Chapter 0 - A Pre-prelude
NebulaDreams
Ace Trainer
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Author's Note:
The obvious question on your mind is ‘why the hell would anyone write a fanfic of The House of the Dead?’ As Ian Malcolm said, ‘Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.’ But I did it anyway.
The reason I like writing fanfic so much is because it poses a fun challenge. What if I took a lame, practically nonexistent story from a campy arcade game with atrocious voice acting, and tried to expand some of the characters while making something engrossing out of it? Well, if not engrossing, I hope I can at least make it a fun, tongue-in-cheek experience.
I wanted to channel the energy I had as a dumb 11 year old and cut loose on a fun story that no one asked for, but exists anyway. I wrote this in about 3 hours, which went through one round of edits before I posted it. I had a lot of fun writing it since I didn’t have to take it so seriously. So without further ado, here it is.
Summary:
Undead buddies Zeal and Kuarl are instructed by their creator to wreak havoc on Venice, but Kuarl has second thoughts about aiding in the oncoming zombie apocalypse. When he runs away, Zeal tries to convince him to carry on the mission. Because nothing unites friends quite like killing innocent civilians.
--
Zeal was stuck in a warehouse-sized waiting room full of smelly, groaning zombies, and then there was Kuarl, standing taller than any of them. Never mind how Goldman managed to cram them all in one place to begin with, but they had been stuck there for ages with nothing to do. Not even flying sated Zeal’s boredom. Whatever awaited them, he hoped it was good news. There was a distinct lack of jugular-snacking in his routine lately, and he couldn’t wait to feast on a banquet of necks.
The faintest of ideas popped up in that rotten little noggin of his. An idea that involved Kuarl. He snuck out of the room and avoided the cyber zombies on patrol to raid the kitchen, where a plump watermelon awaited him in the fridge. Zeal didn’t know why that was there — he never saw Goldman actually eat anything, and it certainly wasn’t for the zombies. Nevertheless, he came back as quickly as he went with that big, juicy fruit in his claws. WIth his plan in mind, Zeal flew up to Kuarl’s neck.
“Psst,” he whispered in that shrill voice of his, “wanna do me a favour?”
Kuarl grumbled, which echoed in that hollow, metal suit of his.
“That’s the spirit, Dully. Stay still.” He carefully placed the melon on Kuarl’s neck, and just like Zeal commanded, he kept it perfectly balanced. Now it was time for the next part of Zeal’s plan. He swooped down to one of the Johnnies in the room. “Hey, axe akimbo. Ya wanna play a game?”
“Oouuuururghghh?” Johnny faced the little gargoyle, his rotting face contorted in confusion.
“Aw, c’mon, it’ll be fun! You’ve got a brain— oh no, you haven’t. But you’ve got those lil’ wood choppers, so use it!”
Johnny scratched the side of his head with the axe blade, only to cut a bit too deep on accident. And so the first Johnny fell. Goldman wasn't going to be pleased about that.
“Damn zombies,” Zeal moaned, smacking his forehead, “why do I hafta be the only one with a screwed-on head around here?”
“Ahem,” the Magician said, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he read a Nietzsche book, “you are not the only one created with sapient properties around here.”
“Oh, cram a sock in it, wormface. Hey, how’s that dad of yours? I heard he ain’t doing so hot nowadays.”
“Yes. I killed him myself. And you will be next if you do not close that infernal trap of yours.” A fireball emerged from one of his claws. Zeal took the hint and quietly flew away to another Johnny.
“Hey, scarface, I need your axes a sec.”
“OoooooAUGH!” He screeched as Zeal tried to pry those blades from his cold, dead hands. Zeal succeeded, and Johnny started to cry from his one-remaining eye. But whatever. If you wanted to do something right, you had to do it yourself, and Zeal decided to do exactly that. So he flew over to Kuarl for some target practise. Good ol’ Kuarl. He kept his word and stayed still the whole time. He didn’t know what he’d do without him.
