The Sun... :(

[ViolentMedic]

((Russell 'Fitz' Fitzroy continued from The Quietest Day So Far.))

The fifth announcements had come and gone hours ago.

Fitz hadn’t said much or paused for long while jotting the names down, except a pause as he marked a tally mark for Cassie next to the unknown Joshua, and a slight jumbling of his list when Rebekah’s name came up.

The list on his weapons manual sat in his pocket next to the last smoke grenade.


Kitty – knife – IIIII – BKA - I
Janice – knife – II
Prz - ledge
B. Quinn – blunt - BKA
Jacob L – knife
Jess R – gun - II
Aracelis – bat
Jezz S – knife - II
Shu – barb wire
Dragon - ? - III - blade
Joshua? - choke – BKA – III- gun
Alex – spear - II
Letitia – gun
Demarcus – gun
Juanita – sharp/glass? - II - gun
Meena – gun
Colm – furniture
Karin – gun – II - hammer
Lillian – whip sword strangle - BKA
Jack K – gun
Matthew - ? - II gun
Rebekah Bethany knife? gun?
Salem - gun - BKA


Fitz’s hand stayed near the list and the grenade as he walked ahead, poking his head into the shed out the back of the church and huffing lightly when he saw that nothing was there, before moving on towards where the graves were.

There were splits in the ground that had pushed some of the coffins to the surface. Fitz approached one of the coffins, crouching near the split and briefly removing his hand from his pocket to touch the wood of the coffin. The rifle remained in his other hand, unloaded for now.

“This place must be hardcore haunted, with all these disturbed coffins,” Fitz said, the slightest bit of cheer entering into his voice as he reflected on the matter. “Give us some company once we all kick it, too.”

He was not alone. Claire had left to go her own way early the previous day. But Victor had continued to follow Fitz. Fitz hadn’t said much over the previous day, but with the list against his fingers, Fitz finally had a question to ask.

“Hey. Who the hell is Joshua, anyway?”

[decoy73]

((Victor Grail continued from Better Than Cobalt))

So Thing had killed someone else, other than Ashlee. He didn't know Shannon much outside of class, just enough to believe that Shannon wasn't someone who would just up and kill someone. Of course, he didn't think that anyone else would either. Victor just pondered the idea of whom he would have to take down before Fitz asked a question.

“Hey. Who the hell is Joshua, anyway?”

Joshua, Joshua ...

"Joshua James? He's on the lacrosse team. He was a pretty solid midfielder. I didn't really talk that much to him off the team, though. He otherwise just ... slipped through."

[Gundham]

((Karin Han continued from What Do You See, Kaneda?))

Her feet were so sore. Skeevie and Claire Hag were as terrible at cartography as they were at everything else, based on how many hours she'd spent trudging around the woods on her quest for the unholy Grail. She'd found a lot of trees and bushes and snow and some more trees, but no signs of Victor or Fitz. It was possible that Skeevie had led her on a wild goose chase, which Karin begrudgingly had to admit that she'd kind of deserve.

She'd eventually zig-zagged around enough to find her way to the town, and figured she might as well try and find herself a spot to hunker down for the night. The church seemed as good a place as any. Places like that usually had a lot of nooks and crannies that she could hide in, if a lot of post-Sunday-service games of hide-and-seek during her childhood were any guide.

As she neared the building, she saw movement in the graveyard outside. Looked like two people, as best she could make out. And one of them had the sort of physique that only the finest steroids could buy. Well, well, well. The Lord really did work in mysterious ways after all.

She stuck to the shadows and crept closer. Skeevie had said that Fitz was toting a rifle, so she'd need to be very, very careful in her approach here, keeping as many headstones between her and the boys as possible...

[ViolentMedic]

“I know everyone else on this list… Must be one invisible guy. Maybe some kind of forcefield tech that stops us from recognising him.” Fitz took a careful step over some of the cracked ground to approach the area with more open graves. “Maybe he’s the terrorist’s plant, designed to be as unassuming as possible.”

Fitz lowered his bag strap off his shoulder and placed the excessively heavy bag on the edge of where the graveyard became more of a holey mess, then stuck his free hand out to keep his balance as he stepped over the grounds.

