Aura brought her hammer up into a zombie's chin, ripping it off and sending it into the air. She saw the glowing lights the man used change, instead of teleporting they seemed to hit like solid objects. Aura had no idea what a pitcher or a dugout was however but she did note the the drop off in fire from Zek. She took a breath her next swing severing the neck of her next attacker. The zombies may have been pathetic almost laughable fighters but their numbers did seem endless or at least Aura assumed the contents of one of the larger gravesites around new york city. Aura's eyes widened a moment as she considered that for all they knew other cemeteries could be doing the very same this one was. Aura wondered how many of these sad departed bodies she had sent to their grave to begin with.

As cold steel brought the pair back to the wall, Aura smashed the next skull with an overhead hammer blow. She could feel herself tiring though, she estimated this had gone on over an hour and a half now. She felt something try and bite her in the back of the next, she speared the zombie skull behind her head and tore it from it's spine, glancing at the bleach white skull a moment before flicking it to the ground.

Aura smiled at the frozen one. "The funny thing old friend, you do have the authority to order that of me at the moment" she said jokingly while ducking another zombie and removing it's head with a sword swing. "For what's its worth my Frozen Friend I am honored to serve under you. You have no idea how much I wish I had taken your hand all those years ago" she said referring to their encounter when she had first reached the city. She said taking a few deep breaths.

"The game plan? We hope backup arrives before we die" Aura said simply to Zek because to Aura it was really that simple. Zek left a poor impression on Aura but Aura reminded herself that unlike Cold Steel and herself, he might not have been a solider. Still Zek annoyed Aura in a way she was not quite sure she understood. She knew the Frozen one had been joking about murdering Zek and she admitted mentally their were people she had killed she regretted more. Aura let her aura hammer fade back into her fist let a drill form around her fist. She noticed the clone and was almost touched by the consideration but considered the Snowman likely just figured they could save more people this way. She delivered a drill into a zombie's eye socket throwing chips of skull aside before her hand burst through and the Zombie stopped.

“Love you, too, Popsicle!” Zek yelled down. It hadn’t been directed to him, but he was pretty sure Sam had told Glowstick Gal that he'd be absolutely heartbroken if Zek got a zombie hickey. Of course, with everything going on, it was possible that Zek simply misheard.

“Also, just for the record, that’s a dumb plan!” he shouted. He put a foot on the ledge and leaned forward with his elbow on his knee. “I’m just sayin’! Do we even know why there are zombies in the first place? Somebody read the Necronomicon or do a black mass or something? Or is this like a plague thing? Like, I have hand sanitizer if anyone needs it!” The hand sanitizer probably wasn’t going to last long though. Eh, Zek figured he’d pick five people and only let them use it. Everyone else could get zombified or whatever.

“But that’s okay, you do you. Like, if beating up bunches of zombies is your thing don’t let me stop you,” he yelled down before deciding that was enough for the moment. He took in the scene again and made a second decision. He totally wasn’t needed. Floyd was cleaving through everything around her like a psychedelic chainsaw and Sam was….cloning himself? Sure. Okay. why not? The Ice Twins were also making short work of, well, everything, and they even had time to escort people through the wall.

“Welp, time to bench myself for a bit,” he said to nobody in particular. He didn’t want to wear his arm out especially when, comparatively, he wasn’t going to be doing nearly as much damage as the other two. Not to mention the fact that it was snowing and obstructing his vision a bit, at least for the area he was supposed to be throwing things into.

He backed up from the ledge and faced the other folks. Addressing the Warrior Triad, he said, “Hey, you guys wanna head on downstairs to check things out? I have no idea what the other non-zombie people are doing down there. MAybe check the other entrances or something? You guys are awesome.”

“Sure,” the guy with the lamp said slowly. The women made similar enthusiastic noises of affirmation and very positive eye rolls. But they left to head downstairs anyways.

Facing the few remaining roof people, Zek pulled a thing of yarn out of a pocket. “Anyone up for cat’s cradle?”

She called him friend again. Sam didn’t consider them that. In fact there was a time he’d kill her or detain her on sight if she arrived anywhere near the grounds of the mansion. There was a time when he would have reached out to help her but after the Orphanage incident and those kids… every time he looked at her he was reminded of another time he couldn’t save anyone. It was different now. It had to be. ”I appreciate it. I’ll keep that in mind.” he said trying not to give a little chuckle.