“Okay…” Zeal said. He raised one axe-wielding arm as he flew, which he couldn’t keep straight. Damn, this was harder than he thought. He had to hand it to Johnny: for a brainless mutant, the fact that he could even hold an axe, let alone wield it to chop off some heads, was a miracle. But Zeal had to try anyway.
“Ready, Dully?”
Kuarl roared, giving Zeal the signal to throw the axe. He had his eyes on the prize. If he could handle a stinking fruit, then he could take on the whole world! It wasn’t too much of a stretch in his opinion! And so, Zeal aimed and fired.
It missed the melon by a mile, denting Kuarl’s chest plate instead. The big dullahan roared and fell backwards, crushing a few zombies underneath that hulking mass of his. Losing the watermelon was the most tragic loss, however. A perfectly ripe fruit, and it lay splattered on the floor like a suicidal tomato. Zeal’s plan had gone to waste.
He was about to brainstorm new ideas to pass the time when static crackled over the intercom. Oh boy, here we go. Mr. Golden Shower himself.
“Friends,” Goldman announced in that robotic monotone of his, “time you made a move.”
The speaker popped, signifying the end of the command. So much for that rousing speech of his — what was the point of making Zeal stay here at all then? It had its effect though as all of the zombies cleared out of the warehouse, ready to gnaw on some human bones like beef jerky.
Zeal, Kuarl, and the Magician stayed behind. That levitating ponce kept reading as if nothing happened. Of course the most agile abomination got the choice to stay at the headquarters while Zeal and Kuarl had to travel all the way to the heart of Venice. Because that was totally fair. But they had to get ready now, otherwise they were never going to take care of G. With no time to waste, Zeal turned to Kuarl.
“Hey, Dully, wanna— whoa!”
He narrowly dodged Kuarl’s axe. The big armoured beast stood up and let out a series of loud growls.
“Oh, c’mon, you know I didn’t mean it! Dully, we hafta get ready!”
Kuarl stamped his metal feet, sending shockwaves rippling through the headquarters.
“Jeez, I had to do somethin’ to pass the time here! I was losing my mind in this smelly place!”
Kuarl crossed his arms. If he had a face, Zeal imagined he’d be pouting.
“Oh, right, sure, give me the silent treatment, you dumb hunk of junk.”
Kuarl froze. It stayed like that for a few seconds, and Zeal was starting to worry.
“Dully? Buddy? We cool? Oka—”
Kuarl roared, waving his axe frantically like he was at a fruit-chopping contest. Even the Magician started to take notice as he threw his book across the room in annoyance. Zeal tried to fly towards Kuarl to calm him down, but that big suit of armour stomped his way through the warehouse, heading for the wall separating the headquarters from the rest of Venice.
“No, no, don’t!”
It was too late. The dullahan destroyed a huge chunk of the wall, leaving a Kuarl-shaped hole there. Zeal hovered down to the floor in stunned silence.
Well, he royally screwed that up. The repair bill was going to soar through the roof. He didn’t expect it to play out like that at all. But what he expected even less was the Magician to burst out laughing. He cackled and rolled on the floor like a toddler.
“Ohohohoh, this is perfect!” He wiped a tear from the eye that didn’t have a tapeworm wriggling around in it. “You can’t keep a leash on that buffoonish lummox for one minute, can you?”
“H-hey! He isn’t a, er, whatever you said he is!”
“Well, you just insulted him then and there. So a classic instance of the zombie calling the mutant infected.”
“I, um…” Zeal couldn’t argue with that. For once, the Magician had a point. “Well… crap.”
All that was left of the warehouse was silence. Zeal scratched at his greasy mop of hair. The Magician went to pick his book back up. Screams could be heard from outside the headquarters. Those zombies were probably making their move already. Zeal was missing out on the party. But where was Kuarl? He had to find him, but he didn’t know how to make it up to him. Not that it was his fault or anything — that headless idiot shouldn’t have been so offended at a little slight like that. But that didn’t feel right either.
Zeal didn’t know what to do, so he looked over to the only other creature in the room.
