[5-10] Flights of Fancy (Christa and Red)

[Karl Jak]

Christa

Red XIII

Gone from the beach, Christa made her own way into the Forest.

Far removed from the sniper, Red XIII found himself in the misty trees as well, trailed by a chuckling Karl Jak.

"You left this, Cat," the executive producer remarked.  Red spun around in time to snatch the metal object out of the air with his mouth.

[Gildarts]

Cold eyes caressed the empty scene of sprawling trees and curving roots while she was taken deeper into the secluded in the silence of the forest. A canopy of leaves above her cast shrouds of refreshing shade over her skin as she made her path. The woman stalked through the wood on edge, Karl had melted her favorite pistol, the monster had broken her favorite wrist, and well, her favorite leg was moving at the pace of a slow, hobbled old man. In her left hand she had propped the sniper against her shoulder–in case she heard any sound–but there was doubt that it’d be much good, for her hand was inches from the trigger and there was also aiming the extended snout of the gun for a clean shot.

“Ugh.”

She grunted to herself, though still keeping some element of silence. The fresh ocean breeze was vacant from this area, there was no rustling of life from birds, squirrels, or whatever the hell they had on tropical islands. Instead there was an ominous and soundless chill slinking in the shadows, as though the woman had been sighted, and the scent of her blood was leaving a wafting trail marking where she had been.

Creeeek!

One of the trees close to her sung, spooking the girl and causing her to pull her weapon up in a startled frenzy. Her eyes fixed on the point, once over her shoulder, which had made the noise. It now looked innocent, devoid of having done anything wrong, completely lifeless. Perhaps the tree itself was smirking through its thick, scraggly bark. The woman scowled at the tree, knowingly. There was not a single sound in this forest, there was no way that tree hadn’t done that intentionally. After a deep breath, the sniper set back out on her way, she couldn’t exactly attack a friggin’ tree. She wasn’t that far gone, yet.

Still perched between her lips was the cigarette, which gave her some sanctity through all of this Hell. Her stomach rumbled slightly, and she knew she had the snickers, but the girl couldn’t bring herself to let the stick leave her lips. She told herself she forgot it was there, in order to justify keeping her eyes on it longer, though it was starting to get soggy and had begun decomposing crumbs of paper in her mouth. Having stuffed the rest of the box in her pockets, which were once rather roomy, Christa suddenly slowed down with her eyes wide, and looked back at the way she had come.

There was not a trace. Nothing left for her to follow or reference. “Shit.” she growled, “I should’ve been marking my trail,” but there wasn’t much left of her to mark with. She had to ask Karl for the cloth of her sling, and she had been reduced to her jacket to protect the skin of her shoulders. “Shit.” she said again, realizing that she’d have to resort to a particular brand of breadcrumbs, that is, if she had decided she wanted any other kind of beasts hunting her. It took her a moment to decide, and when she was pulling out the cigarettes, having chosen not to get lost, rather than worried about getting hunted by creatures that could already probably smell trace her blood, there was a silent rustling in the forest.

Spinning around quickly, Christa trusted her ears while her hand flew upward, scattering the box of coffin nails everywhere and dropping the one from her lips while she fumbled for her gun. Their eyes met, hers a glacial blue, his an emblazoned yellow. Through the connection, her fears were, more or less, chased away.

“Red.” her eyes fell over the fur of his ears and followed down the sinewy sculpt of the feline’s body. The lion, symbol of courage and spacious pride, she could see why. Followed by his number, what it meant, she didn’t know, though the sniper was sure it had some semblance to war, “Thirteen.”

He, however, said nothing. Usually when she was talking to a creature, that would’ve been fine, but Christa, more-or-less intrigued by why he had come, felt the sting of the silence like a well sharpened blade. Not even a hello, Hell, he had followed her! The gun didn’t lower immediately. She was suspicious of this place, his intentions, though she looked into his amber gaze and saw nothing but purity. The woman blinked and reluctantly lowered her aim, “Guess you’re with me now.” It had dawned on her that he could’ve been some sort of illusion, hysterics from the blood loss, or the island itself but she counted out all the doubt and now knelt, cleaning up her mess of sentimental cigarettes.

After the floor was spotless, save the leaves and all but one cigarette, she pronounced, “Do you think Karl and the others are coming?” A sound came from his throat while Christa finally noticed the bulge below his lips and resting gently below his fangs. “Oh,” she said, offering an amused smile and reached out to grab it, though the fearless woman hesitated as her hand drew a few inches from his saber-shaped teeth, the unnamed trust of having fought a battle together carried it the rest of the way.

Now she held the drool-covered thing and shook it off of the gizmo with indifferent disgust. Suddenly, her attitude took an enormous turn, “Well, welcome to the jungle,” she smirked, “I have nothing to mark the trees, so I’m using cigarettes on the ground. Maybe one of them will catch up with us if they choose to, and be able to find us this way... Though I’ll say you’ll probably be better at navigating in here better than I am, plus, I’m looking for someone I was on the plane with... Yuck!” she said wiping off the last of the saliva against her pant leg, though it had the tendency to cling to anything it could and lathered her hand with its frothing, slimy substance, after getting a bit frustrated with the machine itself, she asked out loud.

“What even is this thing?”

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

The feline and the sniper progressed through the increasingly dense wood, she keeping her firearm tucked ready by her side as he continued his search of the vicinity. Red had lost track of precisely how long they had been walking since leaving the waterfront, though if time in the Danteverse worked anything like it did in the Omniverse at large, it likely didn’t really matter. What did, though, was finding surviving and somehow putting together the puzzle that had brought them together in the first place. 

“I have no idea what this is,” Christa muttered thoughtfully, her enunciation somewhat hampered by the rolled tobacco she kept between her lips. Red watched the cancer stick bob unsteadily as she spoke, threatening to fall to the earth, though it never did. She had been slowly depositing the smokes in their wake as they walked, leaving ‘breadcrumbs’ as she called them, though Red didn’t understand the significance of the word. “It doesn’t seem to do...anything,” she said, mild irritation evident in her tone. She slapped the tablet sharply, as one might punish a bratty child.

The burgundy beast remained silent, splitting his attention half between surveying the area for threats or comrades and half on Christa herself. He was having precisely no luck in the former, only able to pick up the scent of the occasional small mammal and of the veritable kaleidoscope of plant life. Instead, he had taken to sizing up his companion, noting her relaxed gait and distracted expression. Her apparent trust for the feline was a far cry from their first encounter; though he had a feeling having a gun aimed at him would be a standard greeting, he didn’t fear her. Had she truly wanted to do him harm, letting the colossus pummel him would have been the easiest way to do so. Whether she realized it or not, her actions on the beach had convinced Nanaki of her character in a way words could not.

“Any ideas?” the blonde gunslinger inquired, turning her gaze to point her intact cigarette down at him. He wasn’t entirely “up on” human culture, but he was pretty sure that cigarettes were normally lit. 

“I’m not the one to ask about technology,” he responded, turning his head at an awkward angle to allow his good eye to inspect the contraption. From his perspective his keen optic could spot a tiny circular protrusion on the side. “Maybe that bit sticking out the side?”

The woman turned the device over, running her pointer finger over the widget. “Seems like a...knob maybe?” Her fingers found their grip, a tiny click sound audible as she turned the dial. A few uneventful seconds passed between her and the device before she let out an exasperated sigh, dropping the tablet into her pocket. “Fuck it, I’ll figure it out later.”

The crimson Prime smirked, turning his attention back to his surveying duty. In a way, traveling with Christa was relaxing. Her gruff demeanor and her cigarette habit- though unorthodox- reminded him very much of the fair-haired, chain-smoking, airship pilot Cid Highwind. He, much like his current companion could be quite rough around the edges, but was faultlessly loyal; a characteristic he understood and respected. Whether or not she shared this with his old friend remained to be seen.

“So,” she began, wiping a moist lock of hair from her brow. The farther they went into the forest, the thicker the mist became. “Why’d you come?”

Red exhaled sharply at her words, casting his memory back to recall why he had begun this expedition. He remembered his past conversations with Karl Jak since arriving, the sleazy executive producer’s snide remarks being wholly unhelpful. The feline hadn’t seen Jak since he had left to follow Christa, but he could still smell faint whiffs of his pungent cologne. He thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully before speaking. “I’m looking for a friend.”

The sniper stopped short, looking down at her feline comrade for a few seconds before returning her attention to their trek. “Ah.”

“He’s been missing for a long time. The last place he was seen was here,” the burgundy beast explained. Whatever happened on the island, and despite the showrunner’s non-answers, he could not give up hope on finding Vincent. In his darkest times, the pale man had been nothing if not a pillar of support, promising to meet with the feline frequently throughout each other’s supernaturally long lives. Perhaps if he were to return Karl- assuming he wasn’t in on the whole thing- safely to his home, he could squeeze the needed information from his constantly smirking lips. “It’s the only lead I have,” he finished quietly.

The sniper nodded, pulling another cigarette from the carton and depositing on the ground as they walked. She kept ownership of the one cradled between her lips, despite the fact that it had long since begun to deteriorate. “Must be a good friend,” she said.

Nanaki thought for a moment. “He is,” he responded, “he and I have a similar...history. Suffice it to say, we’ve both been through the same…” he paused, mentally struggling with how best to explain his past. “Well, to put it simply he knows better than anyone the pain I’ve been through. In a strange way, you could say that we’re brothers. We’ll both be around for a very long time, outliving our other friends; he knew this, so he’d promised to keep in contact.” The feline glanced up at his companion, “My apologies if that was confusing. I just...can’t relax knowing he could be in danger, and jumping through Karl’s hoops is the only way to get answers.”

“I understand,” Christa replied, nodding knowingly. “I guess you could say that I’m in this for a similar reason. Someone I care for is in harm’s way and I need to get them back. And then there’s him…”

“Hmm?”

“Someone from the plane,” she responded almost too quickly, as if to brush away a painful thought. “He’s out here,” she said finally, nodding. “We’ll find him and your friend, if he’s here, Red.”

“My birth name is Nanaki,” the fiery feline said without meeting her gaze. “Not that it matters, but as Karl Jak let slip your surname, I feel it’s fair.”

“Nanaki,” she said, pondering the name. “So should I call you that?”

The crimson Prime shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me, call me whatever is comfortable for you. In my culture, a name is simply that. We define ourselves by our actions more so than our titles. My father taught me that...when he passed.”

She nodded silently, letting the distant sounds of wildlife provide her response. Though the island was anything but welcoming, friendship provided a measure of comfort. As each considered the other’s plight, an audible ping drew their attention to the sniper’s pocket. 

The blonde quickly plunged her hand into her pocket. “It’s beeping,” she said, pulling it free. She frowned, gazing down at the strange piece of technology. “And...blinking?”

