As I stood on the roof of the hotel, the remaining energy in my body made me realize something. The Type Two’s plant ability that I absorbed had become more tamed. An ability that I could manage like my standard energy blasts and freely use to my heart's content. From my understanding, this only happened because of that resolve-boosting conversation I had with Rosey. I had no idea why this was.

  What I did know was that I was fifteen minutes away from Barclays Center and I planned on arriving there in only fifteen seconds.

  I steadied my stance, planting my feet firmly as I cupped my hands at my side as vines and skinny trees emerged from my back and gathered around the radioactive energy building in my hands. Orbs appeared in the air in front of me and were all swiftly led to my palm by the plants, like an aircraft marshal guiding a plane back to land. I knew the weight was increasing, and yet it did not feel as heavy as it once was.

  The large ball in the center of my hands pulsed vehemently, causing the roof to tremble as weeds sprouted from the soles of my feet. The combination of my plants and my technique cast a green illumination in the night sky-—a chilling message for the giant resting rose in the distance, which seemed oblivious to it.

  Then, I thrust my hand forward with all my might and roared.

  “Fatherly Beam!”

  The brilliant, enormous attack sliced through the air like wet tissue, the shockwave’s force completely eviscerating the roof as the beam shot five blocks away.The energy weeds that had spawned from my feet fired a dark green gas that ejected me through the sky until I was face to face with the beam that I had just launched.

  Three seconds.

  The vines and slim trees that surrounded the attack steered it toward the arena, keeping the energy in place while I activated my Rocket Feet technique to compete with the overwhelming speed. A fire had ignited inside my body and it’d be ridiculous if I didn’t go full throttle!

  Six seconds.

  Ahead of me, carnivorous plants lined the path to the arena—Venus Flytraps and Pitcher Plants snapping their sharp teeth in a menacing display. Without hesitation, I brought my forearms together, projecting energy to form a massive leaf. I snapped it in half with a sharp motion, dodging their relentless chomps. In a fluid strike, I diced the Pitcher Plants into shreds, while the Fatherly Beam zigzagged through the air, riddling the Flytraps with smoldering holes.

  Ten seconds.

  My body was enveloped by a green aura as I placed my leaf blades forward, spearing a hole in the Barclays Center’s wall like an arrow with the overwhelming intensity of a nuke. The beam crashed into the arena floor, the explosion boosting my speed until I finally shaved off a section of the roses’ petals, revealing the sleeping Type Two and the little girl cradled within.

  Fourteen seconds.

  I snapped my arm forward, vines shooting from my palm and catching the girl before she fell. Before the Type Two could even open her eyes, I nestled the child between my arms and rocketed out of the arena.

  Fifteen seconds.

  *****

  “Hey Victoria, you still alive, right?” I asked, shaking her gently. Her body was still made of grass. “ I gave up a lot of energy for you. C’mon!”

  I had taken her to a random building I accidentally crashed into and…Hmm.

  I’m starting to get real Deja Vu here…

  After a couple more shakes and begging, Victoria’s eyes shot open and I was shocked to see that her eyes were unusually green. “Good, you’re awake. Are you ok? Besides your…appearance.”

  Surprisingly, she stared at my whole body and didn’t even flinch at the fact that a zombie was not only holding her, but also speaking. She stayed silent for what felt like minutes and I was a little eager on what her first words would be.

  “Are…you gonna take me back to Master Corleone?”

  I hesitated, baffled by what she had asked me. “No…you’re not going back to the Slavelands. I’m gonna take you back to your mom.”

  “My mom?” She blinked, her face trance-like. “I don’t…have a mom anymore.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” I chuckled awkwardly. “Your mom’s been trying to find you this whole time. And she’s just a couple blocks away.”

  “But my mom died…a year ago.”

  What!? Is something messing with this girl’s memories somehow? Probably having all this grass on her for so damn long.

  I placed my fingertips on her blank face and said, “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll absorb this off of you real quick.”

  However, Victoria grabbed my hand and squeezed it with as much power as her little hand could use. “You can’t absorb me…I need to stay like this for my mom. My mom is doing this because she…loves me.”