The Magician got to his feet and huffed, book in claw. “You’re seriously turning to me for advice now?”
“N-no. Shut up!”
He flashed a smug grin. “I will take that as an acceptance of defeat. Well, if you must, I have a couple of things to say.” He cleared his throat. “I treat the other zombies with a degree of respect. They did not ask to be born into this world, or to be given instructions by a creator that neither wants them nor cares about them.”
“I didn’t ask, smartass.” Zeal puffed his cheeks.
“I know their struggles. They probably have some awareness that they do not have much agency in this situation and will experience a second death regardless. And yet they cannot resist it, for they were designed to kill humans based on instinct. Their only purpose is to fulfill someone else’s purpose.”
Where was the mute button on this guy when you needed it?
“Okay, Zero.” He thumbed the Magician’s chest. “If you’re so smart, why are you following Goldman’s orders anyway? He’s a moron! I mean, have you heard the way he talks? He sounds like a goddamn wind-up toy!”
“That’s one thing we can agree on,” he said with a slight chuckle, “I do not care for his ‘life cycle of nature’ drivel.”
“You mean loyfe cycle.”
“My thoughts exactly. I just wish to dispose of humanity so I can live on my own terms. Goldman simply provides me the means to live while I am in hiding, though I can snuff out his life with a mere—” he clicked his claws together—”when I don’t need him. But in time, I will prove that I am the apex predator of this world.”
“Well, so much for having a point there, Zero. There you go bragging again.”
“If I am gifted with these powers, I might as well use them. I know what I fight for: myself. What do you fight for?”
The answer was obvious, but he didn’t want to admit it.
“And what will you do to fulfill that purpose, whether it’s to exterminate the human race, or to simply be with the creature you care for the most? If it’s the latter, would you want to burn the bridge with them forever?”
For once, Zeal didn’t get sick of listening to this guy. He wouldn’t be caught dead being nice to him, but deep down, he was right. Owning up to his mistakes in front of Kuarl was for the best. And so, he turned towards the hole in the wall, beating his wings to prepare for flight.
“T-thanks, Zero,” he mumbled.
“What was that?” The Magician tilted his head. “I could not hear you over the sound of my immaculate presence.”
“Never mind.” Zeal sighed and took off.
--
Venice was so romantic when it was on fire. The smell of sulfur in the air. The way the orange, fiery haze from the burning wreckage below clouded the sun. Move over, Sunset Bridge. Move over, Bridge of Sighs. Wow, there were a lot of bridges in ol’ piccola Venezia. Did humans actually like visiting this place? No matter. On top of being the city of love, Venice was now the city of zombies!
Zeal took such delight in watching the chaos below. He perched atop the Campanile as the bells tolled for the city’s doom. Clueless tourists ran like sheep from the Johnnies and the Steves. Speedboats ran over the floating bodies in the canal and crashed into one another. Mickeys dashed across the rooftops, scouting for any of the humans who dared to escape from up on high. It was almost perfect. Now all it needed was a meat-cleaver wielding midget in a bright red raincoat and the picture of carnage would’ve been complete.
And yet, Zeal couldn’t indulge in it himself. At least, not yet. He had a job to do: find that ‘dog of the AMS’, as Goldman said, and take care of him. But first, he had to find Kuarl. He glided above the heart of San Marco, looking for that big suit of armour. It was harder than he thought to find someone so reflective since it blended in so well with the urban surroundings. Why did Kuarl have to wear steel armour again? Why couldn’t it have been black leather or something? On second thought, maybe not.
Well, when the smoky fog lifted, the sun shone again, and a beam of light emerged from the ground to form a signal. That must’ve been where Kuarl was. Zeal made short work of his search and swooped over to him. He was ready to make amends. But that had to wait, as what he saw next really took him off guard.
Kuarl was in an empty playground, sitting on a crushed roundabout ride with his axe on the ground. A lone swing set swayed in the wind. Those screams could still be heard nearby. He rested his arms on his knees and sobbed, which echoed in his suit. One random civilian shivered, sitting on his ass in a puddle of his own urine as he watched Kuarl. He probably didn’t know what to make of this situation — especially not when there were zombies raising hell in every street corner.
