kodachi | WAR GAMES

[The last several hours have been nothing if not stressful—if Kris wasn't swearing he heard something nearby, Drael himself was seeing shadows of threat in the branches of every tree. And now, just when he thinks he's managed to calm down enough to breathe and relax, to conserve his energy for when he nears it, he snaps to attention and glares through the foliage.

They're hidden well enough, he thinks, that he'll be able to set the stage if the intruders come into view and manage to spot them, and he slides one hand over to squeeze Kristopher's forearm, willing the other man to silence himself.]

[The forest is alive with noise, and he can't tell the difference between nature and aggressor. He's been no help at all. He's been worse than that, a terrible burden. But at least he's staying quiet now.

Or try to. All his best intentions can't stop the fearful sound that rises up when Drael touches him, and Kristopher immediately clamps a trembling hand over his mouth to keep the sound muffled. No, no, this can't happen, this can't be happening, please don't let this be happening...]

[She'll be the first to admit that she hasn't been taking them in an particular direction. She has plenty enough experience in the woods—though not ones filled with people willing to kill them—but she's nervous. The poor boy that's been given to her as a teammate seems terrified, uncomfortable, unhappy... she wonders what he's been through.

They haven't seen or heard anything in a while, though... She pauses, extending on arm to stop the boy beside her.] Ellias... did you hear that? Is there someone around... ? [She turns in a slow circle, looking around. Certainly no one's ruthless enough to cut them down without warning, vulnerable and unarmed as they are...]

[Ellias freezes at Brigitte's indication, stock-still and prepared to flee at the slightest provocation. He can't hear anything though, and never has he so resented his life than at this moment. All those months on the warfront and he still can't--

No. No, wait. He peers, not quite certain, but... and then he stumbles back a step, staring into the undergrowth and laying a hand to Brigitte's arm.]

There, [He hisses it, eyes wide;] There's something there, there's someone there.

[They've been spotted. He releases Kristopher and surges to his feet, stepping forward through the undergrowth and growling.]

You two, split up. I'm not having any other teams know where we are, and you'll die quicker on your own.

[Drael doesn't give him warning, just breaks contact and steps forward, and Kristopher cries terrified alarm at the sight, at Drael placing himself so openly in harms way. They should run! They should find some other place to hide! Kristopher stumbles forward enough to grab Drael's hand and somewhere inside he knows that's the wrong thing to do, that Drael will want free movement and will have wanted him to stay low, but...]

Drael, please...! [A whisper, and a tug at Drael's arm - the only pathetic indication he can give toward a desire for them to escape together. He can't handle this, can't fight this life and death battle and no, no, he can't watch Drael do it either.]

Edited 2012-07-02 20:01 (UTC)

Let me go, Kris.

[He snarls it, bristling with energy and not budging his gaze from the other team. A woman, and a young man. Given the choice, the boy can live—he looks too petrified to speak, let alone give away their position, and someone else could gut him through without looking—but he doesn't expect either of them to go far.

He cracks his knuckles and speaks again in their direction.] Hurry up and get going. I'm not a patient man.

[She'd been surprised when the man had emerged from the underbrush; he was larger than she'd expected from a space that, seconds ago, had seemed empty. He speaks harshly, and the partner he's been assigned seems desperately afraid. She raises her hands, but stands her ground—if he's allowed to keep his own terrified partner, she'll keep hers.]

You're not making any rules out here. Just let us carry on our way and we'll leave you be. You can starve in your hole like rats. We'll find other reasonable people and all escape.

You stupid bitch.

[He doesn't have time to hesitate; once he's committed to the rage of it, he refuses to reconsider. He pitches in her direction, shoulder squared to strike her windpipe and send her sprawling to the ground. A moment later he's straddling her middle, both hands gripped tightly around her throat and squeezing. He doesn't need a weapon to ensure both he and Kris survive—all it would be is easier.]

[There's one second where he tries to protect them both, to repel this attacker. One second of horrified realisation as his shield doesn't work, isn't there. His single defense has been denied him, and then Brigitte hits the ground and the teammate starts wailing and Ellias breaks.

She has been kind to him, and now he's leaving her to fight. To die, surely. He's too afraid to regret it. He's too afraid to be sorry. This will haunt him, but not yet. Not now. Now is only the blind charge of escape, and the knowledge of what awaits him if he fails.]