[Gildarts]

The one-armed woman was in the middle of snapping a cig in two when there was a loud Ping! that immediately caught their attention. Without further delay, the machine was in her hand. Christa’s eyes widened as she brought the screen down low so that Nanaki could see it too. Visible through the fog between her eyes and the end of her arms, was an evident dot in the center and a glowing sphere of neon light that radiated outward in intervals of about every seven seconds. “It looks like... A radar,” she said and was followed by another ominous Bwoop!

What had activated the flat-screened device, however, had caught her eye, for in the corner of the grid there was a tiny little dot. And it was moving. “What do you think that is?” The pinging continued and her mind shifted between survivors, Abner and maybe Karl Jak, there was also the possibility of another of the giant friggin’ monster they had slain on the beach. Their eyes pulled from the screen to exchange a look of mutual understanding before Christa straightened her back and turned to the direction of the dot. Both of them were looking for someone, and both would have their answers.

“Hard to tell,” Red said, “It will be best if we think we can sneak up on it, keeping our distance until we know for sure.” No matter what, the dot told of danger and it had started to skip on the bounds of the device’s range. With the incessant beeping and without a way to turn it off, sneaking up on it would be a far-fetched chance at best.

“Well, I guess we’re going after this thing then,” Christa spoke with a fearless tone that told of leadership, “Listen Red, from here on out, any wrong move we make could mean our demise. In war, you could just be strolling in your own territory with all the caution in the world and step on a land mine, you wouldn’t just lose your leg though, you’d lose all the blood in your body. One mistake, one slip up, can be fatal out here. It may not look it, but this island has a taste for blood.”

At first Nanaki thought she was lecturing him, he’d had his fair share of tragedy and survival, but after another short moment, he realized she was trying to unite them. They were fighting the same battle together, and in order to die without fear, they had to live the strongest they could, which meant, together.

The ping sounded again, marking their time to go, Christa put one foot in front of the other and pulled out her knife, which had been hitched on her belt with her other grenades and utilities. “Red,” she said in a softer tone, signaling that they were on the hunt, “Once we get closer, I’ll hold onto the machine, and we will split up, you can go in from behind and surprise them if its an enemy. Who knows, it could just be a cell phone tower, but I think it’s best to go in with a plan.”


Nanaki looked up at her, intrigued, offering a slight nod of compliance while Christa’s nose was a little too close to the screen, so she walked into a smog-covered tree. Bark scraped the skin of her nose and she pulled back in a wince, after seeing that little harm had come to her, he smiled right after she did, “And watch out for trees. Never know when one might sneak up on you.”

After she had said that, a sharp stab was driven at her abdomen, so much so, that the girl gracelessly collapsed into the soggy dirt, lathering what was left of her clothes in wet mud. In her hand she still clasped the device, so that it would not break with her fall nor malfunction due to the mere inches that separated it from the squishy ground. The agony had been startling, and lasted no longer than a pinch, meanwhile Nanaki had grit his teeth and felt whatever force had caused Christa to fall from her feet, though he withstood the pain on the balance of his four paws.

She stood up, a streak of blood running down her lip while her clothes and most of her skin had been covered with a camouflaging shade of brown and stood up again saying, "Invisible trees, right?"

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

Nanaki clenched his jaw tightly, gritting his teeth as sharp, visceral pain tore at his gut. His sole working eye slammed shut as his organs writhed in his gut, his body tensing in retaliation against the torment. He endured the pain without making a peep, his senses dampened for a few seconds before the agony began to subside. In its stead, Red felt blood pool in his stomach as nausea washed over him. He could barely ponder what was happening before he began retching, sticky ichor surging upward and freeing itself from his esophagus as a tabby might hack a hairball onto the family sofa.

At his side, the feline heard Christa say something, though he couldn’t hear it. She had stumbled just as the pain overtook him, the dribble of blood streaming from her mouth telling Red that he was not alone in his pain. He blinked hard, waiting for the pain’s return, though it never came. “You...you too?”

The sniper brought her hand to her mouth, coughing up a fine mist of crimson droplets into her palm. “Yeah, me too.”

The fiery feline shook his head, spitting thick gobs of bloody saliva onto the forest floor. Was this affliction perhaps a consequence of their battle with the magma golem, some macabre curse placed upon them in its dying moments? Nanaki thought back, remembering that neither had consumed anything rancid since arriving on the island; there was the food on the plane, though. Had they been poisoned before even arriving? The crimson Prime silently cursed the Syntech employee’s meatloaf as his paranoid brain searched for answers.

“Was someone sick on the plane?” Christa asked, wiping bloody spit with the back of her hand. She retrieved a fresh cigarette from her carton, replacing the one that now lay mooshy and bloodsoaked amid the muck. 

“I don’t think anything from a few hours ago would incubate so quickly. Or, at least I hope not.” Nanaki did remember a particularly foul-smelling participant aboard the plane, though he never got near enough to the walking horror to become infected. Luckily, his superhumanly acute olfaction had caught the scent of the molecules at a range well beyond what any pathogen could reach. Though, there was the possibility that Karl or Christa could have passed it to him. Having discounted the idea, he shook the thought from his head.

“Let’s hope,” she replied, nodding. Elsewhere in the Omniverse, this might be something to spur one to head back to their warm beds and sleep it off. This, however, was the Danteverse. They could not afford to simply sit on their hands (or paws) and hope for the best. “This way,” Christa replied, gesturing in the direction of the blinking indicator. 

Red followed in her wake wordlessly, now paying special attention to his surroundings. He had encountered enough outlandish baddies to be paranoid of unseen sorcerers or poisonous swarms just beyond the mist. The feline put his nose to its job, whilst at the same time focusing his ears on anything that might be out-of-place. He only hoped his senses could provide answers to any of the myriad of questions that the island continued to pose.

---

The pair of predators continued their prowl, slowly plodding through the wilderness toward the strobing indicator on the strange widget. Christa kept her rifle at the ready as they moved, occasionally spinning to point the barrel now and again at the odd sound or movement, usually some variety of wildlife being the culprit. The mist thickened as they progressed, the fine droplets eventually drenching the duo as the biome transitioned into something more akin to a tropical rain forest. Red was forced to stop more than once, shaking the moisture from his thick, heavy fur. Karl’s gift had miraculously not malfunctioned in the overly moist environment, the chirps now chiming closer and closer together. 

“Damn trees...” Christa grumbled, lifting herself over a downed log. Her feet lost traction as they met the slippery ground, nearly toppling the blonde before she could catch her balance. She cursed under her breath, glaring at the log as if it could understand.

Nanaki remained silent, lost in his thoughts as he struggled to gather any scrap of information from his sensory organs. It seemed that the harder he tried to sense into the distance, the more ‘resistance’ he seemed to get. The few times he was able to reach beyond the ‘wall’, he couldn’t make sense of what he had felt. Despite not knowing how to qualify the information, he felt…unnerved. Something about what he detected shook him, though he was at a loss to describe it. Something felt wrong.

“Let’s take a short break here,” the blonde gunslinger said, stopping suddenly. Red, oblivious to anything but his sensory duties, nearly toppled the woman into the drink before he realized what was said. 

The two took a seat at the edge of a moderately-sized river, the water surprisingly clear for such a well-hidden source. The far bank was a mere few meters away, the water contained within being no more than a foot deep itself. Red breathed heavily as he sat beside the water, having not realized how fatigued he was until he stopped to rest. The grip of lethargy wormed its way up his limbs and wrapped around his neck as he panted like an exhausted pup. After a moment the crimson prime lowered his nose to the water’s surface, sniffing it cautiously. Though not exactly pristine, the water seemed to be clean enough to at least be potable. With a small shrug, he began lapping up the crystal liquid, the cool water beginning to alleviate a portion of his malaise. 

Christa eyed the water suspiciously, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. “Are you sure that’s safe?” Before the fiery feline could raise his head to respond, the blonde snapped to attention. “Did you hear that?”

2195 words for both posts.

[Karl Jak]

End of Round 5

Expect a PM.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

Christa was on her feet in an instant, leaping from the bank into the shallow river, combat knife in hand. She had already reached the other side before Red could even react, the feline quickly bounding through the lethargic current after his jumpy comrade. As he reached the opposite bank, he quickly matched the woman’s pace, keeping close to the sniper’s side as they dashed into the forest. Though the short siesta had done little for the stinging pain in his overworked muscles, the crimson prime did not relent. It would seem that rest would have to wait for the time being. 

“Stay low,” the blonde huntress whispered urgently, ducking below a tree limb. Red obeyed without hesitation, falling to a prowling stance.

They slowed their pace as the relatively sparse coverage near the stream transitioned to much more dense foliage, the pair of predators brushing aside obnoxious low-hanging tree limbs and stepping over rotten trunks. Wherever trees did not grow close together, thick mats of tall grass and weeds took their place. Red briefly considered the possibility of ticks or small vermin as they trampled the grass, quickly shaking off the notion. Still, he wouldn’t have said ‘no’ to a flea collar.

Christa suddenly came to a stop, raising her hand, a single finger extended toward the canopy. Nanaki followed her gaze straight ahead, spying nothing but still more tree trunks. Despite the seemingly unremarkable backdrop, he watched as his companion sheathed her blade, instead pulling her heavy firearm gingerly from her back, doing her best to avoid needlessly disturbing her sling. She cracked the barrel, verifying it was indeed loaded before clumsily closing the mechanism with her good hand and bracing it against her shoulder. She glanced down at Red, jerking her head sharply in the direction of the trees. 

The fiery feline slipped silently between the trunks as Christa took her position behind her own. She could easily spot her comrade among the brush, the shock of red fur weaving its path through the foliage. As he neared, Nanaki cast a glance back at her, continuing forward at her signal. The weedy grass crunched beneath his heavy feet as he neared their mark, his amber optic slowly peering behind the sturdy oak. Red caught sight of a blur of brown shooting out from behind the tree, an audible CRACK indicating the discharge of Christa’s rifle. The feline watched as a small sparrow-sized bird flitted away, quickly escaping into the canopy overhead.

“Shit,” the sniper said, lowering her rifle. “I missed.” She cast a gaze down at her trussed limb, eyeing it with contempt. 

“At least it was only a bird,” Nanaki replied, stopping to shake off another spray of moisture from his coat. The mist had only thickened since they left the river. “And this fog didn’t help, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” Christa mumbled, her tone decidedly more annoyed than the word alone would indicate. 

“I didn’t sense it at all,” the feline muttered, casting his gaze around the forest. “I don’t know how that could be.”

His partner shrugged. “This island has all kinds of weird shit. Maybe it’s just a bird you haven’t smelled before.”

“It’s more than that,” Nanaki responded. “I can usually sense when there’s life around. I didn’t feel that bird at all, even when I was right next to it.”

The blonde could only shrug in response. Truthfully, it mattered little why such a thing had happened; it was far better to roll with the punches in a place like this than to waste energy worrying about what was causing it. Or, at least that’s what Red tried to convince himself.

