Survival Of The Fittest

In Richard's mind weapon distribution was quite simple. The girls should have the best weapons because it levelled the playing field. Besides, he just felt more comfortable with people like Lily holding onto deadly weapons. She seemed less likely to get into the sort of leadership feud that already appeared to be broilling between the alpha-males of the group.

That sort of thing was so foolish.


Obviously he was the manliest of all of them.

Yawwp!

Heh, no.

As uneasy as Richard was with the passing of the weapon from Lily to Aaron, she seemed to trust him with it, so there seemed no point in arguing. That didn't, however, mean that he was going to give up his so readily. And now more than ever he had a reason not to. Also now more than ever he had a reason to actually check what it was.

He dropped the bag, crouched and tore the zipper open, only to find... a piece of notepaper.

Sorry, your weapon did not fit in the bag. We hope you like treasure hunting!

As he wandered off to look around the base of the tree, Richard thanked his lucky stars once again. Karma like this simply didn't happen to most people, he was truly blessed. Being tucked in by the friendly terrorists like he was that morning, getting to sleep in what was surely the most comfortable tree in the wilderness, having his goods stored nicely out of harms way until he could retrieve them, and now this. Things just kept getting better and better. Yessiree.

It didn't take him long to find his weapon waiting for him, propped up against the tree. It appeared he had been assigned a truly fearsome armament with which to dispense justice. A mop.

He took the mop. His mop. There were many like it, but this one was his. He twirled it in his hands, sweeping it in a couple of arcs while he was still out of sight of the others. He guessed he could handle this, it was more Jackie Chan than Bruce Lee, but so what? He was going to engage in some serious mop-fu. He was going to clean up this island. He'd sweep crime from under the carpet.

The sheer number of puns he could use was more than enough to endeer the weapon to him. And as he walked back to the group he was already hard at work coining some more. Maybe he could use a few to stop the others moping.

Yeah that was terrible.

Their illustrious leader and his comedic sidekick had already left when he returned, mop over shoulder like a continental soldier. A girl he didn't recognise was also walking away from them. Aileen had been kind enough to wait and invite him to follow though.

So with nothing better to do he nodded, and followed.

((Richard Continued in Where Do We Go From Here?))

"Hermione, wait! It's dangerous out there!" Lily shouted. Either Hermoine didn't hear her or she completely ignored her. Probably the latter, since she was ignoring so many other things that she had to pretend not to hear Lily in order to keep her fragile reality intact.

One bullet or stab wound or poisoning or anything else like that was all that it would take to finish off that reality for good. It wasn't an adequate defense for a papercut, let alone this!

The worst part was that Lily seemed to be the only person who cared. Tom exploded in Hermione's face, Aaron ignored her right back, and Richard... where was Richard during all of that? She didn't remember seeing what he thought about it. Aileen at least extended the invitation for Hermione to join them, but she walked off without waiting for an answer. Before she knew it, Lily was all alone in that patch of forest, faced with a grave decision.

Hermione and Aaron's team went in opposite directions, and Lily needed to follow one of them. The practical thing to do was to follow the group, because they had solidarity, strength in numbers, and a plan to fix things. Lily had just given them her above-average weapon, so if she wanted to benefit from that weapon at all, she'd have to go with them. It was a no-brainer, really.

And yet she couldn't get Hermoine out of her mind. That girl needed help, and Lily desperately wanted to give her that help. If she left her now, she would never see Hermione again. There would be a note on the announcements and nothing more. Lily would have to live the rest of her life with the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, there was something she could have done for Hermione, something she hadn't thought of then, that would have made things better.

She made her decision. She felt her eyes tearing up as she secured her daypack. "Lord... please forgive me," she whispered, and took off running.

((Lillian Hayes continued elsewhere))

((Thread concluded))