10707/The Problem with Zombies

The Problem with Zombies
Date of Scene:	09 April 2022
Location:	Robbie's Garage
Synopsis:	Gabby runs into Robbie at the garage with some unwelcome guests on her tail. They fight off some techno-zombies together, then Robbie gives Gabby a ride home in his sweet car.
Cast of Characters:	Gabby Kinney, Robbie Reyes

---

Gabby Kinney has posed:
It was a nice quiet night. A warm night only slightly overcast. No real issues going on it would seem. A perfect night to get in some late night work at the garage perhaps. Most of the other stores had either closed for the evening or just weren't busy for some reason. Sometimes that's just how business was. The garage remained one of the few well-lit buildings in the area which is why it becomes a beacon in the night.

There's a small commotion not far from here, some kind of screeching noise. It's all that heralds the approach of Gabby as she flat out runs toward the better-lit area of the garage. Blood is splashed across one cheek where she'd been cut by something, and her hair has flown around her in a wild mess as she flees from whatever was out there in the darkness.

Skidding to a halt inside the garage with one arm flung out to catch hold of a lift to keep herself from going further, she calls out, "Hi sorry to intrude how do you shut the door because SHUT THE DOOR!" Already her gaze aims back out into the darkness narrowing her green eyes to try and squint against the shadows. Times like these she really wishes she had the enhanced senses of her siblings.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Canelo's is technically closed for the night, or so suggests the neon OPEN sign that's been switched off. The bay doors are still rolled up, and there's a dark-haired mechanic in a pair of loose-fitting coveralls who looks to be putting some tools away and cleaning up. Might even be a little bit familiar.. if Gabby wasn't distracted with other, more pressing things.

"Hey, chica, we're--" He doesn't get the opportunity to finish that sentence. Wrench in hand, he turns to look her up and down, and spots the bloodied cheek with a frown. Questions can wait. He crosses the garage at a jog, and slaps the button to close the big bay doors. But the pulley mechanism works a little slower than they both might like. So he's already busy liberating a length of chain from the hook it was dangling from, and enquiring gruffly, "What happened to you?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney takes a few quick huffing breaths to catch her breath from that mad dash while giving a distracted nod toward Robbie in response to his remark of them being closed. At least he moves quick allowing her shoulders to slump from their tension just a little bit. Just a bit. Even as the doors start to roll shut she tears her gaze away from the street outside to him to answer the question.

He's already wrapping the chain around his hand though causing her to blink at the sudden switch from work to 'jumping into action.' That she could appreciate. It also gives her a moment to recognize him from the bar. "Oh hey you're that guy--" A noise outside comes, and jerks her attention away.

"Sorry I wasn't trying to drag trouble anywhere. Would you believe zombies?" Even as she asks she starts to duck her head down a bit attempting to peer beneath the slowly lowering door. "I'm good in a fight but I'm not used to fighting people that can't feel pain. That's usually my trick."

Several figures that weren't TOO slow shuffle jerkily into view approaching after her. In fact, in spite of the jerky movements, they were pretty quick on their feet. "I got outnumbered."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
The way he moves, brisk and efficient, he's probably no stranger at all to things unexpectedly getting ugly. Usually he's the one getting the jump on whomever it is, but shit happens. "Zombies?" he repeats, winding the chain around his hand slowly with a rattle-clank of the heavy steel. "Shit, I'd believe it if you said bigfoot, at this point. This fuckin' city."

He jerks his head around to make sure nothing's trying to get in from the roof or the office, then gestures at Gabby with his free hand as he spots three of those.. things.. scrambling under the closing door. "Get back!" is all he has time to tell her. And then a hiss escapes his gritted teeth. A hiss that turns into a pained sounding cry, which turns into a roar as his left eye begins to bleed fire. It melts through cracks in his face, flesh burned away in the raging inferno until only a smooth metallic skull remains. And then the chain, too, is ignited in a flash, like it was covered in lighter fluid.