As Christa shouldered her firearm and the two continued their trek, the crimson prime felt his heart begin to race. Despite fatigue, pain, blood loss, and hunger, his faculties had never dulled. Though upon entering the Omniverse he had found his abilities somewhat altered, one of the few things unchanged were his acute senses. If they were truly beginning to lose their edge, what could this mean for him; would his combat abilities suffer as well? The thought of being dead weight to an already injured comrade made the feline sick to his stomach. The notion that whatever ailment had fallen over him might rob him of his strength, of both his capacity to protect and his ability to fulfill his very purpose and his save his closest friend; it was more than he could bear. Perhaps for his own sanity, he banished the thought from his mind. 

“We’re getting close,” Christa muttered, staring down at the tablet. It was now chiming quite loudly, ringing sharply through the area. The blip on the radar indicating their target was near, causing the screen to flash rapidly and vibrantly. “Shut up!” she commanded, twisting the knob at random. Doing so seemed to only make the pinging louder, the noise now almost echoing. 

Red winced as the high-pitched tone assaulted his hearing. “Can you turn that down?”

Christa opened her mouth to respond, though another, far more aggressive and feral, voice answered for her. ”Kah la la bahkah tee kahbah!”

Nanaki let out a yelp as a heavy weight suddenly dropped upon his back, the stench of unwashed flesh and fetid meat smothering his nostrils just a beat before he felt something sharp and jagged tear into his his flank. He snarled as blood began to ooze from the shallow wound, the crimson liquid camouflaged by his ruddy pelt. The feline bucked against the mounted attacker, a final thrash managing to send the frenzied coward sprawling. Before he made to attack the downed fellow, Nanaki cast a gaze back at his comrade, sighting a pair of eyes peeking through the brush behind the blonde sniper.  “Christa!” the burgundy beast barked, ignoring his own target and bounding at once toward the woman.

Taking Nanaki’s queue, the huntress ducked at once. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted her assailant, a wild-looking man adorn in scraps of leather and fur. He hung effortlessly from a limb overhead, face smeared with dried blood, nostrils flaring, eyes wide with frenzied rage. He brandished a dagger, roughly hewn from what could only be bone. The savage’s strike missed its mark by inches, slashing harmlessly at the open air where Christa’s neck had once been. Gritting her teeth, the warrior woman pulled free her combat knife from its home, spinning in place to bring the knife across her attacker’s chest. The blade found purchase, carving a wide gash across the wild man’s chest as he cried out in the same foreign tongue. “Fuck you,” she spat, flicking the blood from the end of her blade.

The assailant tumbled from the treetop, vanishing into the brush. Her victory, however, was short lived. Before they could catch their breath, the sound of chanting and beating feet met their ears, the smell of burning flesh thick in the air.

[Gildarts]

Hands hooked from behind her, wrapping around her shoulders and making her yelp out of fright. The device somehow ended up falling into her sling, causing an ounce of pain while Christa was thrown on her back. With a thick Thud! her head parted the tall blades of grass, while her knife was tossed just out of reach, inches away from her fingers. Wide eyes caught the glimpse of the ferocious man who was covered in tribal paint, smeared with brown sprays of blood, and a bright red tan that told of his skin crisping in the sun too long. 

He was wearing no clothing. Only a loincloth that covered about half of what she didn’t want to see, but that wasn’t the worst of her problems. On his neck was a single threaded human skull hanging down and nearly brushing against her nose, she glared into the hollow sockets and saw her own foreboding fate if she was not able to escape the bloodthirsty savage pinning her down. This one in particular had hesitated to kill the woman, his eyes caught on the golden wisps of her hair with a fondness that suggested his mother’s hair might’ve been this color. Christa punched the jerk in the throat weakly and then clawed downward, feeling the slime of his skin peel beneath her fingernails. Before she could manage to get away, the fiend’s ogling eyes screwed back into his head, realizing what pain she had returned to him and then protruding in the picture of his mud-caked face towering over her, framed in a million miles of blue sky, was a rusted, jagged knife. 

Shit. Let me tell you, fighting cannibals with only one hand wasn’t something you’d really want to do in your free time. Christa’s good arm had, in the meantime, attempted to reach out and grasp her blade, but somehow the grass had eaten it away, and she was left nearly defenseless against the ground. The abysmal revelation went off like fireworks. 

I’m going to die here. 

Crooked rows of yellowed teeth were sharpened by heathen’s habits of ripping the flesh straight from the bone, “Kiwa, wa shiii!” He released his battle cry, his breath was ripe and leaked into the air above her, nearly making her cringe. His attention had flickered and that was all it took for Christa to turn his own knife on him. The female fighter applied pressure to the sweet spot of his wrist, and twisted the bone before directing the tetanus-ridden blade straight into his Adam’s apple.  

The uneven grit of the blade snagged like a hinge against his jugular, now rived from the savage pressure the gunslinger had applied. Pieces of bone broke off within the split of flesh her plunge had caused, while his face twisted in the throes of his demise. Scarlet gushed all around her, painting her with the color of murder. She spat the iron taste out of her mouth–Ew, right?– and heaved him off to the side. Quickly reaching for her army blade just in time for the next one. 

“Nika! Nika di shi!” the cretin’s voice had hints of desperation as her ravenous eyes flicked down to the dead that lay beside Christa. Her sable hair was coiled up in messy tangles and she was wearing less than the previous one had been. Instantly, Christa felt a tingle of pity. Especially when she tossed the blade straight into the woman’s eye. Sploosh! The she-cannibal’s jaw gaped open while Christa followed through with as much push as her running body would give her and drove the second rusted stake into the woman’s heart. 

“Midana!!! Fo or neegashi!” the next one chanted, called to her location by both the last slain and the incessant beeping that kept chiming in her ears like a drum beat to a savage’s war song. 

The grass had broken between them. “Orga. Ke ga shi!”

“Not today you won’t,” Christa snarled at the troglodyte’s challenge, on some level, understanding that this face-off was a duel to the death. So they danced. This one had a scar slicing across his face, long from the top corner of his face to his chin and its pinkness erased by time. Another cannibal had trained its arrow on her, but seemed to wait, held by some obscure code of honor even these disgusting monsters lived by. “I have too much to live for to die at your hands, fucker.” 

Christa tossed off her sash, the device -lightly- and the rusted, blood splattered knife she’d pulled from that woman’s rib cage. All, including her sniper fell to the ground, her newly freed wrist caused the Prime to scowl with pain, meanwhile sweat and blood melted together over her eyelids and stung. 

There was no time to blink, for already, her scarred enemy had thwarted her. Exploiting the weakness in her wrist, he grasped it ruthlessly and with all the strength in his hands gave it a squeeze which followed by her bone going CRACK!

Christa’s knees nearly gave out, bowing from the pain while her mind threw her from landing the next punch. Wham! A kick collided with the side of her ribs, the blow, knocking every ounce of air from her body. Shaken and stumbling all too close to the ground, the huntress finally felt something akin to fear. There was no logic in her opponents eyes. No reason. Only a beastly hatred haunting the corners of her foe’s expression. The cretin would kill her, just as she'd killed his two friends. To die here would mean her efforts, her pain, up until this moment meant nothing. 

A greedy growl escaped her lips, there was no telling how long she could  sustain herself against such a burly man with such buff shoulders and a perfectly sculpted physique. The mud-coated warrior grunted an amused laugh as he released her, egging the sniper on, “Yeah, well I killed your girlfriend you sick jerk, and if you come any closer, I’ll show you just what else I’m made of.” 

He was twice her size, so she psyched him out, her sudden burst of speed was just enough to catch him off guard, she was just a hair faster. Kicking off the ground, she propelled herself into the air, her leg forming a kick that aimed square at his kneecap. There was a crash as he went down, grabbing her broken wrist again and dragging her down with him. Here, he’d have the upper hand with pure strength, his hands were already tightening around her neck. She tried to turn his cheek up with her good hand, gouge out his eyeballs with her nails, but his arms were longer than hers and time was slowing. The sniper’s face turned blue while the air was choked out of her. 

Scarface was still throttling her neck when a tangle of weeds looped into the pin of her smoke grenade and drowned out the air her wrestling-partner was breathing. A funnel swirled upwards, billowing against his chest in fluffy plumes of darkness while his cheeks swelled like a cherry’s and he was force to relinquish his hold on her, meanwhile, the freed Christa counted the stars swirling from behind her eyelids. 

After allowing a few gulps of air to expand in her lungs, she felt a jab of one of her ribs poking inwards. Well, at least I’m lucky to be alive. Weakly, she rolled over. Immediately, she felt the fragility of her arm and didn’t dare look down, for that would confirm the reality of her injury. To be frank, she couldn't afford to think about reality right now. Salvaging her items just a few feet away, her eyes had already begun to sting from the smoke. 

Instead, the Prime opted to mount her quick-kill machine on her shoulder after popping out the empty shell and clicking in the next one. Blinded by blackness, Nanaki was out of sight. Shit. Her watering eyes closed, maybe she could hear him. 

Snap! The iron snout trained on the figure a few yards away. “Stay where you are or I’ll put a bullet in your skull,” the warning had been enough, the human froze. Christa opened her eyes as a gust of wind blew their cover away. Standing in the grass was a man with tribal patterns on his face, grasped in his hand, a giant club that his unused muscles weren’t familiar with swinging. He’d come in with the cannibals, but he was wearing civilized clothes. 

“Wait! I’m not like them! Please, don’t kill me.” Christa’s patience had run out, her jaw clenched at the test. In her ears, louder than that terrible Bewoop! from the radar, was the sound of Karl Jak’s giggling as he declared.

“Limp.”

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

As he watched the woman fall, locked and dragged to the earth by the invader’s sinister grasp, adrenaline drove Red to action. He immediately leapt forward, curling his lip into a snarl as he closed the gap between the two hunters. Before his nimble limbs could push him more than a few meters, however, the burgundy beast was met with the all-too-familiar call of savage gibberish from the lips of yet another brutish human. Said screeching marked the entrance of a small squadron of wildmen, their sinewy bodies hunched low, skin pulled taut over their malnourished forms. Small bits of bone and plant fiber dotted the greasy, knotted hair that hung past their shoulders, providing the only semblance of modesty aside from a few meager scraps of leather over their unmentionables. Each bore their own makeshift weapon, the leader of the group -a particularly tall and skinny fellow- wielding what Nanaki presumed to be a human femur.

“Nach na’galas!” Slim cried, brandishing his osseous truncheon. His thin lips twisted into a mocking grin, exposing broken, uneven teeth. Red could feel his pulse pounding as their eyes met, muddy brown drilling into his brilliant amber. The savage’s gaze was focused. Intent. Murderous. ”Kha’la!” he announced with finality, his followers springing into action.

