Strain Zero: Bloodlines

***Strain Zero: Bloodlines*** or the ***Bloodlines* Arc** is the second story arc of *Strain Zero*, the rewrite of *The Walking Dead by EDStudios*. It contains *Season 4: Remake Part II,* *Season 5: Remake* and *Season 6: Remake*. It is followed by the *Descendents* arc.

Beginning five years after the events of "*Hellfire*", around eight years since the outbreak, the arc follows the Pioneers, a large group of settlers led by Henry's group, and their efforts to grow and defend their own community in western Montana. Their peace is interrupted by a hostile primitivist cult called the Frontiersmen, forcing the reluctant Pioneers to return to the violence of their pasts. In the midst of this conflict the Pioneers encounter Delta Force, a far larger group with military training led by Henry's estranged half-brother Kieron that invites the Pioneers into their growing network of survivor communities.

## Plot Summary

### Season 4: Remake Part II

Five years after escaping Adams Air Force Base *("Hellfire")*, the Pioneers led by Henry's group have established their own community on the shores of Wolf Lake, downstream of Wolf Dam, which they have named Greencole after their former destination *("Divide")*. In the past five years Henry and Holly have started a family that includes their daughter Hope, their adopted son Kyle and their ward Emma, who is now approaching her twenties. Henry has stepped down from leadership in favour of David and instead serves as the town's head-of-security. In November the town braces itself as the first signs of winter arrive, still recovering from a devastating winter two years prior.

On the evening when he plans to finally propose to Holly, Henry spots a group of masked survivors in the distance while helping Ben and his team repair Wolf Dam; the sight triggers his repressed instincts, causing them to erupt as panic attacks and bouts of paranoia. Unable to eat or even sleep, Henry departs during the semi-annual community potluck despite Holly's tearful pleas for him not to break his promise of returning to his old ways. In the forest, just as he convinces himself that there is no threat, he is attacked and taken hostage by a primitivist cult called the Frontiersmen; they subject him to a fear-purging bloodletting ritual, during which Henry discovers that one of the Frontiersmen soldiers is none other than his childhood friend James Cottingham, now known as "Nathan", who disappeared after the events of Port Collier seven years prior.

Emma, who has grown distant from Henry since the winter before last, decides to investigate his sudden absence and tracks him into the forest with the help of Mike and Drew, the latter of which discovered a barrel of pitch in the woods nearby *("Nightmares")*. As they leave, Carl, the town doctor, succumbs to cancer and immediately reanimates as a darkdweller; he attacks and kills everyone in the medical tent, causing them to reanimate as "proto-dwellers" that avoid the sunlight entirely. Holly steps up when David proves unable to handle the situation and the group prepares to reinforce the medical tent before night sets in. Meanwhile, Emma, Mike and Drew, joined by Kyle, attack a Frontiersmen patrol that includes "Nathan", who willingly gives the location of their camp. They are able to rescue a weakened Henry but accidentally set the camp's pitch reserves alight, starting a forest fire *("Rescue")*.

Emma and Henry are split from the others and Emma leaves Henry in an isolated cabin to help them; they are all saved by Isabella, a soldier for the Frontiersmen sent to recover "The Mother", a sacred darkdweller stolen by Joseph and his Frontiersmen exiles *("Fears")*. She stresses that the Frontiersmen are an otherwise peaceful society that split apart after the death of their leader Ajax. It is revealed that Emma's anger towards Henry is over his decision to kill a group of thieves during the terrible winter two years ago; it was not his actions that upset her, but his refusal to give them another chance, something he had offered to far worse opponents over the years. While Isabella leads Emma and her group back through the woods, Henry is saved by Drew and they begin the long hike to Greencole. Henry admits that the peaceful persona he had shown for the past five years was simply an act to conceal the intense rage left over from the group's time on the road; Drew convinces him to stand by his family by recalling Henry's own advice after Sarah's birth.

The fire spreads towards Greencole as night sets in, allowing the proto-dwellers to emerge from confinement *("Conquer")*. The Frontiersmen exiles, using charcoal to hide their scent, draw a large walker herd towards the community using trails of pitch to direct the fire towards the settlement. When the reanimated "Carldweller" becomes free he kills the proto-dwellers and flees into the forest, passing Henry on his way. Using his shrieks, the Carldweller draws the herd away from Greencole, forcing the Frontiersmen exiles to engage openly with the Pioneers. Several people are killed, including Joseph on the Frontiersmen side and Justinas on the Pioneers', and Emma is kidnapped by Nathan/James after he nearly kills Holly.

Henry immediately follows Nathan/James into the burning forest and finds him at the isolated cabin; the two former friends duel to the death while Emma frees herself of her bonds *("Wolves")*. James gets the upper hand when Henry tosses his axe to Emma so she can defend herself from walkers, but the axe is broken in doing so. An unarmed, exhausted Henry is defeated by James, but Emma's distraction allows Henry to retrieve his knife and stab James through the eye. Despite the severity of the injury, James survives, albeit with a hole in his temple. Emma asks to kill him but decides to relent, preferring that James die slowly of his wounds than the pain be ended quickly. They leave him to burn and reconcile on their walk back to Greencole when Henry reveals his belief that Jess Black's son, Alex Junior, was his.

