Survival Of The Fittest

((Crystal Henderson continued from Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On))

In one of the booths to the side of the room, half shrouded in shadow, Crystal lurked. Watched. Ruminated. Her eyes were as dark as the lifeless glass replacements in the sockets of the taxidermied heads that lined the walls, and she felt roughly as relevant to the proceedings.

Of course, that wasn't quite true. Crystal had a gun. The gun, once. The biggest gun, still. The most dangerous. It hadn't left her hands since she'd joined up with the others, several days ago now, even when she slept. She took guard duty more often than the others. She framed it as altruism, a positive contribution, but it was the opposite. She wasn't sleeping much, and rested easier while the others slumbered. Crystal was not among friends. She was not even among people she liked, aside from Juanita and Ash. Kind of. And she didn't need second sight to perceive how things might turn now with this most inauspicious reunion.

The road back had been slow and hard. Crystal was not a long-haul hiker, and was reminded of that even as the only one who had not been injured. Her lack of enthusiasm for the endpoint certainly hadn't helped.

But the end had come, and things had shaken out, and now she was here in the bar. Lurking. Watching. Blending with the shadows.

Not even the third wheel.

Maybe the spare in the trunk.

- Ashlyn -

Two sets of bandages later and they had the ability to stay dry. The job stayed done, credit to Juanita. Ash might've casually not noticed the inches deep bullet wound threaded through two of her ribs and dropped dead of blood loss.

It would have been an ignoble end, but a death as suitable for her purposes of not giving a fuck as any other.

Dingy environment, poorly lit, the unique scent of alcohol, lingering, common for places more rundown and venerable. Typical dive bar, of the sort Salem and California had occasionally let her hang around in. Well, Salem let her in more so than California.

It was no Dani's house but similar enough atmosphere. The gang was all here, much as Ash was sure half of these losers had never been to a party once in their lives. Good on them, they'd avoided total time wasters. Maybe a bit funny, how Dani was forced to fawn over gals and ghouls she'd never have even spared a bored glance on in another lifetime.

Maybe that was why she was gone, yet to come back. The shame would be her half-sentence epitaph next morning.

Ash sat by herself on a bar stool, thoughtfully studying the pool table felt Salem had once taught her how to size up, lips buried deep into her fingers. Her breath wasn't really warming her up nowadays, unfortunately, so the numbness now existed in both face and extremities without reprieve. She glanced up, taking stock of the small cliques that had formed, cafeteria like. Polarized as the classic question of chocolate versus strawberry milk.

Little question as to if it'd all break down, it was already partway there. Juanita was a two time killer after all, and she was surrounded by crabs in a bucket.

((Juanita Reid continued from Give Me A Kiss To Build A Dream On))

Juanita sat on a stool, back to the bar, leaning on her elbows.

Soon enough she'd have to speak up, but for now she was biding her time and choosing her words. Figuring out how to re-divide the team to maximize their strengths. During the walk over, morning announcements had confirmed that Kaede, Jack and Dani's constitutional hadn't yielded any kills, which meant no new weapons coming in. John's parachute knife and Eden's naginata were the only things that they'd managed to loot, and Juanita wasn't about to hand either of them off. She didn't consider herself a disciplinarian, but this wasn't a solo game and people couldn't just do whatever they liked. Splitting off like they had done was stupid and dangerous, and it meant that they weren't there when they'd been needed. They'd risked the whole group, and she had personally almost died because of it. If those three didn't start taking things more seriously, then everybody was going to suffer for it.

She shook her head. Geez, would you listen to yourself? You sound like some kind of warlord or something. "Earn your keep or you'll get left behind! Give your all for the glory of the legion!" Ridiculous.

But still, the fact remained that somebody had to be the adult in the room. The entire point was to keep everybody alive for as long as possible, and if they couldn't do that on their own, then someone needed to speak up and encourage some changes. For starters, the three who'd done a walking tour weren't going to be left on their own anymore. Some of them could go off with Crystal, some with Juanita, and they could earn better weapons the same way she had. That was the plan, anyway. But she kinda doubted that someone like Dani Bird would take orders without pushback, especially from someone like Juanita. But Juanita had blood on her hands and what did Dani have? Pom-poms? Expensive nail polish? If push came to shove, they'd have to side with Juanita. Juanita had weapons. She had notches in her belt. That meant she was the team captain, whether Dani liked it or not.

