No Chance

[ViolentMedic]

((Russell "Fitz" Fitzroy continued from The Disappearance of an Internet Angel.))

Fitz had stormed off all the way out of the research station and into the forest before he started to slow down. His irritable footsteps starting to wander, become more aimless.

Eventually he stopped. He looked down at the rifle in his hands. Still loaded from earlier. He looked around.

There was a row of snowmen nearby. Three of them completed, while the fourth had been abandoned. Fitz looked at them, then down at his rifle, before he put his bag down and flattened himself out in the snow, unfolding the bipod and setting up the rifle properly before he ducked his head to be able to peer through the scope.

The snowman was in his sights. The second one, between two whole brothers.

His finger hovered over the trigger.

He didn’t fire. Just stared for a while, before lifting his head a little to stare at it over the scope instead.

“Just a snowman,” he said, before flattening himself out again. “Just a snowman.”

He inhaled. Then he closed his eye on instinct, almost pulling the trigger before he grimaced and opened them again.

“It’s just a snowman,” he hissed under his breath.

An eagle alighted on a tree branch not far from it. Fitz lowered the gun immediately.

“You’re in range, you know,” he muttered at the eagle, despite its distance. “You couldn’t move behind me?” The eagle seemed to reply with a noise like a squeaky wheel on a shopping cart. “...Okay, you’ve made your point. It’s your house.”

He got up, folding the bipod away again. Bag back over his shoulder. The strap had started digging into his shoulder from the weight of the goods inside of it, more noticeable after the temporary relief of putting it down.

He started walking again, his footsteps picking up speed as he continued walking. Occasional bird calls - squeaky, high-pitched, nothing like the majestic cry of the films – followed him.

Until they didn’t. As he walked on, the forest became quiet. Peaceful.

Dread dropped on him from the trees above.

[Ruggahissy]

A shape dropped down from above landing on Fitz. They nearly went down together, but she wrapped her body around him from behind and he stayed standing, possibly due to her small stature relative to his.

"DIE, YOU TALL MOTHERFUCKER" she screeched, cutting through the crisp air. She pulled the strap of her issued bag taught and then pulled it against his neck as she hung on.

((DREAD continued from It's Not Like I Like You))

She had ran out of the research station trying to will herself to breathe again, hoping she could force her lungs to expand. Eventually she collapsed in the snow on her hands and knees. Her tears felt frozen on her cheeks and clung stubbornly to her lashes like icicles.

Until yesterday it hadn't knocked on her front door, until she found that body in the kitchen. That had broken the murder seal and now it was everywhere. Mildred ran off into the woods because she wanted to be alone. She was a feral animal anyway that didn't belong with the indoors pets and never did.

Come the morning was the announcement that revealed to her the only path she could take. She couldn't kill the actual responsible parties that landed them in hell, so she could only do the next best thing.

The chance came later in the day. She saw him from a distance fiddling with the gun. A gun was tough to go up against with only a Sesame Street reject in her possession, but she wasn't a punk bitch. She'd fight a guy holding a rocket launcher with all five feet she had. Mildred used the first aid scissors to cut through the strap of her bag and left the bag nearby on the ground.

As he started walking towards the trees, she wrapped the strap around her hand, took a running start and used her parkour to bound up a tree. Mildred waited until he was just below before dropping down.

Mildred pulled the strap against his neck from her position on his back, hanging on to his torso with her legs.

"You're DEAD, flagpole. You’re so thin and white tha wolves are gonna think you're floss instead of meat," she pushed out between pants and grunts while she yanked the strap against him.

[ViolentMedic]

A weight clung to him, followed by a strap around his neck.

Fitz spun around, trying to shake the assailant off. The arms were tight. The strap was tight. Fitz’s breaths would have been quicker if he could get them out at all.

He couldn’t see them. Couldn’t aim. The gun was too long to have a hope of him aiming it so close behind him, or to shoot the legs wrapping around his torso.

The gun jerked upwards, finger seizing on the trigger. He fired into the air. It didn’t do anything. There weren’t even birds to chase away.

He couldn’t breathe. He dropped the rifle.

His foot collided with it as he tried to shake his assailant off, knocking it a few feet away as his hands clawed desperately at his throat. Fingers striving to find some purchase underneath the strap, or pull the hands off, to do something--

“Hrrrrhh--” he wheezed, stumbling about wildly as the assailant clung on.

[Ruggahissy]

"Go down, bitch!" she hissed and pulled with as much strength as was contained within her stocky arms.

The crack of the gun startled her and muffled the already silent woods. The gun dropped to the side as Fitz flailed and clawed at her. She lost a little bit of her grip on the strap, but still held on, legs locked onto him.

