by talos this can't be happening

Private.

Thick with trees and snow, the tundra forest is relatively unspoiled, and some of the deeper areas have been completely untouched by man. The forest itself is made up of western red cedar, sitka spruce, and western hemlock, which have all been able to grow to large heights thanks to a lack of logging, providing areas of shelter. Some animals can also be found roaming the forest such as mountain goats, sitka black-tailed deer, and bald eagles. A dried-up riverbed can also be seen within the forest which, if followed, leads to the lower mountain path one way and the frozen lake the other way.

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CondorTalon
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by talos this can't be happening

#1

Post by CondorTalon »

((Shannon Choi continued from Your Honor, Survival of the Fittest.))

They'd been walking for hours.

Probably.

Honestly, when you're on an abandoned island with no electronic access, who the hell could tell what time it was? Some kinda... time... uh... teller?

A sundial man?

Well, anyway, they'd been walking for a while. The sun was pretty high in the sky by this point. Every so often, Shannon checked to make sure Maya was still with her, especially once they'd entered a more forested area. And yeah, they'd already traveled this road, but it was from the other direction, which was totally different. Different perspective, yadda yadda yadda.

The two girls were also not the same in physical ability, she'd come to realize, with Shannon being a track star (legit), and Maya... not.

So their pace was slower than Shannon usually held. But that was fine.

They had come to a small clearing, at which point Shannon turned to Maya, and confidently said, "Alright, at this rate, we'll be at the research station in... uh... some amount of time."

Nailed it.

And once they were there, they'd continue searching for food, even though Shannon still didn't think that they'd find anything. The uneasiness crept back in, but Shannon wrote it off as the chill of winter permeating her body.

They'd be fine once they made it back inside.

Shannon stopped, reaching into the daypack and pulling out one of her remaining water bottles. Her throat had gotten a little scratchy, and a wave of relief washed over her as she tipped back some of the water.

Some of the water quickly turned into more of the water, as she continued to drink way more than she really needed. Which happens sometimes, right? Sometimes you just really crave that liquid. Sometimes you really do be thirsty. Eventually, she had downed half of the bottle.

"Shit," she stated, staring at it.
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PlatFleece
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#2

Post by PlatFleece »

((Maya Press continued from Your Honor, Survival of the Fittest))

"What? What is it?" Maya asked, having looked way more tired than Shannon ever was. Maya wasn't used to this outdoors stuff. Maya wasn't used to exercise stuff. Maya was more of a talker, more of a thinker. Part of her regretted that decision right now.

It didn't take long before she realized that Shannon was staring at a half-empty water bottle.

"Oh..."

It was fine. Everything was still fine. They had to find supplies, anyway, they just had to find more water. If they didn't find anything, they'd be dead before the week ended from starvation, regardless, so this wasn't exactly a major setback.

"Look, it's fine. We'll find something." Maya tried to be optimistic. "The terrorists that brought us here want us to like, survive longer than just a whole day, right? Otherwise they'd just have us be in one big arena for us to kill each other, so obviously, they're going to leave out something for us to keep hydrated and get food."

She didn't know if that was a real thing, she just said that so that she and Shannon won't be so pessimistic, but she might just start believing her own words, since it seemed sensible at the time. "I'll move faster, okay? We'll get to the station."
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Gundham
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#3

Post by Gundham »

((Karin Han continued from Top Ten Anime Betrayals))

Karin watched the clearing from her vantage point in the shadows. Her eyes were riveted on the water bottle that the girl was holding. Water. Clean. Clear. Sloshing and splashing inside the clear plastic.

She wasn't thirsty yet. But she was getting there. That first tickle of a dry mouth, that little demanding sensation from her tongue. Soon she'd feel it in her throat. She'd already tried a few mouthfuls of snow, and came away with chattering teeth and no real satisfaction. Thirst would kill you long before starvation would, everybody knew that. So she needed water. Or at least an empty bottle to melt some snow in. And she needed it quickly. She'd been out here for hours. After ditching out of Karen+ and Wholia's little pity party, she'd promptly gotten lost. Tromping through the snow would tucker anybody out after a while, but her, with her little legs and no map? Talk about hopeless. She could be wandering out here for hours, lugging her big heavy drill around.

She sized up the two girls.

Shannon Choi. Korean girl, nerdy. Way too into internet stuff. Probably wanted to be one of those weird-ass streaming cartoon girls when she grew up.
Maya Press. Also nerdy. Way too into gaming miniatures. Had probably done a tabletop version of SOTF in the past.

Good ol' Whine Press and Decaf Choi Latte (Not her best nicknaming work, but honestly? They were nerds and they were already sad enough). Just a couple of geeks out here in the wilderness. Hadn't shown up on the announcements, which meant they probably hadn't really played the game in earnest yet. Latte had some kind of pointy stick thing, and Whine didn't seem to have anything.

