Bout time Shamus shows up!

He's back again and in style. Okay, it kind of 'retouches' what happened in the Rollover, but it works better, anyway.

How's our favorite bumbler going to handle a townful of zombies? And is that a bit odd considering he's in Degrassi, not the zombie mission? Whatever.

"Mmmhmm" Shamus, bounty hunter extraordinaire, moaned as he shifted slightly on what felt like a bunch of soft, furry pillows. He had various images racing through his head: Meat, women, food, flaming magi, women; as he usually did while sleeping. His bliss was interrupted for a moment as he felt a slight tingle in the back of his head- Which he then tried to ignore as he shifted again.

"Hey." A cool, relaxing voice seemed to whisper in his thoughts; like a angel soothing a man as he takes his final breaths.

"Wake up." Boomed the voice in a less relaxing, and even somewhat forceful tone. He tried to ignore this new inconvenience as he moaned, turning on his side.

The next thing he heard was the noise of his knuckles cracking, as his hand was lifted of the ground and then promptly returned back.

"ARRRGGHHHHHH!" The hunter screamed as he awoke from his slumber, clutching his sore left hand, with his right. "Why do people constantly harm my body parts!?"

He quickly leaped onto his feet, knowing that if he stayed down he would be hurt in some incomprehensibly painful way. He quickly surveyed the area he now found himself in: It appeared to be some sort of wooden housing device, only the furniture, windows, and walls all seemed to be covered in ash, or debris. He noticed that the door and some of the windows were also boarded, which the bounty hunter found somewhat odd. He also saw the dead bugbears he had been sleeping on.

He turned to his left to see what the source of his new found pain in his left weapon-holding-apparatus was, as his Comma Chameleon Inuyaustin waved at him with a large rock in her hand.

"Hey! You're finally awake!" Inuya yelled, jumping up and down. "Now you can help me un-board the door so I can leave!"

"Why didn't you use the rock to un-board it!?" Shamus walked towards the chameleon, and quickly retrieved the rock in question. "I swear you're going to give me a concussion one day!"

Inuy' tried to say something, before Shamus moved to the door and used the rock to smash the boards in half with one swift motion.

"See!? Look at how easy that was! Now, I'm going to go back to sleep for a few hours-"

"We require the contents that reside within your skull for sustenance: such as the cerebellum, and medulla oblongata, which are components of the BRAIIIIIIINNNNNN!!!" Screamed a voice, pushing the door open and quickly trying to rush inside.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Shamus' only reaction was to jump backwards, unsheathe his sword, and quickly slice a horizontal arc in the air in front of him.

There was a sickening cracking, gurgling sound as the edge of his weapon cleaved the top half of his enemy's skull off, and onto the ground, with the rest of the body following suit.

The hunter immediately slammed the door shut, bracing it with his shoulder before starting to pant for air.

"Guess I forgot to mention," Inuya began. "I needed you to help me with the whole, 'Zombie resurrection of the dead' thing so I could leave."

"Why are there zombies!?" Shamus screamed, continuing to hold the door securely in case another one of the monsters tried to break in.

Inuy' shrugged. "I dunno' I assume because of some sort of evil spell cast by someone with a lot of free time. All I know is that I had to drag your unconscious, heavy, bloody, and pointy body into the closest shack that I could find before they consumed your flesh. I think I deserve some type of thanks for that."

"What? Why was I bloody!? Did someone touch my beautiful face!?" The bounty hunter screamed as he heard slight moans from outside.

"Shhhhh." Inuya said, as she raised her hand to her mouth. "If you keep screaming: the zombies will be making a new type of salsa out of your innards." She started rummaging in her bag, before she continued, "After you lost all of our earnings on whatever it is you do in your free time in the casino, the bouncers decided to start beating you to soothe their frustration, before you blacked out and they stuck me with this bill."

She passed a sheet of paper her bag to her idiotic master, before his eyes widened in shock and horror. "S- Six BILLION meat!? How did you loose all this!?" He screeched at his chameleon.

"YOU'RE the one who lost it, moron!"

"Then why don't I remember it!?"