At least, that's how she told it to herself. It helped that Dani wasn't actually here, which made it much easier to imagine verbally thwomping her. But if she didn't show up soon, they'd just go ahead and start the meeting without her. No point in wasting more time if she couldn't be bothered to stick with the group.

She looked over at Ash. "Anything on the radar?"

After some time spent searching—apparently, a member of Jack and Kaede's group had gone A.W.O.L—they went to the bar, the base of operations of the so-called 'Legion,' empty-handed. Well, he wasn't stupid. The fractures had already formed, and stress had built up, like a car window attacked with thrown ceramic shards. It would shatter.

And, to make things worse, they hadn't been given all the information they needed. As things turned out, it was a player gang, and Crystal—one of the few people they'd agreed to neutralize on sight—was a member. Small world. With friends like these, who needed enemies? It didn't change their plans; it only turned her murder into friendly fire.

At some point in the morning, he'd turned to Jenny. Then, he'd pulled her aside, away from the Legion's camp. His face was stern, framed by the dark sky and stars above. "Listen, I've got a plan, alright?" he said, trying to calm her nerves. "All we gotta do is take the night shift tonight. Then, we can deal with this problem for good. Know what I mean?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He didn't need one. He had one already.

"Remember what I said? 'Nobody's going to fuck with us.' I'm not a liar, Jen," he said, and though it was a lie, it held the essence of the truth. "These are bad folks. They're killers, and they're thieves, and they're liars." All of the things he could be. "I say, when night falls, we shoot her dead, take everything we can carry. And then we run for the hills."

Kill, rob, cut-and-run, his modus operandi with an extra step at the start.

"Until then, we lay low, right? Lay low, keep our hands on our weapons, and our eyes on theirs. I'll watch your six, and you watch mine. And when the time comes, that'll all be a bad memory, but it'll be a memory. And we'll be much, much, much closer to home. I told you, back then: 'We might have to do some bad shit to survive out here.' I meant it."

He paused, his eyes serious and his face gallows-grim. Then, he went on.

"This is it, Jen—this is our live-or-die moment. And I want us to live."

S043: DONOVAN LAUER — CONTINUED FROM "The Draft Pick"

Donovan took the magazine out of the pistol. Even without removing all the ammo, he could count it: seventeen total, and he'd spent four total. That left him with thirteen rounds, more than enough for the task. And, at point-blank range, aimed at the head, he wouldn't need more than one to end a life. He slid it back in, slow and careful, and then racked the slide.

"Alright," he thought. "Ready for anything. I only need to bide my time."

He spared a glance at Crystal. She didn't know him, but he knew her. But, man, if looks could kill, he'd be dead already. She must not've liked that she wasn't the only one with a gun anymore. Well, too damn bad. Though he had to say, her weapon tempted him. Once he got his hands on that thing, he'd be a walking armory, strapped to the teeth. Unstoppable.

Donovan smiled at her, full of teeth, then looked back at his hands and slid the gun back into his pocket. It wasn't a rifle, but it'd do the job well enough. A bullet was a bullet. His eyes darted to the others as they talked, a glimmer in them amidst the brown of his irises. The radar might be a nice prize, too. If he could snag it, it'd help keep them alive.

"So, once we find someone, what's the plan?" he asked. He might as well make some conversation. To be silent was to be suspicious. "Just wanna make sure me and Jenny," he gestured to her, "get our bearings. The lay of the land, you know?" A good start. "I get the gist, but who's going to do what? We should have a strategy in place before we wage war."

[Jack Anderson continued from being far too itchy with his trigger finger The Draft Pick.]

The walk back to town was, mercifully, mostly uneventful. Oh, they talked a bit, explaining The Grand Plan and all that (which was to say, Jack let Kaede do most of the talking while he repeatedly - and probably a bit too obviously - looked over his shoulder, half-expecting a bullet to the back of his head from Donovan).