Karin weighed her options. Follow them somewhere, and make up a sob story if they spotted her? Could work. But if they were meeting up with others, or they just didn't like her, then she'd have wasted a lot of energy for nothing. Hide and let them leave? She'd already been out here a while and these were the only people she'd seen. And they were relatively weak compared to a lot of the class. She wasn't likely to get a better opportunity than this. Aggression? She could run out and try to stab one of them with the drill, and cow the other into submission. But that'd make a lot of noise, and they were in the middle of a clearing. They'd spot her long before she could land a hit, and they'd be able to overpower her pretty easily. So... intimidation, then. It was worth a shot. And if it didn't work, she could always run away. Yeah, that seemed like the optimal play here. Get them to chuck down some of their food and water, and one of their maps. Then everybody walks away. Easy peasy.

She took a deep breath. Thought of some of the tough characters she'd seen in plays. Private eyes. Greasers. People who you really, really didn't want to screw with. Thought about how they moved, how they stared, how they walked.

Luckily, her coat was a hand-me-down, and oversized with big pockets. With a little effort, she was able to cram the drill into her pocket. She rested her hand on it. If they didn't look closely enough, they could easily mistake the bulge for a gun. Yeah. She could sell that. Just had to have enough confidence.

Karin broke cover and strode purposefully towards the clearing. When she reached the edge of the tree line, she barked out, "Hold it right there, ladies." She raised a free hand, like she was signaling to someone back in the woods to stand by. With any luck, the girls would think they were surrounded.

"I don't want to hurt you, but my friends and I are running a bit low on supplies." She raised the drill in her pocket, and pointed it at Choi Latte. "We'll take half your water and rations. One of your maps, too. Do it slow, and don't make any funny moves, and we'll go our separate ways. Nobody needs to get shot here."
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CondorTalon
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#4

Post by CondorTalon »

Well, sure.

Maya was right. They were on a trip to find supplies. But...

Maya was wrong. The terrorists didn't leave out supplies out just willy-nilly. There had to be some kind of incentive to kill. And the incentive was... the supplies were found on other people. And it didn't take a genius to figure out the implications of that. Yep. Shannon's two brain cells had spent a good few days coming up with that one, but they got there all the same.

But again. It was something to do. Maybe they'd get lucky though, and find a dead body that somehow still had its supplies unpilfered.

...

OR... they could get really unlucky, and run into someone trying to the same to them.

Like... this girl, for example, that had just appeared in front of them.

Shannon's blood froze like a supercooled water bottle... that is to say, not all at once. It took a bit of time for her to register what was even going on.

"Oh," she finally said, after her brain had caught up.

Okay. Uh. Sure.

She looked back at Maya, before facing the girl in front of them. She looked like she'd been through... something.

Definitely she was worse off than Shannon herself was, who had endured a grand total of fuck all. If the request had been any type of reasonable, maybe Shannon would have acquiesced, somewhat. But no, this was a robbery.

She felt sorry for... well, Maya, mostly. She wanted to tell her. 'This is how we'd be getting more supplies.'

Shannon gulped. She looked around, trying to x-ray her vision through the trees, because as it was right now, she didn't see a goddamn one.

Or maybe her vision just wasn't what it used to be.

Also, Shannon hadn't even registered the thing that was pointing at her from inside the girl's pocket.

But no. She wasn't going to give up her supplies. That was literally the opposite of their objective, and she wasn't going to put negatives into her progress bar.

"You want this water?" she said, holding up her water bottle, "Alright, catch."

She tossed the water bottle in the girl's direction.

And then charged.
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Gundham
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#5

Post by Gundham »

((Skipped with permission))

Karin's eyes flicked upwards to follow the water bottle's trajectory. It was a reflex, totally automatic. She'd spent years of her life flinching at every little thing that whizzed overhead, in case it was a spaceship; no matter what the context, she had to take that one second to verify that it was only a pigeon, an insect, a kicked ball in gym class. She couldn't have avoided it if she tried.

"Oomph!"

Shannon barreled into her, and they went crashing into the snow together. Karin hit the ground, hard enough to knock her earmuffs off. On impact her hand seized tight on the drill's handle, just shy of the trigger.

It was hard to breathe. The other girl was on top of her, crushing her, pressing her into the snow. Cold granules went down Karin's neck and back. Karin wriggled like a fish on a line, clamped tightly in Shannon's grip. Caught. Restrained. Strapped to a dissection table while they readied the probe.

Karen went ballistic. "LET GO! DON'T TOUCH ME!" she shrieked, kicking and wriggling like a cat trying to avoid being put in the carrier. She struck out blindly, not thinking, scratching and biting and elbowing without any strategy or intention, howling at the top of her lungs. She didn't care about the water or the weapons or any of that, not any more. Right now, she only wanted to get free.
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CondorTalon
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#6

Post by CondorTalon »

Okay.

She did it.

What now?