The fiery feline sidestepped the first of the bunch, expertly avoiding the greedy, grimy digits of the cannibal. As the next neared, thrusting a makeshift spear with murderous intent, Nanaki dropped low, barrel rolling out of the savage’s range. Out of the corner of his good eye he could see that Christa had taken the advantage, brutally ending the life of her attacker. Satisfied that she was no longer in direct danger, the fiery feline turned to face the next pair of rampaging butchers, each wielding a pair of bones (deer, he hoped) fashioned into daggers. He lashed out at the first, raking his claws across the foe’s abdomen, carving deep lacerations into his flesh and spilling fresh blood over the dried iron that had served as the psychopath’s warpaint. Before the crimson Prime could properly appreciate the man’s whimpering he felt the bite of a dagger in his belly, the dirty blade sending shockwaves of agony through his body. Snarling with pain-induced rage, the burgundy beast whipped his head around, snapping his jaws shut over his attacker’s neck. With the savagery of an alpha defending its pack, Nanaki tore the cannibal’s trachea free, dropping the hunk of sopping gore onto the moist ground as its former owner thrashed in his final throes. 

“Leave,” the enraged felid gnarred, the pain of his puncture wound deadened by the hormonal cocktail flooding his veins. His monosyllabic command quite literally fell on deaf ears as a trio of savages pressed the attack once more, cackling with glee. As they neared, Red caught sight of another of the group cutting into the still-writhing body of their comrade. 

With renewed vigor the feline turned tail, crashing through the forest in an effort to draw the savages away from Christa. With her wounded limb she would not be able to put up as much of a fight as she normally did. Darting nimbly through the trees, Nanaki cast a glance over his shoulder, counting four murderous freaks scampering in his wake. He wasn’t sure just how many had arrived to greet them, but he hoped he had managed to kite them all. The Prime continued to dart through the woods, stopping abruptly as an enormous structure came into view. At a glance it seemed to be a sort of wooden obelisk, some two stories in height, a narrow five feet at the base. The top of the edifice burned with a bright flame, casting light over the ever-darkening area. In the midst of his throes of fury, the crimson feline paused to consider the strangeness of the tower among the trees. It was then that he realized the reason for the violent incursion; they had stumbled into the savages’ encampment. 

”Skree!” 

The call came from far to close behind as Nanaki again felt the dual sensation of weight on his back and the bite of a sharpened instrument against his once unmarred pelt. This time the crude instrument dug straight to the bone, its jagged tip rebounding painfully off of his scapula as its owner sounded yet another warcry. The Prime spun in place, chasing his tail as a confused puppy might, tossing the psycho from his back. Free of the cretin’s burden, Red set his sight on the downed man, leaping onto his chest in a single bound. Before the murderer could move to counter, the feral feline closed his jaws around the man’s forearm, snapping the malnourished cannibal’s bones like dead wood. With a twisting motion, he tore the man’s limb free at the elbow, tasting the sharp, acrid flavor of his blood. With the ferocity of a frenzied wildcat, Nanaki flung the limb into the woods, letting loose a blood-curdling howl. None would leave here.

The next of his attackers neared the raging feline, raising her own makeshift weapon in a foolhardy attempt at intimidation. Unfortunately for her, the wounded Prime was more than ready for another scuffle. His lips parted, a low growl slithering up his throat as lavender-azure energy began to rise from his body like smoke from a roaring bonfire. Enrobed in the mystical energies, Nanaki pushed off of the ground obliquely, expertly correcting his angle of assault and diving headlong toward his murderous foe. The grimy attacker tomahawked her weapon, the sharpened rock carving a thick gash across his face, though it didn’t matter. The feral feline felt nothing as he collided with the poor soul with the force of a mack truck, driving her flailing body into the outer wall of the pyre-pillar. Red felt bones crack and shatter as he drove his shoulder into her chest, snuffing out her life. As if to protest his actions, the pillar let out a creaking groan as the nearest pair of its poorly-anchored limbs unearthed themselves from the ground, causing the edifice to tip and sink in slow motion into the treeline. An audible hiss was heard as the roaring fire atop the structure struck timber, igniting the canopy. 

As the energies of his technique faded, Red watched with interest as the structure enkindled the treeline, the fire rapidly fanning out in all directions. Having successfully dispatched his foes, he turned to head back toward Christa; if they did not flee the area soon, they would become trapped by the same smoke and flame. This thought remained in his mind for just a moment before he heard heavy breathing from behind him, turning to catch sight of the forgotten fourth cannibal, bringing a large rock down over his head in one clean motion. 

Darkness.

2299 words per Google Docs, both posts.

[Gildarts]

Just a little squeeze on her index finger and the doubt he posed would be out of her life forever. She’d never have to answer to Nanaki, he was on the opposite side of the field, and he’d never even know the difference. The temptation leaked into her weighing expression, she made the mistake of waiting to choose. Life, death, or the pursuit of what she knew as complete bullshit? Her nerves actively traced the edge of a cliffside, “How do I know you’re not lying?”

Arrows whizzed past her, the sniper had forgotten she was standing in no man's land and leapt to tackle him, pinning him down below the ocean of grass with only her knee, he shouted, “My pocket, my left pocket! Reach in-”

Christa growled, shoved his face into the soil but reluctantly reached. Hidden within it were two ruby apples, not exactly something a cannibal would be carrying around, an evil witch on the other hand... “Tch. I don’t have the time to ask you stupid questions, you could be a plant, some kind of spy and you know what? I have shit I have to do-”

“Please... Oh dear God, please save me,” he pleaded with the merciless woman, who perhaps, had tasted too much blood, “I don’t belong here, not with these monsters. Your friend, he was driven back into the woods, that’s where the camp is... I could take you there.”

Christa had seconds to decide, the last of her smoke-shaded cover was drifting away in the breeze. Looking up at her, though he was struggling little, were a pair of eyes that knew pain. The inhumanity of it sunk in. Damn. Killing someone like him would be just too damn pathetic, freeing him, the equivalent. “Fine, but put your two hands together.”

Of course, there was no rope, but these seven foot tall pieces of grass were quite starchy, and the chained cannibal wouldn’t know the difference. “There’s a place just that way, none of them will go near it, there’s a cat totem making it sacred land,” the speaker blathered on.

“Looks like you’re right,” she agreed, there was no tribal smoke, nor trace of indian footprints. Her smoke grenade had fizzled out and they were safely behind the tree line, narrowly avoiding a few arrows that chased behind them with Thwack! as they crashed into the crackling bark. As they plunged deeper into the forest, smoke began to billow up and licked the darkling sky with wisps of flame. Worse yet, they were going toward it.

“Keee basa! Keee basa!!!” mixed in with the panicked gibberish were the hurried scuffling sounds of the murderers feverishly attempting to rescue their flaming camp. Shrouded in shadow, Christa gasped as she saw where they had laid Red before the fire had steamrolled through. His limp form lay on the tall stone altar, waiting to be slaughtered by the butchers, soon to be sacrificed to their broken notion of god. And he wasn't moving.

Fear stiffened the blood lining her bones, “That’s your friend, isn’t it?” the man spoke, gazing into the infinite layers of fire, "These people, they worship cats. Guess yours wasn't so lucky.”

“He’s not dead." Of course he wasn't, he couldn't be, "And I will not leave him. Help me, I can't carry him alone,” as though her prisoner had needed extra incentive, she held up the knife in her hand as though deciding where would be the most painful way for him to die. Then, she slit the bindings on his wrists. The speaker dashed forward outright, eager to get away, while the exotic patterns on his face blazed in the lively fire. Christa quickly followed, dodging a few of the cavemen and lips of flame along the way. Acrid fumes had disoriented the village, blending into the fragrance of baking flesh and pungent disease that hung in the air.

It all happened in a blur. Climbing the last step, the speaker's eyes fixed on something over her shoulder. “Kee baaa shi!!!” the tusk of an elephant had been sharpened to perfection and arched downwards, its path clear and unheeded. It would’ve hit, too, had the speaker not done some quick thinking and grabbed a stone bowl–still full of blood–and used it as a shield over her head. While the thick ichor drooled on her, it was better than accepting a meaningless death. Her eyes flashed a thank you while she kicked the ivory-wielder down the stairs and into the hellfire. Together they dragged him using the corners of the blanket below him, it would have to double as a makeshift stretcher. 

They escaped just in time, lighting their path through the darkness of night was the red inferno as it devoured the last of their homes into dust.

[Karl Jak]

End of Round 6

Christa and Red both take 4 points of Accumulated Damage.

Red 'won' Round 5 (the previous round). Prize is waiting for when you arrive at your destination.

Other than that, the PM I sent you is still good.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

“Nanaki.”

The feline’s eyes opened slowly at first, blinking away fatigue as light filtered through. Above him loomed the silhouette of a much larger beast, his stout and sturdy frame blocking out the harsh sunlight. The speaker looked down upon him with quiet patience, age etched into his strong features. Though the long years had worn on his countenance, the muscle beneath his carmine coat remained as robust as that of someone half his age. The face was unmistakable: his father, Seto of the Cosmo tribe.

“Up,” the solemn creature commanded, stepping away from the lethargic beast. In his absence the light returned unimpeded, assaulting Nanaki’s eyes without concern.

He blinked hard, unable to process what was before his eyes. Death had robbed him of his father’s warmth years ago, and yet here he stood. “Why?” Red heard himself reply, his voice quite young and uncertain. The words were his, though he was not the one who spoke.  

“You’re late,” came the reply, the speaker not deigning to look upon Nanaki as he spoke. He strode a few feet farther, before take a seat gracefully on the edge of the stone bluff upon which they stood. “You’re expected at today’s ceremony.”

The crimson feline attempted to stand, though he could scarcely move at all. His limbs felt leaded, anchoring him to his spot just a few feet from his beloved father. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears as a dull ache crept up the back of his neck. Nanaki strained, pleading wordlessly with his own anatomy, though it was no use. He wanted to run to the elder, so rush to him and lay his head upon his side as he had so often done in his youth. He wanted to cry out, though no words came. The cub instead gave no response at first, feeling himself turning away from the elder. “I’m not going,” his words finally came, slightly slurred and drawn out.

“Very well,” his senior responded. His coat seemed to darken now, appearing ashen and lifeless. Seto was motionless, slumped, staring out over the cliff’s edge. In the blink of an eye the sun had vanished, darkness blanketing the the bluff. The only light came from a sliver of bone-white moon that hung overhead.

“F-father,” Nanaki finally spoke in his own voice. He fought against his burdened body, lacerations and punctures now opening afresh upon his previously youthful skin. Blood dribbled from the new wounds, dyeing the muddy stone a dark crimson. His glance slid lazily to his legs, the dark ink of his tattoos etching themselves into his flesh as he spoke. “Fa-ther…”

The seated senior feline snapped to rapt attention, sitting bolt upright as the words left the wounded beast’s lips. In one fluid motion his head spun upon its axis, locking eyes with his son. Nanaki felt the remainder of his strength leave him as empty sockets stared back at him, inky blood dribbling afresh from the voids as his father’s once noble face shifted to the gristly image of a corpse, rife with rot. The gruesome elder lowered his head, exposing twin rows of broken, uneven teeth, wrought with the same decay. Thick gobs of bloody saliva dripped from his maw as his lips curled into a sneer, a growl escaping his decrepit throat.