Shortly after their return, Henry talks with a bedbound Holly and proposes, despite her anger at him for breaking his promise. Before she can answer, Henry is called to the gate, where a group of armed survivors is waiting; one of them, revealed to be Albert, a survivor Henry encountered many years before, invites Henry to meet the Commander of Delta Force at Adams Air Force Base.

### Season 5: Remake

Henry is brought before Delta Force's commander, revealed to be his long-lost American half-brother Kieron Worth, who explains that Delta Force has been building a network of survivor communities in west-central Montana *("Blood")*. He invites Greencole into the network in exchange for D.F. control of Wolf Dam, which they will use to provide the entire network with electricity. Reluctant to give up the dam, Henry forces Kieron's hand and wins his people the unoccupied, but fortified, town of Graystone to the east, while he and several others are recruited into Delta Force.

While Holly tries to organize Graystone - quickly discovering that she is pregnant again - and Henry is introduced to the other communities, Nathan awakens in Archangel, badly injured but alive *("Rules")*. He is told by the Frontiersmen chief elder, Lydia, that he and the other exiles, known as the Rams, must face justice for their sins against the tribe. Nathan forms an alliance with another Ram, the badly burned Eduard, and together they survive the deadly Ritual of Thorns; Nathan successfully gambles his life in a duel with Lydia, winning himself the position of elder.

Meanwhile, Henry discovers that Fairbanks, one of the network's communities, used to trade with the Frontiersmen until they were blamed for poisoning several children and Father Ajax himself; Henry later discovers from Isabella that one of D.F.'s soldiers, Albert, laced Fairbanks' crops with the pesticide carbofuran, which killed Ajax, thus triggering the split within the Frontiersmen, followed by the Rams' attack on Greencole *("Dissent")*. When the Frontiersmen attacked Fairbanks in revenge, the community had no choice but to join Delta Force and supply them with crops in exchange for protection. Despite this revelation, Henry is unable to expose Albert due to the precarious situation of his group; upon his return to Prescott, however, Henry is invited by a mysterious man named Achilles into a conspiracy that also includes Samuel, the leader of Fairbanks.

Back at Graystone, frustrated with D.F.'s rules, Ben sneaks out to return to Wolf Dam but is bitten by a walker; his OPT test, however, shows him to be a slow turner: he will eventually turn, but it may take weeks. He decides to keep working on the dam rather than sit around and wait to die.

A couple weeks later, Mike, Drew, Emma and Laika leave Montana on a secret mission while Holly, frustrated by Henry's apparent unwillingness to fight Delta Force, threatens to leave him for good, forcing Henry to reveal his alliance with Fairbanks and Achilles: they plan to undermine Delta Force and rally the people of the communities to rise up, allowing them to build a fairer society *("The Coming Storm")*. Henry further reveals the purpose of the Crew's secret mission: during their escape from Adams Air Force Base five years prior, Henry and Mike discovered the map that led them to Wolf Dam, which also pointed towards an oil field in the east. Henry reveals that Wolf Dam is completely useless despite all their efforts to repair it, which Delta Force doesn't know. Using the oil field and an alliance between the communities, Henry and his allies aim to pressure Delta Force into granting the settlements total equality. However, with Ben dying from his bite, they do not have enough time to secure the oil field before Delta Force discovers the dam's fault. In light of this, Achilles suggests a new plan: release the dissident prisoners at Prescott and start a low-level conflict.

Using his cover as a Delta Force soldier, Henry finds and releases the dissidents that Albert has imprisoned at Prescott; among them is Cara, another survivor Henry encountered in *Season 2.* Their escape, however, is foiled by Albert, who sentences Henry, Katrina and Gideon to death by hanging. Meanwhile, at Graystone, arguments over the Pioneers' freedom of movement results in D.F. soldier Greg Robbins accidentally shooting Lawrence Carter in the stomach; his father, David, kills Robbins in anger, igniting a town-wide riot. Using a secret stash of guns assembled by Holly, the Pioneers drive D.F. out of the town and build a barricade around the town hall. Having heard about the riot and his brother's attempted rebellion, Kieron and his personal guard drive to Greencole, where they arrest Jane and the remaining settlers before attempting to seize Wolf Dam.

At Prescott, Henry is given the chance to deliver his final words; he encourages the people of Prescott and Fairbanks to rise up against Delta Force's rule and exposes Albert's crimes against Fairbanks *("Call to Arms")*. Gideon is the first to hang and dies quickly; as Henry and Katrina are about to drop, however, Samuel, Ashleigh and the Prescott prisoners emerge and start firing, triggering a full-fledged rebellion. Henry and Katrina are saved and Albert is forced to flee when his soldiers surrender; Henry chases him all the way to a radio tower. Having arrived too late to stop Albert from radioing Kieron, Henry drives his truck straight through the wall, pinning Albert against the console. With his final words, Albert demands to know if Henry understands what he has done; Henry replies that he does, and executes him.

Henry radios a dying Ben, telling him the time has come. Without hesitation, Ben sabotages the dam's turbines, causing steam to build up in its structure. The turbines rupture and explode, causing the dam to break apart. On the edge of death, Ben gives some final words of encouragement to Henry and succumbs to the infection as the dam collapses. Kieron watches from a distance, a look of horror on his face.