Day One - Part 2

[Erza Scarlet]

Welp. There goes my map. At least it had been sacrificed for a good cause. She stuffed the nasty, bloody, half-burnt, half-soaked remains of the precious resource back into the bottom of her duffel where it formed into a more-or-less solid clump of shredded goop. They had been ambushed in the middle of breakfast - Which, luckily, they'd managed to eat most of before it was completely obliterated - and in their contentness unable to react quickly enough to the onslaught of one who would interrupt that glorious, if rather tasteless, moment. Fortunately, water was a good temporary solution for burns. Less fortunate was the fact that it was now the middle of the day and the sun was hot in the sky. In this environment, their burns would continue to sting far more than necessary for the rest of the day - an unfortunate circumstance that could only be solved by ducking under the cover of a lush canopy of thick green leaves and taking a moment to cover their wounds.

So that is what they did. Once the immediate pain of having an explosion go off in their faces began to give way to a softer, more constant one, Erza and Mickey scooted out of the sunlit picnic spot and into a shadier spot, leaning against a tree as Erza's skirt again lost a few inches. Going to have to find a new source of bandages pretty soon. She certainly wasn't the most modest of people by any stretch as far as that sort of thing went, but it would certainly be a strange feeling, sporting a hulking frame of steel on her top half and nothing but underwear on the lower.

The two slowly but surely applied the blue strips on themselves and eachother, doing their best to cover the most serious burns. They'd need to wash these off later, probably getting rid of the fabric but at least cooling the burns themselves. It was as Erza was finishing up with her second-to-last remaining skirt-strip that a flash of bright blue and yellow caught Mickey's eye. That was no local flora. The wounded warrior felt a soft tap on the shoulder and a soft, squeaky voice in her ear. "Erza. There's someone here."

Instantly she let go of the makeshift bandage in her hand as she reached for her hammer - Though, to be fair, that was so far almost a secondary aspect of the weapon - taking up a low-seated battle stance as the mouse donned his four-fingered gauntlet and did the same.

Shit. Two of them. An enviously tall, fully-armored figure sporting the colors Mickey had noticed and a grisly-looking man in a trenchcoat became visible as they moved closer and closer. It was a moment before the decked out one glanced up and froze in her tracks, holding an arm out to halt her musing companion, whose eyes grew wide at the sight of two well-armed Primes pointing weapons at them. The armored one, however, seemed less worried than resigned. Her helmet tilted back for a moment, eyes facing the sky and facial expression the purest possible form of a nonverbal "Not this crap again" (not that Erza could see it), before her arm reluctantly dropped a duffel bag and reached around to her back to pull forth a gleaming sword. The man was slightly quicker to whip out his own weapon, a gun somehow even larger than the one in Erza's own bag. And thus began the stalemate.

The forest was completely silent for a few intense heartbeats. Even the wind that had been so welcome before seemed to have paused simply to watch. Nobody moved, nobody shot. It almost seemed that... nobody wanted to? On closer inspection, the armored one seemed deeply wounded, a wide swathe of crimson-stained cloth visible where the protection around her stomach was missing. This one had had it rough, and she probably wasn't quite in the mood to risk making her situation any rougher.

The tension was broken as a quiet shuffling began to emanate from the injured one's bag, immediately pulling Erza's eyes away from the immediate threat. A large green caterpillar's head poked over the surface, its confusion starkly evident as it began to wiggle its way out of its temporary "cocoon." Its apparent owner was temporarily distracted as she panicked, trying to shoo the adorable little critter out of harm's way. She was stopped as soon as she started, however, by the first words of the encounter.

"Can I... Uh, pet it?" Erza's attention remained fixated on the cuddly little guy, the imminent bloodbath completely a thing of the past. Samus and Harry glanced up at eachother in befuddlement before cautiously lowering their weapons. The helmeted bounty hunter gave a small, slow nod.