too many things we don't understand about Tu Vishan and Keeliai."

[histruename]

It seems the darkness does nothing to deter the zombie from trying to get its snack, and starts banging and clawing at the other side of the barrier, her hungry crooning drown by the murk.

Hellboy's gaze flicks back to her inky silhouette can still be seen by the low light of the turtle's glow. His tail lashes behind him, the only hint of his building anxiety. If all these corpses decide to wake up and make their way in looking for breakfast, things are gonna get ugly very, very fast.

"Come on," he says with a nod of his head in the other direction. All they're doing here is tempting fate. He starts walking further down the shell's edge, hoping Peggy will follow.

"It's a possibility. But either way that leaves us to deal with what happens if they decide to pay us a visit." He falls silent for a moment, mulling over Liz's proposition to start a Bureau of their own here not too long ago. Right now the whole thing seems to be too little too damn late. "What we need is to know who to send out to fight these things and how. Liz is right. We need to find a way to coordinate things. Without that, something this big can turn into a mess pretty damn fast."

[shootingshields]

She's seen enough herself, so when Hellboy starts walking away, she doesn't think twice about following after him. It doesn't stop her from being acutely aware of the pounding on the barrier behind them.

"I've already been assuming we'll have to deal with the brunt of it ourselves." And she means the foreigner population, at least those that know how to combat. It's worth warning those that can't defend themselves very well. But they were already conscripted once - undoubtedly there would be expectations should the creatures break through.

She makes a noise of agreement. "The lack of coordination among everyone is proving a consistent weak point. We're all on different pages. Perhaps this will finally be the thing to fix it."

For a moment, she wonders if that might be on purpose, on the Emperor's end, but that's not the important part right now.

[histruename]

As they pick their way through the darkness, the shell's eerie glow affords them only small glimpses of the underwater graveyard around them, all shadows cast in a strange, greenish hue emerging from a bottomless inky backdrop. The zombie woman follows close by, determined not to lose sight of her prey. They pass a mess of rotting wood that could have once been a small fishing boat, the skeletal remains of a kirin, its meager flesh swaying in the current like kelp. The zombie clambers over them with unnerving ease.

Hellboy just keeps walking, his right hand just itching for what might come next.

He thinks back to his audience with Evandau, about what the guy had to say about the so-called "enemy", the thing they were brought here in order to fight. A nameless force of ancient evil.

That had been oversimplifying it, sure. Hellboy knows there has to be more to it than that. But for now, this sure looks like it could be the handiwork of an ancient force of evil to him.

"I hope so," he says before his tone turns wry. "Nothing like a zombie apocalypse for bringing people together."

Meanwhile, their traveling companion's hungry wails has attracted a few friends. Now there's not only one, but four undead creatures pawing at the invisible walls. Yeah. This could be bad.

[shootingshields]

Peggy sighs. "I'd say better something than nothing, but I'm not sure any sort of apocalypse is worth that."

Her eyes dart towards the new influx, hovering and staring at them through the barrier. She frowns. Considering what she's seen so far, what she's heard so far, this wasn't a case of just a handful of sea burials. "How many do you think are out there?"

And would all of them reanimate, is another worry.

[histruename]

It is worrying. Too many of these guys end up getting through, they could be in some real hot water... no pun intended.

"Hard to say for sure," he says with a frown. He clicks back on the flashlight, scanning the pale, rotting faces emerging from the murky shadows. "Far as I'm concerned, one's too many."

He turns off the light again, turning back to Peggy. "I'll probably stay out here, try to keep anything coming through from heading toward the city. I bet there will be a bunch of people keeping an eye on the city itself."

But whether or not any of them have dealt with the undead is up for question. From his experience, these things can be pretty hard to beat, especially in large numbers. He'd hate to see what would happen if enough inexperienced people tried taking these things head-on. Not everyone is lucky enough to be as indestructible as he is, but at least he knows he's not alone. He's not ready to write them off just yet.