Survival Of The Fittest

((Quincy Jones continued from Legoland Empire))

Quincy had been sitting in the gazebo when the news hit, and he was sitting in the gazebo now, later, still not sure what to even do with himself. 'licia was gone. She'd vanished, apparently killed in some escape attempt. He didn't know what had happened, hadn't heard a peep about this during his time traversing the west side of the island. Maybe it wasn't even true. Maybe something had gone majorly wrong, something else had killed them. It wasn't like he could go check. A massacre like that, no way it wasn't the area they made a danger zone. You didn't have to be all that bright to figure that one.

But now, there was simply nothing left to search for. Tiffany was dead, 'licia was gone, and Quincy was directionless. He could probably kill people. He still had his gun, still had a nice list of people who could use a working over, but it seemed fairly pointless. There was no immediate benefit to it. There weren't all that many people left. His best bet would be to just keep rested and armed and cruise through this. Maybe if he made it home he'd get some answers then. Maybe someone back in Saint Paul had some clue what the hell had been going on.

He wasn't going to let his guard down, though. Not for a second. The gun was held in his arms, and he glanced around the area every few seconds, on the lookout for trouble. This was a pretty good location. Enough cover to protect him some. Enough of a view to give him a good line of fire. It was a little fortress here. Perfect, except for the bodies and stuff.

Okay, it smelled pretty bad, but he'd cope. Do what he had to. See this through.

((Aston Bennett continues from Vitriol))

Aston hadn't gone for long. She left a note. They had to get it, they had to have seen her leave, they had to have seen the note. They shouldn't have been following her. This was just while they rested. Alice looked tired, Joe looked even tireder. Aston on the other hand was death on her feet, but there was no way in hell she was going to even shut her eyes for longer than it took to blink while she knew that out there, somewhere, Quincy Jones was still on his feet.

A low sharp branch cut away at the frayed cloth that were her jeans as Aston forced her way through the thick brush. Her bag was half-open, slowly trickled with leaves and other debris as her journey through the thick forest continued. She didn't need a map. She didn't need a compass. She didn't need directions, period, because she knew that if she kept walking, kept searching, he would show up somewhere.

He wasn't on the announcements all that time ago, he wasn't among the thirty dead. That meant that he hadn't died the day before, he was still kicking, and in the interim time if she was lucky enough (and god help anyone who decided to take advantage of this lapse) he was still kicking at this very second.

So the search had proved no different to her time with Alice. No one was found, nothing was found, she didn't even find a living creature. The maggots infesting the dead bodies she'd come across now and again in no way counted.

But luck had a way of snatching things away from her like that. Every so often, she might be lucky. Hell, it was like that back home. Every so often, she'd score a basket against Kyle in a 1-on-1 game, after hours of him cheating and tripping her up. Every so often, there'd be a pet she'd come across at the shelter that hadn't been horribly abused, but simply forgotten by its owners and left to better care. Every so often, she'd find something to help her, strengthen her, here on this island, to keep her pushing forward when common sense and the desire to just put oneself out of one's misery due to sheer hopelessness.

Which was the case when she decided to not search the carnival. She skipped the specks in the distance, the patterned roofs and the swaying flags while keeping her feet on the track to the next place on her mental agenda. Her mental agenda. Sounded like an insane agenda, not an agenda to keep in your mind.

Of course, the luck she mentioned above? It decided to give her a little something for her pain.

Because once Aston came into the general vicinity of a gazebo adorned with vivid flowers, she saw who was standing there with such a similar stature, his hands holding such a similar gun burned into her mind from that day where her whole life changed for the worse, and those clothes, and the hair atop a face she could recognise in the dark, where her eyes squinted through the sun overhanging haphazardly in a dusk-blue sky.

Because standing there, at attention, almost perfect attention, was Quincy Jones.

A wanted man.

A dangerous man.

And suddenly Aston felt so open, so exposed.