[The woman mentions escaping, and Kristopher almost wants to ask what she means. It might be a trap, or just a shallow hope, but maybe there is something, maybe she knows something. But then Drael moves, strikes her, and after that...

She makes these sounds, choking and kicking and clawing, and Kristopher covers his ears against it, crouches and cowers and tries to block it all, her struggles and his own hysterical noise, the rawness of it all, the moisture seeping through his clothes as he presses into the forest floor. He doesn't know how long it takes, only that he still manages to hear the inevitable sound of cannon fire rising above everything. Kristopher curls and sobs all the harder - there is no relief, no comfort, to be had in any of this.]

[He stares into the woman's face as it goes first red and then cold blue, contorted around the strength of his grip. He needs only imagine the desperate noises clawing from her throat might be Kris's if he doesn't save them both, and his will is iron. She doesn't go quietly, no—she fights desperately against him, scoring his arms with nail marks and kicking bruises into his middle. But eventually, of course, she succumbs.

He leans down to press his ear to her lips, to ensure not a whisper of air is still passing; he doesn't trust the boom of the cannon, but when it goes off, he darts to his feet again. A single glance in Kris's direction shows that he'll of course stay put for the moment; he only hopes that the time it takes to kill the boy won't put him in danger.

He turns and sprints off after Ellias.]

[The cannon should be reason to keep running, but instead the sound startles him into looking back. He's put a good amount of distance between them, he thinks... enough that he can catch his breath, and try not to reflect too desperately on what just happened. Brigitte, her name was. She had smiled at him, asked nothing of him... had it been so many years since he last spoke to someone so seemingly kind? And he had left her in that brute's hands.

What could he have done differently, unarmed and without even his barriers? Could they have overpowered him, between them? Would that other man have gotten involved? These are things he can't dwell on, blames he has to lay elsewhere. They put him here. Him, and her, and those strangers back there - it's the gamemakers who should be made to answer for this. If he... if he somehow survives, then maybe...

Ellias turns and hurries on, not running now but keeping a rapid pace, a speed he can maintain without exhaustion. If he could only have known it wouldn't be enough. Only a few minutes pass before he hears it, the sound of footfalls behind, and by then it's already too late to avoid detection, to put distance between them. He tries anyway, breaking into a sprint once more and knocking branches aside, jumping and dancing around rocks and tangles of root, but he just isn't nimble enough and he can hear all too clearly that the pursuit is gaining rapidly.

It's a last desperate bid that sees him turn with trembling outstretched hands.]

You said to go! I won't tell anyone where you are, I won't come back this way, I swear, please, I won't do anything to you!

[For a second, he almost feels bad. The boy looks young, young enough maybe to be one of the kids. He's hardly so much older than them, but he feels the years. None of them knows what it takes to survive, and that shows in the boy's pathetic request. He shakes his head.]

Sorry, kid, but I didn't get this far in life playing nice when I couldn't afford to.

[It doesn't matter, now, if he tries to run—Drael's close enough to close the distance with a few strong strides, and he's lightly winded but left with plenty of fight. He doesn't think, though, this far from Kristopher, that he has the time for another strangulation... His eyes dart through the undergrowth, and spy a sharp, pointed rock uprooted by a tree. Good enough. He dips to the ground to retrieve it, and advances.]

I'll make it quick. I've got someone to get back to.

[If it wasn't for Kris, he would let the kid go. God he doesn't relish this, but he knows what he's capable of unarmed and one-on-one, and he can't recall anyone from training who frightens him. He pauses for the length of one long second, then lunges. He doesn't want to hear this, fuck he doesn't, so he uses his forward momentum to force Ellias to the ground with one hand clasped tightly over the boy's mouth. He won't have the disrespect to close his eyes while he does this—he will see every evil he commits in this damn fucking game—but he can't help a pained expression fleeting across his face as he raises the stone and slams it down into Ellias's temple. He promised a quick end, and swallows the bile in his throat to strike again, again, again, until the blood spurts up his arm and a booming echo sounds in the distance.

He stands, and backs away with eyes still on the body. His second kill today, and he has the feeling it won't be his last before this damn thing is done. With a shuddering exhale, he turns his back and returns to Kris.]