Zeal wanted to kill him — not just that, he wanted to rip his throat out and have his veins for lunch. But in that moment, he just wanted him gone. So Zeal went to him first and whipped gusts of wind at him with his wings.
“Get lost, you stinking human!”
The human screamed and ran off like a headless chicken. Now it was just the two of them alone.
“Dull— I mean, Kuarl?”
“Huuuuu?” he groaned in between sobs.
“I…” Zeal gulped. Why was it so hard to apologise for something? “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have used you for that stupid melon game, I shouldn’t have hit you with that axe, and I shouldn’t have called you dumb.”
Kuarl stopped crying for a moment.
“So… yeah. I didn’t wanna make you feel bad or anythin’. You got that? Now c’mon, we’ve gotta vamoose and kill some humans.”
“N… noooooooo.”
That was the first time Zeal ever heard him speak. It was just one word, but that single word spoke louder than grunts. Was this what it felt like to have a baby?
“No? Aw, c’mon, hasn’t stopped you before. They’ve done nothin’ to deserve any mercy from us.”
Kuarl groaned again, except there was more articulation to his primal utterances. It wasn’t like Zeal had any trouble understanding him anyway, but Kuarl was certainly on the ball today.
“I, er… I don’t understand. You said you don’t wanna kill humans anymore. But, well, that’s sort of in our blood, isn’t it? We’ve gotta do it to survive.”
Kuarl growled and swayed his upper half back and forth, which would have resembled him shaking his head if he had one.
“So, I guess it’s not that you don’t wanna kill humans, it’s the fact that you don’t know why you wanna do it.”
He was at a stalemate there. Kuarl didn’t need to eat since there wasn’t an orifice he could cram anything into. All Zeal knew about his origin was that Kuarl’s mind, wherever it was, was sympathetically linked to his. They were born at pretty much the same time as each other. If Kuarl died, well, Zeal would be without a partner. If Zeal died, Kuarl would die too, and he couldn’t have that. Not after everything they went through.
What was the point in looking back at the past? Well, he wanted to say something to Kuarl he never admitted to anyone before.
“I gotta hand it to you, Kuarl, when that golden guy first made me, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had wings, but I couldn’t fly for whatever reason. Can’t exactly soar in the air if nobody really taught you how to. Zero doesn’t count since levitating is just cheating.”
Kuarl hummed in reply.
“When you picked me up that day with those hands of yours—” he punctuated this by outstretching his claws—“and gave me a platform for me to try out my flight skills, yanno, I really appreciated that. I didn’t feel quite so useless then.”
Kuarl chirped, sounding a lot happier this time.
“Now I’m up to speed, I feel better than ever. So, thanks for lookin’ after me, Dully.”
Kuarl rocked his body back and forth, making a nodding gesture.
“And you gotta remember, these humans don’t want us here. They’ll see us as monsters anyway, so to hell with ‘em. They can come at us with their guns and that, but I ain’t gonna let that stop us from doing what we want.”
Kuarl let out a happy growl.
“And once we’ve made this city ours, we can do anything we wanna! We can really paint the town red without those pests around! We can destroy those paintings they gawk at so much! We can ride those gondola thingies! We can punch all these buildings to dust!”
Kuarl stood up at last and pumped his fist in the air.
“So that’s my promise to you! I’ll kill any human that stands in between us! I’ll look out for you, just like you looked out for me, got it?”
Kuarl laughed and held Zeal in his arms, hugging him with enough restraint that it didn’t squeeze the life out of the poor gargoyle. Just like old times, Zeal climbed on top of Kuarl’s neck and watched as he decimated everything in his path. But instead of crushing cardboard boxes underfoot for practise, Kuarl crushed cars, leaving behind a trail of twisted metal in his wake. Zeal scouted for a dog in a black suit, and sure enough, he found his target: G. Even though the agent was armed, he was caught unawares by the gargoyle and dullahan combo.
