Survival Of The Fittest

((Bret Carter continued from Time to Play the Game))

They had done it. It hadn't been clean or effective but it was done. That was the important part. They had a gun and an extra pack. That made it a success. Their withdrawal had taken them through the expansive wilderness of the island. The idea being they could lose Bryan if he tried to pursue them. If he still chose to, then they had the gun. Eventually, they had reached the end of the trees and emerged into a clearing featuring a large lake in the middle. Bret hadn't consulted the map they were supposed to have at any point during their journey. So it was a good stroke of luck.

He moved to the edge of the lake and dropped his bags—but being sure to keep hold of the rifle. His gaze ran across the glistening water, trying to ignore the low-level ringing in his ears. After taking a moment he turned to his brother.

"We should sort out the bags." He said as he began to inspect the gun. After a quick count, he found there were six bullets left. They hadn't been able to get Bryan's bag so that was all they had. It wasn't a problem in the short term. The threat of a gun would do more for them anyway.

"This has six shots left. Hopefully, we don't need them."

((Wyatt Carter continued from the same thread, just click on that link literally one post up you lazy tool))

"That ain't a bad idea." Wyatt dropped his own bags after first letting the straps slide down to his wrist. He carried both on his left shoulder, because his right arm was preoccupied with holding the only means of defense he'd been granted for this little death game. His sword... thing... was definitely cool-looking, but the more he held it and thought about it and swung it to get some idea of how it handled, while not altogether terrible, it had become apparent that a real sword would have been more practical. At that point he'd basically have his Bowie knife, but much larger.

Taking a moment to wipe some of the sweat off of his shoulder, Wyatt turned to his brother. "By the way, how's your ears, Tex? I ain't gotta shout everything from now on do I?" Bret's ears had to be close to that gun when it went off, and they weren't afforded the ear protection that shooting at the range or that Dad had drilled into the two of them that they always had to wear when hunting. It was cause for some concern, but at least Bret hadn't been shot. Thank God, he hadn't been hit. Because their plan would have gone off the rails pretty damn fast.

Speaking of plans, just as he had said, Bret's idea wasn't bad at all. Finding a good time to consolidate things and get their shit together was a good idea. And of course, Bret was pre-occupied with the gun. Six shots. If they weren't going to kill anybody, that was five warning shots and one for emergencies. "We didn't take the bullets, huh?" Wyatt cursed under his breath as he realized their mistake. No matter... they could find a weaponless Bryan later and pound the stuffing outta hime for more goodies. Maybe another weapon, if he'd nutted up and took somebody el-... nah, fat chance.

Putting aside thoughts of the weapon for now, he unzipped the first bag, the smaller of the two, to check out what was inside. He was greeted with the familiar sight of most of the clothes that he'd packed on the trip. His tanks, shorts, socks, underwear... even his lucky 'I'm gonna get some pie tonight' boxers. Realistically speaking, those probably weren't seeing the light of day for a while (though, you never know...). Predictably, the knife he managed to get in with his stuff was nowhere to be seen. Fuckers, hope one of them was enjoying holding on to that for him. Grumbling under his breath, Wyatt set about opening the larger bag again, organizing things best he could.

He categorically removed the items from the bag and placed them on the ground nearby. Food, water, food (maybe), first aid kit, a map, some survival guide written by somebody he was sure he knew more than about surviving in the wilderness for a few days. Nothing special or mindblowing. "Get your bag over here, and I'll open yours too. Probably same shit but ya never know. Plus we can pool our rations and uh, figure out how long we can feed ourselves."

Not long.

Urge to smash somebody rising.

((Bryan continued from Time to Play the Game))

Running with messed up equilibrium was all the fun Bryan ever could have imagined. His balance was out of whack and he kept stumbling as he went, lurching from side to side, narrowly catching himself from clattering headlong into trees more than once. He wasn't breathing right, either. Who'd have thought that those were linked, but no, he found that everything was getting all funny and even if he couldn't hear much of anything else he could definitely hear the weird whistling and blowing in his ears each time he took a breath. Oh, right, yeah. Bryan still couldn't hear properly either. The ringing hadn't died all the way out, and the noises that Bryan did hear were muted and scratchy, like the sounds were scraping his eardrums rather than reaching through.

