There is now one dead Fuschia sniper with a voided eye falling from an open window.

From when she is handed the gun it takes her barely a split second to bring the gun to bear, aim, and fire. It’s all over before Joon can even pull his hand away from handing her the gun.

“Huh. The accuracy isn’t bad. Hit almost exactly where I aimed it.”

Fuchsia Coterie Minion defeated!

Level up!

"What? You killed him!"

The shock of her shooting to kill without hesitation is drowned out by the rush of pleasure from the level up. That in itself is unsettling.

"...and I got XP for it."

He can feel the bile rising in his throat from the noise the body made on impact with the sidewalk.

"You keep the pistol for now. I'll bottle his soul."

She walks over and bends down to grab the Fuschia dudes rifle that fell down with him. After Joon is done sucking the soul out with the spike, she searches the body for ammunition with practised proficiency. “This was lucky. This is much better than a shitty pipe musket.”

She seems utterly unperturbed by the recent murder she committed or the fact she is manhandling a corpse to look for loot.

It's like she's a character being played by Reimer.

(He'd be the type to minmax a character by giving them an affiliation to some horrible black ops group so they can afford fire magic, too.)

Joon shuts his eyes for a long moment, but that just makes his character sheet show up again. He collects the dead man's soul instead.

The undead have not stopped approaching while this took place. They're starting to group closer together as well.

Oh no you do not get to merge like horrible Sentai Squad vehicles made of meat. They have picked off a lot of zombies near the edges of what used to be the combiner, but she does not actually know how many a group needs to have alive to be able to combine. She starts picking off the ones in the center with the void gun. Knowing the real rifle should only be used for emergencies. Gunshots would just draw more of them. “I don’t think we are going to clear enough of them to get to the bodies in the alley in time. Their timer might already be up. We should move.”

Joon agrees with that assessment. He'll borrow the machete if he can instead.

"Where else would people have died recently? The obvious places to go looting?"

Killing the Fuchsia Coterie may be the logical approach, but it's not one he's going to suggest just yet.

She actually hands him back the pistol for more practice. Plus, she has a real gun now. She checks it while they move. Its design has oddly unfamiliar lines to it but there really are only so many ways to design a gun that uses proper bullets. She figures out how to clear the chamber and gives it a brief inspection while they move.

 “The supply crate seems like a good place to start, I’ll lead you there.” Maybe there are still supplies. Or Fuchsia members who could become supplies.

There will be another rooftop rifleman, and two more with swords at ground level on the way. If they see Tanya first, they'll nod in recognition rather than attacking.

“Hmmm you wait down here. I’ll go ‘talk’ with rootop guy? Once the ranged threat is down the sword wielders can be mopped up.” She says casually to Joon. Not wanting to draw the Coterie’s attention.

She hands him the Machete. “Just in case. Plus my pipe will work fine against the living if I need to go into melee.”

"Okay." He'll duck into cover and stare at his character sheet, figuring out how to spend his stat points as a distraction from thinking about the murder she has planned.

She tries her best to casually go up to the roof with rifle guy. They are all part of the same mercenary company, nothing to see here. She also has a rifle so the roof makes total sense for her to also be on. Nothing to be suspicious of here.

She will try to approach the rooftop rifle guy with an acknowledging nod, as if she has something to talk to him about.

"Did you tumble in the fall? You were supposed to land by the crate and clear the area around it. We lost Ralf before we could get the weapons out. Where did you get that gun?"

He recognizes her, and he's not happy. 

“Oh, you know, got hit by the dream that skewers.” She says casually as she draws her rifle and shoots him.

She wouldn’t have known what to say to keep the conversation going long enough to get close for a silent kill.

”Joon!” She yells down into the street as a warning. Though the gunshot should be warning enough. But you never know with civilians.

The two with swords at ground level look up. 

"Have you spotted her?" One of them calls up. He sees that his buddy has fallen out of sight and Tanya is there instead. "Huh? Tanya? What are you doing up there?"

Meanwhile Joon is leaning around the corner, aiming the void pistol carefully, either waiting for her or hesitating to kill a living person.

“Joon you have a gun you idiot. They only have swords!” Fucking civilians. She takes aim and shoots one of the ones on the ground. If she has to kill all three by herself without Joon putting any effort in, she will be annoyed.

Killing all three by herself wouldn’t be hard, but it’s rude to leave all the work to one person in a group project, even civilians learn that at school.

The other turns and runs. 

"Turncoat!" He shouts.

thwip

At that, Joon shoots. It catches the minion in the lower back, not anywhere vital enough to kill but he's now leaving a trail of blood as he runs for the cover of a wrecked car.

“His aim was definitely better against the zombies…”

She will shoot the fleeing guy in the leg to slow him down for Joon. “They were killing everyone else who dropped. That includes you Joon! They would kill you if they could! Shoot him!” She yells down. 

She is being so kind to have him do his first kill in such a low stakes environment. Not even a single artillery explosion is happening around him. This is so much easier a first kill situation than the men she trained in her old unit got for their first time.

He takes the shot. 

Fuchsia Coterie Minion defeated!

No level up this time.

Three more of the Coterie have their attention drawn to the scene by the gunfire and shouts, each on the rooftops and armed with rifles.

More of the undead at ground level are also attracted to the noise.

She starts firing at the other rooftop riflemen. Just her luck that there’s more of them. She is shooting to kill, but even if they manage to get in cover that will still keep them from firing on Joon who is exposed down there. “Drag a body into cover and collect the soul! I’ll cover!”