[It isn't until the hovercraft arrives that Kristopher realises just how much is amiss. The sound startles him enough to draw his attention and the sight startles him into silence, sets him cowering low in the dirt and staring with a sort of terror-fueled fascination as the claw descends, lifts the woman's lifeless corpse and pulls it into the sky. She disappears into its underbelly, and Kris gives a strangled gasp when the entire craft vanishes, gone just so suddenly as it appeared. Then he is alone.

He's alone.

Kristopher struggles to his knees, looking this way and that with wide red eyes. The boy is gone, the corpse is gone, Drael is gone. Drael is gone. When did he-- when did that happen?! Where is he?! Kris struggles back to standing on legs trembling and weak, he spins a rapid searching circle and no, Drael's nowhere, he's gone. Drael is gone. No no no no Drael wouldn't Drael wouldn't Drael swore he wouldn't leave him Drael--]

Drael! [It's not even a shout, it's a scream, high and terrified, and once he's started he can't stop, manages only a few steps before dropping back to his knees and screaming hysterical terror.] Drael, Drael! Drael, please, Drael...!!

[He hears it when he's still some distance away, and swears sharply under his breath as he bolts into a flat run. When he bursts into view again, he hisses furious, only just managing to keep his voice below a bellow.]

What the fuck are you doing Kristopher, shut up! Do you want to fucking die out here?! Shut up, shut up, shut up!

[Less than a day in and his nerves are already fucking frayed. He doesn't stop, moving to Kristopher's side and gathering the smaller man into his arms; he presses Kristopher's face to his shoulder and mutters further, asking Kris to be calm, to let it be, to trust him. He smells piss and blood, and somehow that doesn't seem to matter.]

[It should be a relief when Drael appears, surely. Instead Kristopher cringes horror at the sight of him, that vivid streak of red coating his arm and the rage that colours his voice. When Drael gathers him close he doesn't have the strength to resist, but his stomach roils at the proximity of it all, the blood and the knowledge of what this man has just done. How can he trust this? How can he trust anyone that makes murder so easy, so casual?

Pressed to Drael's shoulder Kristopher shakes his head, whimpering denials but still clinging desperately. He has nothing else to hold on to. This is his only option he has.]

Fuck, please. [He hadn't meant to mutter it, and—no, he can't crack yet. There are still dozens of people out there, and he has to keep on. He's done worse before, plenty worse, in the name of his own survival, hasn't he? He must have.

He sits back on his heels, breathing out another long, shaky breath and forcing Kris to look at him. He speaks evenly, his words no longer coloured by any emotion on than seriousness.] I don't enjoy this, Kris. I'm just doing what I have to to get us through. Believe that, okay? [If I just think about it being one of them doing that to you, it's easy. But you don't need to hear that.]

But... [His voice cracks from overuse, but at least it's quiet now. Pathetic and small, and still he trembles. Drael is trying to make him look, trying to hold his gaze, but he can't keep from glancing time and again to the spot where that poor woman had... where she'd...] She would have left, Drael, you didn't have to...! It's just easier to you! Why did you... you thought that had to be the only way? Th-there has to be...

[Some other way? Of course not. The gamemakers made it perfectly clear - they will entertain the audience, in one manner or another. Who knows what might have happened if Drael had let her leave.]

I... I can't do this... [It's the last thing he manages before breaking into sobs once more, limbs loose and face pressed to the curve of Drael's neck. The first day, and he is already utterly defeated.]

That doesn't guarantee we'll win. That doesn't guarantee we'll survive, Kris, don't you get it? We can't trust anyone else. We have to get through, and that means they all have to die. All of them. [And he's shaking his head now, the mantra he's just muttered no where near enough to quell his distaste. If the gamemakers wanted a scene, well, now they've fucking got it. He doesn't know if it would've been better or worse for them to stick Kris with someone else, someone who would have already put him out of this misery. But who's to say—he can't say he knows what he would've done in a different situation.

He pulls Kris to him, just enough to back them both into the shadow of a tree, and settles there. It's not safe enough, and they'll have to move before too long, but for right now, it's the best he can manage. He's exhausted already, and there's still a damn long way to go.]

WAR GAMES

ENCOUNTER: TEAM TWO & TEAM TWELVE

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