Survival Of The Fittest

The contents of the first aid kit jolted all at once as Katelynne flinched witnessing Tyrell pull out the glass shard all lackadaisical. Like for him this was just a Tuesday or something.

Blood never bothered her much. Even before being trapped here she already kinda got desensitized to it from the realities of volunteering at the animal shelter with Dante or helping Aunt Rachel over a summer or two.

Injuries were a different ballgame, though. She could never be a doctor. Couldn't take that kind of pressure.

She sighed at the "don't waste your first aid supplies" comment. It wouldn't be a waste. He was in the... what did Lucas call them... "Clod Gang", whatever that meant? Tyrell was one of them. Besides, he made it back here just fine. He'd pull through. He'd be fine if they did something. He could drop the sacrificial lion heart act.

But that's what he wanted; he wanted to be the hero. So she stayed silent. Her words and grunts and buts and hmphs wouldn't change nothing.

"I'll leave it to you, then," she said matter-of-factly and held out the kit towards Lucas.

"Mind if I take a gander at that radar doohickey for a sec? I'm getting really worried about Princess."

Ty snorted, eyes still half-shut.

Easy to look back and see Felix shoved against a wall. Wrestling a gun away, threatening him with it. Not thinking about keeping his finger off the trigger. Then a muffled thud of the gun going off; it seemed to cut through every other sensation at the time. The choice had been made for him, but he felt he had to commit to it. Two more shots, cut him loose. In the haze of adrenaline and desperation, it seemed like the only thing to do. So easy to convince himself.

He tried to smile, to laugh it off. The same way he did when he couldn’t fight back but still wanted to.

“I knew enough to kill a dude with one. Heh. No, that’s not funny. Sorry. Ugh, hold on.”

Opening his eyes, he shuffled back towards the wall a bit and sat up slightly. Only enough that it wouldn’t hurt too much. He wiped the wet away from his eyes, and cleared his throat. Diaz needed information. Another trade, maybe? Ty hoped there had been enough good will between them by this point that he’d tend to him for free, but he supposed the gun and the radar weren’t much use if he didn’t know how to use them.

Kate wanted to take the radar and find Princess. He understood, but still felt some trepidation at the prospect. She was unarmed, and the radar was something of an ace in the hole.

“It’s his radar now, his call. Be, uh… be careful, Katie.”

He looked back to Diaz. Ty knew what he was really asking for. Anyone could figure out how to put the bullets in a gun and pull the trigger, after a fashion. He wanted to know how to use it to kill someone. Tactics, headspace, that kind of thing. The rest of his explanation was just superficial, for the most part.

“So it’s - it’s a little Uzi, right? You just stick the clip in and pull the thing back then you’re ready to go. But uhh, there’s a switch on the side, three notches. S is safe, obviously. I dunno what the fuck R stands for but that’s one shot at a time. A is automatic, as in full-auto. The reason Ren didn’t fucking ventilate me the moment he saw me is he had it set to that. When you learn to fight, you learn how to move. Footwork is one of the most important things. Control the space, so you dictate where the fight happens.”

He stared up at the ceiling. Talking about it, he still felt some level of pride in being good at something. He would’ve taken more pleasure in the explanation if this was all in a better context.

“There’s a kind of… mental footwork, too. I didn’t need a gun for Ren. I just fucked with him, made him angry. So he burned through the clip in like, seconds. When he went to reload, that’s when I jumped him. I made sure the fight was on my terms. So unless you’re close up, keep it on one shot at a time. You only need one bullet. I can’t tell you a fucking thing about aiming it. Erika tried her best to teach me when we went to a range but I wasn’t any good.”

Easy enough, it seemed like. Just point it at the center of the circle and squeeze the trigger. Somehow try to be relaxed and in control at the same time. All of his shots ended up scattered across the paper. It was fun, but a little frustrating. All of hers ended up in a tiny group towards the center. So little space between them it was hard to tell how many she’d put there. A lot of it was muscle memory, apparently.

Ty shook his head, giving Diaz an unsteady glance. It was strange, what he felt wasn’t exactly like fear. Maybe it looked like it. Uncertainty, perhaps.

“If you’re still planning what you told me before, it’s the radar that’s the important part. The gun helps, but the radar’s what’ll save you. That’s your footwork, how you fight on your terms and not hers. I - there’s more I could tell you but I think I need to pass out. Maybe easier to patch me up that way, I dunno. Just don’t be stupid. Remember… remember your footwork. Your terms. Not hers. Take… take your time.”

Coughing, Ty leaned back on the pillow again. His eyelids felt heavy, and it felt like he was running on willpower alone. With any luck, Katie would come back with Princess. They’d keep their makeshift fortress safe for another night. Diaz would take his time with his revenge, wouldn’t be a fucking idiot about it. If they were lucky, if everyone did what they were supposed to do.

He hoped he’d done what he was supposed to. It wasn’t so easy to convince himself of things anymore.

((Tyrell Lahti continued in Dude! FO(U)RTIFIED!!! Pt. 4: A New Hope
))

"I-"

What?

Give up the radar? Already?

But he just got it!

This was the key! The map that would guide him to Erika! To revenge! To making good on the promise he'd made to Desiree's memory! He could hardly concentrate on what Tyrell had just said to him about how to use the gun. It registered with him—pull trigger to shoot, there's a thing on the side that controls how many bullets come out, stick the clip (?) in and pull back (???) and then it's ready, play mind games with how much you shoot them, all that jazz—but it felt a lot less important than what Katelynne was asking. Was this a set-up for something? Lucas looked down at Tyrell, who was now asleep. Fuck! Katelynne was going to take the radar, and he'd be all alone, without the radar, without anything, really, just a dying sleeping wonder-boy and a gun he'd probably wind up holding backwards and his own faulty brain and—

"You can look at it for a bit, sure," Lucas said, handing the radar over.

Sometimes, it felt better to just do things without thinking about them.

Yeah.

Lucas never had a good thought in his life, did he?

Well, except for that one. The moments when he was aware of how bad he sucked were nice, because he was seeing what everyone else saw. But at the same time, didn't being self-aware so much of the time sort of cancel out all of his attempts to be sincere? If he knew that what he was doing sucked, didn't that implicate him as a willing moral agent in the social suicide he'd committed on a daily basis? If he was aware of his problems, why hadn't he fixed them yet? If—

"I'll stay with Tyrell," he said, maybe a little too loud. "I hope Princess is safe."

And, for my sake, and my sake alone, I hope you get back soon.

I hate my own company.

[Lucas Diaz continued in the same area but later so it'll be a different thread thanks.]

"Thank you," Katelynne said as the first aid kit was swapped for the radar. She turned it up and down and inside out and got a feel for it. Seemed like literally all it could do was ping where collars where, at least assumingly so since all it showed were three dots that most likely belonged to the three of them. Didn't look like it had a backlight or real information beyond distance, though. Maybe it was state of the art for some ancient year like 1992 or something but it certainly was nothing these days.

Though it wasn't like they would just hand out something that could be messed with so easily, as if Katelynne had any clue how computers worked. But any information was better than none.

"I'll, uhm... I'll stay close."

She waited for Lucas and Tyrell to turn away before sneaking into the bag Tyrell brought back and making off with what looked like some sort of weird collapsible trowel.

((Katelynne continued in the spirit world))