She never really thought her plan through in a situation like this. In her mental simulations, she imagined him cornered, not with the vantage. In her mind, he was unarmed, his gun lost. In her mind, she would just put a bullet in his head, watch it seep into the ground below, with no complication, no regret, and all the time in the world to savour what she yearned for so much.

But it wasn't going to be like this at all.

She knew she was visible.

She knew he could see her.

So what did she do now? Go forward towards possible death by a bullet? Or retreat, knowing that you will never have this opportunity again?

Aston was torn. Rationality told her to run. Rationality told her to find a better way, the odds that he would die today were tipped grossly against him. But there was a burning urge to step forward, fuelled by a just-plain burning want. She wanted to see him die, even at the cost of her own life. Her eyes were never more focused towards the boy standing there, holding the instrument that would more than likely lead to her death. The death of more people after her-no it wasn't about them it was about what she wanted, what Aston needed.

So she stood there, in the near distance, in perfectly open view to the gazebo door, once again staring at Quincy Jones, while she waited to if even just being there would be enough to end her life.

It was all up to him.

There was a girl, one that Quincy actually recognized. She was the batshit one, the psycho chick from back at the fair who'd opened up on him and Tiffany. She was back, maybe for round two, and damned if this wasn't one of the few times Quincy really didn't feel like getting into a tussle. He was trying to figure things out, and, more than that, hoping to adopt a slightly better strategy, lay low and conserve his strength until he actually had to exert it. that was how you got ahead in this game. That was how he'd get home, how he'd figure out what had come over 'licia. If this girl had actually accomplished more, well, maybe then he'd have a go at her out of some sense of revenge. As it was, she was a nobody.

She was dangerous, though. Highly unstable little bitch. Okay, well, little wasn't quite right; she pretty much towered over him, looked like, but the thought was there. So he just trained his gun on her and he thought for a second. Better not to bring up what he'd done to her boyfriend or whatever. Josh? Yeah, sounded 'bout right. Don't mention Josh. Easy enough.

"Hey there," he said. He had his gun pointed. He could take her, up close or at a distance. He had cover. She had to know better than to try anything. And, if not? He'd put her down.

"I don't really wanna have to shoot a girl. What say you turn around and walk away?"

Aston's feet twitched, only slightly. Like they were trying to run, without the will of her body. But there was no way that was happening. He'd seen her. There was no running from this, because this was her last chance ever. Quincy Jones was not getting away. Her emotions were under wrap now. It was perfect.

No running.

Just fight.

Don't think.

And that's what happened next. No thinking. No thinking while she stepped forward only a few steps. No thinking while she opened her dry and chapped lips-

"Remember me?"

-no thinking while her hands creeped into her bag, unnoticed, unmentionable, and no more thinking while she whipped the uzi from her bag, did one of those unnecessary rolls to the side, aimed within a split second at the boy and his tree trunk legs.

And fired.

She seemed to think Quincy wasn't a fighter. Seemed to think he was some kinda person who'd never seen someone telegraph an attack before. Seemed to think he hadn't been paying attention to her movements. She yanked out a huge gun, and she rolled, and only then did she start shooting. She'd even made that snippy little quip. Of course he remembered her. That was why he'd picked a position with ample cover before she started to shoot. That was why he was able to jump to the left, then drop down behind one of the solid pieces of the gazebo, avoiding her fire.

It was why his gun, his shitty bolt-action rifle, was cocked and ready. It was why he didn't fire right away. She'd probably waste more ammo. It was how she acted. Maybe when she stopped firing he'd poke his head up and take a shot at her. Maybe he'd fake it. She seemed the sort to try a basic feint like acting like she was out of ammo. He could catch her in her own bind there.

"You'll have to do better than that," he called out. Rattle her. Psych her out. Really, though, at the end of the day, he just had to maintain a superior position. He'd have this. She didn't have the training, the intelligence, or the common sense to get one over on him. If she closed, he'd demolish her hand to hand. This was just round two, and she's started off on a very bad foot.

((Joe Rios continued from Vitriol.))