“What?!”
“Go, Kuarl!”
The obvious question on your mind is ‘why the hell would anyone write a fanfic of The House of the Dead?’ As Ian Malcolm said, ‘Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.’ But I did it anyway.
The reason I like writing fanfic so much is because it poses a fun challenge. What if I took a lame, practically nonexistent story from a campy arcade game with atrocious voice acting, and tried to expand some of the characters while making something engrossing out of it? Well, if not engrossing, I hope I can at least make it a fun, tongue-in-cheek experience.
I wanted to channel the energy I had as a dumb 11 year old and cut loose on a fun story that no one asked for, but exists anyway. I wrote this in about 3 hours, which went through one round of edits before I posted it. I had a lot of fun writing it since I didn’t have to take it so seriously. So without further ado, here it is.
Summary:
Undead buddies Zeal and Kuarl are instructed by their creator to wreak havoc on Venice, but Kuarl has second thoughts about aiding in the oncoming zombie apocalypse. When he runs away, Zeal tries to convince him to carry on the mission. Because nothing unites friends quite like killing innocent civilians.
--
Zeal was stuck in a warehouse-sized waiting room full of smelly, groaning zombies, and then there was Kuarl, standing taller than any of them. Never mind how Goldman managed to cram them all in one place to begin with, but they had been stuck there for ages with nothing to do. Not even flying sated Zeal’s boredom. Whatever awaited them, he hoped it was good news. There was a distinct lack of jugular-snacking in his routine lately, and he couldn’t wait to feast on a banquet of necks.
The faintest of ideas popped up in that rotten little noggin of his. An idea that involved Kuarl. He snuck out of the room and avoided the cyber zombies on patrol to raid the kitchen, where a plump watermelon awaited him in the fridge. Zeal didn’t know why that was there — he never saw Goldman actually eat anything, and it certainly wasn’t for the zombies. Nevertheless, he came back as quickly as he went with that big, juicy fruit in his claws. WIth his plan in mind, Zeal flew up to Kuarl’s neck.
“Psst,” he whispered in that shrill voice of his, “wanna do me a favour?”
Kuarl grumbled, which echoed in that hollow, metal suit of his.
“That’s the spirit, Dully. Stay still.” He carefully placed the melon on Kuarl’s neck, and just like Zeal commanded, he kept it perfectly balanced. Now it was time for the next part of Zeal’s plan. He swooped down to one of the Johnnies in the room. “Hey, axe akimbo. Ya wanna play a game?”
“Oouuuururghghh?” Johnny faced the little gargoyle, his rotting face contorted in confusion.
“Aw, c’mon, it’ll be fun! You’ve got a brain— oh no, you haven’t. But you’ve got those lil’ wood choppers, so use it!”
Johnny scratched the side of his head with the axe blade, only to cut a bit too deep on accident. And so the first Johnny fell. Goldman wasn't going to be pleased about that.
“Damn zombies,” Zeal moaned, smacking his forehead, “why do I hafta be the only one with a screwed-on head around here?”
“Ahem,” the Magician said, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he read a Nietzsche book, “you are not the only one created with sapient properties around here.”
“Oh, cram a sock in it, wormface. Hey, how’s that dad of yours? I heard he ain’t doing so hot nowadays.”
“Yes. I killed him myself. And you will be next if you do not close that infernal trap of yours.” A fireball emerged from one of his claws. Zeal took the hint and quietly flew away to another Johnny.
“Hey, scarface, I need your axes a sec.”
“OoooooAUGH!” He screeched as Zeal tried to pry those blades from his cold, dead hands. Zeal succeeded, and Johnny started to cry from his one-remaining eye. But whatever. If you wanted to do something right, you had to do it yourself, and Zeal decided to do exactly that. So he flew over to Kuarl for some target practise. Good ol’ Kuarl. He kept his word and stayed still the whole time. He didn’t know what he’d do without him.
