[b](Jotunn Draugr/Pirouette)[/b]


[b]May 2nd, 9:31 pm, Downtown New Athens[/b]

    The sun had set behind the nearby mountain range, and the sky was growing darker by the minute. On the rooftop of 'Jake's Model Ship Emporium', a black-clad Xi Xiu crouched, rifle in hand, waiting for a sign. Weeks of preparation had gone into this operation. From smuggling unmarked weapons into the city, to tapping into police records, to the countless stakeouts. Gunrat couldn't wait for the hunt to finally be over. She could nearly taste it.
    
        "Zhang", she whispered to her earpiece, "any sign of it yet?"
        
        "I've got my eyes on every camera within three blocks of your location, ma'am, still nothing."
        
        "Hmmm, where are you", Xiu pondered. "Come out, come out, you filthy rodent."
        
        Moments passed, and Xiu was beginning to doubt her informant's information. The Ghoul was supposed to be heading this way. Every night there was another attack, and the creature was moving in a steady line westward. Could something have spooked it? Perhaps it was lead in a different direction, for one reason or another.
        
        "Ma'am!", Gunrat's earpiece chirped. "I see it!"
        
        "Where?"
        
        "The morgue at West and Pender", Zhang replied, "just behind the superstore."
        
        "How fitting", she spat, rising to her feet and breaking into a full sprint along the rooftop.
        
        
   [b]Two blocks away......[/b]

        [i]"♫ One bod, two bod, three bod, four! ♫"[/i] A rather soft, cheery voice echoed in a darkened room, lit only by the glowing full moonlight creeping in through the small upper windows of the small tiled morgue. The moonlight illuminated the blue-haired singer as she pranced around the room, weaving in between the cold lifeless bodies all laid out on metal tables in the center of the room.
        
        [i]"♫ Five bod, six bod, seven bod, more! ♫"[/i] The blue-haired singer continued but her prancing finally stopped as she hovered a sloppliy placed corpse. The singer's eyes appeared to twinkle in the moonlight as she licked her lips in anticpation for what was about to come... and then it did.
        
        The blue-haired singer reached around to draw a dirty looking scalpel and waved it just over the corpse as if teasing it with what was about to come. Then she harshly jabbed the scalpel into the eye of the corpse, twisting and digging causing stagnat fluids to slowly drip out. Once she was pleased with her work, she excitedly leapt to the next body to perform the exact same procedure and so on as she continued for each of her corpses, 7 in total.
        
        Finished she discarded the scalpel and skipped over towards the corpse where she had begun. She reached down to pick up her second tool, a hammer, and inspected it carefully as if this would have more precision than her scalpel. The hammer apparently passed her test and raised it up, waving it in the air like it was trophy. Then without any second thought she bent down to place her head on the metal operating table and began bashing the side of her skull with her own hammer. Bits of her brain exploded out as her superstrength wrecked her head but after after a few hits she stopped, apparently pleased.
        
        She lifted her broken skull but remarkably, it was rapidly putting itself back together. Sections of her brain were replaced by a sudden resurgance of new biomaterial before her head was back to normal.
        
        Once she recovered, she reached around and rubbed the side of her head to inspect that everything was right where she wanted it. Satisfied, she returned to the operation at hand. She gathered up all the little bits of her brain and delicately placed a piece into each of the corpes' eyes. It took only a minute for each corpse to register the foreign anomality and they suddenly sprang to life with pained, gasping moans. The dead had risen and they were ready for their newfound lives. 
        
        "Very good everyone!" Margaret, the blue haired singer, cheered as the zombies staggered to their feet. They fell in line behind her and she marched out of the morgue and into the streets. Those few that were still outside at this hour quickly deduced the situation and fled, but they were small fries in comparison to what Margaret was expecting. "Positions everyone! Chop! Chop!" She clapped her hands and the zombies shuffled from sight into dumpsters, sewers, or even under cars. Then she waited, even smiling for the street camera, knowing full well what was coming.

Still catching her breath, Gunrat rested her eye at the end of her rifle's scope.

"[i]Mark[/i]", she mumbled to herself.

[b]BANG![/b]

	One of the newly awoken shamblers tumbled to the ground, a sizable hole now present in its head. Xiu had to pause for a moment, and sneer at the scene unfolding before her. It was one thing to kill a man. It was another to have to re-kill a not-so-recently deceased corpse. And this creature, this "Ghoul", was magnitudes of foulness above the rest of them.

	And there she was, swaying back and forth like a drunken lunatic, beneath a yellow street light. Xiu fiddled with her rifle's bolt, ejecting the old cartridge. Keeping one eye on her target, she rummaged through one of her ammo pouches for another bullet. Once in hand, she slid it into the chamber.

[b][i]RAT-TAT-CLICK[/i][/b]

	Xiu was good to go. This thing had caused her enough strife over the past few months. It was time for this chapter to end. Taking a deep breath in, she lined up her target.

"Steady", she mumbled, "aaaaaaaand..... [i]mark[/i]."