Survival Of The Fittest

((Owen Rothschild continued from Fountain of Youth))

Owen wandered into the residential district, carrying three bags as well as his sword. It didn't take him long after wandering in to decided that two bags was really all he wanted to carry. He looked around the street and searched for an acceptable house to hole up in and look through the second duffel he'd acquired. If there was anything useful he could move it into his own bag and then just leave the rest somewhere.

He eventually narrowed his choices down to four particular houses and numbered them in his head. He dropped his things and started to rifle through his own backpack until he happened across his dice set. He plucked a pyramid shaped die from the container and stooped low, rolling it around in his hand before casting it.

3 was what the die read. Owen picked it back up, dropped back into the container, and returned it to his bag. Then he picked up his belongings and started toward the house he had labeled as "3".

The way he had come into the residential area put him closer to the house's back door. He wasn't sure how other people would think, but Owen reasoned that the back door was the safest option. After all, in Super Mario World, taking the back door lets you get right to the last boss and skip all the bullshit. Granted back door access is a bit tricky and a lot of players never see the back door, but for those that made it, the satisfaction of reaching it was almost as good as beating the game itself.

The handle turned and the door opened easily.

"Coming in...not looking for trouble..." the small boy called out to any potential inhabitants, hoping that he hadn't just walked into something bad.

((Sorry guys, but I need to save Aileen))

"Aaron I have a rendevous to meet. I can't linger for too long."

Was she leaving already?

But Aaron seemed so... determined that they would find her. And he had so much faith in her, apparently.

In which case, should they prevent her from leaving? Was it a good idea? What if she ran into yet another psycho, and... no. No more death. No more killing. She was sick of this. Someone had to live.

Sure, Bounce had been giving her the stink eye this entire time, but it didn't mean that... well, she didn't deserve to die, didn't she? People annoyed Aileen, of course, but never would she wish death on them. Bounce was an example of this. Plus, as noted, Aaron really wanted to find her, and it would be a shame to lose her so quickly.

Oh god, what should they do? She was going to disappear again, and have god-knows what happen to her. They couldn't let her go like this!

And that's when Aileen spoke up.

"Who are you looking for? I mean, we could help you-"

Noises. Outside. Uh oh.

That meant trouble, obviously.

Aaron, as usual, took charge. He obviously had noticed, and was asking who was out there and that they weren't going to attack. And that's when Aileen decided what she needed to do. She went over to her daypack on the ground, and took out the hammer she had placed in there previously.

"Guys, I'm going to investigate", she whispered, looking around.

And she padded towards the nearest exit, hammer in hand. Her heart was racing as she quietly stepped along, looking around the house. Who was out there? Why? She thought she heard a gentle creaking noise from above her, but she had no idea where it was coming from.

And suddenly, the back door opened, and Aileen spun around, raising her hammer in defense.

Some guy had wandered in inelegantly, and shouted out that he wasn't looking for trouble. She had absolutely no clue who he was, but he had just... wandered in. No rhyme or reason, just wandered in. She raised an eyebrow, and took a deep breath.

"Okay, who the hell are you, and why the fuck are you here?" she asked. "Was it you making those noises?"

God, it was like they were all hiding out some place. They just popped out of the woodwork like little termites, and asked what was going on. She had no clue why it had to be them, though. Did they attract all sorts of strange people or something?

((Apologies, guys. Just staying active while I've got access to a working computer.))

"No, wait!"

...Crap. There's no way they didn't hear her just then. No way in hell. He told her to be quiet, hadn't he? It seemed a pretty simple req-

"Hello? Is someone out there? We're not going to attack. We're trying to get off this island."

Yup. They'd heard.