One of the zombies lunges for Gabby, while its buddy tries to hold the door open. More, meanwhile, are pouring in underneath the gap.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"To be fair they were made by science, and--" Gabby always had a problem of becoming too talkative when excited. With her adrenaline this high it was just bad timing for going into a talkative rant about how and who these zombies were. They were dead, definitely, but only recently so and reanimated thanks to the power of nanomachines. A messy sort of business that left them looking completely alive and well.

More disturbingly they were apparently quite unwilling as well. Even as they clamber beneath the door to begin their attack a few beg in hisses of exhaled air, "Kill me," or "Please help us." They had no heartbeats though. They were well and truly dead even if their minds were still caught in that in-between state of alive and whatever they had been made into.

His warning cry was heard jerking Gabby's attention back to the zombie coming at her. It's the sound Robbie makes as well as the sudden igniting of his head into flame which allows the attacker to get closer than she normally would have. Enough so that she has to abandon her usual fighting style to react on pure instinct: A clenched fist punches out to slam into the man's chest with a sickening tearing of skin coming from her as her claw stabs through the back of her hand, and into him. "I'm sorry I can't save you!" she cries out with honest apology. And beneath her breath she utters a few more 'sorries' even as she spins around to whip the body of the man overhead slamming him into the ground with claws withdrawing again.

The other two have managed to scramble beneath now lunging for Robbie. Another from outside seeks to join in with an arm reaching beneath the doors to swipe a few times at any nearby legs.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Wait, she has *claws*? Like the blonde girl who was with her at the bar. Didn't someone say something about sisters? This, of course, isn't the time to wonder about these things; while Gabby's slicing one of the science experiments to ribbons, several more are converging on them. Robbie turns toward the closest one, wielding the heavy chain-whip like it weighs nothing. A powerful overhand swing sends the weapon's tail whipping toward the creature with a hiss of air, and slices the poor thing in half as the hellfire sears through its body.

The undead thing lets out a horrific scream as its agony is finally ended; and Robbie wastes no time whipping his body around and using the momentum from his first swing to strike another of the zombies. This time, the chain wraps around its neck, and sears its head right off its body with an unholy howl as the remnants of it go up in smoke and ash.

"Behind you!" he barks as two more that managed to sneak in through the other door advance on Gabby with pitiful pleas.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney didn't slice so much as stab, but a few well placed stabs would do just as good a job. The claws weren't as many as her sister at least, just one per hand. Then again she was the younger of the two perhaps she hadn't quite gotten all of her familial gifts yet.

The cry of warning causes her to spin around with a quick back-kick to push the first into the oher so she can regain some distance. "Thanks! There should only been ten," she adds while mentally tallying up the amount already here. It meant there was an end in sight to the onslaught. Between the two of them it shouldn't last long. Hopefully.

With a leap she's on the first of the two she kicked back to stab quickly taking out it's head in a messy way. The other dips down above her just as she frees her hands to reach up and clamp both hands around it's head. With one quick push off the floor she bodyslams it backwards over her shoulder resulting in a messy cracked skull.

The garage door safety had caught from the arm that was waving under. Enough that the deceased man manages to squirm beneath heading for Robbie as well. The sounds from outside were dying at least as they were picking them off quickly.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Only. Only ten. The absurdity of it doesn't detract from the fact that ten's barely enough to make the Ghost Rider break a sweat. He growls something incomprehensible, briefly turning that hideous skinless skull toward her, before swinging away again as one, then two more zombies squeeze under the trapped door.

