Woodbury, 07:12 am.
"I know about truth serum, but I thought it was just theoretical knowledge at this point. Before the breakout, there were some lie-detecting machines, not really accurate, but those...pills, they are phenomenal. Imagine what the government would have paid to have them back then. Wait, are they from the government? No, I remember you said someone from your group helped develop them. Can I test them? I mean...not on myself obviously, but I would love to inspect a few. Would I get to meet the one who made them? Sorry, I tend to get excited with scientific things."
Sasuke finally had a moment of silence; he couldn't believe this guy had the energy to spout all of that first thing in the morning. He looked at the walker trotting toward the front gate and swept his hand aside, throwing a senbon, taking him down.
"Logically, no human can have enough force to throw needles with such force, and needles aren't exactly heavy; they should be affected by the G-force, distance, and the wind. How are you doing it?"
"Milton, right?"
"Yes, Milton Mamet, to be exact."
"Mhm, I'm happy to get to know another man of science. The thing is, in short, physical laws work differently on me than they do for you guys. I'll keep the rest to your imagination. Are you sure about not coming along?"
Milton had to rack his brain just to process what he heard, which he categorized as...bullshit.
The guy possibly has some sort of advanced technology that helps throw projectiles with such force and he didn't want to share it.
"No, I'm more comfortable here. I may come as a guest, though, if that is permissible."
"Sure, just stay safe."
"Are you the kind who likes the...tiering?"
"A what?" Sasuke blinked at that.
"The bus should be enough for all of those you are taking with you, including you and your masked bodyguard, but you are making this vehicle ready too for yourself, Separately," Milton pointed at a Hammer nearby and flinched as the man in a weird outfit who was beside it looked his way.
"I see, 'tiering' as in subordinates, and a leader who don't like to be mushed alongside them?"
Milton was surprised the guy got what he meant even when he worded it with all the awkwardness he could due to the menacing masked guy nearby.
"Yeah, uh, I don't mean anything disrespectful by that; it's more to know if you are the secluded type of men, like me..."
"Not really, I just have a different destination. Happy talking to you, Milton. Keep safe, and let's have another discussion when time permits it." Sasuke patted him on the shoulder and stepped away, seeing Billy emerging from a nearby building.
"Billy!! A minute, will you?"
"Sure," Billy pocketed the cigarette he was about to light and walked to his side.
"Those are them?" Sasuke asked and Billy looked over to the screen Sasuke showed him and saw a gathering of few people who looked tense and in bad shape. They were familiar faces.
"Yeah!! They are still alive. Good, I will—"
"No, I'll go bring them. Martha and Mia need you to be close. The issue is, Guillermo and others know nothing about me, so...say cheese." He aimed the camera at his face.
Billy, not minding, dropped his line.
"Well hello there, mate. I see you are still holding on. If this reached you, and it will, just trust me and follow the sword guy here. He will bring you guys to safety. It took some time to reach you fellas, as we were too in some deepshit situations. See ya here." Sasuke took a quick scene of the place and people around before concluding the recording.
"Look, you really need to stop jumping all over and doing everything yourself. Daryl can help, you know."
"Nah, I got him." Sasuke pointed at the man standing awkwardly beside him, dressed in a special forces uniform, with a skull mask covering his face. And feeling the itch to speak, alas, he can't risk his tongue going to some dark place.
"Alright, take care, and be back soon; I don't want Katniss to bash my head for letting you wander off again."
"It's alright; I'll be back with them by the evening if nothing comes up. You saw the layout of the prison, right?"
"I did; you made a beautiful work of it."
"Yeah, others should be working on the outer wall by now. Have those people help once they are all settled. To this point, I cleared all the place, but wandering around is still restricted. Take care of them. Your blood is the key to all restricted places, if something happen there that make you need the access. Vurka will watch over you guys. When it drops too much down, it's a signal of an expected horde in front. Those are the other codes." Sasuke passed him the sheet signaling codes of the falcon communication.
"Does this one too swallo—"
"It doesn't; stop being a bestiality freak."
"Best what? Forget it, just get the fuck outta here and keep yourself safe, Ghosty...not much; he can be chewed for a laugh." Billy smirked at the shifting masked Merle, then patted Sasuke's back and saw him off.
Sasuke boarded the Hammer with Ghost and drove away.
Leaving Billy to once again lead and deal with the following troublesome matter of explaining things.
Things that took exactly five seconds to surface.
"Why is he leaving? This wasn't what we had discussed? Can I know what is going on?"
"Oh, you were...?"
"Rowan"
"Yeah, so, if you are asking for Sasuke, he will rejoin us in a matter of a day. If it's about the situation, he went to bring some friends to safety. If you don't want to come knowing this, it's okay. I can tell him to stop here on his way back and bring you with him."
"Umm, I'll go check on others; thanks for telling me." She nodded deciding to go with her people.
"Sure, and hey...believe me, you won't regret following us."