It didn't take a lot of thought for Joe to begin worrying about Aston. While Alice had left too, Alice didn't have a personal vendetta against someone the way Aston did.

With that in mind, he almost immediately began looking for her. The gazebo wasn't far from the infirmary, or at least it didn't seem far, so Joe figured that was an obvious place to check.

As he approached it from the side, he noticed that Aston Bennett was crouched down holding up a gun that was easily the size of her head. Thank God for that, Joe thought. And within the building itself, he could faintly see none other than Quincy Jones himself hiding behind one of the walls.

Joe set his daypack down and quietly unzipped it so as not to attract attention to himself. He then removed the small Bersa Thunder .380 that Aston had given him and quietly zipped the pack back up. He checked the safety to make sure it was turned off, cocked the hammer to chamber a round, and crept up to the entrance of the gazebo, leaving the heavy pack behind.

He quietly climbed up the stairs, entering the structure, and approached Quincy, silently thanking God that he hadn't been noticed by the man yet.

"You'll have to do better than that!" Quincy called out as Joe closed in.

The beauty of interrupting a gunfight is that the combatants aren't likely to be paying attention to anything but each other.

Joe lifted the handgun up and aimed at the back of Quincy's right knee.

"So will you," Joe said as he squeezed the trigger.

((Skipping since Inky is Away, so that whoever slots in/however this goes down is better able to be arranged between the handlers involved.))

It had been going so well, too.

The bullet slammed into Quincy's leg, causing him to howl in pain. He'd been hit before, been hit plenty, but with fists, not bullets. Nothing like this. Dammit. She was crazy. She was unstable, dangerous, psychotic. She wasn't supposed to have help.

The game was probably over for Quincy. He realized that instantly. He'd be hard pressed to get away from this location should it become a danger zone. He'd never have his answers.

There was still something he could do, though, something worth the effort to do. No reason he had to be the only one this meant curtains for. His gun didn't have many shots, and it wasn't easy to reload, but it was a gun and it packed a punch.

Even as he hit the ground, blood flowing from his leg, he was firing a shot in the rough direction of the boy who had attacked him.

((Whoever is playing Aston is gonna take the kill, Ben just had me come in because he wrote himself into a corner and needed a way for her to get the upper hand.))

The shot from Quincy's Mosin-Nagant rifle grazed Joe in the side, causing him to grunt in pain and clutch the wound with his left hand.

"Motherfucker!" he yelled, before tossing his pistol behind him and grabbing the Mosin by the barrel.

He took a breath, removed his blood-stained hand from the small wound, and gripped the gun with both hands.

He pulled back, took a breath, and swung the rifle at Quincy's jaw.

(Aha, hi I'm seal and I'll be your inky for this evening.)

Joe had it under control. She owed him her life. She was suddenly very glad that she gave him that gun, that she trusted him.

However, Quincy had his back turned to her on the floor. And she didn't want him to finish the job.

She knew it was over for Quincy. She could have shot at him while his back was turned. It could have been over in a second. That wasn't what Aston wanted to do. She also didn't want Joe to be the one to finish him. Aston owed him his life already. She didn't want to wait anymore. She just wanted to make the final move. She wanted Quincy to be the first, and the last. Aston couldn't think of anyone more appropriate.

That's why she had to keep it moving.

Aston flew up behind Quincy. She made her next move. Right for his arm. Checkmate.

"Game over, asshole."

She slammed her foot straight down. If she crushed every bone in his fucking arm then so be it. It was cake compared to what she wanted to do to him.

It was all falling apart, so quickly. The shot wasn't enough to cause serious harm to the boy, who darted forward, wrestled the rifle from Quincy, then smashed him in the jaw with it. He sprawled to the ground, and then the girl was over him. She said something quick and witty, and then she slammed her foot down on his arm. He howled as the blow connected. He didn't know if it had done permanent damage. It didn't matter.

Everything was over. Lost. All that was important now was spreading some of that pain around. He had a pretty good idea of how to do it, too.

He actually managed to chuckle through the pain.