Thing was, no matter how often he almost fell, no matter the scraped palms or the scratches on his legs from the undergrowth, he had something needed doing. Helping a person didn't count for much if the help wound up hurting others even more. Whatever the twins did with that gun, that was on Bryan, and that meant it was his responsibility to ensure that nothing bad came of his carelessness. Bryan had to try, at the least, even if it might not end well. Probably wouldn't end well. That was...

He wanted to say it was okay. Honestly, he was still trying to unpack it, this. Sure, he'd had some time initially, but from there he got right into a brawl and then a pursuit. Bryan was good at staying occupied. Occupied meant not thinking. Occupied meant task before brain and not considering how, well, you might be charging towards death to try and make up for a dumb mistake. But who'd go and do a thing like that, right? He tried to put the sickness in his stomach down to residual pain from getting kicked around.

Two figures stood by the edge of a lake as he left the woods. Tall. Muscular. He'd found them.

Bryan took a deep, steadying breath, and started forward.

Bret nodded his agreement and passed his back across to Wyatt. He took a knee beside his brother and watched as the items were meticulously removed and categorized. They had a lot of spares of things, but for important items like the map and first aid kit that was good. It didn't make any sense to get rid of those. After Wyatt had finished emptying his bag Bret took a look at the total of their food supply:

– Six loaves of bread
– Six tins of crackers
– Thirty ration bars
– Twelve bottles of water

It would tide them over, but it wasn't going to be enough. They were going to need to rob someone else eventually, maybe even a third person if they expended too much energy or something happened. That didn't account for people consuming their supplies as the game went on, but Bret was sure that people would also be taking others supplies as things continued. That thought gave Bret another idea.

There was only going to be certain types of their classmates who would take others supplies. There would be other thieves and robbers like them, scavengers or people who were actively killing others. The third group was the group he was interested in. The man—Danya he'd said his name was—had said that each morning a broadcast would be announced giving the details of who had died and their murderer if there was one. That gave them a running list of people who theoretically would have extra supplies. All they needed to do was go after the ones who they knew were weak and easy pickings. After all, there was two of them and they had a gun, and no one could have had any reasonable objections to their actions. They would only be robbing murderers after all.

Bret looked up from their supplies and at his brother.

"I have an idea."

"Heh. Oh boy."

Bret had an idea. Those were words that just dripped with dread. Sometimes it was for some poor mark who was going to be the target of the scheme. Sometimes it was for Wyatt. Bret's 'ideas' were seldom benevolent, never altruistic, and usually terrifyingly effective. So when Bret tallied all the stuff up that he'd arranged for him and declared that his brain was firing up, Wyatt could practically smell what it was he was cooking in there.

So he could only click his tongue and take another quick look at his surroundings. The look proved to be a fruitful one, too, because it looked like they weren't alone. Bryan, again? Fucking hell, did this guy ever learn?

"Does your plan involve pounding the piss out of a pacifistic retard?" He asked his bearded bro, staring pointedly in Bryan's direction. Under his breath, he muttered: "I'm gonna break his legs this time."

The two of them were talking, he could see their mouths moving. They also looked to be poring over something on the floor, might have been food, if Bryan squinted (even that seemed to do something weird to his ears though, so he stopped quickly). It was only a matter of time before one of the two looked up and noticed him, and notice him Wyatt did.

"Hey y'all," Bryan called out, stopping short some distance away. Closer to the twins than the trees, now, but with an appreciable gap. If one or both of them charged him again, he wanted to at least be able to see it coming. The pieces of glass he'd had to pick out of his arm as he went were a firm reminder of the risk of letting his guard down. And the blood trickling from his ears. And the bruises around his right shoulder and collarbone. He was a walking warning.

"Believe you boys have got a few things that aren't yours." His voice sounded flat and dull, muffled like it was from the opposite side of a door. He thought he was projecting okay, but he could have barely been at a speaking volume and he wouldn't have been able to tell. "Would appreciate if you could go ahead and give those back."

"Huh? No." Bret looked up in confusion and seeing his brothers' glare followed his gaze. Bryan had managed to follow them. That was annoying. The boy was like a fly, buzzing around them and refusing to take a hint.

His grip on the rifle tightening Bret stood and faced the new arrival. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted. Bryan clearly hadn't changed any from the annoying twerp who self-righteously walked the halls of George Hunter. The self-appointed savior of all. Bret could just about make out what the other boy said. He wasn't impressed.

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Bret said. "Do you know where Morgan is?" He held the rifle out in front of him, still gripped firmly in his hand. "Or do you just want this?"

