Survival Of The Fittest

Bryan snorted at Tori's compliment, a smile playing on his lips. He'd actually been called that before--by a fellow student at Neilson's--whilst delivering hefty kicks with his shin into a curved pad held at thigh-level. He had a killer shin kick. In any case...

...Queen?

The morning announcements were preceded by Queen's well-known hit "Another One Bites the Dust," which left him a little bewildered until Danya's voice finally kicked up as usual. It appeared that the lord and master of their fate was just as obnoxious and unfunny as ever, even going so far as to reference The Ring. Bryan hated that movie; the ending made no sense.

Harry Constantine was the name of the boy he and Tori had just been discussing, but it wasn't really all that important anymore. None of the other names of the deceased caught his attention, although he did take note of Mariavel's steadily increasing kill count. They couldn't trust her anymore. Actually they would be better off trusting no one, not even Seth, this late in the game.

There were new perma-dangerzones, but nowhere even close to the hotel, which was a pleasant change from the usual kick out the door he and Tori were usually subject to after the morning announcements. Instead they ended and Bryan felt like maybe lying down for a while...that is until he heard the nearby gunshots resonating down the halls. Someone was fighting. Again.

He looked over at Tori and grabbed the SPAS-12 from beside him. "Sit tight; we're not leaving," he grunted. It wasn't unlikely that they could just sit through this unfolding conflict and just wait for it to blow over. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to take a breather and let the other players thin eachother out for a while.

The announcements came on loud and clear as shots sounded somewhere in the hotel. She was scared as she pulled the blankets up to her shoulders, curling into a ball on her side. This was something she's done ever since she was a baby and she was upset at night. There was something about it that made her feel safe, like the blankets were her armor protecting her from the monsters under her bed. Only now, the mosters were surrounding her.. outside, at the beach, in the hotel, at the school, everywhere.  

It was a good thing Bryan had become used to having his gun at his side. He now sat beside her, within arms reach. She wanted to move over as to be right beside him, and rest her head on his shoulder, but this was hardly the time. Instead, she scooched a tad bit closer to him, trying to disguise it as "trying to get comfortable". He'd missed most of her advances thus far, so she was pretty sure he wouldn't catch onto this one.

"Do you think they'll settle down over there?"

"I doubt it," Bryan replied, getting up from his spot and shouldering the SPAS-12. He headed over to the linen cabinet across from the bathroom door, throwing it open quickly and reaching up onto a high shelf to grab a stack of extra bedsheets. He returned and threw them on the bed.

He said, "Help me tie these together," and began doing the same. This was just a precaution, but in the event they ended up in a really bad situation and needed to leave (although he'd told Tori they wouldn't), it would be a good idea to have an escape rope handy. Just in case.

((Both Felix and Rob are continued from To Awake and Avenge the Dead

Rob tailed Felix all the way to the hotel. He knew Felix had the Glock, so he didn't want to shout his name, in case it startled him and instinctively fired at  him.

As both boys approached the hotel, they could hear gunshots coming from inside.

Rob noticed Felix stop, and take one look at the front doors of the hotel. Now that Felix had stopped, Rob figured it would be a good time to make his presence known.

"Hey. Hey Felix! It's Rob...from school. I'm not playing man, I just want to talk to you."

Rob made sure his guns were in the bag, and that he was keeping his hands where Felix could see them. After all, both boys had killed on this island, and could deem each other a threat if anything was taken the wrong way.

~~~~~~~

Felix didn't know what was drawing him to the hotel, but once he got there and heard the gunshots, he stopped to think about a coming decision. He knew he had to get inside, but didn't want to go through the front door, possibly waltzing right into a crossfire. As he was thinking, he heard the voice behind him. He turned to see Rob Adams. Rob said he wasn't playing, but Felix remember hearing his name at least once on the announcements, but hell, a lot of people were killing in self defense, and from what he'd seen of Rob at school, he wasn't a bad guy.

"Alright, well talk then." Felix said flatly, lowering his Glock as a sign of peace.

~~~~~~~

"Dude, Matt Drew, these two girls and I are trying to figure out a way out of this place. My main shot was finding Dan Johnson, but that didn't work since he got killed. We're going to head to the school and try to figure things out from there. Care to join us?"

~~~~~~~

Felix thought about it. It was an okay idea. He didn't think the escape thing would work, but hell, it was better than nothing.