“Fa…”

His voice failed him. Terror, pain, and fatigue in equal amounts smothered his words, leaving him dumbfounded and shaken upon the cliff. Before he could steel himself to struggle through another word, the macabre creature leapt from its seat, releasing a fiendish shriek. Then, it was upon him.

---

The pungent smell of ash and smoke stung in Nanaki’s nostrils, tears streaming from his eyes as he coughed chunks of caked soot from his throat. The strong taste of iron lingered on his tongue, mixing with cinders as he opened his good eye, staring up at a the trio of hands supporting his body. He lay inside the borders of some kind of roughspun cloth, being used to drag his limp form across the rocky, uneven ground of the forest. Christa and a newcomer, his gaunt face entirely foreign to Nanaki, stood side-by-side, scooting him over tree roots and rocky soil with all of the speed they could muster, which was not much. The Prime was in no position to complain, however, despite the extremely rough ride.

“Red,” Christa grunted as he awoke, straining to keep hold of the tarp containing his weight as they moved him slowly away from the inferno approaching from the rear of the encampment. Despite the strain on her, a hint of a smile was present.

“Let...let me off,” the fiery feline commanded weakly. Any measure of bravado he had displayed quickly vanished as he rolled himself onto the ground, only to immediately vomit. The vision of the bone-chilling creature from his nightmare still hung before his eyes. Nanaki coughed bile and ash from his airway for a few seconds before weakly getting to his feet, bleary eyes peering over at the veritable wall of fire at the village’s edge. He staggered where he stood, unable to find his balance.

“Don’t push yourself,” Christa said, a measure of kindness present on her normally stern face. The temperature was rising as the fire climbed around them, threatening to box the trio in. Though she meant well, he didn’t plan to stay put for long.

“I’ll be fine,” Red assured her as pain racked his body. His joints felt stiff, causing him to sway and stagger as he attempted to move himself. This only added to his already nigh-overwhelming nausea. Whatever the case, he had to move.

“Okay,” the third member spoke up. “Well, follow me then.”

[Gildarts]

The thin slice of moon hung ominously over them as it rose over the dead sky. The lion, dethroned from his pride, had been stolen from their altar and finally had regained consciousness. Christa thought he looked alright, or well, at least like herself, blood splattered, ragged, and more than a little pissed. Shadows, darker than the other side of the moon had gathered below Christa’s eyes, but she’d never admit to the fatigue, though it wore terribly on her face and aged her by ten long years. That, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was trapped in a terrible horror movie.

On the other side of the party, taking lead, was a man they knew nothing about. Sooner or later, the brash and feisty woman would demand answers, and the speaker knew it. His mouth coiled at the thought of the woman, while his serpentine eyes darted around the scenery, guiding them away from the direct flames... They were still in the frying pan, and they could sense it. They did not trust him, yet he had easily slipped into the lead. He figured he could earn their trust just enough to... Well, that was for later. As of right now, she would soon pass out from fatigue and had snatched a glance back at her injury, the forearm swelled to the size of a grapefruit, he was sure it throbbed more since it was bouncing and she was hiding a wince with every step.

As for the lion, well, he wished the damn beast had died before they’d rescued him, but not matter, an extra task for him to deal with could be taken care of easily enough. They’d gotten far away enough from the smoke that the cicadas buzzed, humming through the dense humidity restored to them by the junction of fog clapped underneath the canopy of trees. The group’s lead slowed, and so did they, first came the sharp lip of the woman, “Why’d we stop?”

Then the simple scowl of the beast who was just barely trudging along with us two-leggeders flashed back at him through the darkness with just enough savagery to truly scare him. Now however, the stranger was acclimatized not only to fear, but the every movement of beasts in the wild. “There are two logs here, you’re going to sit.”

So direct, Christa appeared to have been slapped in the face, even with her visage was splashed in shadow, her expression crumpled in disbelief, “Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are?”

He took two steps closer, so he could see the whites of her eyes. She looked at the hungry fire in his and couldn’t help to think that everyone has a story, just like the way everyone has a name, what was his, and more importantly, Just what was he capable of?

“Took. William took.”

His voice had never faltered but his eyes held dormant tones of suspicion, coyly, he followed up in the best way he knew how when dealing with a woman like this, “Now sit, I’m going to put a splint on your arm, and take a look at the cat’s wounds as well as check the contusion on his skull, he may have a concussion,” her eyes blazed at the man’s authority, she was about to offer him some more lip, but instead, saw the foolishness in her anger.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked as she sat down on the damp log, “God, I could do with some water right now.”

He gazed at her lips, they were chapped, nearly blue, she’d gone without water for nearly twelve hours, as for the lion, his dark eyes gazed over his furry pelt, he could rot in hell. A minor altercation, he assured himself before putting on a mesmerizingly cool face for the woman, her pale skin was flickering in the bright light of Red’s blazing tail. It made a lamp, conveniently  enough. “I do have some water,” his hand fished it out, he had hidden pockets in the very high quality jacket he’d found, “And your blood sugar is probably hitting its limits too. You’re going to want to restore your energy.”

He feigned compassion suspiciously good, the sweetness in his voice was just right, didn’t come off too creepy and possessive, nor did it come off as dull and meek. He watched as she chugged the last four sips of his bottle, That’s right, good, good, and continued, “In some sense of the word, I am a doctor, not certified, no, but I know my anatomy very well, my father was a surgeon and wanted more than anything else for me to learn at a young age. Came in handy here, the only reason those savages spared me was because I saved the chief of their people in a minor surgery and then cured his daughter of a startling case of pneumonia.”

Red listened with half an ear, this man didn’t smell right and something didn’t fit. The part about him being a doctor came in handy, and he also learned where Christa had picked him up. Which meant this human was capable of murder. But then, so wasn’t he? Nanaki’s mind was brought back to his hatred for man while Took requested, “Now, extend your hand, girlie, this isn’t going to feel pleasant.”

Took, who appeared to be a little older than thirty-five, was now holding two straight branches. He’d crafted something, though Christa’s head was spinning too fast to decipher what else he had used creating this splint, “Open your mouth, wide.” Something about his voice made it seem like he savored saying that to her, “You’re not going to be using your arm for a while.”

“Yeah well,” her wavering voice muffled through the wood, he’d placed there for her to chomp down on, “I wouldn’t exactly need this damn splint if your friends hadn’t- Gah-OW!”

The purity of the pain struck her silent as she had grit the splinters throughout her teeth. He’d lead her into that one intentionally, if she hadn’t noticed, surely the outside set of ears had. But now, her bone had been reset, and it was back safely the sling – though it didn’t hurt any less. Christa thought about that near-barren field. She could have shot the man now tending to her wounds, now hovering over Red’s skull as though he were ready –and plenty willing– to perform a lobotomy. The light of the fire caught around the corners of the man’s chin while the shadows dwelled in the depths of his eyes forming a spooky mask with the white paste of Took’s skin.

In her hand he’d left an apple, and she took a chunk out of it, feeling hungrier than she had in years and ravenously eaten the second one left on the opposite log. Neither the water, nor the apples were enough to quench her thirst and she now gently tugged at the golden foil of her Snickers bar. Took’s eyes flashed over only for a second while he was patting the cat’s head with a shiny balm, and she could’ve sworn she had seen something akin to excitement beneath the veil of his taught expression. Her teeth mashed the soft, creamy sweetness of chocolate blended with caramel.

“Red, you doin’ okay?” she asked simply, with her mouth full, her eyes then moved over to Took, “Has it been a while since you’ve had chocolate?”

Red felt the chords of his throat tighten with pain as the doctor prodded him, then wiped a liquid on the back of his neck, “I think I’ll be alright.”

How polite. The cannibal thought cynically, “I’m actually quite allergic, you eat it all for yourself, dear.”

“It’s Christa.” His smirk broadened, while he stifled a snigger. She was named after God himself.

Beep! Well shit. Time to go, ain’t it? “Red, the thing says we’re close. Come here a sec?” he padded over while the doctor did his best to clean his hands, “Can we really bring him along? I know you only just met the guy, but he’s tended to our wounds, given us food and drink, but he was living with them. My judgement feels terribly soggy, I’d love to get an hour of sleep, but we don’t have that kind of time, do we? I’ve stayed up longer, in worse conditions. Only thing is, the mind plays tricks, and I’d hate to shoot your tail off thinking it was a damned fire monster.”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else I met on this island, it has something about it, almost like everything we’ve encountered has been some sort of trick or test,” Red spoke in a deep growl.

Took was still within earshot and now wandered over to their private conference, intruding where he wasn’t welcome, but still, he calmly pushed, “What’s that?”

But he wasn’t pointing at the radar that was glossing their faces with green light, he was gesturing to a building that was nestled in between the snug boughs of the forest trees.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

Nanaki reluctantly turned away from his private conversation, glancing in the direction of the newcomer’s gesture. Though the forest was now nearly black as pitch, owing to the waxed crescent moon, the small amount of light produced by the beast’s flaming tail provided some small amount of useful light. Each of the trio squinted into the darkness, ignoring the tablet altogether as the vague outline of some kind of structure made itself apparent against the forest backdrop. 

“Can you make that any brighter?” Christa asked, glancing at Red’s tail flame.

“It...doesn’t work like that,” Red said, hesitating somewhat as he examined the ember. It burned much lower than it normally did, now reduced from a vivacious, crackling flame the size of a softball to something only marginally larger and brighter than that of a decent candle flame. He shook his head, attempting to ignore the flame’s implication. He didn’t have the luxury of giving up just yet.

“Your toy is pointing in that direction,” Took said quietly. He craned his neck as he spoke, ostensibly to get a better look at the tablet, though it looked to Red that perhaps the man’s eyes were lingering more on Christa than her gadget. 

“Well, anyone have any better ideas?” the blonde inquired, glancing first at the man, then the cat. Truthfully, Red would have liked to advise that they leave William behind, though he wasn’t sure the thought would be well received.

“We’d best make haste. Creatures of the night are ravenous, insatiable,” Took said, giving a sly smile in the direction of the huntress. “We should seek shelter.”

Nanaki remained silent as they walked, lagging back a few paces as he kept watch on the human male. Something about the man, whether it be his demeanor or the odd way that he looked at the feline’s partner, gave him an odd feeling. At this point, though, it could simply have been lack of sleep and nourishment getting to him. It didn’t help that the island as a whole seemed to put him on edge. He sniffed the air in vain, hoping his sharp senses had returned, to no avail.

”Help…”

The fiery feline stopped dead, head snapping to look to his immediate left. A beat. He felt his blood pressure spike as he stared into the darkness, his amber optics groping for any source of stimulus. His eyelids shut tightly, repeatedly, trying to force his pupils to acclimate to the low light, though it didn’t seem to make any difference. All the same, he stared; blinking and waiting.

”Red…”

Nanaki saw the figure at the same instant that the call came. Just out of earshot, he could hear the man pleading for help, voice raspy and weak. He was on his knees, crawling toward him, barely distinguishable within the darkness. He clawed at the earth, dragging himself forward with his single arm. Had the man followed them all this way? Had Nanaki unknowingly left him alone to die?