Whichever option Bryan chose, the answer would be identical.

"Come get it, fucko," Wyatt hollered on the trail of his brother's words.

Like hell he was walking all the way over there and wasting more energy than necessary, not when he saw all the food they had laid out. He knew just as well as Bret did that it wasn't going to be enough to last them for however long they were stuck here, just due to sheer caloric needs. Eating a ton is what kept them at peak strength. Don't keep up with that regimen, and they get weaker. If they get weaker, they lose the biggest advantage they have over everybody else. Wyatt knew that. That's why Bret had to have come up with the plan he did. It was perfect for the first day, and the followup was perfect for day 2. Guy could be a prick sometimes, and his nuts still hurt a little if he moved his thigh the wrong way, but sometimes he didn't know what he'd do without his brother.

Bryan was not the worst option for somebody to show up. He wasn't a hornet, but more like an annoying little mosquito buzzing in their ears, making you waste precious time smacking him that could have been spent finishing a deck. His presence wasn't optimal, and it wasn't harrowing, it was just annoying. And now he didn't even have the threat of a gun to put any substance behind him, despite knowing full well he'd never actually shoot it. Bitch or not, the guy still managed to be a danger to everybody involved in that scuffle by sheer dumbassery and incompetence.

So, was he going to come over or not? This was the question that Wyatt asked himself as he squatted by the bag, knuckles itching to slam against something nice and hard. Waste of energy, he knew. But what was the point if they didn't have a little fun? He couldn't think of anything more satisfying than putting his hands on Bryan and making him scream bloody murder, given the opportunity.

But let him get closer.

Then the fun starts.

Bryan wasn't expecting much of anything else, but it was nice to imagine, just for a second, that the two of them would lend their ears and see something like reason. 'Course, that wasn't the way things went with Bret and Wyatt. Just needed to think about all those times back at George Hunter when he'd seen one or both of them harassing people and he'd had to try do something about it. Now and then it'd been enough just to poke his head in, make them think it wasn't worth the trouble. Other times, he'd got expletives and worse. With all that in mind, the hope that asking nicely would do anything at all was a faint and funny one.

Still never did a guy any harm to try.

His ear was still bleeding, some.

"Could go find him," Bryan called back. He got some of the rest of what Bret said, something about the gun. Wyatt just shouted. Oh there it was.

"If y'all won't give it back, I guess I'm just gonna have to follow your tail and make sure you're right responsible with it." He folded his arms. He hoped he sounded firm, instead of echoey. He probably didn't sound like an echo, except maybe to Bret?

Well, wasn't important, either way, Bryan was serious.

Irritatingly, Bryan was hard to hear. Bret was certain it was due to the other boy shooting a gun by his ears. Ironic that. Still, from what he could make out Bryan didn't have any good answers to his questions. Fortunately, he hadn't been expecting any, so he wasn't disappointed.

Although Bret couldn't quite hear everything Bryan said, he could still see the boy and read his body language. Bret had to think about a few things, namely if there was a way to talk Bryan out of whatever dumb decision he was going to make. He wasn't expecting Bryan to rush at both him and Wyatt again. He had already tried that once and it hadn't worked out well for him. Bryan was an annoying pest but he wasn't a moron. So he was going to keep his distance and follow them around like he was some hero who was going to thwart all their plans.

Okay, so maybe Bryan was a moron. A moron who lived in an idealistic world where they weren't in a death game where people wanted to kill them. Bret wasn't under any illusions. He and Wyatt weren't popular with a vast majority of the schools' population. If you gave everyone a weapon and a few days to stew it was inevitable that someone was going to take a shot at them. The rifle was going to help them there as well. It would dissuade people from trying anything.

"Go find him?" Bret called back. "You don't know where he is?"

Man, fuck this. Seriously, fuck this.

They couldn't keep wasting energy. They couldn't keep wasting time. No more hollering, no more screaming in rage. No running.

Wyatt stood up, straightened his back, and started walking in a straight, deliberate line toward Bryan, glowering all the way.

Bret said... something. Talking again was causing a resurgence of the ringing from earlier, and Bryan worked his jaw, hoping in vain that it'd work something like when your ears popped and you had to decompress them. No such luck.

Wyatt didn't look interested in talking anyway. That was not a friendly face. Well, never was, but especially so just now.