When they got back, the rest of The Legion of Doom had assembled (or was assembling) in the bar. Jack looked around outside, but didn't see...well, nobody seemed to be lurking nearby, yadda yadda yadda. So he went in...and he allowed himself to relax, switch back 'off' once Donovan and Jenny were otherwise occupied, and flop into a chair with his back to most of the group. As some of the others began chatting, he took the opportunity to start looking over the various mounts...

After all, it was...probably a dozen or so kids who were all swearing to not kill each other - just anybody who wasn't with the group. It was just a matter of somebody sorting out details of whatever the plan would be, and then figuring out how to implement it. But for now, bullets weren't flying, and until then...

It would be totally safe, right?

Nothing could go wrong, right?

...right?

And then he spotted a camera in the wall almost in front of him, nestled between a few mounts, and waved at it...

"Uh, hi, Mom, Dad. I'm fine for now..."

...before sighing and putting on a fake David Attenborough accent.

"Observe the Legion of Doom in its natural habitat...the bar, its lair...planning the downfall of its rivals..."

((Jennifer Farrow continued from The Draft Pick))

Donovan had practically dragged her into this now. She didn't get a chance to say anything when he mentioned the plan. One, because she didn't expect that they'd meet Crystal again so soon. Two... and this is the part she secretly hated about herself.

...She probably would've said yes.

So now here she was, with strangers, and a girl that, honestly, Jenny didn't know if she was going to recognize her or not. And now Donovan was ready to put his plan into motion. Someone's going to get hurt soon, or worse...

...how bad could her luck get at this point?

If there was one thing she was good at though, it was calming her nerves. She had her weapon nearby, not completely at the ready, but still by her hand, ready to be drawn. She knew she had to move fast when Donovan was going to announce his play, like a team player, and if she stuck to the plan, maybe she won't even have time to think about the implications of what she's about to do.

After all... Donovan had the gun.

She stayed silent, following Donovan's lead, even as he led the conversation for now.

((Kaede Tsurumi continued from The Draft Pick))

Kaede had actually spoken to people. Well, more than a one or two word sentence, on her own, to people who weren't Dani or Sayaka. That was an accomplishment. To be fair, she was mostly making it up as she went along. But still, there was a group, and they were going to work something out, right?

They'd come to a bar. But, they were the only ones there. It wasn't like they could really discuss much of anything without Ashlyn or Crystal, so she just ... sat down. Donovan and Jennifer were talking, and the Jack was treating this like a documentary.

Kaede just looked around. At least things were on an upswing right now.

The worst part of all this was that Crystal couldn't really complain. The others knew she had extra supplies, vaguely. They knew she hadn't killed for them. She had not volunteered how much she had, however, or its origins, and now she was sharing a room with the girl who'd given them to her and the boy who'd come with her, and he also had a gun. And if she said anything, it would all get very awkward, and she'd probably get told to let bygones be bygones, or maybe even to give the stuff back, so instead she had to just sit in silence pretending like she'd never seen the girl before.

One of the things that had briefly given Crystal pause in physics class was the concept of potential energy. Kinetic energy was easy—that was the energy of an object in motion, the actual movement part that you could see and feel, the bullet flying from the barrel of a gun. But potential energy seemed to her less energy, more potential. It was kinetic energy that could happen, but was not yet happening, and that as energy in its own right had been difficult for her to wrap her head around. How could something be energy when it wasn't doing anything? A bullet in a chamber wasn't yet anything, and might never be.

Well, she sure knew now.

Only Jack seemed to be having any sort of a decent time. He was entertaining himself in the corner. Dani wasn't around, so Crystal thought he actually probably hadn't gotten any, but who could say? And hey, maybe he'd come to his senses and take her very solid advice, and cast aside the simp lifestyle.

Juanita and Ash were of course not in great shape, having been injured and then hiked halfway across the island while everyone else twiddled their thumbs. Kaede was probably a little lost without Dani to attach to like a barnacle on the side of an old rotting pier, and the newcomers were probably not a good fit for the group. Crystal hadn't figured out why they were here and wasn't sure she wanted to ask. Whenever the group split again—and surely it would soon, because there was no way everyone in this room would be able to tolerate each other for more than a few hours—she would find a way to not go with their little faction.