“CHRISTA!” Red hollered, altogether too loudly. He spun in place, dashing to meet the sniper. “Cyborg, he followed us here.” The feline turned to find the mechanized man, though his eyes met only darkness.

“What?” Christa inquired, squinting into the abyss. “Where?” Their guide stood behind the one-armed sniper, his face mirroring her concern.

“Over here,” the crimson Prime explained, leading her into the forest. His heart was hammering, his lungs heaving. “He was calling to me, he needed help!” Nanaki stumbled as he walked, his joints stiff from his bout of unconsciousness. “Cyborg?!”

“I don’t see anything…” Christa said quietly, listening intently. “And he was right here?”

“Yes,” Red asserted, somewhat annoyed by her questioning. “Right...where you’re...standing.” He took rapid, shallow breaths, panting heavily as he scoured the area. “He was here…”

“Alright, well, let’s check the bushes,” the sniper offered. “Fan out a little, but stay close. Easy to get lost in the dark.” The beast nodded in response; how he wished he could pick up the automaton’s scent.

“Do we think maybe the kitty was just seeing things?” he heard Took inquire as he pushed aside underbrush beside Christa. “That wound was fairly deep, and he’s not too steady on his feet. He’s lost a lot of blood…”

“No,” the beast barked, locking eyes with the naysayer. “I saw him. He’s here.”

“Well there’s nothing here now,” Took replied, giving the beast a mildly annoyed look. “Let’s get inside.”

The blonde ignored their guide’s insistence. “He’s a big guy, he can’t hide too easily. Has to be around here somewhere, keep your ears open.”

Despite the woman’s optimism and the feline’s insistence, they could find nothing. The wounded warrior seemed to have vanished into thin air. Nanaki found himself wondering if perhaps some predator has dragged him away while they searched. The minutes ticked away, their search bringing up nothing.

“Strange,” Christa said, meeting Red’s gaze. “In his state I don’t think he’d be able to go very far. I haven’t heard anything either.” She scratched her head. “Maybe it’s just some anomaly created by the island?”

“Or a figment of someone’s imagination.” Took muttered. “We should be getting inside,” the man insisted. “That toy of yours will draw attention.”

The crimson Prime clenched his jaw tightly, grinding his teeth as he glared at the pair of humans. He wasn’t about to leave Cyborg for dead out in the wilderness because some friend of the cannibals didn’t feel like getting his hands dirty. Still, someone in Cyborg’s state couldn’t have gone far, and yet he had vanished. Where had he gone? With one last glance behind him, Nanaki reluctantly headed toward the building.

---

Christa pushed the door to the build open slowly, ever-watchful for tripwires or other kinds of boobytraps as it swung open without difficulty. One-by-one they filed in, the feline taking the lead, flaming tail lighting the way. The tablet continued to chime away as they entered, louder and faster than ever. The huntress depressed the little button as they closed the door behind them, silencing the signal.

The newcomer had taken up the rear, glancing around with trepidation. “Someone was living here,” he suggested, finding and igniting a small oil lamp from the desk as he entered. The trio cast long shadows across the room as he held the light source aloft, illuminating pieces of the room.

“Seems like some kind of outpost,” Christa stated, cautiously peering around a corner into a smaller room. “Toilet’s filthy.”

Nanaki was thankful his nose had taken the day off, choosing to not verify Christa’s observations. Across the hall he spied what looked to be a shower stall, a slow drip dribbling from the showerhead onto the tile floor. The splotches of mildew on the tile told the Prime that it had not been cleaned in some time.

“Lots of bullets,” Took mused, retrieving one of the spent casings and fingering it thoughtfully. He held the empty shell up before him, glancing at it and then at Nanaki. “Pity,” he said, a grin flashing across his face as he dropped the casing onto the floor.

“Holes all over the walls, too,” Christa noted, touching each with her hand as if to ensure they were real. “No trace of blood or bodies.” 

The trio continued to search the house, finding a few storage containers throughout that contained but a few meager rations and bottles of water. Christa pocketed what she could carry, jamming cans and MREs into her increasingly-full pockets. 

They stopped as they entered the final room, what seemed to perhaps be the ‘bedroom’ or the ‘study’ for whomever stayed there. The small pine desk and end table were both entirely empty, containing only a thin layer of dust within their drawers. Overall, the room was unremarkable.

“So, no one dead, but definite signs of a struggle,” the blonde said, rubbing her chin. “They must have left in a hurry. Took all of their belongings with them, too, looks like.”

“They left some food, though, which was nice of them,” Took noted, eyeing his can of beans with disgust. He let it slip from his grasp, tumbling to the floor with an audible thud. Red watched as it rolled under the bed and out of sight, a tiny ting being heard as the can struck something.

“Looks like there’s something under the bed,” Nanaki stated, lowering his head to get a better look. He squinted, the lamp’s light providing more detail than his tail allowed. “It’s a...trapdoor?” 

2400 words on the nose for both posts, according to Google Docs. (969+1431)

[Karl Jak]

End of Round 7

With his injuries slowing him down, Red let Christa help him as he pulled away the furniture concealing the trapdoor. The sniper crouched down and threw open the unlocked hatch, and although she initially recoiled for fear that something might come erupting up from the opening, nothing arose to assault the three. Once those first few moments had passed, Christa leaned forward and stared down into the area underneath the structure.

“There’s light down there,” she spoke softly. “I’m going to go look.” Just like that, Christa was swinging around to grab onto the ladder, but she quickly noticed her hobbled feline companion moving to join her. “Stay up here. If I get in any danger, Took can jump down and have my back.”

Nanaki didn’t look like he was buying it, but he could see in the woman’s eyes that she wasn’t going to yield on the fact. “Be safe,” he muttered as Christa soundlessly descended the metal ladder and stepped down onto the corrugated metal floor. She was standing at the rear of a short hallway that was amply illuminated by florescent tubes running the length of the room. At the other end, a metal door was slightly ajar, allowing her to see the glow of LCD screens and hear the sound of someone banging away at a keyboard.

Stalking down the corridor, Christa tried to crane her neck to see around the doorway, but the crack was too small to give her the proper angle. By the time she got close enough to place a hand on the door, she heard the typing come to an abrupt stop.

“You’re pretty loud for a sniper,” a snide voice shouted from the other side of the metal door, prompting Christa to shove it open to reveal a scowling Karl Jak sitting before a collection of computer monitors. Three of the four screens were black, and a fourth was filled with static and spewing out low-volume white noise from a nearby speaker. Despite all the blackness and static, a box above the doorway had a light that was giving off a soft green glow.

“Karl.” Christa felt her blood pressure rise as she glanced at all the equipment that filled the little space. Aside from the monitors, it looked like the rest of the stuff was part of a large computer of some sort. If it wasn’t a computer, it was possible that the array was some type of overgrown communication station.

“It took you long enough. I’m glad the dog got the device to you… is he still alive? He’s not a coat, is he?”

“He’s fine.”

“Wonderful,” Karl replied with a dubious smile. “What wonderful news,” he added with a little more blatant sarcasm as he turned to the keyboard and tapped out a quick keystroke. When nothing changed on the monitors, the executive cursed softly and ran a hand through his hair, which had long ago lost its usual shape due to dried out hair product.

“What are you planning down here?” Christa asked. Although she couldn’t stand the man sitting in front of her, the soldier knew that there had to be some bigger play at hand.

“Didn’t I tell you earlier?” Karl asked as he turned back around to look up at the standing woman. “Production bunkers. All my islands have these bunkers on them. They allow producers to monitor the events on the island to make sure that nobody does anything stupid. In the event of a catastrophe or shit hitting the fan, these places are hardwired to Headquarters. I should be able to hail them from this station, but the lines are dead.”

“It happens.”

Karl chuckled softly before shaking his head. “Hardwired.” He tapped on the console. “There’s a cable that literally connects this down a thousand feet to a network that goes all the way back to headquarters. These buildings are designed with seismic shields so that even an earthquake couldn’t knock it offline.”

“Why’s this light green?” Christa inquired, failing to buy into what the man was selling her.

“That means that the island is online. It means that its broadcasting and transmitting from here.”

At that, Christa realized what was happening. With a snarl, she stepped forward and wrapped her bloodied hands around Karl’s diry lapels. In a swift motion, she jerked the man up to his feet, spun him, and slammed him against the wall of the bunker. “This was just one of your fucking little games, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t play games.” Karl grunted. “Someone or something activated the equipment.”

“Bullshit.” Christa shouted as she smacked the man back against the wall. “Why should I believe any of the shit that comes out of your mouth?” Before she got a clear response, Christa was cracked in the mouth with Karl’s forehead, stunning her long enough for him to slip from her grasp and drive a pair of knuckles up into her chin.

The impact shattered the sniper’s equilibrium, and she fell back into Karl’s chair. Her vision was blurred, and by the time it had recovered, the man in the frayed purple suit was sitting on her lap with a knife pressed against her throat.

“Look at me,” Karl rasped. When the woman failed to, he pressed the knife against her skin, drawing a faint line of red across her skin. “Look. At me.” Christa lifted her rage-laced eyes. “You fucking think I want to be here? Mucking about on some damn island with a bunch of stooges? You think I wasted two jets? Or two hundred secondaries? Why would I waste all that omnilium… my omnilium?” Karl laughed—not his normal, tittering laugh but something a little more manic. “You think I’m some kind of sociopath or some bullshit? You think I’m a killer? I could slit your throat and watch your bleed out like a stuck pig, but you know why I don’t? Do ya?” Before he answered, the man pulled back and smacked the woman in the face. Christa fell from the chair and cracked her head on the console, causing her to land painfully on her shoulder. A beat later, she felt Karl’s breath on the back of her neck.

“Because it would be beneath me.” He took that moment to stomp the small of her back. “Just remember that I hate doing this thug bullshit. You couldn't just hold a snarky, passive-aggressive conversation like a normal person, could you?” Karl spat. Christa opened her mouth to speak, but she was driven into blackness when the metal base of the office chair was brought crashing down against her skull.

[center]***[/center]

Nanaki and Took heard the commotion down in the underground, but before either of them could react, they heard someone climbing the ladder. Instead of Christa, a disheveled-looking Karl Jak emerged.

“Where’s Christa!”

“Downstairs,” Karl replied bluntly as he wiped his bloodied knuckles on the side of his marred suit. “She attacked me, and I gave up being a little bitch long before I entered the television business.” Before either of the two could respond, Karl held out his other hand as he fished for something in his coat. He produced a simple key that he set on the ground between himself and the cat. “She’ll be upset when she wakes up. We shared some harsh language. Tell her to take the key into town. There’s a library with a box inside that matches that key.”

“Is this a trap?”

Karl shrugged his shoulders. “I think the only reason you haven’t tried to jump me is because you look like something yourself dragged in… Tell Christa that, despite our grievious differences, the box will have what she needs to trust me. Once she does, find me again and we can try and get out of this place.”