Not in any particular rush, the demon possessed kid prowls closer to the one feebly trying to free itself from under the door.. and presses a booted foot down on its head, breaking its neck and igniting the undead creature's body. It goes up in a bright gout of flame, burning away quickly like flypaper. The next zombie is grasped by the throat and looked in the eyes as flame spills rapidly down its body, cracking it open and destroying it as well in a shower of ash and sparks. Another has its ankles caught by his chain whip, hits the ground, and is quickly wreathed in hellfire.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney jumps back from the pair she'd just finished doing a quick mental calculation of how many were left. Ten really wasn't a lot. She'd been in large fights before. The heart-rate monitor on her wrist was beeping reminders at her though causing her to clap her hand over it to shut it up. There were more concerning things going on right now after all.

As the Ghost Rider deals with the remainder she steps back away from the bodies she'd left on the ground. "Eight, that's eight, I got two earlier..." That was it. They were caught up. There's no more zombies attempting to breach the garage to get at either one of them.

So Gabby just stares a moment longer before sinking down to crouch with her arms wrapping around her knees trying very hard not to stare at the bodies that were left behind. The ones not eaten by flames.

"Sorry," she finally lets out risking a glance over toward Robbie even if he's engulfed in flames, mostly. It's taken in stride. "You were awesome. I'm just sorry that..." A glance is cast to the bodies again only to shiver. "They were dead right? Really dead? *Before* I did that, right?"

Robbie Reyes has posed:
It takes him a minute to regain control over himself, over his body, and force the demon back into its dormant state. Slowly, painfully, his body reconstructs itself, knitting flesh back together as the hellfire gutters out into smoke.

By the end of it, he's panting, one hand braced against the garage door as he tries to regain his bearings. What was he doing? His memory of the last few minutes is there, but a haze. "Hey," he murmurs, "Chica. Look at me." If she does, he'll even attempt a slight smile. Such things are rare for the severe young man. "Yeah, there weren't nothing you could do for them." The chain is dropped on the ground, and he moves closer, dropping into a crouch in front of her. She's only a few years younger than him, but something tells him, "This your first rodeo?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney draws several quick breaths before just holding her breath a long moment. It's let out slowly while watching him change out of that form into himself again after it disapates. When he calls to her she glances up blinking away a few tears that had run down her cheeks making it obvious she *was* starting to freak out, just a bit.

"Okay. That's okay then. I mean. I couldn't." She couldn't help them. She knew that, so this was the best. A wan smile comes asking if it's her first rodeo though, and she shakes her head. Only to pause and change into a shrug right after. "No." A small hiccup of breath, and she corrects herself. "Maybe? Not this way. I don't usually use my claws. I try not to do... That." Fighting though, that she could do, easily. Reaching up she rubs at one eye doing her best not to look over there again. It was easier with Robbie crouching down to keep from looking.

"Thanks. I'm Gabby. Sorry for..." Her breath hitches, and she quickly shakes her head trying to tamp down on the urge to freak out again. "All this."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
"Yeah, I uh. I remember you. From the other night." He runs his tongue along his lower lip, studying her curiously. "You're Rien's sister, huh? You don't look like her much." Except for the claws. He holds off, for now, asking about those. The young man looks.. not injured in the slightest, despite having been clawed at by the undead creatures. Then again, he was on fire at the time.

"Robbie," is presumably his own name. This close, she can tell that one eye's dark and the other is green. And that he has a light smattering of freckles on his nose and cheeks. "You don't gotta apologise."

A beat, and then he pushes upright slowly. "I'll clean up. You need me to call someone for you?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"Half-sister," Gabby fills in. It wasn't really a hair she split often about the relation, but in this case it did explain why they looked so very different. Another swipe is run over her face to clean herself off just a tad. Up close like this it's far easier to see the old scars that run over her face. It almost looks like they had been intentional. Maybe from some accident in the past.

"Nice to meet you," she offers with as genuine a smile as she can manage right now. It had distracted her at least enough to keep from going completely off the wall. As it was, the quietly beeping monitor on her wrist is slowing down before it quiets completely.