"Brain damage!?"

Shamus sighed, as he put his hand to his cheek, noticing there was no blood on it. "Thanks for wiping the blood off me, I suppose."

Inuya chuckled, before stating "That wasn't me; that was Mimi. Blake saw you unconscious and jumped you outside the casino and, well, it took Mimi five minutes to get him off of you."

"What?" Shamus asked, before remembering what happened inside the casino. "Oh! That's right! They trapped me in a giant cage, before offering me a job to work with them to pay off my debt!"

Inuya looked confused, before saying "When did that happen? All I remember is the beatings. They were pretty funny to watch."

"No! I'm sure it happened! And you were there! Then there was something about Blake calling himself sexy, or something."

"..." Inuya simply shook her head. "I'm checking camp for Goofballs once we get back." She scurried next to him, before pulling out a tiny knife and fork from her bag, and consuming them. Her scales suddenly became smoother, and her eyes turned pitch black. "I think we should leave, now."

Shamus seemed to be sweating. "B- But there are zombies out there!" He yelled, grabbing the crossbow from his back and holding it as a child would hold a teddy bear. "And I think they want my brain! It's so supple and healthy! Even I'VE thought about eating it!"

That last line was the final straw. Inuya barred her fangs out, before shoving them into the hunter's foot. With a loud yelp he jumped from the door, allowing it to swing open. "Let's go, dimwit." She motioned for him to follow her.

Shamus hesitantly took a few steps forward. "Z- Zombies-"

"NOW!"

He jumped up, before rushing back to the doorway next to her. He had to bend down to avoid hitting the frame, with Inuy' simply having to scurry. He shielded his eyes from the sun to see that he was in Market Square. The buildings seemed to still be damaged from the fire, but now had random holes smashed in their walls, and doors that were busted in two. Doc Galatik was nowhere to be seen, nor was anyone who was supposed to run Bugbear Bakery that was still among the living, as he gathered that was where he had just left from.

The one thing that caught his attention were the random very pale, bloodied, and already slightly decaying corpses that were shambling around the square, consuming anything that appeared recently dead.
He began walking, very slowly, to the west in the direction of the town gate, hoping not to alert the reanimated of his location.

"Brains?" One of the undead said, looking at Shamus and causing him to freeze in place.

"Ted, stop talking like that and start eating people." Berated another zombie, as he took a bite out of a corpse he was consuming.

"Screw you, man. Zombie chicks dig all that talk about brains." The evil dead replied; as he bent down to help his friend in cleaning.

Shamus let out a sigh of relief, and then turned to the sight of Inuya licking her lips, and asking "Can I help them? My whelp urges... They're calling me."

Shamus glared at his chameleon, before he started to make his way to the exit of town again. He stopped mid-step as an ear deafening blast erupted from an unknown object next to his ear. The next moment, one of the zombies fell to the ground with a sudden lack of a head.

As the ringing in his ears started to subside, another blast erupted, removing the skull of another undead. He stepped backwards, grasping his ears in pain, before he was barely able to make out a slight groan from another zombie being put down.

"Yeahahaha! Suck it, durak! Lech la'azazel kyonshi!" Screamed a voice from the direction of the frequent deafening noises.

His ears finally stopped ringing, as he turned to the crazed voice. "Oh god, why is it you?" He said, as another zombie fell, this time landing at his feet.

A short black-haired girl stood in front of him, dressed in slightly ripped dark leather garments, with a modified depthsword on her back strapped to her bright pink chest plate. She aimed her pistol towards an advancing undead, before blowing what little amount of a neck it had off, and holstering it back onto her belt, next to her left legging, which seemed to be badly damaged along with rest of her outfit..

She turned to the hunter, and smiled. "Happy to see you, too!"

"Why are you here, Mimi?" Shamus groaned.

Mimi pouted, before replying, "That's not polite. And after I came all the way down here with a job offer for you, too!" She turned around, and starting walking slowly away from him. "Oh well, I guess I'll just tell Blake that it's okay to kill you then!" She giggled.

