Re: The Gradual Massacre (GBS2G4) [Round 5]
03-16-2012, 07:12 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.
“Kelavi!” cried Acacia. “Kalevi!” she corrected herself.
“Aic!” called a boy across the aisle from her. They couldn’t find anyone who’d actually bothered to dress as Kalevi, so the first available Pluck had just taken his mask off. “Aic, you need to reload!”
“Kalevi!” she wailed, swiveling back and forth and firing her plastic tommy gun at the group below her. It whirred and rattled loudly. There he was, just over there, she needed to go to him, she had to get there, she was coming, almost there.
Left to her own devices, she might have kept firing, or remembered to stop and pretend to reload.
Unfortunately, a group of boys rushed shoulder-first into the vendor’s table she was standing on, nudging it just enough that she pretended to lose her balance. She squealed and fell off into the waiting arms of a group of laughing zombies, who ripped and tore at her while awkwardly keeping about a foot away. She shrieked and tried to push their hands away from her silver-painted neck brace. ‘Kelavi’ jumped from his table and ran over to try to pull zombies away, but no one was paying attention to him anymore.
“STAND ASIDE,” barked Sgt. Cedric, grizzled veteran of the Strathmire Marine Corps, as he hefted his prop chainsaw. Dr. Harmon, the Only Reasonable Scientist, just laughed and hurled herself at the crowd of zombies, only about half of which were actually dressed as some variety of walking corpse, and smacked someone with her Zombie Sensor as a dead serious Sgt. Cedric sawed through swathes of slathering undead.A zombie Scott Williams grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms, and Dr. Harmon took Sigrar from Cedric’s hands and beheaded him. Scott slumped to the floor and made socially appropriate gurgling sounds, and a second Scott Williams ran onto the scene, grabbing the cosplayer on the floor by the shirt.
“No, I can’t! No! No!” he repeated, up until Dr. Harmon chainsawed his head off in exactly the same way. Everyone laughed and applauded, and Sgt. Cedric resumed shotgunning zombies and looking good doing it. One managed to get ahold of the barrel, force it down, and manage the zombie equivalent of a roar in Cedric’s face, but two suction-tipped darts hit in in the side, and it looked around, dumbfounded.
From across the aisle, Michelle Davis grinned and cocked her repainted Nerf Longshot.
As the sniped zombie reluctantly fell to the floor, Cedric took aim at the last one, who had picked up Acacia’s (still allegedly empty) tommy gun and had it pointed at her. It pulled a miraculously still-breathing Acacia in front of itself as a shield, which gave Michelle a clear shot. The first round missed, but everyone waited patiently for her to reload, and the second dart hit the zombie square in the back. It lurched to the floor while wildly spraying bullets everywhere. Cedric stepped over the piles of bodies and bent over to pick up Acacia. She protested as she let him get an arm under her, and he lifted her into a heroic bridal carry. Everyone cheered and applauded this time, except for Dr. Harmon, who just stood next to him with her hands on her hips in mock jealousy. As the crowd dispersed and the Scotts helped each other up, a rather impressed enforcer decked out in The Sunset’s armor came to talk to Michelle Davis about live ammo.
---
Put simply, a founder effect is a kind of bottleneck event where a handful of members of a breeding population are suddenly separated from the others. Though it has no effect on any of the individuals, the founder effect has an interesting consequence on the entire group: In the new, smaller population consisting of a random selection of organisms, a rare mutation that occurs once in a hundred thousand specimens might suddenly be present in one in fifty of them.
Like a working pair of wings.
The door to room 3150 rattled and thumped for a moment before the bottom half was torn free and smashed to pieces. Dozens of large, healthy, starving ouroborites skittered and fluttered into the hall, maddened by the stench of blood and meat all around them. A latecoming guest stopped to admire what he was becoming increasingly unsure was actually a costume, and as he drew closer to see if there was a person underneath, the nearest ouroborite – one that was covered in warped strips of smooth black carapace – scrabbled dozens of twitching legs against itself, delivering enough shriek to singlehandedly make him collapse on the ground, shuddering in blind agony.
He almost didn’t feel it when Ouroborous fell upon him and tore his limbs apart before ripping open the rest of him.
Fed but not sated, the insects twitched and slithered after their leader – a slow, weak ouroborite bloated with pheromone sacs, spraying sickly-sweet fumes into the air that told them to follow and seek darkness.
