Survival Of The Fittest

((The Ken Mendel Experience continued from God in Three Persons))

Finally, they could rest from carrying that disgusting body. Darius was looking forward to rest.

They went to the Pub. Then they noped the fuck out, since there seemed to be people inside. People who were alive.

Here, in the library, was nobody. Not even a dead person. Even though it smelled very terrible in here. As if there could be a corpse for them. Huh, for them? What a weird wording.

Well, it would be another free collar for them. Hopefully they could find it. They were competent enough to find more corpses or objects to use.

"So, who of you wants to help me to throw this corpse into the Radio Tower?"

The group was a good one. Everybody had a job. Darius was the leader. Jonathan was not the leader. And Lili was not Jonathan. And Natalie was also there.

"Also, let's see where Jonathan and the others are, after doing that."

He announced 'the others' as if he had an army.

[Lili Williams continued from God in Three Persons.]

Lili leaned back in her chair, teetering on the back legs of the wooden frame as she stared up at the ceiling. While she had, in fact, looked through a few books, nothing quite caught her eye. Maybe bloody wars and history textbooks weren't very good reading material for people staffing what was, essentially, a prison for the less-than-mentally-stable. Too stressful? Or maybe it was a danger that a book like that could get into the hands of a patient and trigger some panic attack or something. Lili didn't know, and she wished she didn't care, but at this point, every minute she spent in Spiderland made her feel like it was growing a part of her.

She figured that her father's pep talk about naming things and attachment would've been better to remember when she woke up in the bell tower.

"I helped carry it this far," she said, leaning her chair forward until the front legs again touched the ground, "I might as well see it through. Plus, I wanna meet these friends of yours. Might be someone I know among them, y'know?"

((Leslie Price continued from God in Three Persons.))

And that wasn't very long at all. Just two or three minutes at the very most. Leslie's awareness of the impending confrontation gave everything an adrenaline spike. Primal thrill. Intellectually, she knew all about it. Disconcertingly atavistic as an impulse, but it worked. She felt as sharp as ever. The slightest rustle or flicker or shift in the environment registered in her mind, each and every change in stimulus being noted, her mind all primed for chasing down prey or shielding against predators. Time seemed to crawl and crawl as the small group moved.

The why suddenly set in: that amorphous, blurry shape wasn't some sack or bag. The colors were wrong, the anatomy -
a dead body. That was a corpse. Green Hair Boy was carrying a corpse, namely

Jasmine King.

The bastard sunuvabitch--! Only a handful of conceivable reasons came to mind, none of them good. That settled it: they were either the killer(s?) or sick fucks or otherwise pure evil. If they'd been trying to respectfully bury Jasmine, they wouldn't be dragging her across the island like this; just found an appropriate, quiet place and shoveled or cremated it or whatever else. No, there had to be some sort of ulterior motive for all that effort. Probably trying to cover up their or his crimes. Maybe trying to sadistically taunt her family for some imagined transgression or other. Didn't matter. She'd dispense justice she'd finally get to be the righteous one she had a justification now, a raison d'etre, an objective to achieve at last!

Right there. She felt of two minds: on one mind a rage freely flowing, and on the other a sort of cold awareness. Over there! Those motherfuckers were slinking into the library and by God she wouldn't let them -- him -- get away with this shit they would pay.

Ambush. She'd ambush them. There, beside the doorway. The perfect place. She'd listen in for awhile, try to tell who was in control, then WHAM get the drop on them fast they'd never have a chance, not even with guns that's how fast she'd be.

Smoothly, she sidled up next to the entrance, but something was amiss - there were two speaking, two inside the building, and there had been - SHIT the third one was still outside. Stay cool stay cool get the drop on that one instead, hold them hostage maybe -

She noticed someone moving, and it was as though time had stopped completely for a single moment.

"Well, then let's go ahead and find our crew."

He looked back at Natalie.

"Take care of our stuff while we dispose the body, cool?"

Darius was happy to leave this area again to dump the body and he expressed that outloud to the girls.

"Man, I'll be glad to get rid of this fucking weight. Then we won't need to carry corpses anymore, hopefully. Then we'll just have to do pleasant parts of the plan."

He grabbed his part of the corpse with Lili and the two of them moved out of the reading circle to leave the room. Going from bookshelf to bookshelf, out of the center, nearing the door.

But whoa, there was a movement. A sound. No?

"Lol, I think there is a person here."

Fuckfuckfuck. If there is someone here, they are here to kill them. Why would someone hide in here and be friendly? Darius did not want to be killed so close to escaping.

"Lili, I'm sc-"

He dropped the body and raised his fists. He was ready if they came out of the dark.

Great. Finally, things were starting to move in an exciting direction. Who knew what wacky characters Darius had made friends with over the course of his own adventures? It was quite possible that among them were several of Lili's friends as well, and as far as she could reconcile in her head, the more the merrier.

