Ready Player One Fanfiction: Zompocalypse.

Chapter Four: Pinky Promise

Art3mis recast Hastaga on herself and efficiently cut down the zombies in the hallway. Her mana was running low but she did have a few mana potions left. Her Elvish blade, Ar'ineth, was forged from legendary materials from a once a month raid. It allowed her to make short work of the zombinoids onboard the ship.

The ones she had cut down earlier from her entry point had already multiplied and were chasing after her. She looked back in annoyance, slightly unnerved by how aggressive they tried to get to her. Dozens of zombies clambered over each other, pushing and shoving their way to Art3mis.

'Whoever the hell coded their behavior did a really good job. Gross as hell.' She thought as she watched a zombie get trampled by its brethren. She moved forward with urgency, already figuring out the zombie mechanics that she was up against.

Halfway through the ship, she heard gunfire from a corridor up ahead. Rounding the corner, she ducked as a bladed arm flew past aiming to cleave her. She dove as another arm slammed down on the ground where she had once stood, rolling to evade two more hands that tried to grasp her. Returning to a fighting stance, a horrific amalgamation of a humanoid figure with two arms coming out of its stomach stared at her with an open jaw too wide to fit on a normal face. It's original arms had huge bone-like spikes jutting from its elbows. It rushed her with incredible agility screaming in a terrifying guttural howl as it did so.

Parrying an elbow spike with her sword, she un-holstered a blaster pistol that was on her hip and shot it in the knee cap. It growled with fury, toppling to it's other leg to catch itself. She used that moment to decapitate it with a swift spin. Oddly, it still swung at her despite it's missing head. With deft motions she dismembered it's remaining arms and legs in a series of Iaijutsu counter-attack swipes. She continued onwards after felling the beast, barely breaking a sweat by utilizing her sword and pistol together in a unique fighting style she developed over the years of killing Sixers during the hunt.

She caught a zombie's bite with her sword, headbutting it knocking it backwards, and then raised her blaster on par with its head and fired three times. Turning away from the even more dead undead, she swiveled on her toe as a skittering four legged spider zombie leapt at her. During her spin that allowed her to barely dodge the arachnid, she gave the creature a few quick slashes that illicited a beastial screech of pain. It swiped at her with it's gigantic mandibles, but she ducked under it casting with a short incantation a high level mine spell. She delivered a quick leg slash to keep it confused before rolling away to dodge a bite. Mine priming to explode, Art3mis looked to a spot on the ground a few meters away and kept her eyes focused on a panel on the floor. She whispered a spell and teleported there, within a brief second all the while the mine went off behind her. The detonation covered the area with even more goo. Art3mis grimaced as she flicked a flaming chunk of spider leg out of her hair.

Finally making it to the source of the fight she heard, she conjured a quick wall spell to seal off the corridor behind her draining her mana. It wouldn't hold the zombies for long, but it did the trick for now. Downing a mana pot, she moved onwards. Ahead, a bulkhead door was torn open, it barely still hung on its hinges. Inside, was a boiler room of sorts. Gigantic copper looking pipes criss crossed across smaller pipes in every part of the room. Tiny little gages that showed different amounts of pressure and dozens of valves dotted every surface alongside banks of large machinery.

Zombies cut into bits and riddled with bullet holes lay all around the room, the signs of battle were evident across the remnants of digital blood.

"Okay, let's do a quick heal here." A soft feminine voice said. Peering over to the end of the boiler room, Art3mis saw a woman clad in leather with bluish black hair casting healing spells on some other players all dressed alike. She had seen this skin of an avatar before, in an old 2009 game called "Wet." She drew a box around them for her HUD to pull up their info. Lelm, a level 99 healer. The three men fitted with simple dark blue US navy fatigues were all to her surprise not players, but actually NPCs. They were wounded, and she watched as Lelm brought them back up to full. The NPCs were all armed with Thompson submachine guns, except for Lelm who had a sword and two futuristic looking revolvers. Nearly the same kit as herself.