The voice was distinct from the idiot's, and he'd heard a girl's voice before that, so the group in the house was at least three strong. He shifted the sword out in front of himself, holding it upright, tip in the ground. Once again, he put his finger to his lips for Mary-Ann, the stern look in his eyes adding emphasis to the silent instruction. Looking back to the blade, he pivoted it on its axis, adjusting the angle so he could see the doorway reflected in the steel. The image was fuzzy, to be sure, but it was good enough. Someone was approaching the door. Male, average height, brown hair, scrawny build. Not terribly intimidating if you factored out the handgun. Unfortunately, it couldn't be factored out. It was a goddamn handgun. R.J. figured the odds were he was a better shot, but he couldn't leave that to chance. Moreover, he didn't want it to come to that. He wouldn't let it. He'd done more than enough of that already.

He reached into the bag, retrieving the notepad and pencil, laying the sword back down, as it was only an encumbrance. More noise came from inside the house as he started to write. A female voice. Not the first one. This one was about an octave higher and considerably more stressed. Said something along the lines of "Who the hell are you," though he didn't catch the whole thing. That pushed the group to four people, not counting whoever the girl was talking to. Could be him and Mary-Ann, could be a third party. This was entirely too many variables for his liking. Poor communication could result in this ending very badly, and unfortunately, communication wasn't R.J.'s strong point at the moment.

His message completed, he ripped the page out of the notebook, crumpling it into a nice, round ball, then tossed it in through the broken window just overhead at his back, leaving it to land at the feet of its intended recipient. Motioning for Mary-Ann to follow, he grabbed their belongings and headed around the corner toward the side of the house. It wouldn't do them well to sit idle after giving away their location.

((Really sorry about my inattentiveness, everyone. Whoops.))

Aaron didn't answer her question. She guessed that Tom didn't say anything, that he could spend his time better outlining the plan in whatever way he needed to.

Then everyone started doing their own thing pretty much at once. For starters, Richard did his thing, his very inappropriate and childish thing which was less warranted in this particular circumstance than any other. Some of the others, like Aaron, just ignored him. Aileen made a face, and Lily thought she did, too. What in the hell was Richard thinking?

Then Bounce spoke up again, telling the boy that Lily had followed for days, who was looking for her, that she had to leave. That got Aaron's attention. He scrambled to get her to stick with them for just a little while longer when another boy's voice piped up from parts unseen.

Make that two boys.

It seemed like privacy was at a commodity on the island. Less so than before, though. Kind of a scary thought. There couldn't have been more than three dozen locations marked on her map and yet there were over two hundred people competing. It would be smart to expect unexpected company. This island wasn't big enough for all of them.

She kept silent throughout the exchange until Ailleen decided to blow off some steam right into the newcomers' faces. "Hey!" She walked over to her and frowned. "That was uncalled for!"

She took over Aileen's pseudoduty of calling out for hidden enemies. "Sorry about that! Who is it? If you're friendly, we mean no harm!" They could always use more helping hands.

Silence. She'd been too loud. Damn it. R.J's stern eyes only deepened the guilt that was at this point making its rounds through her bloodstream- but there was no time for that right now. He knelt down and rifled through one of the bags, producing Mary Ann's notebook- she felt a little awkward just standing there, so she decided to try to look in the window- until she heard other voices. Voices and footsteps- there were a LOT more people than she had expected to find; in fact, more than the combined total of other people she'd encountered so far on the island. R.J's brow furrowed even deeper- he hadn't expected it either. Of course he hadn't- it was just hard to remember after he'd taken and held the lead so confidently.

R.J. crumpled up the piece of paper he'd been working on and tossed it into the house, immediately rushing around the corner to wait at the side of the house. For an answer? Mary Ann had no idea. She followed him around to the house, just barely failing to escape deja vu from the previous morning.

"What was-" No. She stopped herself before she finished, knowing how futile and insensitive it would be to ask a question right now- but that didn't stop her from cursing herself for not paying attention to the note in the first place. She would just have to trust him on this one.

"What the hell is wrong with you?".