She turned around, expecting to see Shamus running up to her to beg for forgiveness, but instead saw him yelling to his familiar, "Aha! I told you they did. My dreams ARE prophetic! Now, lick my shoe."

Inuya simply bit his leg again, causing him to emit a girlish squeal.

Mimi sighed, before walking up to the bounty hunter, and shoving her elbow into his ribs. "Hey! Stop ignoring me!" As Shamus began to sink to the ground, she produced a small scroll from her back pocket. She cleared her throat, before starting to read it off.

"By official decree of her most holy Catrina,
You, err, what's your name? Shamuu? Whatever. You, are hired to assist in the uprising of the Feline Empire.
You are to report to Degrassi Knoll, where you will receive further instructions on the war with KoKOL.
You will be rewarded handsomely for your contributions. Like, with Six billion, I don't know: meat? Weapons? Cats? They don't tell me anything. Six billion of something.
Which doesn't seem fair to me; I've been working here all of my life, and I don't get paid six billion for one job.
Bastard.
From the desk of Knob Goblin Elite Guardsmen, 1138."

Mimi straightened herself, before rolling up the scroll, and turning to Shamus, who was now frozen with shock.

"Well, come on. They need us back at headquarters!" She said, lifting the hunter off the ground and trying to pull him along with her.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait-" Inuya began. "You can't go with her! You work for KoKOL, remember?"

Shamus finally snapped out of his daze, pushing Mimi away from himself. "Y- Yeah. That's right. I can't just work for, uh, who'd you say it was?"

"That crazy nekogirl, Catrina." Mimi said, twiddling with a strand of her perfectly straight hair.

Shamus seemed to ponder the implications of this for a moment, before replying, "Well, I guess if it's Catrina it can't be that bad, right?" He said, as he walked towards Mimi.

Inuya grabbed his leg. "You're just saying that because she's a goddess of beauty! Remember the whole, 'War with KoKOL' part? And the fact it was written by an Elite Guardsmen is probably a bad thing."

Mimi pushed the chameleon away with her foot lightly. "Don't worry; Miss sexyneko has just started up a friendly empire. Which is good for everyone; she's already convinced some adorable men to join it!" She swooned, closing her eyes. and gripping one of her elbows with each of her hands.

Inuya shook her head, before turning to Shamus. "She'll probably be like this for awhile; we should leave while we can."

"Leave where?" A voice whispered from behind the chameleon, right next to her master's ear, causing the bounty hunter to leap forward with a girlish yell.

The hunter turned around to investigate the source of his fear, and saw a tall man dressed in bloodied black leather, twiddling with a dagger he had retrieved from his trench coat with his left hand. He stared at Shamus with his emotionless mask that somehow always looked it was patronizing the hunter.

This seemed to snap Mimi out of her trance, as she shook her head from side to side before skipping joyfully next to the man. "Ah! Blake!" She said, as he grabbed hold of his left arm. "Did you finish up the Mall?"

"Sod no!" Blake replied, "there are far more reanimated beings than we anticipated. They overwhelmed me in a matter of minutes."

He turned back to face Shamus. "Please tell me that he declined the offer."

Mimi shrugged. "He hasn't answered, yet. I suppose we could always lie and say that he did." She said, as Blake slipped a razor from his right sleeve, and hurled it next to Shamus' ear.

"Gah!" the hunter yelped as he jumped back, briefly diverting the undead being's attention from their meals, before they continued to consume more of their prizes.

"I- I" Shamus began. "I mean, I could TRY it- W- Would I have to kill anyone?"

"No, of course not!" Blake replied. "A war always has very little causality! It's mostly just politics between bloodthirsty goblins, bloodthirsty reanimated corpses, and bloodthirsty men with no self-control."

"... That's sarcasm, isn't it?"

"You know what? I say we just throw him to the undead and call it a day." Blake said, before he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. He let out a low groan, as he turned to see that Inuya was biting into him.

"Nohw!" The familiar spat out, through the side of her mouth that wasn't biting something. "Shoowt him! Ruwn! Aynthiwng!"

