Ignore the fool who stole your army for now, you can deal with him once you practice your own powers more and wipe out the stadium community. You spend the morning planning and stretching your powers as much as you can until you finally manage to detect something further North "Must be up near the highway." You think as you head to find the Capt.


He is a little surprised at first but you carefully explain that you really just want to keep busy and heading out with a scavenging party to the North should be perfect since it's the furthers from the city centre and so should be the safest. He reluctantly agrees with you and the team for the day gets redirected to one of the Northern targets. You get to tag along as the 5th man.


It only takes a couple of hours to get to the Highway on ramps directly North and your team raids the convenience stores there for supplies, finding a surprisingly good amount, seems like after the highway got fully blocked with cars and infected, no-one came back here.


You also get lucky with the infected, you find a few dozen can be sensed from this far North so as you grab tins of Spam off a shelf you concentrate on beginning to steer them all South. Mostly shamblers and a few fast ones. You find one mind that's different from the rest, hazy like a normal but also cracked and venerable with twisted knots inside. You give it a test push to see if you can affect it but it reacts erratically and you immediately realize that it would be a lot more work to try and affect it in any meaningful way so you leave it alone for now. No point getting a nosebleed now just for a single crazy.


Watching the others work at filling their bags you realize you're in the perfect spot for a meal again and the hunger begins to rise. You even have a proper little horde this time you could use.

You hold off for now, they are a suspicious lot and probably won't believe that you are the only one to get away twice in a row.

You are highly tempted to wipe this team out just like you did with the last one but you know the guards would be too suspicious of you if that happened and it would make your life a lot harder so you hold off for now and instead have your new small horde hold off a few miles North of you and follow behind as you all return to the stadium.


You've never actively tried to control this many at once and you begin to feel the strain after just a few seconds. However you force yourself to keep going, fighting off a splitting headache until you are all half way back. You feel your nose beginning to bleed this time and quickly plug it up tight with some balls of cloth. It means the blood backs up and you have to swallow it, but it's better than having it streaming down your face again.


You finally arrive back at the stadium and release your active hold on the infected to the North, leaving them all just inside your current maximum reach as you head inside. You receive several comments about how pale and terrible you look and quickly try to explain that maybe it was too soon after looking your other team. You quickly drop off the supplies and collapse into you tent with your head feeling like it's going to split open where you fall unconscious for the rest of the evening and right through the night.

You waking up as lord of your own little horde.

When morning comes you wake slowly and groggily, the last remnants of your headache still present however you immediately notice that you can sense your horde still milling about where you left them. You can even sense some of the stragglers further back that you had lost control of last night due to the pain.


Trying to direct them right now is out of the question though as you know you over-did it the day before and you don't want to risk any more bleeding incidents right now, there is only so many times you can lose half a pint of blood from your nose before people realize something is wrong.


You find the Doc waiting for you at breakfast to check on your condition. "I heard you looked like death last night, one of the guards almost shot you before your team convinced him that you were ok and hadn't been bitten."


You think fairly carefully before replying. "Yeh, I think it might just have been a bit soon after losing my other team, I thought being back out there might help me get over it but I guess it had the opposite reaction. Feeling better today but still got a headache so might be best if I rest for a bit."


The Doc nods and goes to chat with the Capt. who comes over. "We saw things like this back in the wars so don't worry too much about it, it should mostly pass in a day or two, just let the doc here know if you start feeling overly paranoid or having flashbacks in the next week. You and your team brought back a huge haul of tins and supplies so don't worry about the scavenging or other duties for a few days either."


He heads off and you finally relax. They were giving you exactly what you needed to destroy them.


You head back to your tent with full permission to do nothing for a couple of days and fall asleep again, waking about lunchtime with your headache finally gone.


You do however notice that one of the hazy blobs that mark a normal is still hanging around near your tent exactly where it was when you went to sleep. "Seems they are having me followed" You think "best act as normal as possible for a bit then"


You head outside and see some of the guys you are friendlier with eating so you head over to join them, and sure enough your shadow follows, you never catch a glimpse of him so he must be one of the military ones or just very good at following people "Maybe they put an ex-stalker after me" you think with a laugh as you start joining in the conversation over lunch.


