A tense silence permeated the scout group. Losing Renamon had been bad, but the spat afterwards had left everyone in a pretty sour mood. Alice let the tension linger. She didn’t have the time to hold a group therapy session and she trusted that – despite however her group felt about each other – they would continue to perform to the utmost ability when the time came. They could sort the shit out once the mission was finished and they were safely away from the Necropolis. Until then, they pushed on.

Homura covered the group’s rear. She wasn’t surprised that the others were eager to keep some distance from her. Izumi hated her. Who cared? The others trusted her a little less. Slightly more problematic, but ultimately just as meaningless. She had no interest in apologizing for who she was – what she was. If anything, her ability to disconnect from the emotional horrors dwelling within the Necropolis at every turn was a positive thing. It allowed her to stay focused. But even with that focus, making sure that the group was not surprised by an attack from behind, Homura found her mind wandering, thinking back to her arrival in the doomed city.

Abruptly appearing within an environment utterly unfamiliar to her hadn’t affected Homura nearly as strongly as it had many of the other survivors. She’d grown used to finding herself in surreal realities with little information to go on. A casual appraisal of her surroundings told her that this place was unlike any other she’d been to before. That was worth noting. Feeling prepared to handle whatever dangers this new reality had in store, Homura had begun to wander the streets, exploring and searching for anything that would give her answers or, better yet, a way out of the ill-tempered dimension. Even before she’d spotted her first monster, the place had felt wrong, like there was an unseen layer of filth permeating the air.

By random chance, Homura’s first encounter with another being in the Necropolis was not a zombie or some kind of monster, but another living woman. Flowing red hair that reached down to her shoulders with her bangs trimmed just above her eyebrows stood out most distinctly, but Homura was more caught off guard by what the woman wore. A long flowing cape, white across the back with a light purple interior, and what she could only describe as a functional yet formal dress with lightly armored boots that stretched up the majority of her slender legs. The woman looked better suited riding a horse in a fantasy kingdom than roaming around a deserted, half-destroyed modern city. With Homura’s distrust of strangers already kicking in, the woman’s bizarre wardrobe only strengthened her desire to keep her distance until she’d given the situation a thorough examination. It didn’t help that the clothing reminded her of Sayaka Miki, hands down her least favorite person in whatever reality she happened to be in. Her hand moved to her shield, intending to trigger her time stop ability to move in and check things out.

When the world didn’t become a freeze frame around her, Homura averted her eyes from the mystery woman to focus on her shield. She tried to activate the time stop again, but it still refused to work. The loss of the ability sent the first trickle of fear down the young woman’s spine since her arrival in the Necropolis. She pulled her magical vessel up, examining closely as she traced her fingers along it and gave it a few hard smacks. She tried to go through the process of manually triggering the time stop, but the mechanism refused to function, adding a good dose of annoyance to her lingering worry. As she continued her efforts, she forgot all about the mystery woman. And the fact that she was stood well within her line of sight.

Celica’s eyes lit up as she spotted Homura, overjoyed to find another living person. “Hey,” she called, starting her way over to the young woman. “Don’t worry. I’m not one of those things. I was pretty freaked out when I showed up here, too. My name’s Celica.”

“Homura,” she snapped back in response, still focusing on her shield. The woman seemed friendly enough. That was good. Probably. “I’m a little busy.”

Celica moved beside Homura, looking over the device she was fiddling with. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s broken,” Homora replied briskly.

“It’s…” Celica looked the thing over, frowning with confusion. “A shield?”

“Right,” Homura nodded.

Seeing no damage to the thing and struggling with how a shield could be broken if it was still capable of blocking an incoming attack, Celica had no idea what to do. “How is it broken?” she finally asked.

“Because it’s not working,” Homura growled.

Celica sighed, frustrated more by the young woman’s lack of sufficient answers than she was by the apparently broken shield. She looked up just in time to spot a trio of bulky Linebacker Zombies lumbering out of a nearby alley. “You’ll have to worry about that later,” she told the newcomer, drawing her short golden sword. “We’ve got company.”

Annoyed with pretty much everything in existence at the moment, Homura was probably just a little too relieved at the prospect of getting to fight something. She was relieved to find that her shield was still capable of conjuring forth whatever weaponry she desired, pulling free a fully loaded Uzi. With a pair of alluring targets in sight, the Linebackers had started a charge, rushing towards Homura and Celica. Leveling the machine gun, Homura peppered the hideous abominations with bullets while Celica conjured bursts of fire into her palm, flinging them at their attackers. Focusing their efforts on the lead Linebacker, the pair managed to send him tumbling into the street, a badly singed, bullet-riddled corpse. The remaining Linebackers took no notice of their companion’s death, surging ahead.

Celica could feel the resistance pressing back against her magical abilities, sapping her energy and resulting in weaker fireballs. She backed up as one of the Linebackers tracked in on her, realizing that her magic was not strong enough to bring him down on its own. Homura faced a similar problem as she realized the Uzi lacked the stopping power required to bring down the armored zombies effectively. She wasn’t worried. The Linebacker she faced as drawing nearer with each heavy step, but her instincts told her she had all the time required to correct her mistake. She remembered the state of her shield even as she attempted to stop time yet again, but by then it was already too late.