  “Victoria, you’re confused right now,” I said bluntly. “I don’t know what that zombie lady did to you specifically, but she’s giving you these wrong thoughts in your head.”

  “No. No. No!” she screamed, trying to pull my hand off of her. “Why do you adults always get to decide who my mom is!? First, a whore. Then, a slave. And now, a zombie!? Who do you think you are?”

  I ignored her and continued at my absorption attempt when something unexpected happened. She began to scream “No” at the top of her lungs as a tree instantly sprouted from her mouth, knocking me backwards. I regained my footing and attempted to charge back in to save the girl, but vines blasted through the wall from outside and firmly wrapped me up in place.

  A couple seconds passed and a familiar figure emerged from the hole to my right. It was the goddamn Plant Zombie. She smacked away the tables and chairs in her way and approached Victoria, clawing at the tree in her mouth.

  “I can’t believe that a man like you performed that feat…in only fifteen seconds. And you had the audacity to take my Sunflower away from me in that small amount of time.” Her voice was filled with rage, building up with each passing second. “It’s a good thing I planted that defense mechanism within her body—to protect her from bad people like you.”

  “Big talk coming from a zombie who stole a mother’s daughter from her,” I retorted, tightening my body. “I know us zombies don’t have hearts, but if you saw how distraught that mother was with your own eyes, you’d probably see that you’re the only bad person here.”

  She glared at me with her hollow eyes. “You say all that with such an evil smile on your face…” She lifted her hand and a part of her ooze lifted from her palm, lighting up the room in a green hue. “I’ll make sure to add more cracks to that ugly appearance of yours.”

  “I’d like to see you try!”

  If there was one thing every human knew about zombies, it was that they always came in packs. It made perfect sense for them since one zombie by itself wasn’t a threat to anyone, but gather up a group of flesh-eating monsters and they’ll carve a path to humanity’s destruction. I guess they were similar to humans in that way–clinging to the only things they could call family so that they wouldn’t be completely alone.

  Their only connection to their former humanity.

  I think deep down, that was the reason I found it so difficult to immediately absorb or even attack her. Something about my new undead biology prevented me from going through with it. No wonder my new plant-based energy turned against me when I tried to restrain her…

  Although, since I could perfectly use these new abilities a couple minutes ago, perhaps I could finally show this Type Two what I could actually do! But first, I needed to get her damn vines off my body.

  “Hey, Plant Lady!” I shouted, pulling at my restraints. “You said something before about your plants having low energy during the night, right? You really think you can kill me with a weakness like that!?”

  “That’s exactly why I preferred to finish this fight…tomorrow. When the Sun, caregiver of all plants, rose again,” she hissed, the ball of ooze ascending to the ceiling. “But I guess this will have to do.”

  Above me, the ball began to glow intensely, pulsating in green waves that danced along the room’s cracked walls until the light flooded my surroundings. “It’s true that my babies need the Sun for more…power. However, light is still…light. Even if it comes from me.”

  “You’re not trying to kill Victoria, are you?” I questioned cautiously, trying to shuffle the vines to my hands. “Or at least you don’t want to kill her.”

  The moment she heard this, her hair began to rise sinisterly. “What…did you…just ask me?” Her raspy voice ran a chill down my spine.

  “You said you would kill that girl if I attempted to save her,” I responded, the vines inches away from my hands. “What happened to that plan? She looks pretty alive to me.”

  “How do you know that’s not my tree making her move like that? Maybe the roots are…puppeteering her muscles and all the other tiny parts of my Sunflower’s body.” She seemed to struggle saying that last sentence.

  “I can see two different auras coming from that spot. One from the tree and the other from Victoria.”

  “Her name…is Sunflower!”, she snarled, stabbing through my leg with another vine. “Say her actual name or…there’ll be more pain coming your way.”

  “Her name isn’t Sunflower, Plant Lady,” I said. “Her name is Victoria. And I don’t know I’m even giving you this option again but…let that girl go or I’m gonna do something you won’t like.”

  The giant leaf she used to fly on sliced through the wall behind her and stopped at her feet. “I’ve had enough of people trying to give me limited options for my life so I’ve decided to…give you limited options,” she said, stepping on the leaf and riding over to me.