“Okay…” Zeal said. He raised one axe-wielding arm as he flew, which he couldn’t keep straight. Damn, this was harder than he thought. He had to hand it to Johnny: for a brainless mutant, the fact that he could even hold an axe, let alone wield it to chop off some heads, was a miracle. But Zeal had to try anyway.
“Ready, Dully?”
Kuarl roared, giving Zeal the signal to throw the axe. He had his eyes on the prize. If he could handle a stinking fruit, then he could take on the whole world! It wasn’t too much of a stretch in his opinion! And so, Zeal aimed and fired.
It missed the melon by a mile, denting Kuarl’s chest plate instead. The big dullahan roared and fell backwards, crushing a few zombies underneath that hulking mass of his. Losing the watermelon was the most tragic loss, however. A perfectly ripe fruit, and it lay splattered on the floor like a suicidal tomato. Zeal’s plan had gone to waste.
He was about to brainstorm new ideas to pass the time when static crackled over the intercom. Oh boy, here we go. Mr. Golden Shower himself.
“Friends,” Goldman announced in that robotic monotone of his, “time you made a move.”
The speaker popped, signifying the end of the command. So much for that rousing speech of his — what was the point of making Zeal stay here at all then? It had its effect though as all of the zombies cleared out of the warehouse, ready to gnaw on some human bones like beef jerky.
Zeal, Kuarl, and the Magician stayed behind. That levitating ponce kept reading as if nothing happened. Of course the most agile abomination got the choice to stay at the headquarters while Zeal and Kuarl had to travel all the way to the heart of Venice. Because that was totally fair. But they had to get ready now, otherwise they were never going to take care of G. With no time to waste, Zeal turned to Kuarl.
“Hey, Dully, wanna— whoa!”
He narrowly dodged Kuarl’s axe. The big armoured beast stood up and let out a series of loud growls.
“Oh, c’mon, you know I didn’t mean it! Dully, we hafta get ready!”
Kuarl stamped his metal feet, sending shockwaves rippling through the headquarters.
“Jeez, I had to do somethin’ to pass the time here! I was losing my mind in this smelly place!”
Kuarl crossed his arms. If he had a face, Zeal imagined he’d be pouting.
“Oh, right, sure, give me the silent treatment, you dumb hunk of junk.”
Kuarl froze. It stayed like that for a few seconds, and Zeal was starting to worry.
“Dully? Buddy? We cool? Oka—”
Kuarl roared, waving his axe frantically like he was at a fruit-chopping contest. Even the Magician started to take notice as he threw his book across the room in annoyance. Zeal tried to fly towards Kuarl to calm him down, but that big suit of armour stomped his way through the warehouse, heading for the wall separating the headquarters from the rest of Venice.
“No, no, don’t!”
It was too late. The dullahan destroyed a huge chunk of the wall, leaving a Kuarl-shaped hole there. Zeal hovered down to the floor in stunned silence.
Well, he royally screwed that up. The repair bill was going to soar through the roof. He didn’t expect it to play out like that at all. But what he expected even less was the Magician to burst out laughing. He cackled and rolled on the floor like a toddler.
“Ohohohoh, this is perfect!” He wiped a tear from the eye that didn’t have a tapeworm wriggling around in it. “You can’t keep a leash on that buffoonish lummox for one minute, can you?”
“H-hey! He isn’t a, er, whatever you said he is!”
“Well, you just insulted him then and there. So a classic instance of the zombie calling the mutant infected.”
“I, um…” Zeal couldn’t argue with that. For once, the Magician had a point. “Well… crap.”
All that was left of the warehouse was silence. Zeal scratched at his greasy mop of hair. The Magician went to pick his book back up. Screams could be heard from outside the headquarters. Those zombies were probably making their move already. Zeal was missing out on the party. But where was Kuarl? He had to find him, but he didn’t know how to make it up to him. Not that it was his fault or anything — that headless idiot shouldn’t have been so offended at a little slight like that. But that didn’t feel right either.
Zeal didn’t know what to do, so he looked over to the only other creature in the room.
The Magician got to his feet and huffed, book in claw. “You’re seriously turning to me for advice now?”