“What do you think’s in the church? Wonder if they’ve done up any of the island. The coffins out here seem kind of haunted housey, so a church--”

The ground around one of the graves was a little looser than it seemed to be, and his foot landed close to the crumblier aspect of it.

“--aaahhhnooooo...”

He didn’t so much fall as slide awkwardly into an open grave, followed by the noise of dirt sliding with him and a soft thud, before a sigh. He was tall enough that the top of his head was still visible, garish hat and a loose tuft of white-blond hair.

“Alright. Gonna poke around, while I’m down here.”

The pom-pom on top of his beanie sunk out of sight.

[decoy73]

Victor just shrugged at Fitz's question. Joshua was invisible, but only in the figurative sense. There wasn't any real conspiracy bullshit about that, Josh was just dull. As for the church, he didn't really think there was anything except church stuff and corpses. The questions were meaningless to him, and a bit stupid.

When Fitz fell into the hole, Victor wanted to roll his eyes. He was about to sarcastically ask if Fitz needed help when Fitz stated that he was just going to "poke around" a bit.

"Sure, whatever. I'll be here if you need me."

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz responded by popping his hand above the surface to give a thumbs up, then lowering it again. He crouched on the dirt, laying his gun next to him, then gave the dirt a pat. After smoothing it out, he lay down and flattened himself on the dirt, ear to the ground, and once again listened.

After a pause, he sighed. He sat up, then touched the pocket that Mister Fluffernutter was sticking out of.

“Long shot,” he said quietly to the puppet.

He stood up, picking up the rifle on the way. The top of his beanie popping back into sight.

“Alright, I’m coming on out.”

There was a pause as he stared at the dirt thoughtfully, then tried to climb the semi-collapsed side with one hand still on the gun. There were footholds and he was a tall guy made mostly out of bones, but he still needed more arm strength to climb out than one hand offered, especially while lugging the rifle about.

He hopped once to check Victor’s position, his head popping up briefly as he did so. Too far away to take the gun quickly.

He jumped again to place the rifle on the dirt next to the grave before sticking his hands out to grab the surface. But his short jumps to check on Victor had not given him the luxury of scanning the area for other dangers.

[Gundham]

Karin watched from behind a large gravestone, somewhat baffled, as Fitz's bobble cap whac-a-mole'd in and out of the grave. She couldn't help noting Victor's apparent disinterest in helping his companion extricate himself. Classic Victor. All those muscles, and no desire to use them for helping others.

Geez, how was she going to get her stuff back? Victor had the bag straps crossed across his chest, and sneaking up on him wasn't going to be an option. She'd have to back off a bit and tail them, wait until they went to sleep. Then she'd... dunno. Wait for him to snore, then stick the drill bit in his mouth and threaten some haphazard DIY dentistry if he didn't give her what she wanted.

A lovely vision of Victor sobbing incoherently and pleading for mercy at her feet was dispelled by the abrupt appearance of Fitz's sniper rifle, which he laid carefully down next to the grave. Unattended, just for a moment. Karin's eyes widened, then quickly scanned the scene. Victor was a ways away, seemingly uninterested, and Fitz was awkwardly clambering out of the hole. There'd be a few seconds, if that. She'd have to be lightning fast.

She broke cover and made a beeline for the rifle, counting on the element of surprise to give her another second or two of advantage here. They would see her, hear the noise made by her mad dash through the snow, but she'd be there before it mattered. She saw something in her periphery, imagined it to be Fitz spotting her, reaching for the gun, and she scrambled forward, snatching up the gun and darting away, kicking up a small drift as she skidded to stop a few feet out of Fitz's reach.

Panting, grinning manically, she raised the gun and pointed it at Victor's chest. "All right," she huffed. "Okay. Look... nobody move. Now... we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Easy way is, you give me my bag, Ashlee's gun, and all my food. Hard way is, I put a skylight through in your sternum."

[decoy73]

The Thing had come back. Threatening to shoot Victor unless he gave it its stuff ... and Ashlee's gun. He'd scoff at that, if it didn't have Fitz's gun. Of course, given what it did, he only had one course of action.

He pointed his gun at Thing, while reaching with his non-dominant hand for the lighter in his pocket. Thank fuck he'd read up on the weapon.

"Not a chance. Put it down, now."

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz had halfway hauled himself out of the grave when Karin appeared and snatched the gun away from its place next to the grave.