He just shrugged, the joke had obviously fallen flat, as they sometimes did, though he was sure he'd detected the faintest trace of a smile on bounce's face, and there was definitely one on Aaron's. People really needed to lighten up a bit. He could understand if they were a bit down about the whole dying thing, a lot of people would be, but getting all moody about it wasn't going to help anyone.

Sure no-one seemed to truly appreciate his humour, but damn it, someone had to keep the laughs flowing. It was kind of lucky Tom was there to back him up anyway, even if he had been getting kind of grumpy with Aaron's leadershiphood.

Come to think of it, where was the funny guy? Upstairs probably, finding props for his next joke. Actually, if there was anything interesting up there then he couldn't just leave Tom to the spoils, he'd have to have a share in whatever plans the guy was concocting.

Since he'd obviously interrupted Bounce mid sentence (unintentionally!) he just gave the group a slight wave and let her continue, saying she couldn't tarry (an obvious reason not to stop for his humour), before striding over and up the stairs. He took the carpeted steps two at a time before he reached the top of the flight, snuck along the hallway and took a quick look round an open door into the master bedroom. It was furnished still with a comfortable looking bed in the middle, though sparsely filled otherwise. There was also no-one in there.

Aaaand empty. Next!

Bounce was starting to get a bit antsy. Too many people were showing up, too many disruptions. She didn't know them and, in Aaron's group or not, that meant she didn't trust them. Bounce didn't like people, or rather, she wasn't that great at handling them. Especially when Aaron had apparently been making her a focal part of a plan she didn't even know about.

It was getting late... Alice would be expecting her soon. Dammit, this really wasn't working out.

Particularly not when people were outside. Jesus.

Let Aaron play leader, Bounce wasn't going to take charge or criticise him. She wasn't an authority, probably no more than Aaron himself was... but he obviously was the leader here (somehow). It wouldn't be such a great idea to undermine him.

Right. Because I'm infallible.

Absolute and complete chaos. Total insane anarchy. Aaron's question went without a vocal response. Instead, a piece of paper flew through the window, landing at his feet. Someone shouted from the back door. Aileen was running off outside. Lily was sticking with her. Richard wandered upstairs. Only Bounce was showing any semblance of common sense. Nothing surprising there; she was, after all, the most competent person in the group save Aaron himself. Still, he had expected, well, a little bit more of the others.

At least Aileen and Lily had gone a good way towards proving the people outside harmless. Since no screams or gunshots were echoing down the streets, Aaron figured he and Bounce were probably safe to check things out. It was certainly better than waiting for backdoor-man to come in and start shooting, or whatever he planned to do.

Still, Aaron was in a pretty ugly mood. He picked up the piece of paper. A note. Lovely. It read, "If you're not going to attack, drop the gun. Call it a sign of good faith." Yeah, that wasn't in the least bit suspicious. They wanted him to disarm himself. That probably meant he was the only thing stopping them from opening up on Aileen and Lily. Everything was way, way too complicated to plan well. Aaron just wanted to get away from this mess, to bring everyone useful along and leave the rest to sort out their issues on their own.

Still, he had responsibilities.

"Richard, stay close. We don't know who could be up there."

First priority was controlling variables and keeping the situation manageable. That meant reeling Richard in, and, failing that, learning to what extent he would rebel.

"You, at the back door. Come around to the front, outside where we can see you."

Next, keep risk down. Keep the guy busy, disrupt any ambush.

"Lily, Aileen, wait there. Whoever that is outside, I'm not dropping my weapon, but I'll keep it down if you do the same. Violence isn't on my agenda. I'm coming out."

Leaving no time for protests, Aaron stepped outside, gun held at his side, ready to snap it up if it came to that. He nodded towards Bounce, hoping she would follow along. Better to have someone reliable at his back. Better to cut through the morass of confusion and solve the problems here, reassemble his group, and get moving. His plan would work better if it was enacted away from the residential district anyways. It would be less likely that the terrorists would expect it in the middle of the wilderness. He'd just need some supplies, maybe some wire stripped from the walls of a house. It would be safe, given that the power had been cut.

