Stronghold In The Apocalypse

"You guys know Bella and her group?"

After getting acquainted with the kids, and a lot of convincing that he's not a bad buy, Leo was surprised to hear that they are actually acquainted with Bella and her group before.

"You know them sir? Do you know where they are?! They just suddenly disappeared one day and we've been looking for clues of where they have gone every time we've gone out looking for food and supplies. Do you happen to know where they are?" the teenager wearing glasses who had been silent until now had suddenly burst into a flurry of questions towards Leo, who grew startled by her sudden actions.

"Haley, keep your voice down, dammit!"

Eirik, with the blood of the Maolis flowing through his veins and the leader of this group of teenagers, raised his voice at her but in a soft tone as he also didn't want to really raise his voice and attract trouble towards them, and along with her bold actions, it made her other companions frown, not expecting that this friend of theirs who always seem to wear a cold look on her face almost all the time to suddenly lost her composure and outright show such disrespectful actions towards Leo by questioning him in such an overbearing tone.

Then Eirik quickly turned towards Leo and said with an apologetic smile on his face and said, "Please don't mind her sir, she's probably just overwhelmed and lost her composure when she heard that you encountered Bella and her group"

Leo didn't say anything and he just looked at them one by one with such deep eyes that it made them gulp down in their nervousness, especially Haley as she felt incredibly guilty inside when she had finally realised what she had done just now.

"So you're the kids that Bella wanted to find all along, and yes, we did encounter each other and not only that, they even joined my group"

After a while, Leo finally opened his mouth, and the words he uttered also answered Haley's question from earlier, and hearing those words from Leo also made the others heave a sigh of relief, which was followed by excitement.

"Bella and the others tried looking for you guys just yesterday late afternoon, but when they arrived at your hideout, they found it abandoned. She tried looking for your group thinking that something must have happened, and it's actually surprising that she didn't even mention anything about the cannibals to me when she joined my group. It seems she's still a little wary of me" Leo made it sound that he was not bothered, but the chiliness in his voice couldn't be hidden.

After all, this kind of information is very important and something that should have been mentioned when they decided to join, especially when his people are combing around most parts of the city and are prone to meeting the local survivors in the area.

Seeing the face that was getting colder by the second, the kids were flustered, and Eirik quickly opened his mouth to explain a possible misunderstanding and said, "This…you must have misunderstood, but that community from where those cannibals came from just turned into those savages a couple of days ago. It wasn't really that long, so Bella and the others would certainly not know about it"

"Yes sir, those cannibals just appeared a couple of days ago. So it's understandable that Bella had never mentioned them to you before because she certainly wouldn't have known that they even existed when she and the others have joined you" one of them chimed in support for Eirik, while the rest looked at Leo while nodding in agreement with serious looks on their faces.

Hearing them, the look on his face returned to normal as what they said immediately piqued his curiosity.

"Just a couple of days ago? Tell me more about them"

The teenagers looked at each other, and when Eirik was about to open his mouth and start the story.

Haley suddenly grabbed his shoulder and said, "Let me do the talking this time"

With a nod of approval from Eirik, she turned her attention back to Leo and tried to calm herself by taking a deep breath, then she slowly recounted to Leo of how they first found out that Bella and her group disappeared until the emergence of the cannibalistic community.

"We travelled to their hideout to trade our goods, but we found out that it was ransacked and they were gone. We were confused and worried, so we tried looking for them. The day after that, the largest survivor community in the area was suddenly plunged into an internal conflict between the savages and the local forces, before turning into a three way battle when the zombies started making their appearances and started wreaking havoc. So long story short, the savages won, where their victory was followed by attacking the other survivor groups, which also forced our group to flee from our hideout until you met us"

"But what bothered us is that the large horde of zombies hiding inside Navy Exchange never appeared at all after their recent appearance"

After finishing her story, the atmosphere descended into silence as they carefully watched Leo's reaction to what Haley had said.

Leo on the other hand was processing what she said, and was having an inner monologue to himself.

'So that explains those gunfire that lasted throughout the night a couple of days ago'

Leo then looked at the kids who were looking at  him and continued his train of thoughts, 'Of course, that bastard wouldn't appear, knowing that there's a group of survivors out there that's a threat to its existence. It will keep holling up like a rat until it determines it can take us on or when we're gone'

Then Leo opened his mouth and said to the kids, "So that's what happened huh, and I'd love for you guys to talk to her but I've already gone way beyond the five mile limit of our walkie talkie, and you Haley, I heard from her that you two were actually pretty close with each other before this, but why didn't you follow her and instead decided to stick together with Eirik and the rest?"

Haley scratched her cheek with her finger and meekly replied, "Well, it was already a long while later when we had encountered each other again, and by then, we already had our own group, and I just couldn't leave Eirik and the others knowing that they would just get themselves killed without me"

"That's bull…" the only dark skinned kid among them said with a mix of snort and laughter.

"Boo~!"

With banter, the other kids started jeering in disagreement with what Haley had said while wearing carefree smiles on their faces, a good sign that their minds haven't been corrupted by the darkness that's slowly enveloping this world.

"Shut up, I almost made all the plans everytime we went out, including escape routes. I also organised our things at our hideout, and especially regarding diplomacy, without my intellect, you dumbass*es would have long been slaves, or worse, dead!" In annoyance, Haley couldn't help but snap at them, which just made it worse as the other kids just kept laughing as they booed her.

Leo didn't bother stopping them, even when they were starting to be loud, especially when he saw that they were just playing around with Haley, who didn't seem bothered by receiving their boos while maintaining that cold look on her face, which is just amazing in Leo's eyes.

After all, it's pretty rare to meet someone who could actually maintain a single expression on their faces, and he must admit that he would have truly snapped by now if he was the one getting booed at, especially if it's regarding things that you had contributed to the group.

Then Leo suddenly stood up from his seat, startling the kids into attention.

Leo smiled at them and said with a teasing smile on his face, "What are you kids still sitting dazed there for? Are you guys not coming?"

All of their eyes widened, and then they looked at each other and saw the surprise and happiness in their eyes!

Then their attention simultaneously turned back to Leo as they answered at the same time, "Of course, we want to come!"

All of them hastily stood up with their things and hurriedly followed Leo down the staircase with excited steps like kids going on a holiday.

"If I didn't happen to bump into you guys today, would have your group decide to hole up inside this building?" asked Leo while walking down the stairs.

Walking behind Leo, Eirik answered, "Yes, it was the most suitable hideout for us because its located at the far corner of the street, and also looked the safest building among the others we saw, but thankfully, we didn't need to anymore"

Leo smiled and said, "Well, if you guys still have the same enthusiasm like before meeting me, then you're going to live really well following me"

Soon after, the group reached the ground floor and left the place, with the group of teenagers carefully following behind him, Leo led them somewhere with a purpose.

On the other hand, the familiar silhouette of a large aircraft coming from the East was slowly making its way towards the island community, carrying soldiers with serious looks on their faces as they made one final check on their equipment before their initial descent on the island.

And hanging at the back is the imposing figure of the Scorpion Battle Bank that was brought all the way from Manchester City!