(This is a free vote chapter! Follow the Patreon link in the author's note to access the polls!)

  Having made her poll, Gen looked around at the group and asked, "By the way, how long does it take for a poll to complete? I've gotten a lot so far, but sometimes they complete really quick and other times they take a while…"

  Hon and Morna shared a look and both had shit-eating grins as they both said, "They complete when convenient!"

  Gen stared at them helplessly before turning to G2n, who sighed and pushed up his glasses, "It's a highly debated topic, but the general consensus is that viewers experience time at a different rate than us. We know LEO can change the rate of experienced time, as some scenarios last longer than others, but always complete in the same amount of overworld time. As such, the timing of when a poll completes is likely based upon some logic only experienceable for the viewers, and there's no way for us to fully understand it from our limited viewpoint."

  Morna rolled her eyes. "Gen, don't let Twen confuse you, the poll will complete just in time for whatever plot point LEO needs it to be completed by."

  Hon nodded authoritatively, "Trust in the plot, Gen!"

  Gen glanced at Pali, who was still looking through the updated map on his phone, and he just shrugged, "Don't ask me, I just work here."

  She shrugged, "So do we just wait here until the polls complete?"

  Ding~!

  LEO's voice sounded in her head as usual when she had a tied poll, Hey there! You've got another tie! Fun fact! You made this poll yourself, so I'm not going to tie-break it for you! Yeah, you waste enough of my time without making more work for me! You're so indecisive that you can't make your own decisions and need to ask disembodied ghosts to do it for you, so I'm sure this is a really sad result for you, but who knows, maybe you'll grow as a person, but I doubt it! Either way, it doesn't matter as free will is a thing, so it's not like you have to listen to these nonsense results to begin with!

  Gen frowned. LEO's responses had been becoming increasingly critical recently, and she still couldn't tell if he was joking or genuinely upset with her.

  Everyone paused for a second as their own polls completed.

  Morna waved her existing arm, "Team defense here!"

  G2n sighed again, "I'm staying here as well."

  Francine sounded uncertain as they said, "I'm supposed to recruit allies…"

  Pali walked up to them and smiled, "Don't worry, I'm on recruitment too, it shouldn't be too bad, maybe we'll make some new friends."

  Hon looked outraged, "What? I'm the only one stuck with getting a mutagen?"

  G2n rolled his eyes, "Check the chat, Hon people exist outside this room."

  Gen considered her own options, nothing forced her to actually go along with her viewers selection and she could ignore it, but that would probably piss them off enough to abandon her and if she truly didn't want to do one of the options then she could've just not included it in the poll.

  Francine looked nervous and stared at her expectantly, likely hoping that Gen also had been given the recruit allies selection, but Gen was secretly glad that was her least selected option. She liked Francine, but she had been serious when she voiced her concerns about Francine getting overly reliant on her, and it would do them good to work separately some.

  Her two tied options were defending the base and getting a new mutagen. Part of her wanted to stay at the base as she was quite invested in keeping it alive with both the nest and special zombie being there.

  +5 contribution

  A notification flickered, and she was confused for a second before realizing that an iguana spawned by her nest must have infected an NPC. Francine's spitter iguanas had already cleared out most of the nearby NPCs, but either some were still hiding close enough for the new iguanas to find them, or the iguanas had just managed to disperse far enough to find uninfected areas.

  Still weighing her options, she made a decision. Victor had a good understanding of game theory, and from her experience, she knew that if you weren't growing, you were falling behind. The incoming raid might take out the headquarters, but even if it didn't, the next attack probably would. Getting another mutagen would increase the spawn speed of the nest and give the iguanas more versatility to help with later attacks.

  With the protagonist team being so hesitant to attack while they investigated the defenses, now was actually the safest period for the headquarters, and defense would become increasingly difficult as the incubation neared completion.

  Glancing at her notifications, she saw that the incubation still had about seven and a half hours left.

  Speaking, she said, "I'm on the mutagen collection too."

  Hon looked excited, "Hell yeah! Us level 1s need to stick together! I'll go buy a leash!"

  Francine looked disappointed, and Gen gave them an encouraging smile. Around them, more of Morna's club members were arriving, and G2n was coordinating their headquarters upgrades. The building itself was shifting as contribution points were spent, windows gained armored shutters, TVs appeared displaying radar-like screens and statistics.

  Gen noted one screen with interest that read Zone 98 infection percentage 38%. The area around their headquarters was completely devoid of NPCs, but the zones were large, and apparently, there were still a lot of NPCs to infect before the zone was fully infected.