The ice clone danced behind Aura moving from location to location. If he was going to hold the line and still go out and rescue people then he needed to make sure the door was protected. Zek being bored meant either he was running low as well or he was just indifferent towards the people they were saving. Sam hoped it was the first one. The second one just made him want to tell Aura to take care of him. The icemancer was supposed to be a good guy so he couldn’t do that though.

”No.” he quipped back quickly to Aura, ”You don’t get to have that regret. You had multiple chances to make up for it. You want to have regrets do it somewhere else because no one else here is dying today.” the ice clone and Sam both turned and stared at Aura. She didn’t get to talk like that it sounded like she was saying goodbye. Either she was going to make up for everything or die. She didn’t get to die around him. ”I’m disappointed. I thought you were supposed to be soldier.” Sam said trying to egg the pink wielding warrior on. When soldiers said stuff like that that usually meant they planned on dying.

Sam almost growled in response back at Zek, ”No, we don’t know. Right now my job is to make sure those people and you are alive until someone can come and rescue you all.” Sam raised his hand and pointed his arm forward at a small herd of zombies slowly approaching them. The water on the ground rose up under his command and froze instantly turning into spire impaling every one of them some didn’t drop and kept trying to move forward but they weren’t going anywhere.

Where was that damn back up? ”I’ll let you think of it Zek. I’m a little. he turned and crushed a zombie with an elbow. ”Busy making sure the building isn’t swarmed. Would love to see some initiative from you.”

What if help wasn’t coming… Sam tried to do a mental count of the people he had on the roof. Was he going to have to cut his losses and try and blanket everything in ice? He frowned, he couldn’t think like that. Turning towards the building they were protecting he eyed two of the windows and started to blast it with a tinge of blue adding a little more protection.

If help wasn’t coming that meant this was happening elsewhere. He didn’t have time to waste. He had to get back to the school. They needed to know. Turning he blasted the other two windows on the other side. ”Aura, Zek! Get everyone inside! There’s a cold front coming in.” the temperature dropped around them. The epicenter was based on Sam for now.

"What's a nocronanom?" she called back to zek having zero idea what the book he referenced was. The term black mass however was one she had encountering eliminating a few cults over the years. Even as she spoke she cleaved zombies. It was dull work, the Zombies were predictable and strong only from the vast numbers. "Some poor person's going to have to clean all these bones up" she said considering the actual hills of bone that were forming. The dead cared not simply walking over their dead brethren. Had it been suicidal determination she would have admired it.

Aura looked like she had been physically struck on Cold Steels words and her mind recalled simmeler words told to her long ago after she disobeyed her first order. She returned a hollow, haunted look. Her Aura dimmed a bit and she nearly let the next zombies engulf her before she began to fight."I know, theirs far to much blood on my hands. If i was the weapon i was suppose to be, i would have died protecting Miracle or Syn or Lori. Now fate binds my future with that of a child who thinks I'm a decent Person. If one of us is needed to sacrifice so the others live, I am by far the best choice. A good soilder would not lose her faith in the gods holy war upon humanity, a solider would want..... " she said said looking back at Cold Steel even as she shattered the skull of another zombie. Though her eyes went to the building a moment. Cold Steels rebuke had hurt a bit in a way she refused to show, instead she turned and slammed her blades into a new set of zombies.

"Considering their was a future a dream shared throughout the city where i leveled Moscow, an Alternate Universe where i was an actual person, i fought dinosaurs, their was the age thing recently, the police death robots and now demons who call them themselves Super. For all we know it could be the planet wanting us to slow the near yearly chaos" she quipped back to Zek as she sped up her moves. She tried not to let it on, but the Popsicle had lit a fire in her and the idea that he seemed to include her as someone who would not be dying touched her.

Aura plowed into a cluster of zombies in a rain of strikes sliding to a stop When Cold Steel did give an order. "As you Order my Frozen Friend, be safe" She said and looked around and ran right at the building Zek was on, their was no way to get in at ground level, Aura dove through the driver side window of a car and out the passenger side rolling as she took a deep breath. She made it to the building Zek was on and reformed two blades and quickly scaled the building, driving her blades in and pulling herself up as quickly as she could rolling over the edge to catch her breath. "In we go" she said moving to the door, though she gave zek a nod. "Always somthing in this place" she said with brief smile.

Nobody was up for cat’s cradle. It was probably for the best. “Fine, I get it. Everyone’s too intimidated by my awesomeness. No worries, I get this all the time.” Their loss. He was great at cat’s cradle!