“Kelavi!” cried Acacia. “Kalevi!” she corrected herself.
“Aic!” called a boy across the aisle from her. They couldn’t find anyone who’d actually bothered to dress as Kalevi, so the first available Pluck had just taken his mask off. “Aic, you need to reload!”
“Kalevi!” she wailed, swiveling back and forth and firing her plastic tommy gun at the group below her. It whirred and rattled loudly. There he was, just over there, she needed to go to him, she had to get there, she was coming, almost there.
Left to her own devices, she might have kept firing, or remembered to stop and pretend to reload.
Unfortunately, a group of boys rushed shoulder-first into the vendor’s table she was standing on, nudging it just enough that she pretended to lose her balance. She squealed and fell off into the waiting arms of a group of laughing zombies, who ripped and tore at her while awkwardly keeping about a foot away. She shrieked and tried to push their hands away from her silver-painted neck brace. ‘Kelavi’ jumped from his table and ran over to try to pull zombies away, but no one was paying attention to him anymore.
“STAND ASIDE,” barked Sgt. Cedric, grizzled veteran of the Strathmire Marine Corps, as he hefted his prop chainsaw. Dr. Harmon, the Only Reasonable Scientist, just laughed and hurled herself at the crowd of zombies, only about half of which were actually dressed as some variety of walking corpse, and smacked someone with her Zombie Sensor as a dead serious Sgt. Cedric sawed through swathes of slathering undead.A zombie Scott Williams grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms, and Dr. Harmon took Sigrar from Cedric’s hands and beheaded him. Scott slumped to the floor and made socially appropriate gurgling sounds, and a second Scott Williams ran onto the scene, grabbing the cosplayer on the floor by the shirt.
“No, I can’t! No! No!” he repeated, up until Dr. Harmon chainsawed his head off in exactly the same way. Everyone laughed and applauded, and Sgt. Cedric resumed shotgunning zombies and looking good doing it. One managed to get ahold of the barrel, force it down, and manage the zombie equivalent of a roar in Cedric’s face, but two suction-tipped darts hit in in the side, and it looked around, dumbfounded.
From across the aisle, Michelle Davis grinned and cocked her repainted Nerf Longshot.
As the sniped zombie reluctantly fell to the floor, Cedric took aim at the last one, who had picked up Acacia’s (still allegedly empty) tommy gun and had it pointed at her. It pulled a miraculously still-breathing Acacia in front of itself as a shield, which gave Michelle a clear shot. The first round missed, but everyone waited patiently for her to reload, and the second dart hit the zombie square in the back. It lurched to the floor while wildly spraying bullets everywhere. Cedric stepped over the piles of bodies and bent over to pick up Acacia. She protested as she let him get an arm under her, and he lifted her into a heroic bridal carry. Everyone cheered and applauded this time, except for Dr. Harmon, who just stood next to him with her hands on her hips in mock jealousy. As the crowd dispersed and the Scotts helped each other up, a rather impressed enforcer decked out in The Sunset’s armor came to talk to Michelle Davis about live ammo.
---
Put simply, a founder effect is a kind of bottleneck event where a handful of members of a breeding population are suddenly separated from the others. Though it has no effect on any of the individuals, the founder effect has an interesting consequence on the entire group: In the new, smaller population consisting of a random selection of organisms, a rare mutation that occurs once in a hundred thousand specimens might suddenly be present in one in fifty of them.
Like a working pair of wings.
The door to room 3150 rattled and thumped for a moment before the bottom half was torn free and smashed to pieces. Dozens of large, healthy, starving ouroborites skittered and fluttered into the hall, maddened by the stench of blood and meat all around them. A latecoming guest stopped to admire what he was becoming increasingly unsure was actually a costume, and as he drew closer to see if there was a person underneath, the nearest ouroborite – one that was covered in warped strips of smooth black carapace – scrabbled dozens of twitching legs against itself, delivering enough shriek to singlehandedly make him collapse on the ground, shuddering in blind agony.
He almost didn’t feel it when Ouroborous fell upon him and tore his limbs apart before ripping open the rest of him.
Fed but not sated, the insects twitched and slithered after their leader – a slow, weak ouroborite bloated with pheromone sacs, spraying sickly-sweet fumes into the air that told them to follow and seek darkness.