  “And what options are those?”

  “You see, I’ve actually decided to…spare you. Not in the way you’re thinking though. I’m going to kill this current, disgusting version of you and change you into something more…perfect for me. It’s a similar process to what I’m going to do with my daughter.” She began to caress my face gently. “You said you were going to…absorb me. Well, how do you think it would feel for me to absorb you and turn-”

  “I told you to tell me my options,” I demanded, staring back with my own lifeless eyes.

  She gasped like I said something offensive and gripped my skull. “I want you to take back what you said before and call me a good mommy. Oh and say…‘honey, I’m home’ for me and how beautiful I am too. Do that and I’ll make the process of the transformation a lot less painful. After all, you will be my new…husband after today.”

  Husband!? I knew zombies liked to stay in packs but this was a little too much!

  “And I assume the second option is that you’ll make it as painful as possible?”

  “Good guess,” she answered, taking out a seed from her dress.

  “Well, I’d like to believe that there are a lot more options than just those two.”

  “And what possibly could those b-”

  Before she could finish her sentence, I rocketed out of her sight, crashing through a wall as I exited the building. Debris rained down, but I could still see her through the hole I’d made, oblivious to where I had disappeared too. Seizing the opportunity, I fired a radioactive bullet through the hole before gravity began to pull me down.

  However, my shot had clearly missed as I was suddenly pelted with a swarm of leaves that tore half of the building the Plant Lady was in to shreds, battering me till I ended up colliding with a wall behind me. I swiped a couple of the leaves from the air and flew higher up, tanking the brunt of the attacks while they shredded another unlucky building. I absorbed the aura emitted by the leaves, healing the hole in my thigh and creating a few leaves of my own.

  I readied my battle stance with my new Leaf Blade technique and even though I was a little far away from her now, I could still tell that a face of anger and contempt was being directed to me.

  “You kept calling me a disrespectful name earlier…Plant Lady! That was the name!” she yelled, hovering up with her leaf.

  “Yeah, so what!? You’re the one with the memory loss, remember?” I retorted, shooting a few more bullets to see if I could get lucky but she slapped them away with a vine.

  “I remember…my name now! The name they took from me! Call me Rosalina—Rosalina Ramirez!” she barked, large carnivorous plants erupting from the concrete below.

  Since Rosalina and I are of the same species, that would mean we share one thing in common. We both can’t feel pain no matter how much power we attack each other with. Though, she definitely has me beat in the numbers department and the strength of each of her hits is no joke. I couldn’t even break out the mouth of that Venus Flytrap last time.

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  The only way I was going to defeat her is by absorbing her completely and in order to do that, that light ball above her head needed to disappear.

  I zoomed at her, slicing up all the carnivorous plants to bits. I was mere inches away from cleaving her ooze orb in half before a familiar, heavy attack slammed me down to the ground. Confused, I looked up from the crater I was in and realized the Type Two had used a whole damn tree to strike me down. Before I could react, the massive trunk came hurtling toward me like a giant arrow. Thinking quickly, I raised my leaf blades and fired, slicing the tree cleanly in half before it could reach me.

  Then, I soared back into the air, eager to end this fight sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, I was about to run low on energy and I needed to absorb that light ball before I had nothing left in me. Well, something big would also be helpful to me.

  At that moment, that big something came into reality as another tree burst from the ground. But it wasn’t just any normal tree. Only a second seemed to have passed once I noticed it but the tree had already stretched above the buildings and even further than that, utterly dwarfing me. Filled with sharp, small, woody spikes across its body and decorated with…human skulls on some of those spikes—what kind of tree was this!?

  This was going way beyond what I thought was in nature!

  “Sandbox Tree!”

  “I noticed…”, said Rosalina, approaching the front of the massive tree. “that you haven’t felt the pain of any of my attacks…right?”

  “I could say the same for you,” I responded. “But I haven’t given you a clean punch to the face yet so who knows! Only thing I’ve seen hurt you was a spray of herbicide.”

  “And it makes me so glad that you didn’t bring it with you! Maybe you will make a good father to my Sunflower…I only picked you because you’re the same as me but…it seems you have some good qualities as a man…husband too. A husband shouldn’t hurt his wife and you’ve demonstrated that quality perfectly. Sunshine would be proud of you!”