~~~~~~~

The sound of gunshots rang out again.

"Um, Felix, could we discuss this somewhere else? Standing outside in the open might not be the best idea right now. We should go in the back door, and duck out in a room. Wait until it seems like the coast is clear than break for the school."

~~~~~~~

Well, we could also walk away from the area, but what the hell, my feet are tired.

"Yeah sure."

~~~~~~~~

Both Felix and Rob made their way around the back of the hotel, and entered through the back door. They made their way down the hallway to the staircase near the lobby. They quickly made their way up to the second floor. The first door on the left was locked, but they struck luck with the second one. Closing the door tightly behind him, Rob turned back to Felix.

"So..uh...hows it been out here?"

Bryan knew Tori must have heard the footsteps down the hall. He licked his lips and got quietly to his feet as they got closer, his grip tightening on the handle of the shotgun. They stopped suddenly. He glanced at Tori. They began again, and he returned his attention to the door. The dampened sounds of feet clacking on the floor wove in and out of eachother, suggesting that there were two people walking together. Not that that presented a problem, really; Bryan was fairly confident he could take both of them out quickly if he maintained the element of surprise.

They stopped again, but Bryan kept his sights trained on the door, edging closer to take full advantage of the SPAS-12's explosive power. A door opened in the hall, and the footsteps continued in a different direction. Now the two strangers were in the room adjacent to him and Tori. Bryan remained silent, but turned his head towards his companion and shrugged.

Felix took some time to think about his time on the island and whether he really felt like sharing it. At this moment in time he chose to just answer in a generic form.

"Its been shitty of course. Unless you've gone insane, how can it be anything other than shitty?"

~~~~~~~

"Good point," Rob replied, "You remember Sarah Dao eh? Well she tried to kill Matt Drew and I. I ended up chasing her down, fighting with her and shooting her."

Shooting her...shooting her would be like 2 or 3 bullets. I emptied a whole clip into her

~~~~~~~

Felix didn't respond to Rob's story about Sarah. He just went over to the window and looked out at the area around the hotel.

"I don't get why so many of us don't have a problem killing people. Like we are taking someone's life in cold blood, and then we just walk away until we find someone else. I killed John, and didn't care. Ah who gives a damn, we're all going to die eventually right. You'll die, I'll die, your friend Matt will die." Felix was getting a twisted sort of smile on his face. "Who knows, tomorrow we could be walking along to the school when, BANG," Felix turned his Glock and fired a bullet into the wall above the beds, "It's over."

Tori had heard the foot steps in the hall as Bryan went to the door to investigate. He turned to her, giving her a shrug. She took that as 'I guess it's okay.' Tori continued fixing the sheets together like Bryan mentioned, and began to relax somewhat till that too was taken away from her as a gun shot echoed in the room. Letting out a quick yelp Tori looked around to see if she could figure out what just happened. A gun had gone off and went threw the wall.

But that means...

Moving quickly to the window, Tori looked out relieved that there was a fire escape on the outside. Running back to the bed and grabbing all she had come with, and then to the washroom to put her pants on quickly, she went back to the window and began to crawl her tiny figure to the outside, landing her feet on the step.

"Come on!" She whispered as she frantically waved Bryan over to her. "Let's go down." To her, it only seemed smart to go down and away from the hotel where they could find some shelter.

Bryan wheeled around at the sound of the gunshot, which made a small hole in the wall between theirs and the next room wreathed in flying splinters. Without any time to guess exactly where the gunman was standing (all he knew was that neither he nor Tori had been hit), he fired two shots at the wall in succession, pumping the handguard frantically after the first and aiming to the right quickly before the second to increase his odds of hitting something.

Tori was already halfway out the window. Maybe she'd already realized what a mug's game firing at someone on the other side of a wall was, but either way he grabbed his daypack and followed suit at her command.

"No, go up, go up!" he said urgently to Tori as he climbed through the window, extending an arm and turning her around to ascend the ladder behind them instead. He still wasn't ready to forsake the hotel, and climbing down and out into the open seemed like a bad idea anyway. As he climbed swiftly after her, Bryan couldn't help but notice she had a nice butt. It really wasn't the time or place to voice these thoughts though, was it?

"Holy shit!"