  Hon returned, waving around a zombie leash, and had two other new people with him. They were both level one, and their names were Aubrey and Zach.

  Zach approached and shook Gen's hand, "Nice to meet you in person! Morna said you're not convinced yet to join officially, but I think a third Gen in the group would be perfect, especially if you can make every event this interesting!"

  Gen smiled weakly, "Yeah… I'm not joining any groups at the moment, but everyone here seems nice and… not racist against generated."

  Aubrey laughed, "Yeah, you've picked up on that already? It helps having the leader be a generated and all, plus half the group is genlings."

  "Genlings?"

  Aubrey pointed at herself, "It's people like me whose parents are generated. Technically, I'm only half genling as my dad was generated and my mom is a 4th genner, but for people who keep track of stuff like that, half and full are basically the same thing."

  Gen nodded in understanding. She seemed to recall Chuck mentioning that at least one of his parents was a generated as well, which probably helped with him being agreeable. As for Morna, she hadn't mentioned her family at all so far despite talking so much.

  Hon interrupted the discussion by saying, "We need to pick a leader!"

  Zach scratched his head and shared a look with Aubrey, "Do we really need one? We can just vote or whatever if something comes up. We're all level 1, so there's no real hierarchy."

  Hon shook his head vehemently, "Of course we need a leader! In a crisis, how do we decide who lays down their life heroically? If we start arguing about it then it's going to ruin the moment! We need a stern leader to make the scene look good!"

  Aubrey shrugged, "Do you want to do it then?"

  Hon looked proud as he shook his head, "No way! I'm an idiot!"

  Aubrey and Gen stared at him, and Zach sighed, "He isn't joking."

  Aubrey hesitated before shaking her head as well, "Well, I'm not doing it, I hate being on the antagonist team, it's against my nature to think of evil plans, so I'm no good at it."

  Hon looked expectantly at her and Zach. Gen shrugged, "I don't really mind, but I was born two days ago, so I don't exactly have the most experience."

  Zach laughed and gestured at their surroundings, "Well, you coordinated all this, so I'm fine with relying on your beginner's luck."

  The other two nodded in agreement, and Gen tried to think of a plan, "So to start, can we talk about our abilities some unless that's rude?"

  Hon replied eagerly, "I've got vehicle controller which allows me to psychically control and reinforce any vehicle I'm in. I have an augment that gives me a radar to see nearby vehicles!"

  Gen nodded her head. The city itself seemed to be geared toward pedestrians, and she hadn't seen cars or planes since arriving, but maybe they could do something interesting with a trolley or subway?

  Zach went next, "I've got killing joke if I make anyone laugh, I can cause their heart to stop. No augments for it unfortunately."

  He saw Gen give him a wary look, and he shrugged, "It's not as scary as it sounds, first of all, I'm not that funny, and second, I don't kill people on my team… Don't know how useful it'll be unless we start chatting up some protagonists."

  She gave him an apologetic nod and looked at Aubrey, who held up a finger gun and said, "If I point at someone and say the keyword, then it'll shoot a bullet. The faster I say the word, the faster the bullets come out. I have an augment for it that makes the bullets armor-piercing."

  Gen whistled, Zach leaned over and whispered conspiratorily, "The keyword is bang she can't say it though as it shoots the bullets even if she doesn't want to at the time."

  Overly self-conscious of Zach's ability, Gen kept a straight face, not wanting to laugh at the absurdity of the ability. Instead, she looked at Hon and asked, "Does your radar show any vehicles we could use around here?" She was skeptical there would be, but figured she might as well ask to cover her bases.

  He nodded, "Yeah, lots! I've got my bike out front that I found earlier, but there's skateboards, scooters, and other bikes around here!"

  Gen felt surprised as she hadn't fully considered what constituted a "vehicle".

  Twenty minutes later, the four of them were cycling through zombie infested streets. They all had zombie amulets hidden under their clothing, which would protect them for four hours before they would have to return to an antagonist base. Zombie iguanas were all over near the headquarters, but after only a few minutes, infected NPCs became the predominant sight.

  G2n had sent her summaries of notes from the various protagonist chats for specific zones and incidents that were relevant to where they needed to travel. Coincidentally, the leaper zombies weren't a full horde, but instead a group of antagonists were flying around in a flying saucer with a leashed leaper zombie.

  They were then abducting NPCs, randomly infecting them with the mutation, and dropping them back down in an attempt to instill chaos. They'd also attacked protagonist headquarters or isolated groups as they came across them. Chuck had randomly been the victim of one such attack.