“But what’s in the box?”

“Just tell her it’s about her sister.”

Red had more than a few questions, but Karl was already gone.

[Gildarts]

There was a gentle stir of movement, it echoed like the desolate shadows that filled the cave. Cold fingertips pressed against the contours of her neck. Her eyelids flittered to see the visage of a cannibal looking too closely at the blood on his fingertips, though through the immense throbbing of her head and the dull light of the computer, she couldn’t be sure of what she’d just seen.

“She’ll be alright,” the doctor called up to Red after another moment, though for Christa his voice was mute and distant. The life had gone from her eyes, and she felt the devotion of life she had once sacrificed everything for,  filled with a heap of sorrow.

Christa's lungs weakly fought against the jagged bone of her crushed rib, but she could not will herself to stand. Fingertips twitched against the puddles of soaked dirt on the ground, and Took ushered her up, even offering the gal a hand, but she could not make herself take it. The strength was in her, it always was when she needed it, but right now, the sniper needed nothing more than to taste the bitter thoughts that lashed out in her mind with immense regret. The fleeting memory Karl's face, now vicious, hovered over her. She'd almost bet he'd willingly take the bullet, the Karl she knew never would've let himself be seen with his hair in such tangles. Resentment flourished in the pit of her stomach, which she was sure he'd also bashed pretty good. Everything was even messier than his hair, this island was shit, and she'd given herself a moment to wallow in it. It didn’t last long. Her voice was less than a whisper as she asked, “Where?”

The haunting face of the good doctor looked down at her, there was a flicker of temptation in his eyes. She was untouchable here, the cat was upstairs, and the purple-suited fellow seemed long gone. He may never have another chance... Below the mask of darkness covering his face, his lips had coiled once again while his mouth watered at the idea of her pure, untainted flesh. The hot scent of the blood from the slash on her neck remained on his hand, he gulped down the temptation, promising himself that it would be soon.

“Where the Hell... Is he?” she growled, just a mite louder. Took appeared bewildered for a moment, and he let the expression pass over his face while her scintillating eyes began to grasp the empty lines of the room, “Karl Jak.”

“Come now, Christa, you need to take it easy,” already she was heaving her wobbly bones off the ground, she’d pushed off, digging the heels of her boots into the muck and teetering as her muscles strained to stand. A whimper escaped her lips, almost resembling a dying puppy, and she collapsed face forward toward the ground, caught only by the collar of her shirt by Took’s swift hand. The fabric dug in, choking her until seconds later he let it gently release so she’d catch herself with her one good hand. Red, bordering the hole in their ceiling was watching from the perch with narrowed eyes, though if needed, the noble cat would've pounced at risk to his already severely damaged shoulder.

Her forehead skimmed the ground while her single bicep held her upward, she drank in a murky breath, and as she let the pain sink in, she used it to rise up. There was a storm in her eyes while she glanced at the room, it was empty, save the computer monitor which glowed. “He’s gone, isn’t he?” her voice was aggressive, while her eyes devoured Took in an instant.

“Yes,” he confirmed simply, eager and curious to see what she’d do next.

“Red, you still here? You didn’t ditch me, right?” there was a touch of worry in her voice, like maybe he’d gone with Karl instead.

“Not yet I didn’t,” they smirked in unison, separated by the ground below his paws.

“Karl said,” she gulped a labored breath, realizing that the air was getting harder and harder to take in, “That... We’re being...” her voice was shallow, “Broadcasted.”

CRASH! Came loud clatter of a blank computer monitor’s glass.

“Wait Christa,” Took said while his eyes glittered at the full effects of her rage, “We may be able to use these to contact someone.”

“Don’t you think...” she was winded from overexerting herself, “If Karl was down here, he’d have tried to call in a rescue team? He didn’t look too successful last I re-”

She was interrupted by the blood leaking over her eye, her skull had been like a cracked tea kettle that she'd tilted the wrong way. A tsunami of fatigue slammed into her muscles as relentless as a freight train, “That’s entirely possible, but there still could be a way, I’m not a whizz at computers but there might be some kind of transceiver around here we could use to send a message. As for right now, if you try to lift any more in some foolish attempt to trash the man’s bunker, I’m afraid you’re going to severely injure yourself.”

“Fine.” the Prime would’ve crossed her arms, had one of them not been in a sling.


Up the ladder, and beyond the rabbit hole, Christa sat down on the ground in the corner, while Took served her a glass of water and she didn’t pay him a second thought. Red was her focal point and he didn’t look too good, though his eyes told of something on his mind. She waved off the frown from her face and asked simply, “What’d he say?”

Red simply lifted one of his mammoth paws, revealing a key that had been placed idle on the withering floorboards. The sniper looked at him quizzically, “He said that if we go to the town, there’s a box in the library that this key will unlock. He said, it was about your sister.”

Terror seized her eyes in a way that Nanaki had never seen before. They’d battled a giant lava monster and some man-eating men, as well as survived a plane crash together. That kind of thrill seemed to bring the woman to life, but this was the first time he’d witnessed such a corrosive truth cause mortal fear. It ate at the corners of her eyes and shackled her limbs into a tightly bound paralysis. Took watched from afar, his eyes flicked to the cat to see what he’d do next. There was a moment of silence before Christa pulled herself from the prison walls she had built around herself, and Red had gently tilted his head making him look more like a newborn kit than a bloodied lion with bulging muscles.

She cursed herself, how had she been so taken by the damned thief known as time? She’d let it surround her, enter her, and deceive her as she was taken away from her true goal. Escape. she’d nearly been clouded out by its true purpose. Escape for her. “Oh,” the woman finally managed and then walked over to get the key, as she reached down for it, she let her hair swoop in front of her eyes to hide the gentle tug of tears that hesitated in their corners.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

A pregnant silence hung between the two for a moment, the fiery feline peering skeptically at the huntress. In the grand scheme of things, the time they had spent on the island had been extremely short; despite this, Nanaki felt he had come to know the woman better than she gave him credit for. In her attempt to downplay the significance of Karl’s remarks, she had laid her hand on the table. Though he was not more than a cub, naive and foolish, he knew a face hiding pain better than most. He watched as she fingered the key thoughtfully, staring down at the item like it was more than a simple piece of brass. More silence.

“We could use some food,” Red announced suddenly, turning to catch their guide’s glance. He held it for a moment before continuing. “If you’d be so kind,” the cat finished, narrowing his eyes at the human.

“What’re you implying?” Took responded, crossing his arms. “We have these,” he reached over and grabbed the familiar tin can, holding it up and waving it in such a way that those gathered could all hear the contents sloshing around. 

“I don’t eat beans,” Nanaki replied flatly. “I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to some game, though. Neither of us are in any shape to hunt, but I think you’ll manage.”

The man made to reply, though Christa silenced him with a hand. “Yeah, Took. It would be helpful if you caught us something.” She never looked up from her key.

The man glared at Red, fixing him with a look loaded with venom. Without a word, Took grabbed the lantern and left the room. A moment later the duo heard the front door snap shut.

“So,” the crimson Prime began. He knew that humans typically exchanged pleasantries to ease into touchy subjects, but his curiosity got the better of him. “What happened to your sister?” He didn’t feel it to be the best way to approach the question, though he lacked the energy to dig for softer words. “Why would Karl bother to mention that?”

“She…” the woman began, finally looking up at her companion and offering a forced smile, something akin to pain playing at the corners of her mouth. “She was kidnapped...” She closed her hand over the key as she spoke, slipping it into her pocket with the greatest care, as if it were etched in glass rather than metal alloy. 

If there was anything Red could speak volumes on it was corrupt, manipulative humans. Considering the circumstances, however, he shelved that thought. “And what did Karl say down there? I heard bits and pieces before he left, but my ears are still ringing from earlier.”

The blonde sighed, turning away. “Nothing I haven’t already said.” She plopped herself onto the vacant bed, slamming her fist down on the footboard. “I wish Karl Jak would just fuck off!”

“I don’t think I have as much a problem with him as you seem to, though I agree.” He offered a weak smile, taking a seat upon the rough wooden floor. At his size he was just about eye-to-eye with her now. “So...what do we do?”

Christa met his gaze once more, squaring her jaw. “We don’t have a fucking choice, do we? We play Karl’s stupid game some more and head toward whatever fucking town he’s talking about.” She gritted her teeth as if to keep back an explosion of emotion; which shade, Red didn’t know.

“Do you think he could be lying?” Red knew the question to be asinine, though he hoped that baiting the huntress into raving about Karl could ease whatever pain she was harboring. Surely not the most healthy way to deal with things, though he was speaking to a woman carrying around a pack of cigarettes like they were some trophy. 

“Pfft. It’s fifty-fifty at this point, and I think he likes it that way. Even if he’s not lying we still look like dopes following him around all over his private fucking playground.” She wrung her hands together as if hoping for the executive producer’s neck to appear between them. 

Nanaki nodded, their shared loathing of the man briefly chasing away the unsteady feeling he had been carrying since his unfortunate meeting with a hunk of granite. He glanced over at a nearby box, rooting around in its contents for a few moments before returning with a parcel clutched delicately between his sizable fangs. He laid the bag upon the questionably clean linen, pushing it toward her. “Eat that.”

Christa picked the gift from the sheets, raising an eyebrow at the plain brown packaging. She held the MRE gingerly, as if she held nothing but distrust for the manufactured grub. “Maybe later.” She placed it on the bed beside her, looking back at the crimson cat. “Thanks, though.”

The burgundy beast nodded. He craned his neck, peering into the main room to ensure that they were alone before speaking further. “I don’t trust your new friend,” he said. His normally curious eyes were stern, boring into hers. “I might not be the best at judging humans, but I know that he’s trouble.”

The gunslinger nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “I understand. I don’t really trust him either, but he serves a purpose. He did help me get you off of that ritual slab.”

Nanaki rolled his eyes. Whether or not his safety really hinged on the suspicious man’s actions, he didn’t want to ponder. “If you greeted him like you greet me, that’s not shocking.” There was a touch of playfulness in his tone, despite the relatively tense ambience. “We need to keep him at arm’s length. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you earlier.” With his bestial upbringing, he knew the look well: Hunger.

The woman nodded, as if such actions were obvious. “We need to keep him around for a while longer, though. Hopefully he’ll know some way to get to this town we’re supposed to head toward.”

Red sighed, giving a shrug in response. “Okay. I trust your judgement.” 

Trust. A word he didn’t say very often. How far that trust would carry him, he’d have to wait and see.

[Gildarts]

Looming over the opposite side of the door, listening closely next to a peeling scrap of white paint, a smile slithered to Took’s lips. His feet soundlessly carried him out the door of the building, all that time he’d spent in the forest had given him a key advantage necessary for survival here. Stealth.

Christa’s eyes wavered to the door before she gazed at Nanaki, her ear tilted in the direction of the fading heat source in the other room. She said nothing directly about the eavesdropper, “You’re really going to eat whatever he comes back with?”