"Motherfuckers hafta die" she grunted, angry tears welling up in her eyes.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz felt the strap loosen and inhaled sharply, gasping for air, before he half-ran, half-fell backwards and slammed the assailant against the nearest tree.

The grip loosened further. Enough that he could wheeze out a few words.

“Mildred? Get--”

He slammed his back against the tree again.

“--off! Tully—hrgh! Said I gotta--”

Voice rasping, choking in between words. He slammed her against the tree once more.

“--talk t’you!”

[Ruggahissy]

He said her name, which shook her a little, but not as much as being slammed against a Mcfucking tree.

The wind knocked was knocked out of Mildred and she gasped now, too. Her grip loosened, but she refused let go. Her lungs would allow her to draw only the shallowest breath, but she hauled backwards anyway, pulling the strap against Fitz's throat.

He bashed her again, harder this time. Mildred's head cracked against the bark, and stars popped in her vision. She heard him say Tully's name.

Her legs came loose a bit and he was able to shake her off. Mildred fell backwards and landed with her back in the snow and her legs still partially around Fitz, like he was a big tree she'd fallen off. Her two braided pigtails lay haphazardly on her jacket with stray hairs poking out.

"The fuck you wanna talk about? You killed him. I heard it. He's gone now 'cause of you. He was the -- the only one who was like me. We were th- the same. An' he wa- is m- my friend," she said, pupils dilating, voice shaking.

"He was the leader. Ain't got no one else," she said, looking up, hiccuping around tears and sniffling.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz scrambled back when she tumbled off him, holding his throat and breathing hard. His feet carried him away from both Mildred and his gun, until he stopped. Eyes flickering briefly back over the gun before focusing squarely on Mildred.

“I--”

He looked at her. Then looked down. He was still breathing hard. It was hard to speak. Even harder to think.

“I did--”

He shoved out a hand as she moved.

“No, wait! WAIT!”

She stopped.

“I didn’t mean-- I don’t think I meant... Tully said… said to tell you what happened before...” Fitz pointed upwards, still bent over, still looking down, still trying to drag air through his windpipe. “Just let me… what he told me to say.”

She didn’t speak. She just sniffled. So Fitz kept talking, still wheezing for breath in between sentences, both the strangling and the exertion of getting Mildred off him having worn him down.

“Neither of us… started it. It was Alex. Alex, he… he took my gun. Shot Tenshi. Smoke everywhere… Tully got… he fought with Alex… he was laughing. Howling. It was all… so loud...”

One hand touched his jacket where the choker, where the teeth, were.

“I… I had the gun back. There was glass, teeth everywhere... there was just so much happening, and I didn’t… I didn’t aim, I just fired, I just wanted the fight to stop. It did. But it didn’t stop Alex, he… Cedar… he...”

His voice shook. He stopped, shook his head. He straightened up finally. Both hands out towards Mildred. He took a step towards her, but just the one.

“I… I should’ve aimed... But it… it was Alex. Tully thought so. Told me to stop him. ...Didn’t blame me. Said it would have happened, said he was having too much fun… but it’s not… wasn’t… it wasn’t him, wasn’t me. It’s thanks to Alex… that we both got no-one left.”

[Ruggahissy]

He put space between them and Mildred sat up, propped up on her elbows. As soon as he said he did kill Tully, she jerked forward, but stopped when he held out a hand and said to wait.

"'Kay," she said when he asked to be able to explain, then coughed violently.

He said Alex started it and shot Tenshi. Tully got in the middle, howling and stuff, to go after Alex. He sniped Tully trying to stop the fight.

"Thanks for -- for letting him go havin' fun," she said shakily. "I... I'm not smart, okay? Maybe you're lyin' and maybe not. I'm too dumb to, like, figure out complicated stuff. Maybe s' not your fault. Maybe s' not Alex's neither, really, in the bigger picture. But... this is the only way I know how to solve stuff," she said, getting quieter.

She hiccuped and wiped her face on her sleeve.

"I get it, I do. Maybe I'm even dumber than I thought 'cause I kindda believe you. I dunno... You're the one in front of me, so you're the one I'm goin' for."

She made up her mind.

Her breath came out in misty gusts in front of her as Fitz and her locked eyes. She broke the contact to look to the side where his gun lay, nestled in the snow. Then she looked at him and nodded ever so slightly and grinned her crooked smile in between her tears.

"Race ya."

Mildred scrambled, lunging for the weapon, but not fully extending her fingers as far as she knew they could go.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz made to speak, but whatever he was going to say caught in his throat.

He looked at the gun a moment after she did, though he looked back at her a lot faster. There was a minuscule shake of his head. Then he shook it again, bigger, eyes widening as he lifted his hands slightly, mouth starting to form the word ‘wait’ once more--

She lunged. So did he, a moment behind. He stumbled in the process, yet his hands found the gun first.