  They'd most recently been reported in zone 84, but the flying saucer allowed them to quickly move between zones, and they had circled a dozen different zones so far, trying to start leaper hordes. A dedicated protagonist team was tracking their movements and shutting down the hordes before they could grow, but it was quite a headache to keep up with the saucer.

  The saucer itself was suspected to be a poll reward similar to Gen's iguana hatchery as it wasn't normally sold in the antagonist shop and was judged too powerful and unique to be anyone's ability or normal equipment.

  Using the information from the chat, Gen plotted their route. The zones were arranged in a grid, so to reach zone 84 they had a couple choices, but she prioritized going through low-conflict exterior zones where hopefully they wouldn't be caught in any crossfires. Specifically going straight North along the edge of the event map from zones 97-94 and then crossing East into zone 84.

  For their strategy, she instructed everyone to avoid infecting NPCs along the way, it would be free contribution points, but would also make them stand out as antagonists, and they didn't have enough personal power to fight against any protagonist hit squads that responded.

  Hon was in front, standing on this bicycle seat in a T-pose, he didn't even need to pedal his ability freely propelling him forward at a speed the rest of them couldn't match unless he slowed down. Gen was finally getting a feel for the knowledge reward she had received from her first scenario as well.

  Parkour wheels had given her the knowledge of how to do all sorts of tricks on human-propelled wheeled devices, but she hadn't fully appreciated it until now that she could apply it. The knowledge was labeled as level 1, but the instant she got on the bike, she felt like she could do pretty well in an amateur BMX competition. Tony Hawk would still easily beat her, but she did a wheelie easily and then spun the handlebars 360 degrees.

  Aubrey gave her a polite cheer, "Knowledge reward or one of your previous lives?"

  "Knowledge skill."

  Aubrey nodded, "Only one I've gotten is tracking, it's not very useful in the city though…"

  Hon yelled out, "Look at me!" They turned, and he was doing a continuous wheelie at a near-vertical angle with his front handlebars spinning rapidly like a helicopter.

  Gen laughed, "What is the limit of your ability? Can you make the bike fly?"

  He returned to a normal position and shook his head, "No, it's lame, I can only do things that the vehicle can normally do. I can increase the specs such as speed and other things by 20% or so, if I had something like an attack helicopter, I could fire the weapons psychically too, but…" He looked up at the sky, "LEO KEEPS SCREWING ME OVER AND NEVER GIVES ME ANYTHING LIKE A UFO!"

  Gen glanced at the sky, wondering if any sort of divine retribution would be forthcoming, but none came. Looking at the group, she asked, "If you don't mind me asking how many scenarios have you all done? I don't really understand leveling, but you look about the same age as people I've seen that are higher level." She thought of Susan who was level 7, but only looked 27 or so.

  Aubrey gave her a strange look and then had a flare of recognition, "Sorry, I forget you were just generated… So I've only done one scenario before, I don't really like the idea of going on hiatus and I'm good staying at level 1 forever so I'm not trying to compete. I just do events with the club and the work events. As for age, I guess you haven't had the poll yet, but normally you can set your appearance in a remixer, for non-generated they can't appear older than their physical age though."

  Ding~!

  Feeling old yet? You weren't born yesterday, so it's time for some wrinkles!

  Gen frowned at the poll. She didn't mind some of the options, but if her viewers made her into an old lady, she was going to remix herself immediately. She wasn't completely vain, but she didn't want to be a granny either.

  "I just got the poll…"

  Zach and Hon laughed, and Aubrey looked apologetic. "My dad said that was the worst one, his viewers selected wrinkly old bastard, and he thought he was going to die while transforming. He remixed to look about thirty. Most people prefer to stay looking under forty, but regardless, aging and stuff from the history books isn't a thing in this reality, so even if you look old, you're just as physically able as a young person."

  Gen frowned, "Aging doesn't happen? Is everyone immortal?"

  Aubrey shook her head, "No, you get one hundred years for free, and after that there's an escalating emmy cost per year."

  Gen felt slightly horrified and thought of the taxman, so there was an age tax as well? For a society without taxes, there seemed to be a surprising amount of payments baked in to daily living.

  "So if you're rich enough, you can survive forever?"

  Aubrey nodded, "Yes, technically, but it gets hard unless you have a lot of viewers or connections. Some of the originals are still kicking around."