Probably.

Well, maybe. He’d never actually done it before. But how hard could it be?

He plopped his mighty fine butt back on the ledge, back to all the boring slaughtering below, and started stringing yarn around his fingers. Sam yelled something up and Zek’s ears perked up and his head swiveled around to check out what was going on. Slushy Man was in the middle of a workout so some of his speech seemed garbled to Zek, so he only caught like four of the words:

”I’ll let you think of it Zek. I’m a little busy making sure the building isn’t swarmed. Would love to see some initiative from you.”

“Lovin’ you too, Sammy-poo!”

Then he swiveled his head back to concentrate on important things.

Like figuring out how cat’s cradle worked. And how to get his bare foot untangled from his hands.

Some minutes later (he wasn’t really keeping track of the time, so it might’ve been more or less - he honestly didn’t care) there was another shout, of that familiar baritone (he also never did choir so didn’t know what to call the kind of voice Sam-Sam had) saying his name.

“Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout now?” he griped halfheartedly as he frowned at his hands. They were now tied behind his back. Fortunately he’d been able to put his shoe and sock back on before that had happened. Because his neck was also twisted around to see his hands, could stick his blue tongue out at Ice Ice Baby. “It’s raining zombies, remem-burrr!” Suddenly he could see his breath and he went a little cross-eyed.

“Whatever you say boss,” he called back even as he watched Floyd spider her way up the building like a one-woman rave ninja. He was shivering. “I do not get paid enough for this.” He hopped up off the ledge, his body facing the rooftop and door, his head and hands facing the carnage below. “Wait, do we even get paid for this? I’m new to the whole X-Man thing! Also, are uniforms supplied or do those come out of the first several paychecks? And can I use a different vendor than you because I have actual taste.”

His breathe was even easier to see. “Actually, hold that thought. My fingers are about to freeze off!”

He turned around so his head and hands were facing the door and began walking backwards toward it. He didn’t really have any patience at that point because it was so so colllld so he vanished the few people in his way as they tried shuffling through the door, flashed a blue-tongued smile back at Floyd, and burst into the stairs, still technically walking backwards.

Or was it moonwalking? Hmmm. Something to ponder.

Once he felt everyone inside he acted. Blasting the doors shut with a wall of ice. There would be no way for the undead to enter without clawing their way through a foot of ice. Which he doubt was going to be possible for the undead. Not if they were all frozen.

The temperature started to drop more his body started to turn to ice as he focused on the moving corpses. The first to be hit with the first wave of the drop started to slow then immediately start to freeze. Because they weren’t living they didn’t feel the skin turn to ice. With each movement a limb fell off and shattered till the moving corpses collapsed.

‘Frostbite’ thought Sam as he released control of the golem and walked forward. Each step sent another wave of cold out quickly slowing any of the walking dead until they started to turn to ice. He spotted a heat signature in a building nearby and blasted the walls in ice hoping to slow the spread of the cold. It was difficult to control his powers this much. The people behind him were safer though. He was moving away from them.

Sam eyed the graveyard and took another step then stopped as the zombies out of range from his powers collapsed. ”The hell?” his curiosity reeled in his powers. The temperature started rising quickly back to it’s normal readings given the season.

Everywhere he looked where a walking corpse was unaffected by his powers the dead continued to drop. Giving it a few minutes he walked back to the building where Aura and Zek and the people they saved were. ”Clear for now.” the decomposing bodies littered the streets. Sam didn’t thaw his body just the entrance to the building where he now stood watching to see if there was another change. In the distance sirens sounded.

"Paid? no new friend i don't think they do" she said missing the intended humor of Zek's joke entirely. "But then i'm just an old blade" she said watching Zek walk backwards and entering the door herself. "i swear this city attracts every strange event imaginable. From Dinosaurs to the end of the world" she said to Zek not even considering if he would even get the refrences.

As Aura came out after the Cold one's all clear she looked around, her aura up. it flickered off a few times before aura reduced the pink aura to a near invisible state close to her skin. Maybe it had been to long since she had gotten to let loose and while she had lost count she knew she had felled a lot of zombies. Sure it was safe Aura moved out from the door, still keeping watch as the people began coming out of the building clearly terrified and scared. It was hard to blame them considering what had just happened.