Actually, come to think of it? Crystal had a pretty solid hunch what had happened. The girl being as willing to go with literally anything anyone said as she was, Dani or someone had probably just been like "Hey we're a group hunting the weak, now you're with us!" and that had been that.

Ugh. Horrible. She just wanted them to leave. She just wanted to sleep. She just wanted to stop trading glances with the guy, like what had Crystal even done to him? Nothing. Why did everyone here hate her?

So she cast another glance at Juanita instead, and her fingers tightened around the gun, and she silently seethed at Dani's tardiness prolonging this purgatory.

"No Dani, no unknowns, nothing."

Ash offered to share the phone-small screen of the radar with Juanita. This late into the game she saw reality more through the blocky polygons, barely two-dimensional. People were their numbers, then they were their position relative to her, then they were ignored unless they were liable to kill her.

Reality was expansive, encompassing a healthy three-sixty arc around her with walls and other visual impedements irrelevant. It was also restricted to the radar, and she barely had eyes for anything else. If anybody said anything important, she'd hear it whether or not it was directed at her face. So far not much worth paying attention to had been said.

She briefly looked up. Donovan- she recognized both him and Jennifer from athletics, and in theory had liked both of them before the demarcation point where she'd stopped caring- was asking a question and the target, Crystal, seemed disinclined to offer an answer.

"We talk to them and kill them if they're not willing to talk. It's worked well enough so far."

With caveats. She could breathe steady enough even with the bit of her ribs that was filleted clean- clean so far, the bandages had yet to smell of infection but Ash was positive at some point her immune system would give up when she was offering it less calories than needed for basic survival, let alone luxuries such as health and fitness.

Her jacket hung open, to vent body heat trapped before it started to sweat and paradoxically increased the chance she suffered some form of exposure from the cold and temperature differential. The bandaging could be seen as a thick layer under her shirt, another flimsy plain black not really intended to be seen but worn because she had no choice.

"By some definition."

Donovan had the other gun, which is why Ash briefly deigned to acknowledge his existence with all the cold politeness she could muster. Better he have the gun than Dani, but better Dani be here than not. If only because she'd make the battle lines clearer- Dani was a with her or against her kind of girl. Only one of those around and things got murkier.

Ash didn't know when she'd have to grab the knife, nor who she'd be jumping at, when the time came.

"All right, screw it."

Juanita stood up, and made her way over to the pool table, leaning back against it and folding her arms as she surveyed the troops.

"We might as well go ahead and get started, since almost everybody's here. Before anything else, I wanna say a quick welcome to the new people here. Glad to see more people joining up. We've got your backs, and we hope you have ours. And, like, I'm gonna talk a bit but I wanna empathize that nobody's in charge here. You're all old enough to make your own decisions and do whatever you want. I'm not your mom and I'm not your boss. The entire point of this group is to try and give everybody in it a better shot at survival, and if you have ideas on how to make that happen, go ahead and share them. We're a team, not a gang. Okay?"

She grimaced for a moment, before continuing. "That being said, I think we need to make some changes to how we've been doing things. Case in point, Dani Bird was supposed to be here, she's not. Nobody's heard from her, and that could mean anything from her not caring, to her running off with the other cheerleaders, her being too busy with a broken nail, her being dead out there somewhere. We don't know. None of us know where she is, and if she gets attacked out there, we can't do anything to help her. This is why we travel in groups."

Juanita turned her head, giving the newcomers a good look at the stump of her ear. "I don't know what all you've seen, but I can tell you that it's bad out there, and it's only gonna get worse. I lost an ear to Eden Glass, got tear gassed and lost my clothes, and my ex tried stabbed me in the face. The only reason I wasn't on the announcements yesterday or today is that I had teammates with me to back me up. Without this group, I'd be dead. And Dani's off on her own. She's got no weapon, and no backup. If she gets into a fight, she could die. Simple as that. I don't want that to happen to her, or to any of us. That's why I want us to to do better here."

She cast a look at Jack, who was still apparently pretending to be on The Office and Kaede, who was sitting quietly, trying to hammer home that "us" meant "all of us, but mostly the two of you."

"We have a bit more firepower now, and some better weapons. I think this is the time for us to start taking the fight more aggressively to people, so that those who don't have a lot of weaponry can have a better chance. So my thought is, we send out different strike teams, or we all move as a cohesive unit, make it so that every fight is seven people against one, and win by sheer numbers. What do you guys think?"