  Surprised, Gen tried to imagine the first generated who had watched this new reality form from the ground up. They were generated just like her, but from what she understood, they only had the complete memories from a single person's life and were more akin to resurrections than the unique combinations that were generated in the modern era.

  Before she could ask another question, the surroundings shifted from zombie apocalypse to a normal suburban area. NPCs were wandering around and going about their fake lives. It again stood out to her how low-effort the NPCs were compared to scenario characters like the gnome king. The city was facing a zombie apocalypse, but the NPCs made no effort to evacuate or hide in their homes. If an NPC didn't personally witness a zombie, then they acted like everything was fine.

  As they peacefully rode their bikes along the street, Gen felt a wave of incongruity about what her life was. Victor was the only set of memories that had ridden a bike before, and he had only done it a few times as a child, but with the knowledge reward, she was somehow an expert and nostalgic all at once.

  Her mental state wasn't a mess exactly, but from going from one life-threatening event to another, she really had had no time to consider who she was and what she wanted. Rather than asking more questions, she allowed herself a rare period of peace as they moved one zone after another.

  An hour later, they were inside an NPC's house they had broken into, drinking water directly from a sink. Riding a bike was fun, but after moving through four zones, her legs burned and she was feeling very tired.

  While catching her breath, she looked through the newest notifications on her phone and groaned, "They've moved up to zone 83 now, so we've got to go another zone."

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  Zach and Aubrey both looked despondent at the news as well, but Hon was chipper as ever, being the only one who didn't physically exert himself pedalling.

  Hon was itching to get moving again and asked, "So what's the plan from here? Can we steal their UFO? I should be able to fly it with my ability!"

  Gen shook her head, "It's not clear how many of them there are, but it seems like they're level 5, so we're not going to try fighting them and get eliminated for nothing. Plus, a whole swarm of protagonists are after them and haven't succeeded yet."

  Zach was leaning against a wall while watching the NPC homeowner who was running back and forth in panic ever since they broke in, but turned back to her, "So are we just going to try and snag one of the leapers they drop down?"

  Gen hesitated, she honestly had no plan past this point. The UFO moved too quickly to keep up with, and the protagonists were trying to kill any leapers that were dropped down so she didn't really see an opportunity for them to do anything.

  She shrugged, "Honestly, I don't know. I am thinking we infiltrate some of the protagonists going after them, and just wait for an opportunity."

  Aubrey frowned, "I'm bad at lying…"

  Zach reassured her, "It should be easy Twen said Gen's in that fancy protagonist chat. As long as she makes introductions through that they won't question us as we're already verified."

  Hon looked excited, "Then we can pick them off one by one!"

  Gen didn't directly refute him, but cautioned, "Maybe, I want to avoid blowing my cover as long as possible, but we'll have to act against them at some point if we want to steal a leaper." She looked at Hon, "With your augment, we should be able to track the UFO, and if we play our cards right, then the protagonists should value you enough to make sure we're in a prime spot."

  With little more to discuss and Hon looking excited, Gen focused back on the chat dedicated to the UFO and took a deep breath before posting.

  After introducing herself and telling the group that her friend had an ability that could track vehicles, they were welcomed extremely warmly. Any enthusiasm the protgaonists had for hunting the UFO had waned after several hours of being led around by the nose, and they were eager for a new advantage.

  Riding toward the meeting point, their group was nervously double-checking themselves and placing their amulets in their inventories. It would suck to go through all the effort only to forget to take off their team antagonist badges or something.

  A short time later, they entered a downtown area and spotted a group of actors near a tea shop, there were a dozen of them with levels evenly distributed from one to four. Recognizing the group's leader's name from the chat, Gen gave him a wave, and he returned it. He was level 4, and his name was Carlos.

  As they parked their bikes nervously, Carlos stepped forward and said, "The UFO is moving quickly, so there isn't a lot of time for pleasantries." He gestured at a woman named Carla, who was level 2, "Carla here has a display ability where she can project other people's abilities if you could be so kind as to have your friend use his."

  Gen glanced at Hon and nodded, having him activate his ability. A second later, Carla held out her hands a holographic map appeared in front of the group. It didn't show buildings or terrain, but dots were strewn about randomly in a ten mile radius around Hon, and each dot had a label of what type of vehicle it was.

  Most were things like bikes and scooters, but looking carefully, there were some other types as well, such as trollies, subways, and even a limousine. Carlos's eyes flickered around the map and he asked Hon, "Is there a search functionality?"

  Hon shook his head and couldn't help himself, "I have a piloting ability too! If we take down the UFO, can I drive it?"