It was almost a joke. Almost. Her ribs ached, breathing was difficult, but still the sniper managed to smile with him, there was a touch of laughter in her eyes, but the whole of the action had betrayed her, instead, she thought of the seriousness of it. “He has medical knowledge, he would know how to poison you.”

“Or you,” Red looked at the glass of water beside her.

“Anyway, Red, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say. This island, this place. It kind of makes me feel sick. And no, it isn’t my broken rib talking. I felt nauseous when Karl overtook me down there... Oh, Karl, he got dirty,” she smirked, “Not that I didn’t expect him to, I think he’s afraid. But then there’s the bunker. He didn’t stay. Sure we spooked him, but don’t you think, that if you were a billionaire, powerful prime, you’d want to stay safe and undetected until help arrived? I have this feeling that everything is very wrong. That, and what if help isn’t coming?”

Red took in her words, chewing on their significance. Humans always talked in a roundabout way, beasts on the other hand, bared their fangs. The huntress had left him to conclude her thoughts, and he agreed, “Overall, it makes me anxious. Like the island itself doesn’t want us here, like it has something to hide, it makes my skin crawl.” his demeanor changed, his expression blazed with fire, “If help isn’t coming, we’ll find a way.”

Christa thought that the lion looked brave in that moment, and she liked the sound of that plan, nothing made her happier than the idea of getting off this hulking rock as soon as possible, except... Pulling out the pack of cigs that prodded her thigh, she laid out her stash in front of her, in the light of Red’s flickering tail. The cigarettes, the key, and the radar, with its screen black. Karl could’ve broken it, but the glass was intact. It was just off, less beeping. There was a small, wilted bag of ammunition she pulled out and remaining in her pants was the picture and envelope. A sigh escaped her. She was low on bullets for her sniper, meanwhile, she had a decent store of magazines for her melted nine millimeter. The cigarettes. There was a spark of warmth in her gut when she looked at them and she tried to pull her gaze over to the key, but then she imagined the familiar smell  filling her nose.

The blonde shook her head, telling herself to speculate and decide their next course only using the facts, but deep down, she already knew it wasn’t that simple anymore, she couldn’t even bear the sound of his name, “I want to find him, and then go after my sister, but you know, the guy who took her, well, I know nothing about. He told me to find some girl, left her picture in the Nexus and gave me a time limit. It’s all a sick game. I just want to know how Karl knows about it. You know, when I see his face, I want to kill him, but then I realized the reason I didn’t on the beach, and it made me want to turn the gun on myself. He’s a smarmy son of a bitch, narcissistic douche, crooked businessman, and a complete asshole but I actually respect the motherfucker. He’s got that look, he wants to survive.”

Red reflected on Karl’s cool expression, and perhaps the tame power behind it. She was the opposite, fierce, she wore the fire on her face, but each of them had the same look in their eyes. It wasn’t desperation, no, it was willpower. They were alike. They were immortal and both of them had something to lose.

“In the morning,” Christa’s voice got louder, “I’ll look for some bullets, doubt they’ll be my caliber but it wouldn’t hurt to search the place with a little more light.”

Took didn’t break his stride to listen as he neared the door, he simply turned the knob slowly. Click! Creeeeaak. The cannibal entered the room with a dead rabbit in his hands and tossed it to the talking lion, he could do his own dirty work.

“Welcome back.” Christa said in a surprisingly charmed voice. Red was keen to this, but the aroma of the game filled his senses, which were teetering on the depths of his hunger. His nose sniffed first, before plunging into the still-warm fur as he drove his saber-sized teeth in for his first savory bite.

“Hello,” Took said hesitantly, she was so easy to read, she had something on her mind and there was no way in Hell she wouldn’t say it in the next sentence or two.

“See anything out there?”

“As a matter of fact, a few miles into the woods, there was a single set of large footprints. They sunk deep into the dirt, the guy must’ve been dense.” He told no lies.

“Spooky, wonder who they belong to, did you get a look?”

“No, I was trapping a rabbit.” Took could feel the hare’s convulsing muscles in his hands while the fur below its neck squirmed. Finally its lungs had given out, but not before he’d heard the little creature’s final scream.

“So I’m curious, Took,” she said lightly, “Why didn’t you go mad like the other cannibals? Because that’s what you’d have to be to eat people, mad.” Christa asked him point-blank. She was a straight shooter, all the easier to fool.

There was no reason to flinch, he’d expected this, his face settled into a smooth mask, “I could ask you the same question, I don’t even know how long you’ve been on this island.”

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

With the return of their questionable comrade, Nanaki had fallen silent. Whilst Christa and Took played their human game of ‘hide-the-meaning’, the feline concerned himself with the limp lagomorph that had been deposited before him. Though the average person might chide the man for his savagery in bringing back the still-kicking animal and allowing it to expire within his grasp, Red couldn’t find it in himself to complain about such a fresh meal. He dug in without hesitation, turning away from the conversing duo as he enjoyed his fill. The taste of the fresh game on his tongue was heaven after such a long day, the subtle savory notes working wonders on the hunger pangs in his gut and the ache in his brainpan. He ate every scrap of the unfortunate rabbit, leaving him a good deal further from starvation.

Kssshhht

“What was that?” Christa asked, turning her attention toward the odd noise. Her answer came a moment later at the noise returned, this time an octave louder. “Static?”

Red’s ears perked up. “Downstairs?” He cleverly hid his lack of technological knowledge behind curiosity. The crimson Prime didn’t know what to call any of the flashy machines on the lower level, though he hoped that Christa had some idea.

“Wh-” Took began to speak, unable to get even a single word through his lips before the sniper got shakily to her feet and hastened to the trapdoor. 

“Stay up here, I’ll be back,” the woman commanded, sloppily descending the ladder and disappearing from sight. Nanaki briefly wondered how she was managing that act with a single working arm.

“Alright,” their guide spoke, taking a seat on a nearby crate. A hint of annoyance was buried in his tone, though he tried to keep it hidden. As he took his perch he caught the beast’s sight, his gaze hovering for a moment before turning to a smaller crate at his feet. He pawed through the container, emptying out the various cans and containers within. To Nanaki’s surprise, he didn’t seem very interested in the labeling.

“Not hungry?” Red inquired, licking the remainder of the rabbit’s juices from his lips. Though he hadn’t quite mastered the intricacies of human banter, he was grasping snark quite well. 

“I prefer my meals a little more...fresh,” Took responded, lips twisted into a frown. He returned the cans to the case one-by-one, his motions practiced and precise. Somehow, even while organizing, the man unnerved him.

“Sorry, I should have left you some,” the fiery feline replied, trying as he might to keep his attitude under control. Starting a fist fight with the man the very second Christa left wouldn’t earn him any favors.

Before he could respond to Nanaki’s mocking words, Christa’s head reappeared from below the trap door. Despite the struggle of hauling herself back up the ladder with but one functioning arm, Red thought he could spy a twinkle in her eye as she shut the trap door and reclaimed her seat on the bed. “We should get some rest,” she said, swinging her feet onto the bed. “We’ll head toward town as soon as we can.”

---

The fiery feline awoke to dawn breaking, the early morning sun peeking through the dirty windows of the shack and rousing him from his rest much sooner than anticipated. As he raised himself to stand, his eyes fell upon the splotch of blood that marked his last meal, the scarlet ichor having stained the wood permanently. He lifted his head and noted that the sniper and their mysterious guide were conspicuously absent. Had they gone to search the area while Nanaki soaked up the extra few minutes of slumber? He felt anxiety rising in his throat as he considered the blonde woman wandering around alone with Took.

Following a brief search of the rest of the hut, Red stepped out of the building, leaving the door wide open behind him. He was fairly certain the previous owned wouldn’t have been too offended. The feline took a deep breath, the cool air doing nothing to calm his nerves.

CRASH

Nanaki at once turned his attention toward the commotion, his lone working eye darting to examine the treeline. Somewhere, out of sight, he thought he could make out a familiar energy signature. His keen nose took in the scent, though it served to only complicate the conclusion. The scent was most definitely familiar, yet also alien in some way. Without stopping to consider the implication further, the burgundy beast took off toward the trees at a sprint, clearing downed logs and stumps effortlessly. Red found his thoughts wandering to Took and Christa; had the man assaulted her, or perhaps they had encountered another hellish construct?

CRASH

The scent had gotten stronger, completely overriding his other senses as he tried to make sense of the stimulus. He knew the smell, yet he could not place it. And then there was the other scent; not Took, nor Christa. All at once, it came to him; this energy signature and scent could only belong to one man. Red’s heart was in his throat as he concentrated hard on the attempt to hone in on where the pair of scents were heading; they were moving, and fast. 

CRASH

The noise was only getting closer. With renewed vigor, Red cast himself though the trees once more. He had done it; Karl had been hiding the secret from the beginning. Where he had been kept was anyone’s guess, though it didn’t matter. The burgundy beast bounded headlong through the dense foliage, a single thought in his mind. His heart began to race as he heard the sound of gunshots, one-two-three. The sounds of a struggle. They were near. He made chase, hastening toward the hubbub as fast as his limbs could carry him. Red’s heart was hammering now, his furious pace disallowing adequate breathing and robbing his brain of clarity. With reckless abandon, he crashed through the underbrush, coming to a stop against a sturdy elm tree. 

BANG. BANG.

The crimson Prime turned to see the solemn face of Vincent Valentine, not three meters from where he stood. His cloak and mantle were dirtied and torn, exposing the tattered remains of his leather bodysuit. He look haggard, barely clinging to consciousness. The man’s eyes were skyward, his triple-barreled revolver trained at something well above Nanaki, hidden within the foliage. The feline opened his mouth to speak, though nothing came out. Instead, a fearsome roar split his eardrums as a blur of crimson descended from above. Vincent let out a single shot, taking a chunk out of the bark above the Prime. He had missed.

“Vincent!” Nanaki found his words, calling to the now downed gunslinger. Just a single word could escape his throat before he was muted once more. 

The hulking beast from the treetops stood atop the pale man’s fallen form, letting out horrific noises as he tore into him. All at once the smell met Red’s nose again, bile rising in his esophagus as realization dawned on him. His veins pumped ice, his limbs stock-still. His keen eyes told no lies, watching as a tattooed feline shredded the flesh of his best friend. As Vincent’s flailing limbs stopped cold, the assailant turned to face his audience. A single golden eye stared back at him, madness etched in his countenance. He watched as his own lips twisted into a snarl, Vincent’s blood dripping from his fangs. Red felt consciousness drain from him, the beast’s savage, unfocused stare burned into his mind.

Darkness.

Awakening on the cold, hard wooden floor of the shack, Nanaki peered out into the moonless night. Only darkness.

2358 words, both posts.

[Karl Jak]

End of Round 8

You guys know where you need to go to further you plot. How you get there, I'll leave to you. PM or Skype me if you'd prefer something more straight-forward (but something tells me you'll both be fine)