Homura dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the Linebacker’s outstretched arms. Celica’s attempt to stand her ground and face her attacker cost her dearly. She managed a couple swipes of her sword, opening up deep gashes across the Linebacker’s broad arms before the weapon was knocked free from her hands. The bulky zombie snatched her into his grip, crushing the air from her lungs as he pulled her off of her feet. Her legs kicked out, smashing into his shins and thighs, but the pain meant little to him now that he had his prize snared. Working an arm under her cape, his thick fingers curled around Celica’s buttocks and slipped beneath the bottom of her dress, tugging the crotch of her panties aside. Homura saw her new companion’s plight, but could do nothing about it, too focused on avoiding the Linebacker still doing his best to tackle and kill her.

Working the small battering ram of his cock between Celica’s thighs, the Linebacker holding her bucked up into her exposed cunt. Her pussy lips stretched around the mutant zombie’s girth, drawing a scream from her. His arms clenched tighter around her, choking off the scream as he plunged into the depths of her tight slit. The damned cock bored through her hymen without mercy, stealing Celica’s purity. Warm blood dribbled from her gaping snatch, rolling across the throbbing length of zombie prick not yet inside her. Her palms smacked against the creature’s broad, armored shoulders, straining to push free of him as he mercilessly raped his full length into her cramped cunt. Tears soaked her flushed cheeks, staring in horror at the thing’s face, certain that she could see a perverse grin forming there.

The Linebacker’s hips shift back and forth, sliding his rigid flesh through Celica’s blood-slickened sex. His head tilted back before slamming forward, headbutting the redhead’s nose flat against her face. Her wails took on a nasally wheeze, blood gushing from her broken nose. A second headbutt shattered Celica’s teeth and shredded her lips, utterly devastating her good looks. Her head swayed unsteadily, brain rattled in her skull from the concussive force of the blows. Hugging her shuddering body close, the Linebacker hammered into her with growing speed and slammed his head into hers again. One bloodstained eye bulged, half-ejected from its socket. Her jaw hung open, blood oozing from her torn lips and tooth-vacant gums. She gave off high-pitched shuddering wails, sounding like a dying animal. Her bulging eye was dead, nerves severed. Her other eye swiveled lazily, swollen down to a slit from the blackened flesh around it.

The Uzi in Homura’s hands clicked empty. She chucked the spent weapon aside and reached for her shield, ready for something new that would make a more effective means of defense. The Linebacker reached her before she could draw a new weapon free. She brought her shield up as the creature’s clenched fists slammed towards her head, managing to block the strike. The force of the blow sent her stumbling back, rolling onto her back. The Linebacker pursued her, ready to pulverize her into a gooey corpse. Homura worked to get another gun from her shield, silently cursing her inability to freeze time and handle the situation with the smooth grace she was used to. Her body tensed as the Linebacker brought his arms over his head, ready to smash her, certain that her luck had run out.

A perfectly aimed steel crossbow bolt pierced the Linebacker’s face, narrowly avoiding the thick bone-armor covering the majority of the thing’s head. The zombie snapped up, momentarily too shocked to realize how dead he was. He teetered for a few moments before flopping back to the ground. The Linebacker raping Celica’s mostly braindead body had dropped to the street to get better leverage into her. He was too engrossed with his prize to notice the pair of women approaching him, making it easy for Claire Redfield and Abigail Black to pump a few fatal shots into him. Celica lay beneath the creature, the urgent whistle of air passing her tattered lips the only obvious sign that she still clung to life. One look was all that was needed to determine there was little to be done for the woman. Abigail leveled her pistol at the redhead and fired a round through her fractured skull, putting an end to her suffering.

Emily Kaldwin slid a fresh bolt into her crossbow and rearmed it before helping Homura to her feet. After everything that had happened, Homura was far more willing to meet new people. Emily made the introductions and caught her up on what was happening, at least as much as they knew. Much to Homura’s annoyance, it wasn’t as much as she would have liked, but the knowledge that there was a Bunker capable of providing some degree of safety from the horrors lurking in the city was a relief. The Bunker seemed to operate on the concept of the more survivors they could find, the better. It didn’t much matter where they’d come from originally. The prevailing thought was that, they were all in this mess together, so better to work together. Homura wasn’t sure about that, but she liked the idea of trekking the urban wasteland alone.

The Bunker was impressive, even if some of its occupants left something to be desired. In the spirit of everyone banding together, Homura showed off a portion of the arsenal her shield possessed. Emily and another of the Bunker’s leaders, Satsuki, had been very impressed, especially with the cache of explosives she was able to procure for them. When the offer to join the scouting team came up, Homura had agreed. It was the first pro-active effort she’d seen taken to find a way out of the Necropolis. It seemed likely that something in the city was keeping her from using her full range of abilities. Escaping it would hopefully fix that problem. The way she saw it, it was her only shot at avoiding the terrible fate in store for her if she didn’t regain her abilities.

Homura was drawn out of her trip down memory lane by Fuuka’s voice.

“I can detect a group of monsters,” she relayed to the group. “Feels like they’re attacking a pair of survivors. It’s not too far off from our route, but I can feel at least one of the creatures is pretty strong.” She looked to Alice. “If we hurry, we can save them.”

Alice would have been more thankful for a break in the thick silence if it hadn’t come with such a dire situation. They were making good time, and they needed to keep making it. But after Renamon’s death, the thought of leaving anyone to their death didn’t sit well with her. They would have to act fast if they wanted to save the mystery survivors. The only question was, did they have enough time to conduct a proper assessment of the situation instead of simply rushing in?