  Now that I think about it…why didn’t I bring the herbicide with me? I guess with how fast I got to the arena, Elias would still be running those fifteen minutes. Though, it felt like there was another thing clouding my decision—like my body forced me to not go after it.

  “Don’t worry, once I transform yo-”

  I shot her face, interrupting her babbling. Actually…I didn’t shoot her face! I know my fingers were aimed right at her, and yet it was as if they had moved the very moment I shot.

  What’s going on with my bo-

  An attack pierced through my chest. Then another shaved off the side of my head. The tree had fired its spikes at me!

  “You won’t get to eat those syrup…sandwiches with your daughter once I’m finished with you!”

  Huh? How the hell does she know about that!?

  Before I could figure out the answer to that question, the Sandbox Tree unleashed a torrent of spikes, tearing through the air with murderous intent. My body moved on instinct, hardening my fists as I threw punch after punch and shattered spike after spike in a desperate storm of blows. My fists blurred, the mysterious beating in my chest pounding with each attack while the energy on my feet burned brighter.

  With each spike I broke, another one just stabbed through my ooze. However, I did not give up! My eyes glowed a deep emerald as I echoed with all my might…

  “Fatherly…Gatling!”

  My elbows ignited with raw radioactive energy, boosting the speed of my arms. Boosting the speed of my punches. Boosting everything within me! Aura surged around my hands, releasing an onslaught of colossal energy fists that outsized the spikes and stormed through the Sandbox Tree, riddling it with holes.

  I let out another reverberant roar as my final energy punch flew through the air and slammed into the Plant Zomb-Wait…What!?

  The attack landed on her body. I was sure of it. Sure, the punch I sent out blocked my view of it but I know I felt it hit. What the hell did she do!?

  No…It was more like what the hell did I do? Did I throw a soft punch?

  “What kind of…weak attack was that?” Rosalina emerged from the dust. My new technique had damaged everything around us but her. And yet, I only intended to push her back. “I felt the power…of every other attack when it destroyed my tree. So why was that last punch so…half-baked!?” Her ooze curled into a smile. “Are you scared of hurting me?”

  Oh God…can zombies not attack other zombies? But that doesn’t make any sense! I remember that Type Two Dante had was able to do damage to my neck. Plus, this Plant Girl has been successfully attacking me ever since I met her…

  So what made Rosalina so damn different!?

  There were holes all over my body and all the energy I had was finally gone. But I still had one trick up my sleeve. The Fatherly Beam that had blasted the arena earlier should finally be taking effect now…

  And, as if on cue, Rosalina began to scream.

  Rosalina’s scream pierced through the chaos, reverberating through the shattered buildings like a war cry. She clenched her body fiercely as her leaf spiraled out of control, flinging her through the air until she crashed on the roof I was standing on. Due to the force of my new technique, I had unintentionally pushed my body backwards and landed on the same building.

  We both struggled to stay on our feet. Rosalina’s oozy form shriveled, her vine dress coiling tightly to hold her body together. Meanwhile, the holes in my bones made me wobble until I finally collapsed, unable to stand any longer.

  “Why is this…happening to me!?” she shrieked, clawing her way to the edge. “What did you do? Is this that damn…herbicide!?”

  I’m sure what I did granted her a similar feeling to the effects of the herbicide, however I’d say it was a little different. There was something about the energies I had absorbed throughout the weeks I had been a zombie that gradually caught my attention the more I used and released them. Two different kinds of energy were present in this post-apocalyptic world and they were Nuclear Energy and Radioactive energy.

  Nuclear energy was a lot more explosive and destructive than radioactive energy, every impact resulting in some form of explosion. Absorbing Dante’s forcefields, Kofi’s electricity, and Jesus' sword detonations allowed me to use this. Then, there was radioactive energy which I found to be a lot easier to locate as zombies and radioactive animals were filled with them. While they also exploded on impact, they had another aspect to them I found useful for this battle.

  Poisoning—More specifically, radiation poisoning. And as Rosalina just found out, humans weren’t the only living things that could be killed by it.