  Carlos shrugged, "Sure, why not? You help us take them down, you can drive, assuming you're willing to help with defenses in the zone."

  Hon's eyes had a dangerous glint as he nodded enthusiastically.

  Most of the dots on the map were stationary or moving slowly, but suddenly one of them lurched forward, flying several hundred feet before stopping again. Everyone's eyes focused on it and the clear label of UFO.

  Carlos smiled and addressed the crowd, "The hunt is on!"

  Their group wasn't the only one hunting the UFO and Carlos quickly coordinated through the protagonist chat, getting the other groups to start converging on the UFO from all sides now that they had located it.

  As they started moving they used Hon's ability to start picking up more bicycles for the rest of the group and increase their movement speed. Carlos rode next to Gen and asked her, "I saw you're a lieutenant rank? That means you can verify if people are protagonists, right?"

  Gen was prepared and shook her head, "I could initially, but it was my summon who had the ability. Unfortunately, he got zombified… He's on cooldown until tomorrow, so I can't verify more people."

  Carlos looked disappointed, but shrugged "That would make it too easy, I think our group is clean, but I'm the only one here that was actually verified by a soothsayer. Each of the other squads is the same, with just one person verified and actually in the chat to coordinate the unverifieds."

  Gen nodded in understanding as she secretly felt relieved.

  It didn't take long for everyone to find a bike, and their speed was instantly increased. It was even faster as one of Carlos's teammates activated a haste ability that accelerated them even faster. The buff gave a weird feeling as her bike flew forward, but it also increased her reflexes, so she didn't lose control.

  The UFO didn't hold still, and Hon had to frequently give updates on its new locations as Carlos struggled to keep seven total groups slowly zeroing in on the UFO's location.

  At the same time they stumbled upon their first leaper as it was in the process of gnawing on an NPC. Before the zombie could even react to their presence one of Carlos's teammates shot it with what looked like a raygun, dropping it in a single hit, they shot the NPC that had been being eaten as well before it could turn.

  Gen grit her teeth as she secretly assessed the group's strength. Ideally they would just steal one of the isolated leapers the UFO was leaving behind, but with twelve protagonists and only four of them they were at a hefty disadvantage even when ignoring their lower levels.

  Creating a new chat with the four of them Gen asked a question.

  Gen: Zach how long do you have after they laugh before you have to activate your ability

  Zach's answer was delayed as he struggled to ride his bike and text at the same time

  Zach: Itr ned beee rihgt awayy

  Gen frowned, she'd hoped his ability would be like Chuck's where he could bank the ability to teleport after getting a thumbs up, but if he had to do it right away then they couldn't wait until everyone had laughed before activating it. Technically, he could try picking them off one by one as it wasn't the most obvious ability, but the group was wary enough against spies that they would catch on quickly.

  She sighed, it was becoming clear why nobody else was excited about being the leader and why G2n had looked so exhausted. It was tiring to come up with plans and having to be responsible.

  Her only idea at this point was to keep working with the protagonists and hope that the UFO would put up a good enough of a fight that they could do something in the chaos. Either way, catching it was shaping up to be a tedious process as everytime the group started getting close to closing in, the UFO would randomly zip in another direction.

  We could watch a bunch of cyclists fail to catch a UFO for hours, or we could SWITCH PERSPECTIVE…

  Daryl summoned another beer and cracked it immediately, taking a long sip. His ability only made warm beer, but it'd grown on him over the years, and he was no longer patient enough to bother waiting for it to chill.

  Daryl was feeling buzzed as he watched Trank cackle and activate the tractor beam to lower another infected NPC in front of a hotdog stand, triggering the nearby NPCs to panic and run for their lives, even as the zombie reached the ground and immediately leaped, tackling one to the ground.

  Solomon in the pilot's chair called back, "Might need to find a new zone my danger sense is going wild either a bigshot finally showed up or they've found some way to track our movements."

  Daryl finished his beer and immediately summoned another one before sharing a look with Trank and saying, "Are we really going to just keep running the whole event?"

  Trank shrugged, "I like abducting."

  Solomon shouted back, "It's my UFO, you don't like it, then you can get off."

  Daryl groaned, "Come on man! It's my leaper zombie! The idea was good, but the protags have caught on too quick I'm not getting any contribution points at this rate! We should join up with a big group or take down a headquarters or something! We're all level 5 we're way to old to be playing cat and mouse games like this."

  Solomon shook his head, "I can sense that I'm close! We've been leading like a hundred protags around for hours LEO has got to offer a poll soon! If I can get an upgrade to the UFO, then we'll be unstoppable."