Two shots came ripping through the wall where Felix had just fired his Glock. The first one was above their heads, but the second spray came through, and found their mark. A few of the pellets managed to connect with Rob's shoulder. It would be nothing fatal, but burning pieces of metal never did feel excellent when they were embedded into your body.

"Damn it! Fuck!" Rob screamed as he placed his right hand on his left shoulder watching as blood streamed onto his hand. The pellets were concentrated so covering the wound wouldn't be a problem.

~~~~~~~~

Felix managed to dodge both shots, glancing over at Rob to see him covering his shoulder with his hand, which was slowly becoming a dark crimson color.

"You ok man?"

~~~~~~~~
"Yeah, I'm good. Its nothing major, just a flesh wound. Its bleeding pretty good though." Came Rob's response.

Whoo boy, if Matty could see this one, I could only imagine what that smart ass would say about it.

~~~~~~~~

"Get the bandages from your first aid kit, wrap around the wound, pressure it enough to try to stop the bleeding. I'm going to find out who the hell is firing on us."

Felix crawled along the floor of the hotel room making his way towards the balcony. Rising as he reached the glass door to the balcony he found the door was jammed. Spinning his Glock in his hand, Felix used the handle to break the glass. The first thing he noticed when he looked to his left was the door to the balcony to his left was wide open. Looking up Felix managed to see a pair of feet sliding onto the roof.

"Oh you think you can hide?" Felix muttered.

Felix climbed on to the railing of his balcony, and lept the small distance to the balcony of the next room. He quickly made his way up the fire escape, the whole time thinking about his attack plan. He was facing an enemy with a shotgun, while he was well stocked himself, a shotgun was a shotgun, and anything close range would result in a very dead Felix.

Tori ascended up the ladder as Bryan instructed with him following close behind. She reached the top, quickly pulling herself out the way so that he could do the same. The roof seemed somewhat sturdy as she ran across it to a near by vent shaft, ducking behind it. She could feel the sweat on her forehead, thinking how much more of this she would have to go through.

Where's Bryan?

Tori looked around the vent to see Bryan coming up the ladder onto the roof.

Thank god.

The building was old, and it wasn't hard to hear someone jumping around below them, also coming up to the roof. Tori tried to calm herself down as the realism that they might not make it out this time swept over her. If something were to happen to Bryan, what would she do? Tori looked around once more to see where he was but couldn't spot him.

Probably behind something else...

She knew she'd have to watch out for the other visitor coming up their way; there was no telling what else he was packing, or how many more there would be.

The first thing one Seth Mattlock wondered was how the hell he ended up back at the hotel. Then again, he didn't really give a shit. He had spent so many days wandering, tracking down Mariavel and the others, avoiding killers while hopelessly listening to the announcements, realizing that Mariavel had turned into a full fledged player, that he just didn't care. He was disheveled, bloodied, and worn out from the week of hell Danya and Wilson had put him through. The marks from the beating Walter gave him were mostly gone, but his nose was still obviously recovering from a break. His shirt was gone, revealing several deep claw wounds on his chest, and a large part of the shirt's cloth was wrapped around his head, covering his left eye. other parts of it were covering other parts of his body, along with real bandages. His right leg was the most notable other than his eye and chest, as he walked with a noticeable limp. His sunglasses were gone, and his face had a gaunt look to it as his uncovered eye seemed to dart around, seeing ambushes everywhere. He looked thinner, almost malnourished, and the Walther P38 hung loosely from his right hand. He had no idea where the thing that had worked him over like that had come from last night, but he had killed it after emptying half a clip into its head. All he knew was that it looked like "a big fuckin' cat" and it was dead now.

However, the vacant look in his visible eye turned alert as he noticed Bryan and Tori climbing onto the hotel roof, and someone he did not know climbing up after them. He couldn't see them all that well, but it looked like they had a gun. They were down to the wire, hell he had almost won already, so this person was undoubtedly hostile. He felt a rage come over him as he thought of this spectre threatening his friend and his friend's lover whom Seth himself did not know, and his mind was taken off finding Mariavel as he rushed to the hotel, throwing the door open so hard when he reached it that, if it had hit anyone, that person would be knocked out cold. Rushing into the lobby, he headed to the elevators on the other side, ignoring Rob, and pressed the button to open the elevator repeatedly. Neither worked.

Come on you piece of shit, COME ON! OPEN GOD DAMNIT! I have to get up there!