  “The…arena…I have to go,” she said weakly, taking a freaky looking seed out of her dress as the vines pulled her onto the ledge.

  “Rosalina, you’re not going anywhere!” I shouted, crawling towards her.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t crawl fast enough, forced to watch the plant zombie throw itself off the roof. I had no idea what she was trying to do, but I knew Rosalina couldn’t use any plant in the ground that hadn’t sprouted to attack me anymore. I could see an enormous amount of radioactive energy from under Barclays Center and that same energy streaked under the concrete of most of the city. It was what kept the carnivorous plants alive and dangerous. Her vines and trees had also spawned from there as well.

  That red, thorny seed was a mystery to me but I was sure that she had nothing left in her arsena-

  “Dragon’s Blood!”

  The scream shook everything in my vicinity as the buildings vibrated ferociously, bricks and other debris raining down on my back. Then, I heard the sound of…wings flapping, accompanied with a terrifying roar that was even louder than the earlier scream. To my surprise, a giant tree arose from below and shadowed over me. It was red—an unsettling kind of red that instantly reminded me of blood. Like the pool of blood that oozed out of Johnny’s head or the invisible guy’s abdomen. Unlike other trees I’ve seen, every single branch on this one extended horizontally.

  That's when I realized that the demonic tree was attached to the back of a creature. Its wings were made of wood, ominously beating against the sky and sending shockwaves through the air. The whole animal was made of wood and it stared at me with the same colorless eyes Rosalina had.

  Did this girl just create a dragon with that seed!?

  The tree on its back glowed a deep red as it opened its mouth. Seeing this, I scrambled toward the vines on the ledge that had torn free from her dress. But I was too late. The dragon fired a beam of dark crimson at the roof, blasting me across the city. I skidded across broken buildings before crashing into a random truck.

  I lay on the vehicle covered in what I realized was blood. I was a shadow of my former self–all of my limbs had been vaporized and I was nothing more than a head attached to a torso. The last thing I saw before the blood seeped into my eye holes was Rosalina’s dragon, flying towards what I guessed was the arena. The dragon had its tail wrapped around Victoria who still had the tree in her mouth.

  Did I…lose?

  This question repeatedly wracked my mind as I sunk into the pool of red. The dragon didn't even come back to finish the damn job.

  Maybe I did lo…No!

  The thick blood seeped into my mouth and then, I felt it–an intense surge of power coursing through me, beastly and electrifying, as it spread through every fiber of my being. It was as though my body were waking from a long coma, each limb I had lost regrowing, larger and stronger than before.

  Without another thought, I launched myself into the sky, rocketing towards the roaring dragon with my hardened fist aimed for the monster’s head. Its thunderous bellow split the air, but I held firm, my body enduring the shockwave as my strike connected with its chin, sending the beast reeling.

  I hovered in the air and anticipated the dragon’s next move. That’s when I realized that there was something different about my body. I had thought that my rocket feet technique had shot me through the sky, but my body had flown in the air using a completely different ability. There were now wings on my body, jagged and wide like the dragon. Drinking that thing’s blood must have given me this ability, and now it was time to see who could use our wings better.

  The dragon charged at me, and I charged as well. Its skull collided with my hands, and my fingers punctured its dense wood. The beast attempted to tackle me out the way, shooting bullets of blood from the unnatural tree on its back, however I kept my body firm and released energy vines from my hands to envelop its face.

  Then, I threw the big sunnava bitch upwards and lodged my foot into its chest. It screamed in what sounded like pain.

  “You…stupid, dumb lizard!” The voice came from Rosalina, sprawled out on the tree. “You’re not supposed to destroy him! Just capture-”

  The dragon bellowed, making the plant girl jump in shock. I guess she didn’t have as much control over the monster as I thought she did. That was perfect for me. It meant I was only fighting something intellectually comparable to some random radioactive beast and not one controlled by a former human.

  The flying piece of wood began to charge what I assumed to be another Blood Beam at me. In return, I opened my mouth and charged my own special attack. A couple more seconds passed and, after ignoring Rosalina’s pleas to stop, we both fired.