As Blake softly moved Mimi off of him, and started to unsheathe his icy-hot katana, Shamus took the crossbow from his back and aimed directly at him. Blake chuckled lightly, as he finished removing his weapon from its scabbard.

"Please, fire; the second you do I'm allowed to slit your throa-" Blake began, before a loud *TSSNK* noise emitted from the bounty hunter's weapon as it fired a bolt. Blake expected to feel a sharp pain in his chest, which he would then ignore so he could finish off the peon, but instead felt wind from the bolt fly past his neck, as it grazed Inuya's cheek and knocked her off of him.

Inuy' emitted a loud moan as she slammed against the ground, which was replied to by a moan from a nearby undead before it realized she wasn't speaking zombie, and continued eating.

"W- What the-" Inuya said, as she felt a small trickle of blood falling down her face from the cut in her cheek.

Shamus lowered his crossbow, looking at his familiar with his mouth agape, eyes widened.

"I-" He began.

"You know what? Screw it." Inuya said, as she got off of the ground, lifting her bag onto her shoulder. "You can find a new familiar to help you. I'm going to see if anyone in KoKOL needs my help."

She started to scurry to the north, away from Shamus and his idiocy, while all he could do was watch.

Mimi leaned next to Blake, and whispered into his ear, "Should we stop her?"

"No," He replied, as she turned a corner and left their sight. "It's inconsequential to us. Let the goblins take care of it."

Shamus propped the crossbow back into its straps with a look of disappointment on his face, before turning to the others. Blake simply stared back at him, as Mimi cleaned the wound on the side of his neck.

"Sh- Should we get going?" He asked hesitantly.

Mimi smiled, putting a soapy rag back into her back pocket. "Yes, we should."

Blake sheathed his katana, and started walking west towards town gate, beckoning for Mimi to follow him. She grabbed Shamus' collar, giggling happily as she pulled him along.

The group quickly made their way through the undead-infested city, taking down the few zombies foolish enough to attack them, until they arrived at the town gate. It seemed to be relatively intact considering the events that had transpired in Seaside Town recently, just a few sections of broken boards, or some burn marks here and there.

Their main problem was the large masses of zombies at the gate, who were presumably waiting there so they could jump anyone who possessed enough fatuity to try and get in, or out.

"Hmm" Shamus pondered for a moment, as he observed the horde from around the corner. "Should we find another way out?"

"No," Blake replied. "This is the only gate, and we don't have time to cut down a section of town walls; our only option is to either fight our way out, or somehow sneak past them like Mimi and I did earlier. I personally prefer the latter, as-"

"THERE'S SO MUCH BLOOD!" Mimi gushed, unsheathing her depthsword and running directly into the center of the bloodied zombie horde.

As she swung her sword into the air and into the nearest evil dead, the zombies seemed to finally notice the group, as they began their moans and cries of, "Braaaaiiiinssss" or, "Fllleessshhh" or even the occasional, "Hey guys, I think we should formulate a plan to stop them before we rush head first into a battle! I have some sketches here-".

Those zombies seemed to die the quickest.

"Sodding hell," Blake yelled, as he slipped a dagger from his sleeve and threw it into the nearest undead's skull. "Let's go!" He beckoned for Shamus to follow him, as the bounty hunter pulled out his sword.

Shamus closed his eyes as he rushed into the horde, and started slashing in any direction he could manage. These zombies felt surprisingly light, like air. He opened his eyes to see he was standing in a fairly large clearing, as the zombies were all focused on Mimi, and Blake, leaving a path to the gate open.

Mimi was giggling, as she pushed her sword through one her advancing enemy's skulls, and into the chest of the undead who was unfortunate enough to be behind the first. Blake seemed to be dispatching them with relative ease, as he threw one of his daggers into a zombie behind him, grabbing another one's neck immediately afterwards and twisting as hard as he could until he heard a snap.

Shamus began to slowly make his way to the exit, before all the zombies suddenly stopped attacking, with annoyed groans and grunts. They all turned to a new zombie that had approached from the Wrong Side of the Tracks, before they started to disperse to other sections of Seaside Town.

"Oh God, not him again." One of the zombies sighed to his associate.