  Trank nodded, "Upgrade UFO is good. Can abduct more."

  Daryl finished the beer again and tossed his can into a growing pile next to the leashed leaper zombie, "Sol, come on, man! I keep telling you that you can't predict polls coming, and everyone knows that deliberately trying to do things to get LEO's attention never works."

  Solomon laughed even as he accelerated the UFO in a random direction flying over buildings before stopping above another random NPC and tractor-beaming them up into the UFO. Trank grabbed the NPC and held them just close enough to the leaper to be bit before shoving them back into the beam and lowering them to the ground.

  Holding position, Solomon looked back at them, "You said I was crazy kidnapping all those NPCs with a lasso, but it worked didn't it? Got us a UFO an everything!"

  Daryl scoffed, "LEO took pity on you! I can't hear your poll message, but I'm sure he told you directly that you were an idiot."

  Solomon looked away, "No comment."

  The UFO suddenly lurched, and alarms started blaring. Solomon cursed, "Told you my danger sense felt something!"

  Trank and Daryl moved to the viewports and saw actors swarming from all sides and firing projectiles at the UFO. Daryl yelled, "Yeah yeah get us the hell out of here!"

  Solomon cursed as he hit buttons on the control panel, "Can't! They jammed it or something whole thing won't move!"

  Trank was still looking through the window, "They small. We crush."

  Daryl looked as well and finished his beer, "What the hell why not, I see a bunch of newbies down there highest bloke is level 4. Let's go clear them out and then we can go with my plan."

  Solomon left the pilot chair joining the other two near the tractor beam while glaring at Daryl and said, "Just you wait after we finish this bunch off LEO is going to give me the poll I've been waiting for!"

  Switching perspective…

  Carlos fired what looked like a bazooka at the UFO, but instead of missile, it fired what looked like a glowing blue anchor.

  Upon hitting the UFO the anchor latched onto its side, pulsing at a steady rate.

  Immediately after hundreds of firearms and abilities started to unload on the UFO from Carlos's team as well as the other protagonist teams that had coordinated their approach from each side.

  Hon grumbled from the side, "Don't break it…"

  Carlos laughed while observing, "Don't worry, we've got someone with a mechanic ability, as long as it's not reduced to dust, they can put it back together."

  Gen watched nervously as the protagonists seemed to have things a little too well in hand. She didn't really care enough about fellow antagonists to feel guilty helping capture the UFO, but if the leaper inside got killed, then they'd have wasted their whole trip here.

  A large explosion rocked the UFO, and a circular tractor beam appeared beneath with three level 5 actors slowly lowering to the ground.

  The protagonists didn't wait for orders before they unloaded on the exposed enemy.

  Hundreds of bullets, missiles, fireballs, and other abilities flew forward only to hit a forcefield protecting the trio. The projectiles didn't stop, but instead reversed course instantly, pelting the protagonists with their own attacks.

  Gen was blasted back as a missile exploded into the center of their group. Her ears were ringing as she tried to stand and orient herself.

  Carlos was bloodied and yelling something, but she couldn't hear it. Hon and Zach were also staggering to their feet, but Aubrey lay still with a large piece of shrapnel through her chest.

  Cursing Gen scrambled back seeking cover behind a phone booth. Hon and Zach joined her a second later as they peaked out at the battlefield that had instantly turned to chaos.

  The one-sided assault on the UFO had reversed into a slaughter as the three antagonists split up and started carving their way through the lower-level protagonists. Gen ducked back behind cover, not wanting to be vaporized. She'd briefly seen one of the antagonists blasting lasers from his eyes while another had grown to be twenty feet tall and was smashing his way through the team opposite them.

  Zach hissed in pain, and she saw that he was bleeding heavily from his arm. Hon looked uninjured, but his cavalier attitude had been dampened, and he looked a bit shellshocked as he said, "Shame about Aubrey… We'll have to do something nice for her tonight."

  Gen's hearing had finally returned, and she heard Carlos shouting orders to the survivors as the protagonists started to rally. Taking another peek, she saw that while Carlos's team had been devastated, they still had seven or so members in fighting shape, and the antagonists were losing the momentum from their initial onslaught.

  Looking back at her teammates, she saw Zach was looking pale from blood loss, but Hon was holding steady. He met her eyes, "What's the orders, boss? Heroic charge?"

  She shook her head, "Not quite, we'll go for the UFO while they're distracted."