  Our beams surged with a competitive spirit, lighting up the space between us with a bright emerald and red. It was a fiery struggle, each blast fighting to see which would disperse first. Rosalina’s voice barely registered over the deafening sound of the collision and judging from the increasing weight, we were about to reach a climactic conclu-

  “AIDs!”

  A familiar voice…A familiar word boomed across the battlefield and in that same second, the dragon’s body bent, the wood slowly cracking.

  It was Jason. And the psycho entered the battle with a drop kick.

  The reason I left my daughter behind to train with that horse-headed weirdo and went on this journey was to find Jason…and kill him. I was supposed to find him, and yet here he was, coming straight to my location to drop kick a goddamn dragon! It must’ve been that beacon Elias created that caught that maniac’s attention. I was warned one of the Radius might come and see what was going on, but I thought I’d have more time…or someone else would come!

  I guess there was some fortune to be made off of this unexpected reunion. It fast forwards the “Kill Jason” plan and the invisible guy did say Jason was itching to find me and Sunshine. You’d think his eyes would be all on me, however he looked to be more concerned with all the sick ways he could carve up the dragon’s wood with his stained machete.

  The dragon spun wildly, trying to fling Jason off its back, but the masked man stabbed its back with his machete and clung on to it without a trace of worry. With a swift motion, he hurled the beast forward, simultaneously carving a deep gash across its back as he did so. In response, the dragon fired a beam of crimson, and Jason reflected it, the machete redirecting part of the attack skywards while the other part zoomed towards me.

  I flew up, dodging the attack, and bolted for the dragon. Jason finally acknowledged my existence and prevented me from landing a hit, striking me with a hard uppercut to the jaw, sending me spinning. As I clenched my jaw in pain, I watched Jason continue his battle with the beast. He landed blow after blow while the dragon released a barrage of blood bullets from its glowing tree, completely forgetting I was this close to obliterating it.

  Sure, I could just let Jason do all the work for me as he clearly seemed to be much more suited for this fight than me, but…there was a fire in my chest that kept growing the longer I stayed still. After everything this man has done, how could I sit back and watch him ignore me?

  What kind of father would I be if I watched this man scar my daughter’s face and not do a damn thing about it!?

  “Hey, Jason!” I shouted, driving my head into his skull. “Don’t you dare forget about me! You’re mines to ki-”

  Jason grabbed my skull and slammed my face down on the dragon’s back, shattering my chance to actually look threatening. I tried to stand back up, but he kicked my chest, sending me flying off the dragon. I activated my Rocket Feet and darted towards the two, but another Blood Beam surged forward like an unrelenting spear.

  I brought my hands up just in time as my palms met the overwhelming power of the dragon’s special blast. It forced me backwards, nearly erasing my fingers, however I remained sturdy and went full throttle with my rockets. As I was fighting my body’s desire to be blown apart by the beam, I noticed something about the attack.

  It was something I could absorb! I began to take in all the energy I could, lowering my mouth and feeding to speed up the absorption. The beam grew weaker and then became smaller, till it eventually dissipated. Once I felt the energy fill my bones, I started to charge my Fatherly Beam attack.

  While charging it up was the easy part, the hard part would be finding an opportunity to use it considering the two fighters were moving in the air chaotically. The dragon clawed at Jason, directing him to the right. Jason grabbed onto its wings and stomped down on the monster’s back, driving him downwards—every direction was fair game to these freaks.

  There was no more room to fail. I had to time this perfectly…

  Weeds emerged from my feet.

  One second!

  From the bits of information that dripped into my mind after absorbing Rosalina’s plants, I understood how some of these plants worked. The plants on my feet were stinkweeds, a type of weed that produced a smelly gas powerful enough to blast my body forward.

  Two seconds!

  I leaned backward with the orb ready in my hands, eyes locked onto the roaring dragon above me. Then, gas erupted from the weeds, blasting me upwards till I reached the side of the dragon’s head.

  One second!

  “Fatherly Beam!”

  The blast scorched the wooden head to dust, and the dragon’s limp body descended back to the…What the hell!?

  To my dismay, the dragon’s head regenerated in only a few seconds, splinters and bark twisting back into a jagged, monstrous form. Its hollow eyes were now locked onto me. It flew towards me, baring its wooden claws as I crossed my arms and prepared to defend.