“Oh, come on!” he groaned, as he finished hauling himself out, rolling onto his back in the process. He didn’t get up yet, staring upside down at Karin from the ground and not yet making any more movements. “I let go of it for one second in four days--”

He turned his head to see that Victor had his gun out. Fitz sat up, holding his hands out. One towards each gun-wielder. His eyes lingered on Karin holding his gun for a moment, before he focused on Victor.

He wasn’t close enough to Karin to easily grab the gun back without making clear movements towards her. But he was much closer to her than Victor.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, put the gun down, okay?!" he shouted at Victor. "You are pointing that way too close to me!” His eyes flickered back over to Karin. “Also… give that back, come on. Not cool.”

[Gundham]

In most circumstances, seeing the neat little black hole of a gun barrel would have been cause for some serious panic. But not this time.

Their group had spent three days hunkered down at the Hunting Lodge. Plenty of time to take stock of everybody's weaponry, and rife with opportunities to ask innocuous questions. Hey, that's a weird looking gun. What's that bit for? Oh, so that's how it works. Cool!

"I was at the bar with you and Ashlee, genius," Karin scoffed. She didn't look over at Fitz, keeping the rifle trained on Victor's chest instead. "You can't fire that thing without lighting the fuse first. So take your buddy's advice and drop it."

As much as she hated Victor, and as confident as she was that he couldn't light the fuse without giving her all the time in the world to drop him, she was loath to actually pull the trigger. She wasn't an expert, but she'd seen video games. Sniper rifles didn't fire rapidly and they didn't reload quick, so she probably only had time for one shot. If she put Victor down, there was no way in hell she'd have time to reload before Fitz reached her; if she turned the gun on Fitz, Victor could light the fuse and blow her away. Either way, her advantage disappeared the second she pulled the trigger. Which meant she needed to switch things up a bit.

"Tell you what, Fitz," Karin said. She didn't turn her head, but kept her gaze fixed on Victor, waiting for any movement, any excuse. "You seem levelheaded and I'm feeling charitable. You want this thing back? Get Vicky there to drop the gun and give me my bag and my food. I get that, you can have this. Sound fair?"

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz held his breath for a moment, then exhaled when Victor didn’t either shoot or respond.

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay--” Fitz murmured, more to himself than to anyone around him as he closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, at the same time slowly getting to his feet with his hands still stretched out in a gesture of ‘just chill.’

“Look. No-one’s dropping any guns. Let’s settle on lowering them,” Fitz said. “You need a bag and food, Karin? I’ve got bags and food for days. So… both of you lower the guns. I'll walk over.”

He started to pace towards Victor, while keeping his hands up in the air. His eyes stayed on Victor’s gun as he took a few steps forward.

“I grab my stuff, pack some things in a bag for you. Come back. I give you the food, you give me the gun. And you just… go, okay? Forget any grudges and go. How's that, Victor?” He addressed the next part to Victor. "Even if you're quick enough on the draw, if you end up on that announcement... people have an excuse to shoot you on sight, you know? I think it's worth trading some bread for keeping your name off it."

He turned around towards Karin, tearing his eyes from the gun as he got halfway between them. A trickle of sweat started to make its way down his face as he turned his back to Victor and looked at Karin.

“Let’s be boring for another day, huh?” he said, his voice straining under the effort to be casual. Then while Victor couldn’t see his face, he silently mouthed at her, ‘Gun’s not loaded.’

[Gundham]

Karin wasn't exactly a lip reader, but Fitz's exaggerated mouth motions gave her the gist. The gun wasn't loaded.

What the hell?

She gave a slight nod in response, but kept the gun trained on Victor. The two guys had been working together for a while, and she'd take Fitz's little whisper with an Incels Anonymous forum's worth of salt.

It didn't make sense. Why would he keep the gun unloaded? What was the freaking point of that? And why would he tell her about it, instead of rushing her to get the gun back? That didn't add up at all. Fitz was lying, either to try and keep her from putting a ventilation shaft through Victor's colon, or to bait her into making some kind of mistake. Either way, she wouldn't trust that beanpole any further than she could caber toss him.