Okay, well. Bryan wasn't an idiot. What had happened before was proof that these boys weren't playing around, and there wasn't a single reason Bryan could think of for Wyatt to be stalking at him like that. A single good reason, anyhow. Just because he meant what he said about keeping an eye on the two of them didn't mean he was going to stand around waiting to get mowed down again. Wouldn't be much good or capable of stopping them from doing what they did to Morgan if he got done unto, would he now?

Bryan started backing up, steady and careful. Didn't feel so steady. His heart beat faster. How quickly could he twist around and run? Wyatt was an athlete. How fast was he? Fast enough Bryan wasn't confident letting him get close.

"Y'know it ain't right beating people up like that!" Bryan felt like he had to be shouting now, but he could hardly hear himself. "An' even if you buy all that bull, what're you thinking about making it to the end? Y'all can't both be the last one left!"

Bryan didn't even want to think about anyone being the last one, but if he didn't, then two brothers? Two brothers definitely wouldn't.

The more Bryan spoke, the more Bret came to the conclusion that he didn't understand what they were doing. No surprise there. Bryan was an expert at sticking his nose in other peoples business without any understanding of the situation he was forcing himself into.

The conclusion the smaller boy immediately leapt to did enlighten Bret as to exactly how people saw them. They were expected to participate in Survival of the Fittest, not just participate but be eager to. Bret would cede that the beating Morgan was given was excessive. That was down to Wyatt though. For his part, Bret had been happy to take the food they needed. Now, however, he was starting to wonder if it had been worth the trouble. The boy did make one good point though. There could only be one winner. That gave Bret a moment's pause and his eyes flitted over to Wyatt before moving back to Bryan.

He stayed crouched there for a moment taking in the scene. His ears still buzzing.

"Don't kill him, Wyatt." He said finally, turning his focus back to their supplies as he quickly began splitting them up and packing them away. "I'll sort the bags out."

"I ain't gonna," Wyatt barked back. "I'm just gonna break his fucking legs."

Watching Bryan... nah, fuck Bryan, watching anybody backpedal like a little coward who was all talk and no action was one of the most empowering things Wyatt could imagine, and it was his drug of choice both in and out of school. Every step Bryan took back, he took a stride forward, and those strides were getting a little longer each time. He wasn't about to run. He didn't need to, and it would be a waste to. If he got his hands on Bryan, then he knew everything he wanted to do in order to take care of business as quick as possible. And if Bryan got away, that was fine too. Guy was a pussy and a coward, but Wyatt was willing to give him a sliver of the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't stupid enough to stick around, to keep launching himself headfirst into danger. This was likely a stupid concession to make, but Wyatt had never admitted to being very smart; he was just clever enough to get by and to get ahead of others where it counted.

Bryan kept talking, a less-than-optimal move; in Wyatt's opinion, the energy spent talking could have been better spent doing other things, like getting further the fuck away from him. But unfortunately, Wyatt found himself to be fallible and capable of making mistakes, because instead of shutting out all the squawking like he should have, he made the mistake of listening, and Bryan happened to prod at something that he'd already thought of. And he DID think about what would happen when it was just Bret standing with him, them being the last two on the mountain.

But he didn't think very long. No sense in trying to cross that bridge before they even come to it. Ignore it and get closer. Be big and be scary, two things he just so happened to be a born natural at.

And not for nothing. He'd start breaking people into tiny pieces if only they gave him the chance, and so long as it fit into Bret's plan.

The one thing that cut through the endless ringing in Bryan's ears was the thundering of his own heartbeat, as if each pulse was trying to pound its way right out of his eardrums. Wyatt spoke, face snarling and aggressive. He couldn't read those lips and they still said everything he needed to know. So did being born down upon like an angry bull.

Bryan hated what he was about to do. These two couldn't be trusted, they'd made that clear when the first thing they'd done was beat the holy high hell out of poor Morgan. Threatening with a gun wasn't far off shooting a gun, and it wasn't as if there was a hall monitor or teacher just around the corner to make them think better of it. Neither of them was what he'd think of first with impulse control in mind. It just took one finger on the trigger and someone could be lying there bleeding out.

So he hated that, as he looked at that face and saw the intent, he already knew what needed to happen.

Wyatt backed him up further and further, pace gradually increasing. Bryan twisted and ran. He couldn't stop to check if Wyatt was following, he couldn't hear those pounding footfalls in his wake. He just ran.

Maybe it was smart. Smart didn't feel good.

((Bryan continued in Assignment to Catastrophe))