That was the problem, wasn't it? Shannon hadn't really thought this far ahead. She knew that she had to something, right? Because... well, the girl was trying to rob them. And when Shannon pinned her and none of her so-called friends came forward and did anything, well... she could only assume they weren't there.

So what was the goal, exactly?

The girl began to struggle. Shannon felt something claw against her face.

The girl was struggling, kicking and screaming and Shannon didn't know what to do. Even in a situation like this, Shannon didn't really feel like this whole thing was real. But the girl was struggling, and if Shannon backed away now, she had no idea what the girl would do. She had to find a way to stop her, but how?

Another blow hit Shannon across the face, and she, almost instinctively, wrapped her hands around the other girl's throat.

She...

She began to squeeze.
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Gundham
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#7

Post by Gundham »

Karin gurgled, her eyes bulging. She emitted the sounds of a rusty drainpipe, unable to breathe, unable to scream. Her throat felt crumpled, like an empty juice box. Her free hand scrabbled uselessly at her attacker's forearm, trying to loosen the vice grip on her throat. No dice.

She tried to tug the drill out of her pocket. It was stuck. The stupid coat pockets were big enough to get the drill into, but pulling it out again, especially under what felt like 200 pounds of crazy-ass strangler bitch, was another story. She pulled again. Still stuck. Shit. SHIT! She was getting lightheaded now, on the verge of passing out. If she did, it'd be curtains for her.

NO.

She tightened her grip on the drill's handle, squeezing the trigger as hard as she could. The drill whirred to life, angry and mechanical. It tore through the inner lining of her coat pocket, the fabric rending and twisting and shredding around the drill bit. She punched it forwards, trying to stab it into Choi Latte's ribs. No idea if she hit. Throttling the drill as high as it would go, she yanked it back and tore it free.

Then, with one final burst of energy, she swung the drill's heavy battery pack at Shannon's face.
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CondorTalon
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#8

Post by CondorTalon »

The drill bit didn't connect. When Shannon heard the whirring, she had the presence of mind to at least try to dodge whatever it was that was making that godawful noise.

What happened next, however, did catch her off guard. She saw something being swung at her face. Too hyped with adrenaline and with no time to think, Shannon turned her head to the side, attempting to block whatever it was with her arm. All this really did was divert all the force of the blow to her temple.

Shannon's body tumbled to the side, leaving her face down in the snow. She rolled over, staring up into the sky.

"BRUH."

It was hard to tell, with the spider web of branches of the trees above being barely in her field of vision, that her vision was blurring. The side of her head felt hot, and she didn't really understand why. Slowly, she put her fingers to the side of her head. She touched something warm and sticky.

"Oh."

...

"Ow."

She tried to sit up, but even moving her body just a little bit resulted in a wave of dizziness. She rolled over again, onto her stomach. She tried to lift her head again. This time, despite the dizziness, she succeeded.

"Half... fucking... ha ha ha... just a half..." she said, barely coherently.

She looked at the girl.

"Y-You... you really..."

She blinked, her eyelids getting heavy.

"Oh... okay..." she said, almost resignedly, laying her head back on the cold snow.

She breathed. Slowly, she breathed. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her vision was dark... blurry...

Damn. She really... did that, huh?

"H-H-...

"Ho-... You..."

Shannon couldn't feel her body anymore.

"Hope... you... f-f-f-...

"H...

"F...

"Hope you... f-... f-... fall over repeatedly, oomfie..."

Hah. GOTTEM.
S006, Shannon Choi: DECEASED
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Gundham
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#9

Post by Gundham »

Karin sat up and took a few heaving breaths, gulping down oxygen. Choi Latte was on her stomach, looking at her and babbling some stuff that Karin didn't understand. It all sounded kinda incoherent; Karin wasn't sure if she'd bashed her hard enough to give her some brain damage or if she was just spouting memes that Karin wasn't dank enough to get. Either way, she didn't seem to be lunging at her, so that meant it was time to get what she came for, then get the hell outta Dodge.

Her chest still heaving with exertion, she snatched up Choi Latte's bag. She shot a fierce glare at Whine Press. "If the two of you know what's good for you, don't try to follow me."

She took off into the trees, and was soon lost to the shadows.

((Karin Han continued in One Who Seeks))
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PlatFleece
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#10

Post by PlatFleece »

It was amazing what could happen in a few short seconds. First, Maya heard something in the distance, then the next thing she knew, Shannon was on top of another girl. Maya couldn't even scream. She just stood there, watching. The next thing she knew, one of the girls threatened her and left, and Shannon...

"Shannon...?" she called out, approaching her after the girl had left.

As she checked Shannon's lifeless body, she denied herself of the reality of what happened for a good few seconds, before the weight of it all kicked in, and then the guilt. She was the one who made them come here.

If she had been faster, reacted...

...Maya balled her fist, as she stood up. She wanted to process the emotions, but knew that she could not. She had to move, or she might be next.

((Maya Press continued in Guilt))
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