At Darius' suggestion, Lili left the majority of her stuff with Natalie, but she silently picked her light-saber out from her bag and clipped it onto her waist. It wasn't much of a weapon, but as far as blunt implements went it was lightweight and stung.

The corpse's weight was familiar to Lili, but the exhaustion of walking from building to building over the course of the day had started to take its toll on her. What was once manageable to lift on her own was now impossible without Darius' help.

"Pleasant parts?" she chirped, "Walking around with a body was pretty pleasant, if you ask me. Nothing like a good corpse haul."

Demented humor. Lili was starting to feel more and more at home.

The small space of the library was still not small enough to eliminate all of Lili's nearsightedness - in fact, even the titles of books on higher shelves were nigh impossible to read - but it was a great deal better than the open air outside. It was enough, in fact, for Lili to make out movement through the veil of distance. Her ears, the sharper of the two senses, confirmed what she could have assumed was delirium; there was someone else among them.

Lili furrowed her eyebrows, concentrating on where the shape could've gone next. Darius, however...

"You just said ell-oh-ell out loud, like it was a word, didn't you?"

She sucked her teeth, shaking her head back and forth. It could've been something harmless, like a squirrel or another animal, or even a careless student that wouldn't be too much of a threat. Maybe I could convince them to hang out with us. The more the merrier, the more the merrier.

Then, a louder sound than before, and Lili jumped, letting her grip on the body go just as Darius did the same.

The body made a loud "Thump!" as it hit the ground. Lili backed up against the wall and removed the light-saber from her waist with shaky hands and nervous fingers. Holding down the release button and flicking her wrist, the green plastic beam shot forth. Lili pulled the end out until it wouldn't go any further, strengthening the hold of the "blade".

Words piled up on the wall that was her gritted teeth, quip after quip ready to spill out and scare the living daylights out of whoever was waiting for her.

All that came out were sharp, short breaths as Lili's eyes darted around the room.

Only moments later, there was a ruckus from the two on the inside. The critical focus of Leslie's momentum slipped naturally toward them. Get inside and take them both down in one, smooth, overpowering motion! Green Hair Boy first, of course, then that chick tagging along with him-

Whirling around on her right foot, she shifted direction into the door. One hand ready to catch punches and throw her opponents off-balance, the other balled up and ready to deliver strikes of her own, using the momentum and force from her legs against the floor as the critical leverage for the killing blows.

It went well for several seconds until she actually entered the messy, book-strewn floor; one shaky misstep on a badly-placed tome and she stumbled, flying wide from her intended target and instinctively tried to spin back around with her left foot to stop, rebalance, and go in for another hit. Vital time lost could she make up for it-

"There are more pleasant parts than carryin-"

Woot. Lili had a lightsaber.

W00t. A tall brown-haired girl emerged from the dark. She dived into them, but stumbled away. Missing them. Darius was skilled at not getting hit. He was just skilled.

Darius considered punching, Darius considered picking up the corpse again to take it with him, but all he did was to run away in the direction of the door.

Fuck everything behind him, fuck his plan with the corpse, he just wanted to not be murdered by Leslie right now. Priorities.

((Darius Van Dyke continued in Demons Dance Alone))

[GMing approved.]

The pair's stalker came spiraling around the corner in a brown-haired tornado, arms flailing. The girl tumbled narrowly past Lili, taking her time to stumble around a little bit, but started back around on a pivot, on something of a collision course that looked like she was heading right for Lili's face. There was no time for the neurons in Lili's brain to fire fast enough to get her out of her way. There was only enough time to brace. There was only enough time to hope for the best.

Like a flash of lightning, the human storm's arm thrust forth like a piston, hitting Lili beneath her left rib cage. The punch would've been hard enough to wind her had it landed in the right spot, or enough to knock her out if it had slammed her nose back into her skull and into her brain. Instead, Lili was knocked back, taking a few reflexive steps until she found her back against the wall.

There was no time.

Lili screamed and swung the light saber at her attacker's face as hard as she could, striking her nose. She stumbled, blood starting to trickle down her face, giving Lili enough time to see Darius running out the door.

In all honesty, Lili knew that she probably should have seen this coming.

Ducking past, Lili ran after her 'friend' as fast as she could, even if only to drag him back to the library to fight.

[Lili Williams continued in Demons Dance Alone.]

-she couldn't. The second barrage of hits she attempted overshot the other person -- a vague mess of skin and hair and colors in her eyes -- and she continued stumbling.

Directly into the path of some bookshelves.

All she could think of was the anger at having missed them, the fact they were fleeing, then some terror as she realized she was flying directly into a bookshelf and about to smack into it headfirst.

By the time she realized her skull and it were on a collision course, it was too late.

WHUMP

((Leslie Price continued elsewhere..))