By the next morning of acting normal again your shadow vanishes and you feel up to flexing your powers again. You reach out to your horde and find that, as expected, it's simple to control them all at once now. "So keep pushing the limits, but not too far or for too long" You think to yourself as you plan your next move.

You hit the stadium right away, get infected inside before they can react and defend properly

You have the horde, the ability to use them and you even have a reasonable plan, why wait?


You head down into the basement on the premise of getting checkup by the doc and even get a few comments from the guards about them being glad you are feeling better. What a surprise it was going to be for them. Once in his office, you left him swing the door shut then, while his back is still turned you snap his neck from behind. "Huh, much easier than expected" you think as you carefully move his body out of sight from the corridor.


You give it a few minutes then exit the office, closing the door behind you and head back out to the two waiting guards who unbolt the door for you and let you through. "Clean bill of health then?" one asks.


You smile as you reply "Better than ever!" You punch him in the throat, planning just to crush the wind pipe but you feel his spine snap at the impact as you move to the next guard, you have your hand over his mouth and his neck snapped before the first even hits the floor. You quickly glance down at your hands before grabbing them both and half carry them down to the doc's office to hide them.


"Ok I was fast and strong before but this is on a whole new level. Guess advancing my other powers is helping my body too." You think as you take the locks off the cell doors and let the four shamblers out. Number 4 is barely able to walk and two are half starved so you let them join you in feeding on the Doc. And the guards while you slowly make your horde move into position.


Once you are finished you move with your little team of shamblers to the base of the stairs that lead up to the stadium and wait while your little horde surrounds the stadium, everywhere there are balconies that could lead inside.


It's just before lunch when you start the attack, shamblers and fast types moving out of the alleys and towards the stadium as fast of each of them is able. You immediately hear gunshots ringing out from the front balconies along with occasional booms indicating the 50cal. Sniper is getting involved too. The flanks are slower to react though like you predicted and your horde is already reaching the ditches and barricades by the time they open fire.


You can feel large numbers of your horde dropping dead or injured now but you press them forward, each one that falls increases your fine control over the rest and with your guidance they are moving through the defenses at a good speed.


The fast types reach the flanks about the time you realize the front is lost, two thirds of the infected there are already down and more drop every second. Seems the military guys on gate duty today are no slouches.


You quickly try and read where the normal are and find haziness moving towards all parts of the stadium with two coming your way. The reinforcements are reacting already, that's not the best news but you have fast types climbing up to the side balconies right now and you feel them taking down a couple of guards on the right side before the others get there.

You head out to attack from the rear; make sure your horde gets inside

Now is the time to strike, you can take out the re-enforcements headed to the right and ensure your horde breeches the perimeter.


You rush out with your shamblers following behind and run right into the two guards who were headed your way. You punch one right away and feel his chest cave, the other manages to shout and tries to raise his gun, but you're too fast and bat it aside, letting your shamblers take him down.


You begin heading to the right, to take out the re-enforcements however the shamblers, true to their name, move slowly and you decide to leave them behind and rush for the right flank. You arrive shortly behind the guards and feel them killing your horde but you attack from the rear and quickly kill all three, letting your horde into the stadium.


You give it a few moments for them to get the first few inside as you try and prolong the other fights, the front attack is pretty much wiped out but you keep the badly wounded moving to draw attention at least. The left side has made the walls but it's a much harder climb there so they aren't doing well either. "Time to attack from the inside."  You think as you head down from the balcony with your small force.


The first thing you notice is the low rumbling that seems out of place in the normally quiet stadium, the second thing is that the noise is coming from a large armored military jeep parked right in the middle of the field and pointing its mounted gun your way.


Even with your super human speed, you can't dodge bullets, so when the heavy machine-gun opens fire you feel yourself being torn apart along with your horde.


"They had a back-up plan."  You think as you fall.


"I could have told you that, if you had been willing to listen." You hear in your head right before it goes black.