  Hon leaned around the phone booth as well, just in time to see one of the antagonists pull out a coffin, which must have been an event equipment, as when it swung open, hundreds of zombies started to pour out. Hon looked back at Gen, "Aye aye, boss! Let's put that beginner's luck to the test!"

  She looked at Zach, and he looked woozy, but he nodded his assent as well. The three of them equipped their zombie ward amulets, keeping them tucked beneath their shirts. They were almost out of charge, having left their base almost four hours ago, but a couple more minutes of immunity was potentially all they needed to dash through the zombies and reach the UFO.

  Gen led the charge as she slipped out behind the booth and circled around Carlos's group. Through some equipment or ability, an improvised bunker of sandbags had been built, and several machine guns were unloading on zombies and the super-sized antagonist.

  Quickly, they were surrounded by zombies, which ignored their presence as they surged around them, trying to get their way to the protagonists behind.

  Halfway to the UFO there was a break in the zombies as one of the antagonists blocked their path. His name was Daryl, and he had a beer in his hand, which he took a long sip from while staring at them, "Now what do you three think you're doing while everyone is dying?"

  Gen grit her teeth and tried diplomacy, "Would you believe that we're actually antagonists too?"

  He laughed and shook his head, looking back at Hon and Zach, "Either of you have a better one?"

  Hon looked helplessly at Zach, who looked like he was about to pass out, blearly he said "We just want to steal your leaper."

  Daryl laughed again, and his face scrunched up as he collapsed. Gen froze, confused, but as she squinted, she could see Daryl's affiliation, confirming him to be dead. Hon was laughing behind her, "You did it Zach! Took out that level 5 bastard without breaking a sweat! Here to steal your leaper!" He laughed again, "You should open a comedy club!"

  Gen understood as she remembered Zach's ability, but she grimaced, they were on the same side, so killing Daryl would've given Zach negative contribution, and as he was level 5 it would be a hefty penalty. Zach didn't seem to have the presence of mind to appreciate his pyrrhic victory however, as he also collapsed.

  Hon stopped laughing and stared at his collapsed friend before looking at Gen and saying, "He'd want us to keep going, and I'm not just saying that because I'm too tired to carry him."

  She nodded, and they kept running forward, leaving Zach behind. Her lungs were burning, and she definitely didn't want to lug Zach along either. Hon paused a moment next to Daryl as he shouted, "Nice! This bad boy had a lot of loot on him!"

  She ignored him, having forgotten that you could loot event equipment entirely with all the other details. The giant antagonist was smashing up Carlos's bunker at the moment, but she had no idea where the final remaining antagonist with the laser eyes was. The zombies around them were thinning, but suddenly, the zombies all stopped and stared at her.

  Zombie amulet exhausted! Return to a headquarters to recharge!

  Cursing, she drew her boomerang and threw it at the closest zombie, blowing up its top half with the impact. Switching to her minefield scepter, she swung it like a mace and smashed another zombie, but there were too many zombies nearby. Cornered, she searched for any way out, only to be surprised by a roaring sound next to her as Hon cut his way through the zombies, reaching her side.

  He had a glowing chainsaw in his hands and was cackling as he cut through one zombie after another, "He had cool shit like this in his inventory and got killed by a level 1 without even fighting!"

  Before he could lose himself in the frenzy, Gen grabbed his collar and dragged him forward, pushing ahead to their destination, which was finally almost in reach.

  Ducking behind a bush, she pulled Hon down with her again while she took a look at the battle going on. The sounds of gunfire from Carlos's group had ended, and judging by the fact that zombies were still milling all over the place, she had to guess that the giant antagonist had gotten them.

  The other protagonist groups were doing better, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the laser vision antagonist running for his life into a nearby bakery. Taking a deep breath, she shouted "Go!" as Hon and her made a mad dash the last hundred feet to the UFO.

  Reaching the tractor beam area, she felt weightlessness as she started to slowly drift up to the ship. Looking down, she saw Hon drifting up beneath her as he hungrily stared at the ship above. Ignoring his vehicle fascination, she looked at the battlefield and thanked the fact that the protagonists still thought she was on their side, as drifting slowly through the air made her easy pickings for anyone taking potshots.

  Her stomach dropped, however, as she saw the remnants of Carlos's fortifications and the giant antagonist named Trank standing on the wreckage, staring back at her. He let out a bestial howl and started charging.

  She flailed her arms uselessly, trying to swim her way up the tractor beam faster, but gave up after a few seconds when she was only succeeding in winding herself.