"I see you were successful old friend" she said simply attributing all the fallen zombies to Cold steel. It made sense and Aura was really just glad more endless hordes were not moving on them still. She poked at a few bodies with her foot and smiled as one shattered into once pieces at her slight touch. Cold steel did good work.

Aura felt Alex grab her by the waist and looked down only to briefly confirm who it was before resting a hand on her head in comfort. She only gave a small nod to the others who emerged from the building. She turned to look at cold steel. "I'll try and investigate the source of this where i can, It Might be a case like that shared future dream or the age thing recently but if their is a Mutant in the center of this, i will find them" she said still unsure if a mutant was even involved but if one was and they lacked control, Aura felt it was vitle to get there before the police.

Aura felt Alex emerge from her grasp and before she could scold Alex she saw the kid moving toward Sam."Thank you Mr. Johnson" Alex said nervously looking around at the corpses and back up at Sam. Alex had seen a few bodies here and there, such things with Aura and Allison were hard to avoid though they had tried hard. So Alex was far less scared of the bodies then many of the adults who had emerged.

Auras eyes dropped a bit reflecting her tiredness but her relief was easy enough to read on her face. "Had You and Zek not shown up, i would have eventually been overwhelmed by the numbers but importantly i would not have been able to protect this little one...or the others. If either of you should require my aide in the future, i will provide it" she said keeping Alex in the corner of her eye staying the entire time. "Come Alex, we do not want to be around when those cops get closer, house four should be close" she said sternly enough that Alex reluctantly parted with her frozen teacher.

Glamour Gal answered his question and Zek’s head snapped around so quick he got a little dizzy. The X-Men weren’t paid? Oh yuck. What’d they put up with all this stuff for, then? Zek was gonna have to have a little talk with Frosty Tightpants about that and false advertising and maybe see if they accepted sidekicks and if so was that a paid position?

Zek was considering changing careers and wanted to know his options. He was also going to submit his resume to the city court because he’d always wanted to be a judge and get paid to hit people with hammers and tell them how much money they now owed him.

“Meh, they probably don’t have insurance, then, either,” he muttered to himself.

“Probably not,” he muttered right back.

But then like all at once suddenly people were leaving, with Glowstick leading the way. And a little kid was going out too.

Oh well, it they wanted to be too stupid to live.

Then Zek rolled his eyes. “If they die, my little Sambino is gonna yell at me, huh?”

He sighed. “Yeah….”

This zombieapocalypse was seriously starting to mess his day up.

“Well, let’s get to it, then,” he said, heading down the steps, stopping only long enough to make his duffle bag appear and vanish again. Hefting his morningstar up and resting it’s lower end on his shoulder just like a guard with a rifle, or a really lazy batter, Zek followed the crowd of stupid lemmings (the smart lemmings were staying inside) and sauntered his way over to kinda where Icepatch and Angel Dust were being all dramatic and pose-y.

He kicked a random body part that was in his way and kept a sharp eye on all the bodies. He had to admit, Mr. Icicle had done some good work. Couldn’t even see any twitchings!

“So…..we done here? All the zombies deadified again?” He nudged another body with his shoe.

”I’d like to take the credit… but it wasn’t me. They started to drop on their own. Maybe it was a time limit or something?” the icemancer asked curiously hoping someone had an answer he could understand. It had to be a mutant. Corpses don’t just animate themselves. However he was glad it was over for now. What he saw… he didn’t want to live in that world.

When she offered to investigate he was hesitant to take her help. Aura’s methods were too much like the methods he used to practice and he knew what she was capable of. Instead of telling her not to investigate, ”How about you call me if you come across anything before you… solve the problem.” she was a solider and they way he said it was less of a request and more of a command. It was up to her though; he just hoped she didn’t take care of anything that could explain what happened.

>>>"Thank you Mr. Johnson"

Sam’s attention turned to the kid and he crouched down and gave thumbs up. ”No problem kiddo. You alright? Scary huh?” Sam watched and felt the people emerging from the building. He could see the emergency vehicles now meaning it was Aura’s cue to leave. ”I’ll keep that in mind. Just be good till then.” the term Good he knew was a loaded word with her.

”Seems that way.” Sam shrugged. ”You got any more information to give? You see how it got started?” Sam asked Zek who he particularly didn’t like but was glad he was there to help. Zek helped them save a lot of people today. He was hesitant at first but then offered a handshake to Zek. ”You did good today, helped us save a lot of people. Thank you.” maybe Zek wasn’t so bad.