Donovan knew just about every face in the room. Jenny, that'd been said already. Crystal, she was a target. Jack was their manager on track. Ash played volleyball and was part of the cheer squad. So was Dani, even if she was missing in action, and she was friends with Kaede. Juanita was a former mainstay on the school's Lacrosse team before she got injured.

"Could've been a contender," he quoted in his head, almost accompanied by a snicker. "Could've been somebody."

Contenders. All of them could've been contenders. Even right now. What was this whole thing, if not one long, terrible competition? They were all in contention. This plan—work together, kill their way home—was doomed from the moment it had begun. Why? Because the truth was, as long as two people were still on the island, someone would want someone dead.

Donovan remembered a piece of advice their fearless leader sometimes passed around. You had to trust people to be themselves. Now, that didn't mean you counted on them to have your back—the truth was, you couldn't count on anyone for that—but that you expected them to act the way they always did. It made people a hell of a lot more predictable.

You trust a liar to lie, a stealer to steal, a killer to kill—chances are, they'll do it.

He shrugged off Ash's words like water down his back. He knew all that already—like, it wasn't Sun Tzu. The basic plan, where you hoped and prayed that they'd respond to you with words, not bullets. Another day, another meet and greet on murder island. And, evidenced by the fact that half of them looked like they'd been through the grinder, it didn't work.

"Sure," he said. "Simple enough. But, like, any more tactics in there? I'm not keen on getting greeted with a bullet to the head—imagine you guys aren't, either." He paused and looked around the room, a click of the tongue almost silent on his breath. Then, just as he was about to talk again, Juanita interjected and began a speech, at length, to all of them.

To put a long story short, nobody was the group's leader, and everybody made their own decisions—except that Juanita was, by all accounts, the one in charge, in authority if not in name. That seemed obvious enough to him. But, hey, if she didn't want a fancy title, that was fine by him. Then, on about what she'd gone through and some strategies. He cut back in.

"Alright. I can get with that," Donovan said, careful not to assert himself too much. He may have had a gun, but he was new to the group, and they probably didn't trust him yet. "I'm down to take the fight to the rest of them. Shock and awe, yeah? But, one thing: we can't be on offense all the time. We'll get hurt, get tired, and we'll burn out. That's a death spiral."

This scenario was a game at its roots, as far as he saw it, and, like any game, you had to play smart. Going on the offensive could work, but you had to have a strategy behind it. Brute force wasn't enough. Technique and finesse were important as well. And, above all, you had to know your limits—understand how far you could push yourself before you broke.

"We'll have to play defense sometimes," he began again. "And that means we'll need a plan for the downtime—how we rest, relax, recharge. We'll need to decide who sleeps when, whose shift is when, all that, you know?" Then, sagely, he nodded, hoping the others would agree. When his head tilted down, he looked at the gun in his pocket and smiled.

"Soon," he thought, murder on his mind. "They won't even know what happened to them until it's over."

"That's why I want us to to do better here."

If Jack actually processed what was said, he didn't show it, continuing his narrative for the benefit of the viewers as he glanced around and then posed for another camera.

"The leader of the legion - at least, as much as it can be said to have a single leader - attempts to divide labor among the members. For now, dividing them into teams, for the better security of the group. She admonishes some members of the group, attempting to also instill discipline, hopefully improving the group's chances of success - or at least, of survival..."

So, at least to the home audience, Jack heard the message...it just went in one ear and out the other (a turn of phrase that Juanita would likely not appreciate right now). Then Donovan jumped in.

"And that means we'll need a plan for the downtime—how we rest, relax, recharge...

Jack twitched slightly, taking in Donovan's input, and then continued offering color commentary for the audience at home.

"One of the other members enters the debate, motives unclear. He suggests discussing sleeping, but does he offer to take the first sleeping shift? Of course not. Also not clear - is he challenging for control of the group or just trying to be helpful?"

Jenny could feel the tension in the air. New people joining a group that, for all she know, had been gathering several different people all the time. And these people were all players, so trust would be difficult to earn. Jenny could hear the boy, Jack, narrating in the background. She didn't really know if this was normal or not.