====
"Can I speak now? How about I take this thing off? I can't believe it scares them more than my face; first time experiencing this."
"You talk too much for a guy who is supposed to be dead."
"Is that so... Martinez, Tim, and others? Are they dead?"
"Nah, they got their uses; you will join them in those interesting uses if you keep blabbering and being a headache."
Merle didn't even need to imagine those uses.
The governor used to have a bunch of walkers in a pit to terrorize others.
Sasuke, this alien samurai guy...he was ten times more creepier.
'Am I the only one who knew what kind of devil is under this pretty skin?'
"You will have to wear it back when we are close; we will probably meet walkers too, and I know you are the kind to think he can take chances and stab me when I'm not looking and be free again."
"Believe me, I'm not." Merle seriously wondered if someone framed him here...
Sure, he would do that, but when it includes a normal person, like that asshole of a sheriff maybe.
Not...someone who took a fucking single step to cross a whole corridor and a kick to toss him to the other end, breaking at least a few ribs. And certainly not to someone who made him gulp something to heal those ribs too, just to redo it two more times, all the while saying:
^Every time you think of acting against me and my people, remember this pain^ freaking red eyes blaring like fucking lamps, and followed by another beating.
Yep, Merle won't think about that.
"Can I ask what happens to Daryl and that sheriff?"
"I told you about the separation?"
"Yea, and I know my brother followed yer group instead, the right choice if I say so."
Sasuke stretched his hand to the backseat toward the backpack and retrieved a scroll.
"This is the journal; read it. It details what happened some time after your incident."
"You...wrote diaries?"
"..."
"Sorry..." Sasuke would've puked if he saw the pout on Merle's face right now, who took the scroll feeling wronged here and gave it a quick look.
"We got a scientist in our group; he figured we need to record what is happening, and each three days, we sit around sharing things, stories, and such; he will later record them, like what happened and the people involved in that event. It has many purposes; one of them is for our future generations, maybe. Now shut up and get off; let's deal with them."
Merle put the mask back, turned the safety of his M4A1 off, and followed Sasuke out.
He tensed looking at the 20+ walkers shuffling in front and turned to see a way out.
He won't backstab this freak, but if Sasuke died to those walkers? That's another story.
Well, that thought didn't last much more than four seconds, four seconds it took Sasuke to kill every walker of those two dozen. With fucking little stars.
"Oh, you're here? Too slow, Ghost; Daryl is way better at keeping up. Guess his older brother is just a weakling." Merle's teeth felt like shattering from how much he was grinding them, both in frustration and...fear.
This wasn't some shooting game; he just saw more than 20, twenty fucking ^slow and dumb humans^, getting killed in the time it took him to take a fucking look around.
He wanted to lash out, badly, but his instincts screamed for him not to be stupid now; this wasn't a human he was dealing with.
Sasuke, meanwhile, was busy retracting his shurikens.
The thought of ordering Merle to do it for him crossed his mind, but...he wasn't an asshole.
There was a line, and a man's pride was something he knew he shouldn't stomp. It won't matter if that man is just a random ass going to be killed by his hands eventually, but there's a big chance that Merle is going to be one of them in the future. Thus, the restrictions are necessary.
Getting the weird thoughts out of his head, he turned to look at the area.
They were now close to the place Billy had marked and the falcon recorded, but...the number of walkers wasn't really what was expected from Atlanta.
He was around here just a few days prior after all, and it wasn't this empty.
"Guess it's this silent because they were the ones who attacked the farm, walkers probably left the city for more food."
"Which means, people, groups will be entering it now, like us, the geared ones. To restock and conquer it" Merle spoke from the side, and that's what Sasuke and Billy figured; he was a jackass, alright, but a useful one.
He has a futuristic vision when it includes surviving, got good instincts and have deep knowledge about human nature. Especially the ruthless ones.
"Yeah, we will get the Vatos people out and return to the prison, more work is waiting for us." Sasuke told him, and they advanced together. Merle finally got a chance to act, taking down walkers, and witnessed a boy probably half his age killing five times his number with ease, using a damn sword.
"Are you...alien?" And Merle decided to be frank; the shit he saw wasn't human.
Jumping straight to a roof that was 5 meters (16.4 ft) off the ground? There's no way this pretty boy is a human.
"Yeah, I used to live up there on the moon, cozy, you know. There was cheese, a lot of it growing in some places. We got no water, but there was a river underground, of milk." Merle looked over at Sasuke, who spoke in a serious tone looking back at him.
'He messing with me or somethin'?'
"I'm still not used to my piss going down tho, you know, instead of it floating around like it used to be up there. Why? Want me to send you there to have a look? I can even let you stay there permanently, free of fees. You can copulate with the giant earthworms up there and repopulate the fucking moon. Fantastic?"
"I see, a regular human then, just slightly stronger?" Merle got the cue.
"Thank you. Now, let's go back to work."