Frantic, he realized the terrorists had probably disabled the elevators, swore loudly, and kicked an elevator door. He didn't have time for these delays! He had to get up to the roof before that person, whom he still didn't know, caught up with Bryan and Tori. Spying the staircase, he headed for it as fast as his limp would allow him to, ignoring the pain and going over the corpse. He moved a bit weakly, and almost stumbled as he forced his weakened body to go up flight after flight of stairs, but he was making a quick pace to the roof. Checking the gun to make sure it was loaded (it was), he hoped he'd get there on time.
OOC: Done, but shitty. I know that. Sue me.

Bryan heard the dull clang of metal below on the deck that told him someone was pursuing them. He shot a glance back at Tori, who was making her way over to a row of ventilation shafts. That would do fine for her, but he was just about out of time to get behind something before the intruder arrived at the top of the ladder. Bryan ducked behind the nearest available cover, which was an AC unit. He wasted no time in dropping his bag to the floor and loading two additional rounds from the side pocket into the underbelly of the SPAS-12.

He was in a right bad mood now that his well-earned break had been interrupted. Not only that, interrupted by someone packing a gun. Maybe two people packing guns. It was true that this was becoming common now that the ranks were thinning out, but all the same it made the situation much more delicate. Their previous encounter with Henry or whatever had almost proved fatal. What really puzzled him though was exactly what tipped the asshole off to their whereabouts in the adjacent room. Bryan had been sure not to make any noise, and he hadn't heard a peep out of Tori.

To matters at hand. He listened intently over the racing beat of his heart in order to hear the first crunch of feet on gravel. Also he hoped air conditioners didn't blow up when you shot them.

Felix paused as he neared the top of the fire escape. He peaked over to find  that the person or people he was chasing had chose to hide rather than stand and fight.

Fuck. They'll get a drop on me if I just pop up and start randomly looking around. Best bet is they are hiding behind the AC unit. Which would make my best bet, to break for the ventilation duct over there.

Felix replaced the lost bullet in his Glock, "37 bullets left" he thought. Making sure everything was good to go, he got into a crouched position, ready to explode forward and run for the cover. His bag was still in the room with Rob, so that wouldn't be a problem.

Just do it.

Felix pushed off the stairs hard, keeping his gun pointed towards the AC unit. Granted it was a guess that the person or people were there, but to win this game, you would need luck of some form after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Rob watched through the now open door to the hotel room he was in, as this new kid came blazing down the hall heading for the far stairs.

Well fuck me sideways. He's either going to the roof for the mad tea party up there, or he's being chased by some batshit crazy people. What the fuck was I thinking leaving the group. I'm stuck in this ratty hotel, my shoulder has pellets in it, Felix is going to go try to kill someone, and now there might be more people coming this way. Whoo Robbie, your definitely a contender for worst day on the island without dieing.

There was the crunch; the intruder was on the roof. Bryan stepped just far of the edge of the AC unit and raised the shotgun quickly. What he saw was a boy with curly auburn hair making a beeline to the vents, where Tori was hiding. His black work shirt flapped sporadically as he ran, flashing bits of his red shirt underneath, and Bryan could see that he was holding a pistol. Deja vu.

It was the kid from the scrapyard. Not Constantine, but the one kid who'd made a break for it in almost the exact same fashion as he was now. He was a fast runner. Bryan wasn't all that surprised that he was still alive, but it was spooky how the scene unfolding before his eyes was so similar to their previous encounter. The only difference here (apart from the runner missing his daypack, but Bryan didn't notice that) was that if he let him slip by it wouldn't just mean that he would still be at large. It would mean Tori would be in danger.

Bryan followed the other boy with the front sight of the gun for a split second and squeezed the trigger. A thunderous clap issued forth from the SPAS-12, and flames exploded from the barrel.

There it was, the loud bang. Felix did a baseball of slide of sorts the minute the heard the sound. Just like with what happened in the hotel room to Rob, a few of the pellets struck him on his way down, but they weren't fatal wounds. More like scratches than anything. Felix quickly returned the fire at the boy, firing two shots.

I've seen this guy before...

Felix quickly scrambled to the vents, getting around the corner safely. He took a moment to breathe, after all, not many people escape a shotgun. His breath was cut short when he looked to his left however. There was a girl hiding at the other end of the makeshift wall that these vents formed. Felix instinctively turned his gun toward her.

"Who just might you be?" He yelled to her.