"What do you want?" he asked. "People don't hurt just for kicks, so tell me what you want already."

Joe glanced over at the pistol he had tossed to the side, walked over, and picked it up.

He calmly walked over to Aston, held the gun up, and offered it to her.

"I believe this is yours," he muttered. "Finish him off."

It was her kill, and Joe felt somewhat dirty for disabling him first. Took a lot of the satisfaction out of having to work for it. It was necessary, though; he was going to put a bullet in her if he didn't do it, and keeping Aston alive was a little more important to him than honor.

He'd already let a lot of allies die. He didn't need to lose another one.

(got permission for the godmod here)

Aston took the gun. Weighed it in her hand. She didn't say thank you to Joe, but she gave him a nod. Aston hoped that was enough. She looked down at Quincy. She kept her eyes locked on him. She didn't like the look on his face.

"What do I want?" She had to laugh at that. "I don't want anything from you. You're nothing to me."

Aston felt a twinge of hesitation right then and there. It only lasted a second.

"What do I want? I want to win Quincy. And to win, I have to protect myself. And I want to protect Joe."

She checked to see if the safety was off.

"And to be able to do that, I have to have the nerve to kill someone. Why? Because I don't think anyone can win without ending a life. It's a fact. I don't like it. The whole thing disgusts me. I don't want to kill. Even so..."

She turned back to Quincy.

"I have to. So I figure it might easier if I just get it over with."

Aston pointed the pistol at the boy underneath her.

"And who better to null my own pain than the only person I truly hate on this island? You disgust me that much."

Her hand strayed purposefully. She fired the gun at Quincy's downed arm, shooting through his elbow.

"Hand slipped." She said, her face cold and unreadable. "The next one won't miss."

Quincy laughed. He actually laughed through the pain. It was so perfect. She was doing just what he'd done. She was doing exactly what he'd done to her friend. If he was going to die, well, it might as well be for pointing that out. It might as well be for making one last strike. His good hand shot to his collar. His fingers curled under the metal. He wasn't getting his answers, but this was almost as good. She wasn't going to like this. Not one bit.

"Heh," he sputtered. "It's... funny knowing how this feels. What I used to do, y'know? Guess you're not so special after all. Just doing whatever it takes to get to the top. It's... pretty fuckin' funny, y'know, what you can talk yourself into doing?"

He coughed. Shivered.

"I told myself I had reasons, too. Shit, you don't have the first clue about your friend, do you? Or you were in on it together? Maybe you knew all along."

He could've said more, could've twisted that knife further, but he wasn't sure how. This wasn't his forte. Words were never his area of expertise, and it was only seconds from death that he was able to string them together for this sort of effect. Didn't matter. What was done was done. It was game over.

"Never mind. Watch the tape if you get home. You gonna do this, or am I?"

Joe gritted his teeth and clutched at the small wound on his side. It wasn't even close to life-threatening, but having a blazing-hot chunk of metal rip through your skin is still plenty painful, and it was bleeding a fair bit.

"Fuck," he grunted. Not only was the wound throbbing, but Quincy was also trying to be a manipulative asshole, which didn't help.

Then Quincy reached for his collar and grabbed it.

Oh fuck! Joe thought, instantly very alarmed. If Quincy pulled his collar, depending on the angle of the blast it could very well stand to rip Joe's or Aston's foot off. Joe averted his eyes from the killer and looked at Aston, silently pleading for her to do it and get it over with.

Quincy's move was a bit of a surprise. Aston sneered. She wanted to let him pull it. That sick fuck didn't deserve.

"Don't. Talk. About Joshua like that. You don't know a damn thing about him, not like me."

No matter how she diced it, it all had to end. She wanted to make him suffer. That didn't seem possible now. Aston was cursing herself out. Looks like she had to cut it short. Only one shot Aston. Take it.

... there was another moment of hesitation. Longer than the last. Aston didn't understand why. It was like someone put an iron bar between the trigger, making it impossible to fire the damn thing.

She didn't understand.

She had to force it.

She managed to fire it.