"No, I'll be fine. Rien would come if I called I guess. If she's not busy." Sitting back she plants her handsd on her thighs to push to her own feet and her unimpressive height next to him. "I just need to finish calming down." Another rub is given to her arm where the monitor is strapped. "I've, uh, I've got what they've got." A nudge of her chin in the direction of the bodies. "I just heal really quick so it's not gone that far for me." True enough, though the blood was still on her cheek it doesn't appear as if it's from any currently existing cut.

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Slightly furrowed brows, and a nod given in acknowledgement when she clarifies about her sister. Or maybe it's in response to the 'nice to meet you'. The smile's not returned; he doesn't exactly seem like the friendliest sort. Instead, he gets to work opening up the back bay door, and grabbing a body by the hair in each hand, and dragging them outside. God knows what for; maybe to burn. How the hell a kid his age can be so laid back about the business of disposing of bodies, well. It's clear he's done a *lot* of this.

"Here," he tells her on his third trip back inside, digging a rag out of his coveralls pocket and holding it out to her. It's mostly clean, at least. "Your face," he explains.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney watches from the corner of her eye while he does just what he said he would. He wasn't much older than her to be doing things like this. If she didn't know people who were capes, this would be very questionable to her. As it is she takes it in as stride much as she can while just doing exactly what she said she would: Calm down.

By the time he comes back to offer the rag she blinks in confusion, but takes it. "Saying I'm ugly?" It's a bad attempt at a joke that she makes with an obvious chuckle. "Sorry. Thanks. Must be a mess. You do this a lot? I mean, Rien told me you were some kind of spirit of Vengeance? She's a witch so she knows a lot more than I do about this sort of thing."

It occurs to her then to look Robbie over a solid moment with a thoughtful frown. "Are *you* okay? That looked like it kind of hurt when you did all that."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
"What?" The joke, he doesn't seem to get; the expression on his face is one of confusion. It clears a moment later when she asks her question, and he hitches his shoulders in a shrug. "Sometimes. Yeah."

He watches her steadily though when she mentions Rien, and her theory on what he might be. "She tell you that, huh?" It's neither a yes nor a no, and it seems he isn't going to elucidate at all beyond that enigmatic non-answer. Putting his back to Gabby, he goes to retrieve the chain and hang it up again, then unzip and shrug out of his coveralls. He *is* wearing a pair of ratty old jeans and a tee shirt underneath. "I'm fine," is his curt reply.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"Bad joke," Gabby responds with an easier smile when he really doesn't seem to get it. Maybe telling bad jokes was just her way of cheering up. It's his admission that it can hurt sometimes which earns a look of sympathy from her. "Sorry then to make you go through that. I can't feel pain, but I know it's got to suck."

When he asks about Rien she merely shrugs. "That's all. I don't know what it means or anything, she just whispered it to me when you were going at Cain." A pause, and she clarifies, "Juggernaut. I was worried you were going to get smashed to bits or something. I know Juggs but he's got a temper when he thinks people are talking down to him."

Where he doesn't talk she seems quite able to do just that. With the overalls taken off she looks him up and down again giving a nod of her own. The rag that she'd run over her face is offered back only to frown at the slight bit of blood that had gotten on it. "Glad you're okay then. Can I... help with anything? Or if you've got questions about any of this, I more than owe you an explanation."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
"Pain's just pain. Won't kill me. I've had a lot worse than that, believe me." He looks over his shoulder at the younger woman, then turns away again to go hang up the coveralls, and grab his hoodie and leather jacket from a nearby hook.

"Juggernaut? *The* Juggernaut? Huh." He pauses a moment, then resumes pulling on the hoodie over his leanly muscled frame. His jacket's next, and then a pair of black racing gloves. "So. Wolverine your papi, too?" He digs his car keys out of his jeans pocket, turning to face her as she rises to her full height.. which is considerably more diminutive than his bordering on six feet. She's a tiny thing, really.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"Yeah, the guy you were talking to at the bar. He helped me out with some creeps following me once," Gabby explains with a small shrug. "I bought him chicken for dinner as a thank you. Kind of cool with him since for the most part. I mean I know he does some bad things, a lot of people I know do, but that's no reason to knock them when they do nice things."