  “Sliced to Bits!”

  The dragon halted mid-flight, its body trembling as cracks began to form on its body. Only another second passed before the beast shattered like glass, the pieces falling apart like splintered timber. I froze, staring at Jason’s straightened head while I tried to wrap my head around what just happened. That confusion only broke when I heard the sound of Rosalina’s scream.

  “No! Help my baby! My baby’s falling!”

  The little girl and the Plant Woman were plummeting at an alarming rate. Without hesitation, I rocketed towards the kid’s grassy body. Then, I fired some energy vines and luckily, I was able to catch her before she could meet a messy end. But as I steadied her, a sudden burning sensation flared up inside me—the same searing intensity that had pushed me to strike at Jason earlier. It ignited the moment I caught sight of Rosalina falling past me. Instinctively, I whipped my other hand toward her, releasing another burst of energy vines.

  “Bleed Out!”

  Something was off with me. I felt…weaker. The energy on my feet disappeared, and gravity took me hostage along with the girl and Rosalina. That’s when I realized that…green liquid was spilling out of my body from holes I didn’t know were there until now.

  No! They weren’t always there…they just showed up now! This must’ve been Jason’s doing!

  I didn’t have enough time to think of a counterattack before Jason appeared in front of me and punched me all the way back to the arena—Rosalina and the girl still attached to my

  A swarm of leaves burst out of my back right before we crashed. The impact didn’t hurt at all compared to all the times Jason decked me in the face so I quickly snapped out of my confusion and surveyed my surroundings.

  Barclays Center was nothing like I remembered it to be. The court was a grassy terrain—my radioactive attack giving it a dry, brown appearance. The hoops had been brought down by unnaturally curled sunflowers, and the seats…poking out the seats were…marijuana!? So there really was weed in here!

  And there was a man by the seats, shakily pointing the knife at me…

  “Elias!” I shouted. “It’s me!”

  “Oh shit! Zombie man!”, he exclaimed, hopping over the barricade. “I thought that crazy bitch found me, but I see you already beat her a-”

  “You piece of shit!” I interrupted, trying to crawl my way over to him. “You said you’d delay the signal if I didn’t stop you!”

  He approached me with a raised eyebrow. “The hell are you talking about!? I did delay it—like twenty-one minutes ago.”

  Twenty-one minutes!? Geez, did that whole fight really go for that long?

  “Then tell me why one of the Radius just attacked me out of nowhere and tried to end me!”

  “Radius…? You mean those guys with the powers and shit?” He took off his bag, zipped it open, and pulled out a black trash bag. “I don’t really know why…maybe they were already nearby and just saw the beacon from the ground.”

  Well…that did make sense. Jesus did say Jason would’ve been on his way to Hallowsville. Though, I still don’t know why he’d go through all the trouble for some Halloween town.

  “Alright, but how’d you get here so fast with all those killer plants in the city?” I asked. “You found a working car?”

  “Yeah, I did. And those plants were there for a couple minutes till they just started shriveling up.” He put his bag back on and said, “But who cares about that right now? There’s a whole arena filled with weed and I’m gonna grab all this shit.”

  Elias didn’t seem to care about my body’s sorry state. Then again, the guy was a slave owner. He’s probably given worse injuries.

  “Where’re Rosey’s daughter and the Type Two?” I asked, worried. “I crashed in here with them but I’m not sure if they-”

  “They’re behind you, under some bright ass leaves. Definitely both dead,” Elias said, bluntly. “Stop trying to brag about your win. We got more important things to worry about. C’mon, if you help me I’ll let you take some of the stash. How about 90/10?”

  Ah, so that’s what those leaves did. That’s good…Wait a minute! 90/10? That’s a horrible deal!

  “Listen, we don’t have time to be collecting some damn weed now” My voice raised. “I don't know when, but a masked freak is gonna barge in here at any moment and believe me when I say you don’t wanna get on his murderous side. If you care at all about your life, then I suggest you ru-”

  Elias chuckled mockingly. “You think I’m stupid or something? You trying to cop all this shit for yourself, right? I’ve been dealing with freaks like you my whole life and I know how greedy you shiteaters can get. You’re not tricking me!”