Time for that later.

Outside, he saw the newcomers. People he'd seen but never talked to, names unknown. Brilliant. Hell, they could be some of the island's top killers, and he would never know. All he could be sure of was that they were not Lombardi (who had a cool accent, and was thus notable), Ishida (who was short and had a twin), or any of the killers he'd personally known. That still left a lot of potential for danger.

"Look, we don't want anything nasty to happen here. We're just trying to make our way out of this mess."

More reassurances. Repetition was a good tactic. Say something enough, and anyone would at least consider it.

Aaron glanced around. He was getting very nervous and altogether too cramped. It would be time to move soon. Very soon.

David could hear the sounds coming from downstairs, indistinct voices and movement around the house. What is going on here? His grip on the gun tightened. Someone was coming upstairs. Shit. Shit shit Shit. He tried to calm himself. What was he doing? He'd done this before, he could do it again. He did it to protect someone else. Why did he deserve to die. That couldn't be what god wanted for him. Not to die like this, amongst these devils and sinners.

He shut the trap door before the person could reach the top of stairs. He didn't want to be found. Not yet. Too many of them. No way out. He could probably get the one coming up the stairs, but what about his associates. It was a tight fit up the stairs. If he was smart, he could maybe get them all in a bottleneck. He looked down at the gun. No. Stupid. Six bullets before a reload. There could be more than that down there. That's assuming that he was completely accurate.

He scrabbled back from the trapdoor and trained the revolver on it. He tried to hold his breath, keeping his aim tight on that wooden door. Too many here. Just do what you have to. How easy it was to think like this. Suddenly the mindset of the desperate made sense to him. Living for yourself made it all such an easy way of thinking about it. He shook his head.

"I'm not living for me. God has a plan for me. I need to get out of here so I can do it." he murmured. He offered a silent prayer that his words went unheard.

Owen shook his head, a little freaked out and confused. He also started feeling bad about not joining his friend. He just wanted to get out of there.

"On second thought, I'm just gonna go. I have somewhere that I need to be. Maybe it's not too late."

Owen backed out again, tuning out all the voices around him, seeing only the fountain in his mind. He turned toward the town center and started to move more quickly. He tossed aside the bag the other boy forgot, without opening it to see what was inside and started to run as best as he could with his own gear. The only thing on his mind was getting back to Craig. Maybe he could reach him before he left and they could come up with a plan.

I'm coming Craig. Please still be there.

((Owen continued in Fountain of Youth))

((Sorry, Kami, but it's been 11 days.))

"Whoever that is outside, I'm not dropping my weapon..."

Then I'm not inclined to hear you out.

It was just as he told the kid. An act of good faith. If he wouldn't disarm, R.J. had no reason to trust him not to have violent intentions any farther than he could throw the bastard. He started to stand, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Nudging Mary-Ann, he nodded his head toward the road. They needed to get the fuck out of dodge, because they'd managed to wander their way into an absolute clusterfuck. He grabbed the sword with his off hand, the pistol in his left, just in case he needed to shoot at a moment's notice. There were no words for how much he didn't want to, but if Mary-Ann was in danger, he wouldn't even think of hesita-

"Look, we don't want anything nasty to happen here. We're just trying to make our way out of this mess."

Ohhhhh hell no.

They were spotted. Asshole with the gun was right on his six.

As was said, he wouldn't even think of hesitating.

R.J. leapt to attention, quickly positioning himself between Mary-Ann and This Fucking Guy, pointing the GP6 directly at his head. He gripped the khanda in a manner that suggested he could wield it. He couldn't, let alone one-handed, in his right hand, no less, but he wouldn't let This Fucking Guy know that. He already had about a head on him in terms of height, so playing up the intimidation factor and hoping to scare him into complacency wasn't an unreasonable tactic. He left a single word in the dirt between them, "STAY," then proceeded to back away slowly, gun trained on him the whole time, taking extra care to make sure Mary-Ann was safely behind him.