Even as she explains she watches him get dressed before shaking her head quickly. It took her a moment to realize she was staring. Looking a bit guilty she glances away to examine the garage with a feigned interest in the lift she stood beside earlier.

"Yes. And no. Long story?" A grin is offered back toward him while she tips her head back a bit to gaze up at him. Fully smiling now she offers, proudly, "I go by Honey Badger. Cuz they don't give a damn."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
*That* seems to surprise him. The fact that the Juggernaut's capable of good. He's gotten a small glimpse of the guy's moral fibre, after all, and what he saw.. well, it clearly didn't impress. "Rider's got other ideas for what he wants me to do to him," he confides in a low voice.

The grin makes his mouth twitch at one corner, but he can't quite summon a smile. To be honest, the guy looks like he hasn't slept well in.. months, by the dark circles under his eyes. Though knowing what she now knows of him, lack of sleep might not be the problem. "Honey Badger," he muses, glancing away and then back again. "Kinda suits you." A tense silence follows. Then, "Can I at least, uh, give you a ride somewhere?"

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney reaches up to run her fingers through the side of her hair, pausing to scratch at her head when the surprised look runs over his face. Along with that quieter remark. "He's a lot less... Uh. Less everything, when he doesn't have the helmet on," she admits. "I think it amplifies all the wrong things in him."

The offer to drive her somewhere has her blinking in sudden realization that she was just lingering here keeping him later. "Oh! Oh, right, sorry. I guess I'm still a little out of it. My school's in upstate New York, or I've got some friends in Gotham." It's there she stops still regarding him thoughtfully. "My team is in Gotham," she clarifies. "You know, if you ever feel like you need some friends who might understand a bit to hang out with. Or work with. I could introduce you around some."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
"Don't change what he is," Robbie replies stubbornly, with a little tic in his jaw at the recollection of his run-in with the guy.

"Which one you prefer?" he asks as he starts to move off for the rear, open door of the garage. It leads to a small parking lot at the back, where there's only a single vehicle parked: a glossy black '69 Charger, with a big blower mounted on the front hood. Robbie moves like the predator he is, eating ground smoothly with that long stride.

"And depends who your friends are, I guess." Nope, he's really not much of a talker.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"No, you're right, it doesn't," she has to admit when he stubbornly stays with that. Better to get off of that topic as it was. It didn't matter at the moment either way.

When he tarts to the rear of the garage she turns to trot alongside him having to move quick to keep up with his longer legs. "Oh." Which does she prefer? A look is cast back to the tracker on her wrist contemplating. "I should go back to Gotham. They're trying to find a cure for this thing and have me monitored for stuff." Reaching up to her hair again she gathers the length to twist around a time or two laying it in a psuedo-plait over her shoulder so it's slightly neater than before.

"Oh we're the Outsiders. Some of Batman's proteges and others working together. You know, good guys."

Just as she says this they step out of the garage and she comes to a dead halt in front of the Charger with her jaw going slack. Both hands clutch to her mouth as she lets out a rather giddy squeal. "Oh holy shit, Robbie, your car is sexy as hell!"

Robbie Reyes has posed:
The subject's duly dropped. Robbie doesn't seem any more inclined than she does, to argue it.

"Cure?" he repeats, watching her as they cross the lot. His keys are flipped against his palm with a jangle of metal, and he goes to unlock the driver's side door. "You mean, the shit with the.." He indicates with a jerk of his chin. The zombies, he means. "What happened?"

And, well, it's safe to say he gets this reaction a lot. The car, if nothing else, is swoon worthy. Not that it isn't *plenty* else. Her exclamation does get him to smile a little, though, so there's that. He's even got dimples. "C'mon," he murmurs, climbing inside and going to pop open the passenger door. "Get in. You can tell me about this cure. And why you're wearing that thing on your arm."