  “Don’t be so stupid, Elias! You’re a slave owner so I don’t care whether you live or die, but I also don’t wanna be blamed for your death when that Radius guy comes in and kills you. So just get the hell-”

  My warning was shattered by a kick to my skull.

  “I know you’re a zombie so a brain isn’t something that you have but I already told you…” He sneered. “I’m not going anywh-”

  “Lethal Injection.”

  My jaw dropped, shocked at how Jason came in here without a hint of sound. Elias’ smile faded and he immediately turned to see the psycho shadowing over him–crimson eyes locked on both of us.

  “What are you…a resource adventurer? Someone from the Underground?” he questioned, taking out a status board from his pocket. “If you’re here for that signal, I already took the SB for myself so you can leave now.”

  “Asphyxiation,” Jason continued.

  “Ashpyxi-what now? You one of those mentally deficient whackjobs?” he insulted. “I already said I got the damn status-”

  “Type Two Diabetes.”

  “Huh!?” yelled Elias. “Who the hell told you about my condition? That is a very sensitive topic for m-”

  Jason smacked Elias out of the way, sending him flying to the left. Assuming I would be next, I prepared for another blow to my face, but he surprisingly left me alone. Instead he walked past me and from what I could see…he stopped next to Rosey’s daughter–the tree no longer in her mouth.

  “Jason, stop!” I screamed, watching him pick up the girl by her head and examine her hair. “Your target is me, remember!? She has nothing to do with me. Leave her alone.”

  Rosalina didn’t say a word, only watching me plead with Jason to stop what he was about to do.

  “Wh–Wh-What’s happening to me?” the girl asked, finally waking up from unconsciousness. “Who are you? Let go of me!”

  Jason ignored her cries and approached me, dangling the child above my head. I could tell he was smiling under that mask.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you!? Why do you people continue to torment me? Why can’t you just leave us alone and let me and my daughter live our lives!? How can someone like you hurt all these kids in front of me and continue to live your life like nothing ever happened!?”

  Everything in my undead soul demanded me to move. Demanded me to get the hell up and obliterate this piece of shit…And yet I couldn’t! Whatever his power was…it completely outclassed me.

  “I want my…mo…”

  “Let her go! Let her go! Let her-”

  “Decapitation.”

  The girl’s body plopped to the grass. Her head remained in Jason’s hand.

  If something like this could happen to her…then how could I, by myself, prevent Sunshine from meeting the same fate…?

  “Jaaaasoooon!”

  “Grassyland!”

  At that moment, spikes of brittle grass rose from under Jason’s feet and slammed into his torso, pushing him all the way the the arena’s ceiling with Victoria’s head still in his grasp.

  Rosalina’s oozy body slithered toward me, and morphed back into her regular body once she reached my bleeding body.

  “You need to absorb me…now,” she demanded, grabbing my jaw.

  “Wha-”

  “You want to save my Sunflower, don’t you!? Then hurry up and absorb me. I know you can’t move your arms right now…but I saw you absorb my dragon’s attack with your mouth which means you can do the same with my body.”

  “Rosalina…she’s dea-”

  “I know,” she said, ooze-like tears rolling off her cheeks. It was the first time her eyes actually showed some emotion. “She’s dead right now. But the moment you absorb me, you’ll be able to use…all of my abilities. You can revive her once that happens. She won’t be human anymore but…she’ll be alive. Sunflower will keep her memories.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” I made a fist. “You said you were gonna transform me earlier, and I don’t know what you’ll do once-”

  “That herbicide…or whatever seeped through the arena and killed my plants…it’s also killing me too. My ‘heart’ was…within there. Even if I did betray you here, I wouldn’t live long enough for it to matter. So hurry up and devour me before my grass is destroyed!”

  “O-Ok!”

  She opened my mouth and began to enter. “And remember, once you’ve absorbed me…you only have a minute before her plant body can be reattached. Ok? One minute!”

  I began to devour her the best I could, absorbing her ooze, her vine dress, her essence, her feelings and…her memories.

  Finally, I saw something. Many things.

  It struck my mind like a bolt of lightning.

  There were a lot of things.