Once they were at a safe distance, the two broke into full sprint and didn't look back.

((R.J. Lowe and Mary-Ann Warren continued in It Knows Nothing of Whim. GMing approved.))

Lily quickly appeared right beside her, and soon reprimanded Aileen for her tactics, saying that it was "uncalled for". And so she talked to the boy herself, asking that if he was friendly, they meant no harm. Apparently, Lily was taking the "lost puppy out in the snow" tactic for dealing with him. Aaron, meanwhile, told them to stay where they were, and went directly outside.

Aileen looked back at the boy, who seemed... confused, to say the least. He just stood there. Shaking his head. Giving them an odd look, like they were aliens that had beamed down from Mars.

After a while, he spoke.

"On second thought, I'm just gonna go. I have somewhere that I need to be. Maybe it's not too late."

And suddenly, he ran in the other direction.

"Hey wait-" Aileen shouted as he went straight outside.


And soon everything was even more of a mess.


She chased after the guy who had ran out, opening the door to see two more people. Accomplices? Well, they were also backing off. A guy and a girl... who were they? The guy appeared to have some sort of weapon, and seemed scared of Aaron. For obvious reasons, since Aaron was holding a gun too. Slowly they stepped backwards, and suddenly... they ran.

Oh god, what was going on? What were they doing? Who were those people? Oh god, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. This place was far from secure. Once again, people had appeared out of nowhere, and disappeared just as quickly. It meant that if, let's say, that Kris person, came across this place, said person could easily enter the building and kill them all with a smile.

"Aaron... I really don't think this place is secure", Aileen mumbled. "Also, what the hell just happened-"

As she stepped out, she felt something odd on the ground beneath her feet. Aileen looked down, and saw the word "STAY" written in the dirt, slightly messed up by her foot, but pretty much intact.

"Stay"? Okay, either Aaron REALLY wants us to stay in the house, or someone else put that there, Aileen thought to herself, a frown forming on her face.

"Look. Maybe just a different house? There are tons of them here. Or just... I dunno..." Aileen looked up. "I think we each got a map. We should look at that, of course. And... maybe we could help find that girl's friends?"

A thought had popped into her head. Was she responsible for all the chaos that had occurred just a few seconds ago? After all, she was running around with a hammer asking people what the hell they were doing this entire time. But, Aileen tried her best to push that thought out of her head. Figure out if they are not an attacker to them first, then be polite. However, she could hear her mother now; "Now Aileen, be nice and make some friends!"

Oh god, Mom. She... she probably did find out what had happened to her. Was she watching now? Watching her daughter running around scaring people with a carpenter's hammer? This entire time, she had been wrapped up so completely in the whole classmates dying and escape thing that she completely forgot about her. It had just been the two of them since Dad passed away, and she had always mostly had a positive relationship with her mother... if Aileen died, that meant she... wouldn't be happy, to say the least.

And the thought appeared again, like it did around where they found Richard and Lily. What if those were good people? What if they were going to die soon? It wasn't a good idea to worry so much about people who you were either never going to see again or might kill you, though. Right?

Aileen looked back at where she saw the boy and girl run off, and as she stared, for a few seconds she had the look of not a cynical young woman, but a frightened little girl.

Maybe it was a good idea to just be a tad bit nicer to people? Even if they were potential psychos?

((POST ORDER IS DEAD, AND AARON IS THE NEW KING. LONG LIVE THE KING.))

Tom wasn't anywhere upstairs, which surprised him to no end. The last room had once been a children's bedroom, and he'd spun right in there ready to catch the guy off-guard. The man was inscrutable, he should have fucking known that. He'd probably slipped out behind him, the sneaky bastard.