“N-no. Shut up!”
He flashed a smug grin. “I will take that as an acceptance of defeat. Well, if you must, I have a couple of things to say.” He cleared his throat. “I treat the other zombies with a degree of respect. They did not ask to be born into this world, or to be given instructions by a creator that neither wants them nor cares about them.”
“I didn’t ask, smartass.” Zeal puffed his cheeks.
“I know their struggles. They probably have some awareness that they do not have much agency in this situation and will experience a second death regardless. And yet they cannot resist it, for they were designed to kill humans based on instinct. Their only purpose is to fulfill someone else’s purpose.”
Where was the mute button on this guy when you needed it?
“Okay, Zero.” He thumbed the Magician’s chest. “If you’re so smart, why are you following Goldman’s orders anyway? He’s a moron! I mean, have you heard the way he talks? He sounds like a goddamn wind-up toy!”
“That’s one thing we can agree on,” he said with a slight chuckle, “I do not care for his ‘life cycle of nature’ drivel.”
“You mean loyfe cycle.”
“My thoughts exactly. I just wish to dispose of humanity so I can live on my own terms. Goldman simply provides me the means to live while I am in hiding, though I can snuff out his life with a mere—” he clicked his claws together—”when I don’t need him. But in time, I will prove that I am the apex predator of this world.”
“Well, so much for having a point there, Zero. There you go bragging again.”
“If I am gifted with these powers, I might as well use them. I know what I fight for: myself. What do you fight for?”
The answer was obvious, but he didn’t want to admit it.
“And what will you do to fulfill that purpose, whether it’s to exterminate the human race, or to simply be with the creature you care for the most? If it’s the latter, would you want to burn the bridge with them forever?”
For once, Zeal didn’t get sick of listening to this guy. He wouldn’t be caught dead being nice to him, but deep down, he was right. Owning up to his mistakes in front of Kuarl was for the best. And so, he turned towards the hole in the wall, beating his wings to prepare for flight.
“T-thanks, Zero,” he mumbled.
“What was that?” The Magician tilted his head. “I could not hear you over the sound of my immaculate presence.”
“Never mind.” Zeal sighed and took off.
--
Venice was so romantic when it was on fire. The smell of sulfur in the air. The way the orange, fiery haze from the burning wreckage below clouded the sun. Move over, Sunset Bridge. Move over, Bridge of Sighs. Wow, there were a lot of bridges in ol’ piccola Venezia. Did humans actually like visiting this place? No matter. On top of being the city of love, Venice was now the city of zombies!
Zeal took such delight in watching the chaos below. He perched atop the Campanile as the bells tolled for the city’s doom. Clueless tourists ran like sheep from the Johnnies and the Steves. Speedboats ran over the floating bodies in the canal and crashed into one another. Mickeys dashed across the rooftops, scouting for any of the humans who dared to escape from up on high. It was almost perfect. Now all it needed was a meat-cleaver wielding midget in a bright red raincoat and the picture of carnage would’ve been complete.
And yet, Zeal couldn’t indulge in it himself. At least, not yet. He had a job to do: find that ‘dog of the AMS’, as Goldman said, and take care of him. But first, he had to find Kuarl. He glided above the heart of San Marco, looking for that big suit of armour. It was harder than he thought to find someone so reflective since it blended in so well with the urban surroundings. Why did Kuarl have to wear steel armour again? Why couldn’t it have been black leather or something? On second thought, maybe not.
Well, when the smoky fog lifted, the sun shone again, and a beam of light emerged from the ground to form a signal. That must’ve been where Kuarl was. Zeal made short work of his search and swooped over to him. He was ready to make amends. But that had to wait, as what he saw next really took him off guard.
Kuarl was in an empty playground, sitting on a crushed roundabout ride with his axe on the ground. A lone swing set swayed in the wind. Those screams could still be heard nearby. He rested his arms on his knees and sobbed, which echoed in his suit. One random civilian shivered, sitting on his ass in a puddle of his own urine as he watched Kuarl. He probably didn’t know what to make of this situation — especially not when there were zombies raising hell in every street corner.