"Well, zombie-Greg, you just have to accept the fact that pricks get killed a lot; it's just bad timing that it happened right before the resurrection chant."

"Whatever, zombie-Jeffery, wanna' go find some zombie chicks and see if we can still reproduce?"

"Nah, I think I'd rather eat something. I'm pretty hungry."

"Yeah, me too. Like, for BRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAINSSSSSSS!!!"

"BRRRRRRAAAAAAAINNNNNNNNSSSSS!!!"

"Hey!" Mimi called to the deserting zombies, as she pulled her sword out of the torso of her newest victim. "Where are you guys going? Things just started getting good!"

Her question was answered by a loud, gurgling, cackle from behind her.

"GRAGHAHHGAAHHAHHGRAHAHA!!!" She turned around to the source of the irritating noise, and saw a man wrapped up in black bandages, and the tattered remains of what appeared to have been a trench coat at one time. He gave the three hunters a wide grin, his cheeks shifting the bandages slightly as he did so, revealing horribly burnt and slightly decaying flesh.

"At last! You may have brains me once, but you won't do so again!" The figure cackled.

"We, uh, did what to you?" Shamus asked, confused, as he put his sword away and un-strapped his crossbow.

"What?" The figure responded. "I just said it, 'Brains'." It seemed to take the figure a second to realize what he just said, before he screeched, "GRAGGH, I mean, 'killed'. This is why I hate you! Being a zombie sucks!"

Shamus tried to recall where he recognized the figure's voice from, before he asked, "Hey, who are you?"

"What the hell!?" The figure screamed. "You killed me less than a day ago!"

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"Fine!" The undead man screeched, before pulling an object that was barely recognizable as a cigar. "It is I! Larry! And I've come back again to-" Larry's sentence was interrupted by a loud *TSSNK* as a bolt from Shamus' crossbow entered his chest. Before he could react by screaming, he felt a blade enter into his already damaged spine.

He managed to let out a loud screech, as he looked back at the heroes to see Mimi rushing at him full speed, while pulling out a pair of Fire Poi from her belt with her right hand, and lighting them.

"Wait!" He screeched, as she quickly closed the gap between them. "If you spare me, I'll give you chocolate of some sort! Women like that kind of stuff, righ-" He felt great pain as she kneed him in the stomach, and smashed a bottle of liquid over his head. His sense of smelling appeared to be fine, as he now noticed the liquid was tequila.

His eyes widened in realization, as he looked up to see the sight of a Fire Poi about to strike him. "Why do people hurt me!?" Was the only think he could manage to say, before the poi struck him in-between the eyes, igniting the alcohol he was smothered in. As he let out a muffled screech, Mimi threw the poi aside and unsheathed her depthsword once again, proceeding to swing it over her head and into his skull. There was a loud crack as Larry stopped all movement, falling like a discarded rag doll onto the ground.

Mimi stood over his flaming body for a few moments, before smiling with a giggle towards Shamus, and Blake, the former looking terribly frightened. "Well," she began. "I'm content with life, now. You guys ready?"

Blake simply nodded, as he walked out the now fairly deserted gate. The zombies there seemed to consider attacking for a moment, until they saw Mimi starting to follow him, which caused them to slowly back away into town.

"Are you coming?" She asked, turning back to Shamus.

The bounty hunter stood in place for a few moments, looking back at the town, the flaming corpse in front of him, and finally back towards clan district.

He slowly turned back to Mimi, and Blake. "Yeah," He replied with a slight hint of sadness in his voice, walking out of the seaside town gate. "I suppose I am."

"Great!" Mimi said, skipping over to Shamus and grabbing his hand. "I have the feeling this is the start of a wonderful partnership."

When I read it, I always expect it'll end after Inu cuts out.. but there's still a fair bit to go, including Larry! (Lil spoiler, we ain't done with him yet.) And of course, a Shamus piece always fills a unique roll in AIL as well.

Now that he's without Inu and with the Feline Empire, things really get interesting. We've got just a few roleplays left before the Finale.. actually, a fair number of 'em.