Richard walked back out into the corridor. There'd been nothing interesting in any of the rooms, nothing fancy. And he was just about to leave the top floor in disappointment, descend the stairs in dejection, when he noticed a bit of string dangling not too far above his head. Right in front of him like some kind of lure. It was attached to the bottom of a trapdoor in the corridor, right next to where the stairs branched off.

I wonder...

If Tom Guthrie was the fisherman, then okay, he'd be the carp. He'd bite. He'd catch him. BUT HE WASN'T GOING TO TASTE VERY GOOD. He reached up to the drawstring, grasped the little plastic bobble sitting at it's end, and began to pull on it, the door slowly giving, revealing...

"Richard, stay close. We don't know who could be up there."

So Tom wasn't there? What a waste of time. He gave up on the drawstring even as the trapdoor opened out under it's own momentum. He didn't bother looking back as he took to the stairs again, a drumroll of creeks accompanying his descent.

Downstairs was movement, movement away from downstairs for the most part, and as he looked around in confustication he caught sight of Aaron just outside the door. He quickly followed, clearing the door he grabbed his mop, still safely propped against the door frame. He wasn't sure whether it was in quite the same position as it was before, or whether this was even the same door he'd left it at, but damn it now wasn't the time to think of such things. His commander needed him!

Outside, some people seemed to be well on their way to retreating, people who hadn't been there five minutes ago. Others regrouped around Aaron. But still not the man he'd been looking for.

"Huh..."

He approached, Aileen seemed to have finished saying whatever Aileen had been talking about. So he asked his question.

"Hey. Guys. Where's Tom?"



((btw, kind of did this post horrendously fast for a change, so if there's any glaring problems with it PM for edits. will leave this note here for 2 or 3 days.))

And the next thing she knew, they were gone.

A young-looking blonde guy with tanning skin suddenly decided that he didn't want to go to this house after all. He turned around and left the way he came, tossing some sort of bag away as he went. The boy with the scarf and the brown-haired girl, who looked like they were traveling together, didn't seem to take kindly to Aaron's refusal to drop his weapon.

She held her breath when the boy pointed his gun at Aaron. She was almost afraid to watch, but she couldn't take her eyes off him. He dug into the ground with his foot, then took a step back, then another, then another, until he was far, far away. She exhaled and peered forward to get a closer look at the message he left.

STAY

He didn't want anything to do with them, it seemed. But why wouldn't he say so? Why resort to gun-pointing and dirt-writing? It didn't make any sense.

Nobody else left outside but Aileen and Aaron. She tried to gauge Aaron's reaction. Was it just her, or was he hard to read sometimes?

Aileen's suggestion to read their maps brought a welcome break in the silence. "Here, I'll get mine," she said, rooting through her bag to find it. As she pulled it out and turned it the right way up, Richard walked out of the house, asking where Tom was. Lily stared at him, like he just made a bad off-color joke.

"...Tom's dead, Rich," she told him.

((Execute post tech: Epically late fail))

And just as soon as that, it was over. Whoever Aaron had heard and seen had taken off as quickly as they'd come, and in silence no less. Bounce had to stop herself from heaving a massive sigh of relief. Relying on Aaron had seemed like a gamble in the first instance, but it wasn't as if she could step up and take his role for herself. Even the thought of it caused a mild sense of panic. She might have had reservations about Aaron as a leader, but she had much worse about herself in the selfsame role.

Either way, she'd dawdled around too long and at this point was beginning to get seriously anxious about her rendevous with Victoria. Hopefully, Alice too, but given what had happened here, Bounce's hopes weren't high. Finding two 'friends' seemed a little much to hope for. In amongst the commotion finally down and the group getting reaquainted, Bounce approached Aaron.

"I need to make that meeting, Aaron. It's somebody I know I can rely on," Bounce shrugged. "I should know better than most that it's valuable to have that in... well. It's valuable to have that. Can you give me an idea of where you'll all be in a short while?"

((If these folks want to stay here, might be an idea to transition fairly soon. Perhaps start with a new thread so it's more fresh))