"Fine. I'll take four days' worth of food. That's about what he stole from me. Consider it... I dunno, a bitch tax refund." She smirked slightly. Throwing his words back in his oughta throw him off kilter, draw a little focus away from what she was gonna demand next. No point in letting him know that she didn't care about the food nearly as much as the day pack in her bag. The less leverage he had, the better.

"But I want it in my bag. Number 64. Should have my day pack in it. That's not gonna be any loss to you, Vick, unless you're one of those freaks who likes sniffing Asian girls' clothes. Hand it over and I'll take off and leave the gun. Then you two can get back to getting caught in a rad bromance or whatever it was you were doing. I think that's more than fair, given the circumstances."

[decoy73]

Victor was pulling his lighter out of his pocket when Thing and Fitz spoke up. The former (truthfully enough) stating that it knew how the gun worked, and Fitz ... not defending it, but at least trying to keep it from killing Victor. And noting that pulling the trigger would get Victor on the announcements one way or the other. In all fairness, Victor disagreed with some of that logic - the Thing was a double killer. He could easily defend himself should someone come for him for that, either with his words, or with his gun, if it came to that. But Fitz did at least sound earnest, and wait ...

His left hand rose out of his pocket, slowly, with his palm facing Fitz and Thing, the fingers spread out. He then looked at the bags around his shoulder - he was looking for S064. It took a minute to actually ensure he had the right one, but he was able to use his left hand to go under the strap of the 64 bag and throw it towards the Thing.

"There. You have your stuff back. Take it and go."

[ViolentMedic]

The coming to terms was accompanied by a quiet exhale on Fitz’s part.

He backed up enough so that he was out of Victor’s range with the general area he was pointed, some ease entering back into his movements as he saw Victor’s hand move away from where the lighter was. He crouched near his own bag, calling out, “Getting that food! No-one shoot while I’m not looking!”

At the accusations of a ‘bromance,’ Fitz paused, looked at Victor a moment, as if considering something.

“Ehhh… nah.”

As he straightened up, he had scooped up some rations and water. It clearly hadn’t been properly sorted, just a wad of protein bars, some water, a chunk of bread. Fitz only paused to untangle some shreds of tent plastic that he’d gotten from the campground on the first day, pausing to hold the plastic and stare down at it quietly for a moment before putting it back in his bag. His supplies were clearly still pretty packed.

He took a few steps forward to where Victor had tossed the bag. He unzipped it and opened it fairly wide, eyes briefly scanning over what was inside. After a moment, he started packing the food in on top.

“Be cool while handing that back. Or put it on the floor. Whichever.”

[Gundham]

"Yeah, fine. Just don't put a bullet in my back while I'm leaving."

Karin watched at Fitz zipped the bag up and placed it near her. As soon as his hands were completely off the bag, she mirrored his motion, gently lowering the sniper rifle and placing it off to one side, her glances alternating between him and Victor. The second the rifle's stock hit the snow, she darted forward and hooked her arm through the bag's strap, then turned on the jets and booked it. She dodged from side to side, sending her bag and Choi Latte's banging and clanging against one another as she weaved through the graveyard, heading for the tool shed at its edge. She didn't know how long it'd take Victor to light the fuse if he wanted to put a bullet in her back, but she wasn't gonna risk it. That meant putting as many obstacles between her and the boys as she possibly could.

Once she'd made it to the shed and rounded it, she stopped, pressed up against the wall, breathing heavily. No bullets had whizzed past her on the way. Either Vicky was slow on the draw or they really were gonna let her go. She could make into the forest from here, easy peasy. Conflict resolved, happy ending to the scene, etcetera etcetera.

But, hey. Never let it be said that Karin Min-Hye Han left any hornet's nest unkicked. She'd asked for Ashlee's gun, and Loser Grail had tried to terrorize her with it instead. There had to be negative consequences for that kind of behavior, or else he'd never learn. Besides, Fitz had done her a favor. It'd be rude not to do him a solid in return.

"Hey, Fitz!" she shouted, projecting across the graveyard like an auditorium. "You did me a favor, so I'll do you one. You ever ask how Vicky got that gun? He ripped it out of Ashlee's hands before she hit the ground. Didn't even try to help her, just stole her gun and left her to die. Remember that."

She didn't wait around to hear what impact her words had, if any. Bags bouncing against her back, she fled for the safety of the trees.

((Karin Han continued in We Can All Agree Snow Kinda Sucks, Right?))