Zeal wanted to kill him — not just that, he wanted to rip his throat out and have his veins for lunch. But in that moment, he just wanted him gone. So Zeal went to him first and whipped gusts of wind at him with his wings.
“Get lost, you stinking human!”
The human screamed and ran off like a headless chicken. Now it was just the two of them alone.
“Dull— I mean, Kuarl?”
“Huuuuu?” he groaned in between sobs.
“I…” Zeal gulped. Why was it so hard to apologise for something? “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have used you for that stupid melon game, I shouldn’t have hit you with that axe, and I shouldn’t have called you dumb.”
Kuarl stopped crying for a moment.
“So… yeah. I didn’t wanna make you feel bad or anythin’. You got that? Now c’mon, we’ve gotta vamoose and kill some humans.”
“N… noooooooo.”
That was the first time Zeal ever heard him speak. It was just one word, but that single word spoke louder than grunts. Was this what it felt like to have a baby?
“No? Aw, c’mon, hasn’t stopped you before. They’ve done nothin’ to deserve any mercy from us.”
Kuarl groaned again, except there was more articulation to his primal utterances. It wasn’t like Zeal had any trouble understanding him anyway, but Kuarl was certainly on the ball today.
“I, er… I don’t understand. You said you don’t wanna kill humans anymore. But, well, that’s sort of in our blood, isn’t it? We’ve gotta do it to survive.”
Kuarl growled and swayed his upper half back and forth, which would have resembled him shaking his head if he had one.
“So, I guess it’s not that you don’t wanna kill humans, it’s the fact that you don’t know why you wanna do it.”
He was at a stalemate there. Kuarl didn’t need to eat since there wasn’t an orifice he could cram anything into. All Zeal knew about his origin was that Kuarl’s mind, wherever it was, was sympathetically linked to his. They were born at pretty much the same time as each other. If Kuarl died, well, Zeal would be without a partner. If Zeal died, Kuarl would die too, and he couldn’t have that. Not after everything they went through.
What was the point in looking back at the past? Well, he wanted to say something to Kuarl he never admitted to anyone before.
“I gotta hand it to you, Kuarl, when that golden guy first made me, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had wings, but I couldn’t fly for whatever reason. Can’t exactly soar in the air if nobody really taught you how to. Zero doesn’t count since levitating is just cheating.”
Kuarl hummed in reply.
“When you picked me up that day with those hands of yours—” he punctuated this by outstretching his claws—“and gave me a platform for me to try out my flight skills, yanno, I really appreciated that. I didn’t feel quite so useless then.”
Kuarl chirped, sounding a lot happier this time.
“Now I’m up to speed, I feel better than ever. So, thanks for lookin’ after me, Dully.”
Kuarl rocked his body back and forth, making a nodding gesture.
“And you gotta remember, these humans don’t want us here. They’ll see us as monsters anyway, so to hell with ‘em. They can come at us with their guns and that, but I ain’t gonna let that stop us from doing what we want.”
Kuarl let out a happy growl.
“And once we’ve made this city ours, we can do anything we wanna! We can really paint the town red without those pests around! We can destroy those paintings they gawk at so much! We can ride those gondola thingies! We can punch all these buildings to dust!”
Kuarl stood up at last and pumped his fist in the air.
“So that’s my promise to you! I’ll kill any human that stands in between us! I’ll look out for you, just like you looked out for me, got it?”
Kuarl laughed and held Zeal in his arms, hugging him with enough restraint that it didn’t squeeze the life out of the poor gargoyle. Just like old times, Zeal climbed on top of Kuarl’s neck and watched as he decimated everything in his path. But instead of crushing cardboard boxes underfoot for practise, Kuarl crushed cars, leaving behind a trail of twisted metal in his wake. Zeal scouted for a dog in a black suit, and sure enough, he found his target: G. Even though the agent was armed, he was caught unawares by the gargoyle and dullahan combo.
“What?!”
“Go, Kuarl!”
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