Her gaze went back to Donovan, who was trying to lead the conversation in some way. If he voiced his opinion alone, it might be drowned out. He needed a bit of support, and Jenny could do that, even if it was the most obvious thing in the world for everyone else.

"Look, if there's one thing I know about big teams, it's that we need to be on the same page, and I don't know if you guys have a defined 'leader' or not, and frankly, it doesn't really matter. Whether we discuss offense or defense, we just need to stick to a plan. I think that's a reasonable thing to do, right? No need to argue. We're just... talking." Jenny glanced over at Jack, who she feels might be liable to set the powder keg on fire.

She had a plan with Donovan, yes, but it's going to go sideways if it launches too soon. They needed to stick to it smoothly, and part of that is calming this antsy group of people who were closer to killing (or even being killed) than most of the other kids on the island. If the discussions get any worse, she might have to step up to a more authoritative voice, even though she didn't want to. The less spotlight on her, the better.

Kaede listened to Juanita as she turned her head to show her ear, or more accurately, the lack thereof. That caused Kaede to flinch. Partially because, well, people were supposed to have ears on the side of their head, and partially because such a graphic injury made the situation more, well, real. Kaede didn't like that. She didn't like doing harm, or being harmed. But Juanita's display and her words sent two conflicting messages - on the one hand, that they should take the fight to other people, and the other, where the risk was outweighing the reward.

"Juanita, d-do you think it's worth it to start fighting more people? I mean, what if you end up dying in your next fight? Maybe we should try to stay on the defense."

If there was one single part of this situation that Crystal actually felt comfortable with, it was watch duty. Not keeping watch. Keeping watch she could do, and she had done, likely more than anyone else because until she was alone with Juanita and Ash she was constantly doubling shifts, lying quiet forcing herself to stay awake until she failed, gun clutched so tight her knuckles trembled. Constant vigilance. No, keeping watch was new, but setting watch? That was in Crystal's wheelhouse.

Crystal played a lot of roleplaying games. She read a lot of fantasy novels. These things did a surprisingly good job of preparing her for the task at hand. Every party needed to set a watch, lest they never wake up at all. Precise division of that task varied with the party composition—an elf didn't have to sleep, thus could shoulder a heftier share of the burden—but it needed doing.

And watch wasn't exclusively about avoiding threats from outside the party either. Most people Crystal knew had watched Lord Of The Rings. Most of Crystal's friends had watched the extended edition. Only a handful had, like her, read the books and understood them.

What even the extended editions left out was just how much time and energy and danger went into travel. Into rest. Into staying safe at the little moments. And the most dangerous part of all was when one among your number could not be trusted unattended.

Crystal had been Frodo Baggins this whole time. Not the leader. Not the most assertive. Not somebody anybody would have along, except for what she bore, which was vital to the group's success. But she had also been Sam Gamgee, because she had no Sam Gamgee, and so she had steeled herself against the machinations of others. There would be no Gollum wrapping clammy fingers around her throat while her eyes were closed. She would not extend Frodo's trust and mercy, not when all of them were weapons.

But all the same, she needed sleep sometimes. And so, bolstered by the speech that Juanita had given, and by the direction it had obviously been aimed (not at her) and the reception it had obviously received (limited, except from the people Crystal already trusted), she finally entered the discussion.

Crystal stood up. She held the gun, like always. Probably none of the others had seen her not holding the gun since they met. The new girl had certainly only ever seen Crystal wielding the weapon, both now and before. Even when she stooped to gather her bounty.

"Watches are good," she said. "We have enough people to do shifts of two."

This was familiar, except for the part where any of it would be real. Normally this merely determined who would roll the dice.

"We mix and match groups," she said, and now she turned her attention to the two new members. "Not consecutive, either. One of you first, the other last. With someone else, for your safety."

Crystal trusted two people in this room. Kind of. She didn't know who trusted her on a personal level. But she knew who had to trust her in the course of their professional relationship: everyone. Because she had the gun. The Ring. So if anyone pointed out her hypocrisy? They could just deal.

"Especially since, for the first night, weapons are held by the established members."

She didn't bother to sound apologetic.