He didn’t even get up. He just rolled away and onto his back, and leaned up enough to point the gun. But he jerked his head away and shut his eyes as he fired it. The butt of the gun slamming back from the recoil into his chest was now a familiar feeling.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t looked. At that range, he couldn’t miss.

[Ruggahissy]

Mildred barely turned to face Fitz before being punched right in the chest, and falling backwards like a rag doll.

She stared up at the gray sky. The cold from the ground leached the warmth from her as pain expanded its grip in her torso. The sensations met in the middle, and she locked up. It hurt so much and froze so cold that she couldn't talk.

Mildred wanted to lie and tell Fitz that she didn't reach the gun first because she was so small compared to him, and that's why he won the death race. In her head, she was gonna tell him that Tully used to tease her for her height, saying if she was gonna blow a guy she'd have to go UP on him.

She always laughed.

But all that came out when she opened her mouth was a choking sound followed by

"I'm... short."

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz looked at Mildred. Breath ragged from everything, the fight, the explanation, that little rush for the gun. He looked at the jagged, bloody hole that he’d put in her. He put one hand down on the ground and shuffled over to her, skirt dragging in the snow until it was soaking in the blood leaking from her chest.

“...Yeah. You are.”

Then he shut his eyes and flopped onto his back next to her. The one hand still gripping the gun kept it close to his chest, barrel pointing past his head into the forest.

“Made up for it good, though. Jumping from the trees with the bag strap... You say you’re not smart, but...”

His voice was steady as it could be while breathing so hard. But the gun was shaking uncontrollably in his grip.

“You should have won.”

[Ruggahissy]

The cold that was stealing the blood from her was numbing the pain now. It was still hard to talk, but she could maybe say a little more before it was time.

"You're fuckin' adorable," she rasped affectionately. "I didn’t win. 'Shouldda' don’t matter."

"Dying speech time," she said, then coughed. Her head lolled and she looked over at Fitz beside her. She wasn’t gonna waste time on rehashing things, and she wasn't as good with words as her friends.

"Alex, ya know," she said, nodding off above her. He knew what to do about that.

"D-don’t feel bad," she whispered. "It was fun." Tears started to trail down the sides of her face.

The anxiety and worry of the situation, panicking about finding her friends were gone. She turned to look at him.

"And d-didn't matter anyway. There — There ain't no place for people like Tull an me in this world, out there. The world don’t want punks. They want people who'll do steps and follow rules. It's a world f-for domesticated animals and we’re w— wild. Wolves."

"Awooo," she howled weakly. Her breath came out in gentle puffs of mist.

"I don't mind, Fitz. 'Cause if it’s here or out there, both, I ain't ever had no chance."

Above her, Mildred saw the light bounce off a camera perched in a tree above them, watching the scene play out. Her numb fingers fumbled in the snow and found a rock. With the last of her strength, she chucked it upward where it connected with the device. The rock smacked the glossy surface of the glass, leaving a crack down the side.

Mildred took a deep, satisfied breath and closed her eyes.

"See ya around, beanpole," she said with a smirk.

[MILDRED PLATT: WASTED]

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz opened his eyes to stare upwards initially, then turned his head to the side to watch Mildred as she coughed and hacked her way through her last words.

He didn’t try to interrupt. A brief nod when she brought up Alex. But the rest… he just listened, mouth drawn tight.

When she hurled the rock, Fitz did jerk back slightly and stared upwards. But no response came. The camera only watched, oblivious to the crack in its visage. Soon after she was gone, free of the game and any punishment they could have given her for it.

“...See you around, shorty,” he said, just a little after she’d breathed her last. His eyes remained on the crack in the camera for a long time. As he stared at it, one hand came up to clasp the explosive collar in his fingers.

When he was done, he dragged himself to a sitting position. Not far away was the bag that Mildred had tried to choke him out with. Slowly, he crawled over and unzipped the supplies. The usual items were inside, but there was one item that stood out.

Fitz reached in and pulled out the squirrel hand puppet, dressed up in a red waistcoat and monocle.

The absurdity of it made Fitz laugh. A soft, bubbly chuckle that didn’t stop. It kept going, the only sound in their little portion of the forest. Somewhere along the way, tears and snot started dribbling down his face, and the laughs became sobs.

Left to sit alone for the first time in three days, with no Cedar or Tenshi to guard, no bleeding girls on cots, no-one to shout at him for being callous, no Tully, no Alex, no Mildred… only the body of what had been Mildred, and her little squirrel puppet…

Fitz curled up around the puppet until he was just a ball on the ground, and he cried.

((Russell ‘Fitz’ Fitzroy continued in Squirrel Puppet Method.))