Gabby Kinney has posed:
Gabby Kinney seems much more cheery now that she gets to ride in the car. It was the little things that could cheer a person up sometimes. "Sure, thanks!" She's quick to duck inside the passenger door taking a half moment to pause and kick her boot heels against the concrete outside before swinging them in. Just to make sure she wasn't tracking any zombie guts inside. Shutting the door behind her she reaches for the belt to fasten herself in.

"It's a vitals monitor," she explains with a quick lift of her wrist to show the object in question. "And it IS a long story. Remember how I said Wolverine was my dad, but wasn't?" Her fingers run over the seatbelt strap a moment.

"I'm a clone. I was made in a lab along with some other clones. We were used for ... well a lot of things. I was the only one that ended up with the healing factor and claws though. When my sisters started dying off we escaped and found out it was because they injected us with nanomachines."

Glancing over to him she can only shrug. "They restarted that project apparently only it's different now. It makes people into those zombie guys. And it's interfering with *my* nanomachines."

This seems to be the most of the explanation she intends to give. Until she adds quietly, "My heart keeps stopping."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Robbie keys the ignition while his guest is getting settled, and fires up the Charger's engine with a low, throaty snarl. He pauses to belt in as well, and glances over at her when she brings up Wolverine. The next thing out of her mouth makes him frown slightly, his look turning circumspect. "Clones," he repeats. "Injected with nanomachines. That's fucked up." Says the guy who lights his head on fire and takes out six zombies in about twenty seconds without breaking a sweat.

"Okay, so you're looking for a way to kill the project?" he guesses, closing a gloved hand over the gearshift and swinging them out of the lot with a surge of the car's big engine.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"You don't know the half of it," Gabby agrees at the mention of being fucked up. "They wanted us to be assasins too. My sisters protected me from that since I was the youngest, but I still got the training." Which might explain her reaction earlier: If she never had killed before, and was kept from doing so, likely it was on purpose she tried to avoid such things. "But my family's been really cool about accepting me even if I was unexpected in a lot of ways. A lot of clones don't get that."

"As for the project... I'm not sure *what* it is at this point. We're trying to figure out if we can either remove them from me or reprogram them so they can't be accessed by the signal the lab was sending out to activate them."

Robbie Reyes has posed:
Well, that's all way out of Robbie's wheelhouse. Smashing heads he can grok, but reprogramming nanomachines? Hard no. "Sounds like a shit deal, I'm sorry," he murmurs, keeping his eyes on the road as they peel off into traffic.

"So you don't feel pain, huh? For real?" Clearly, he's been ruminating on this since she casually dropped it in conversation.

Gabby Kinney has posed:
"That's why I'm out beating the streets while my smarter teammates work on the project," Gabby explains with a chuckle. "I can do a lot but computer science isn't really where I'm good with things." A slight shift of her weight in the seat comes as she reaches up to give another little tug on the seatbelt making sure it was snug out of habit. Maybe out of a need to feel it tighter, too.

Glancing back toward him at the question she allows herself a grin. "Nah, I don't. That was the original reason for them doing that to us. Keep us from feeling pain and we're better fighters. Has some downsides of course, but with my healing factor it's usually okay." Here she pauses, considering him. "What about you? You said that fire thing hurts, right? Is it all bad?"

Robbie Reyes has posed:
That fire thing. Well, that's one way of referring to the demon possessing him. Robbie lets out a humourless chuckle, keeping his eyes on the road as he one-hands the steering wheel. His control over the car is impressive; he drives like he's holding back, like both he and it are accustomed to speed. Like it feeds something in him.

"Like I said, I can hurt but I can't die. Don't matter what's done to me." Hard to say whether he thinks this is a good thing; his tone, his expression conveys little. "But this thing calls a lot of the shots now, and uh.." He trails off there, flicks his eyes over, then back to the road, silent.