  Hon had finally snapped out of dreaming about his new ship and was also watching the approaching danger. They held their breath as Trank reached the beam and started drifting up behind them.

  Protagonist snipers started unloading on him, but it seemed that on top of being giant, his skin was reinforced, and he was effectively bulletproof as he didn't even flinch as hundreds of shots rippled across his skin.

  She felt a sense of unease as they stared at each other, slowly drifting upward. Her boomerang returned to her inventory, and she threw it at him, only for it to make a loud THUNK noise after hitting him in the face and not doing any damage.

  Hon laughed and said, "I've got this!" Taking his glowing chainsaw, he revved it up and threw it at the hulk beneath them. Trank grabbed the chainsaw from midair between two fingers, inspecting it for a second before disappearing it into his inventory and glaring up at them.

  Hon laughed weakly, "That didn't go as planned…"

  Finally, Gen saw the entry port above them and reached up, pulling herself up and into the ship. She was immediately face to face with a zombie and stumbled back before calming herself and realizing it was leashed.

  Hon climbed up next to her and his eyes went all starry as he dashed over to the UFO's pilot chair and the hundreds of buttons around the interior. Gen shouted at him, "Do you even need buttons? Use your ability! Turn off the beam!"

  Hon yelled back, "There's an acclimation period! I usually forget about it because it's based on the vehicle's complexity. It's always been instantaneous before!"

  Groaning Gen summoned an iguana and didn't give it any time to react to its existence before shoving it in front of the leaper zombie and letting it get bit. With the deed done, she threw the iguana at Trank, not waiting to see what happened before starting to randomly press buttons.

  Hon was doing the same thing, and lights quickly began flashing and whirring noises were heard all around them as they activated or deactivated something important, but the tractor beam stubbornly refused to deactivate.

  At her wits' end, Gen looked at some pulsing diodes that were the same color as the tractor beam and smashed them with her scepter. A satisfying sound of breaking glass was heard the tractor beam was immediately deactivated.

  Hon and her stared down and watched as Trank fell straight down a hundred feet, making a small mushroom cloud of dust. He was far away, but she could see a zombie iguana still ripping into his chest, having somehow survived the fall. Trank's body rose, ignoring the iguana as he fully turned into a leaper zombie. She lost sight of him as he leapt out of view, charging the remaining protagonists.

  Friendly fire! -2,500 contribution points!

  Gen fell back in exasperation as she tried to catch her breath. During their journey here, the zombies from her nest had slowly been getting her contribution points, and she had almost hit zero, only to fall even further into negative territory.

  Hon gave a triumphant cheer, "It finished acclimating!"

  She rolled her eyes. "Can you get us out of here?"

  He concentrated, and she felt the whole ship start vibrating and making a creaking noise. Sweat was beading down his face, and with a final shout, the UFO shot into motion, throwing her against a wall and almost into reach of the leashed leaper zombie. Scrambling away from it, she gave him an accusatory glare, only for him to have a sheepish smile.

  "Sorry, boss, the anchor thing Carlos used was still locking it in place, but with my extra 20%, I was able to yank us free."

  "Just take us back to our headquarters, please. Hopefully it's still there…"

  Looking at her notifications, she saw that the special zombie incubation was still ongoing with a little over five hours remaining on the clock.

  Hon's eyes lit up, "I got a poll to upgrade the UFO!"

  She gave him a polite clap, despite their victory, she felt like she'd lost, with half the team dead and significantly less contribution points than she started with.

  LEO's voice echoed in her head, and she braced herself.

  His voice was almost sad as he said, Now Gen… I think I already explained the event to everyone, but I know you're new here, so I'll reiterate the objective. You are on team antagonist, so you're supposed to work with other antagonists to defeat the protagonists, but according to my records here so far, you haven't actually defeated a single protagonist and just keep killing your allies. That lovely trio had a good thing going, and you just had to go Gen it up! You've got your leaper now, but at what cost? Your humanity?

  LEO gave a long, patronizing sigh. Now I'm not going to tell you what to do… He paused, Actually, I am going to tell you what to do as you evidently need it really spelled out. You see that nice blowgun in your inventory that you've neglected to use so far despite your adoring fans selecting it for you? You should use it along with those very nice gloves, which you also haven't used, and go out there and fight some protagonists! Next time, try shooting Carlos 2.0 in the back instead of sabotaging your allies! You even got poor Zach following your bad example now! He was a good kid with a bright future, and now he's dead because of you!

  Annnnyyywaaay here's a reward to maybe incentivize you to actually use your blowgun.