I'm Looking For a Place to Start, But Everything Feels So Different Now

[Maraoone]

Up above the island sky, the sun shone. And its rays rained down, continuing to nourish the planet and the people on it. It shined on families waking up to find their houses just a bit more quiet than usual. It shined through windows, illuminating bed sheets crumpled as they were yesterday morning. And above that, above the sky, metal satellites spun around the Earth. And while some of them had people, most of them didn't. And in a few days' time, these soulless metal boxes, thousands and thousands of miles away from anyone and anything, would be bouncing signals from transmitter to computer, signals containing images of kids waking up, crying, shooting, fighting, starting the struggle of their lives.

And that's what mattered right now, these kid-shaped holes in beds, these signals containing images of human strife. And below all this, below the sky, there laid an island. And on the island, in a grassy field, a young man ran, all too aware of what was happening.

And this is where the most important days of his life began.

B16: "BADASS" JOHNNY LANCER - START

It began with him running towards the mess hall. Badass Johnny, running towards gunshots.

Well, no. Good starting point, really, great intro to an action novel. Running towards the scene of the crime, sweat glistening on his forehead. Man, that would make a great intro scene. Memorable, too. If he ever got the chance, he'd write something like that. But, no, it really began in a field. Waking up, sun in his eyes, his bedroom looking oddly bright. His bedroom didn't have a blue wall. Unless some thieves came in the night. And painted it blue. Yeah, no, that'd be too weird. And then it hit him. Hit him almost like it did Mr. Dolph.

No. He shouldn't have said that. Or thought it, really. Not the time.

But it hit him. Daniel. Rachel. Panya. Kitty, Brandon, Yaz, everyone on the trip, everyone he knew. Hell, even Adonis. They were here. They were held captive by monsters. And they would die. And they were asking him, asking everyone to do that for them, to kill. And at the thought of that, Johnny put his face in his hands and almost cried.

Almost.

Because this was Badass Johnny we're talking about here, and Badass Johnny didn't sit here and cry while his friends were dying. No, if he had it his way, no one on this island would be dying. He would make sure of it. They would escape, and join up with the others on their aquarium trip. Yeah. He would save the aquarium trip, and the school administrators would thank him for saving them money. Oh, and probably his classmates' parents for saving their lives and stuff. Yeah, that was important.

So, he got up, because his friends would need it. And also because he couldn't save the entire island on his own. No, Badass Johnny needed allies, lots of them, to fight evil. He looked through his bag, looked to see what weapons the terrorists gave him.

He got a bottle of spray nitrogen. He pushed the trigger, and a bunch of smoke came out.

Well, at the very least, the terrorists made it easy for him to maintain his non-violence. With this weapon, they definitely wouldn't be able to take that from him. Badass Johnny 1, terrorists 0.

He had started to rummage through his personals to see what they'd taken from him when the first gunshots rang out. The game was starting already. People were giving in. And he needed to put a stop to it. Stop the assailants with smoke and words. If there were a mirror, that would help, too.

So, now we're back at the awesome intro scene. Badass Johnny running towards gunshots. They came rather far apart, but he knew they came from the mess hall. So far away, however. Trek of a lifetime, across an endless expanse of grass. There were some more gunshots when he was much closer, but he walked towards the wrong side of the mess hall.

He walked back around, slowly. Inched his way around the walls. He had to make sure not to get killed in the first minutes, after all. What type of hero would that be? Prepared himself for anything. A massacre, blood coating the floor and walls. Two people on the floor, beating the life out each other. His fellow classmate, holding someone hostage. He inched his way, slowly, slowly. He tried to think up of a strategy, but there were too many variables. Too many possibilities. He'd just need to think of something as it came.

And then he got to the entrance, and nothing came. No people. No blood. Nothing.

Badass Johnny stood dumbfounded in the entrance of the mess hall, looking at nothing.

[Pippi]

Hey.

Hey, guess what?

Hey, this, uh…

This fucking sucked, man.

((B07: ROY D. BENSON – START))

“This fucking sucks!”

Roy leaned against the outside wall of the mess hall, breathed in deeply, and blew air out, in what ended up sounding like a fairly solid imitation of a horse. The ground in front of him was covered in the contents of his bag, which was now lying a few feet away from him, chucked aside in a fit of “holy-fuck-this-is-real-and-I’m-probably-going-to-die” awakening rage. In the scant time since he’d woken up, Roy had already used every single swear word under the sun, kicked the heads off of a few dandelions, and almost broken his other arm by punching the side of the building.

And now that that fit of anger had dissipated, he was left to sit and slump and stare at the belongings he’d be hauling around with him, because he didn’t have a fucking clue how he was supposed to be feeling.

Strangely enough, nobody had ever told him what he was supposed to do when you were abducted by terrorists. School had never handed out books like “What To Do If Your Class Is Kidnapped And Forced To Fucking Murder Each Other (Now with illustrations!)”. Talking to people and surviving school on the popular side of the fence? Easy as pie, you could teach a monkey to do that. Being the best damn halfback that P.J. Hobbes had ever seen? Came as naturally as breathing to Roy. But this? This was alien. This was something that nobody had any idea how to deal with. Everyone was on the same level playing field; neck deep in quicksand and desperately trying to be the first to clamber out.

Roy let out a long, deep sigh, and looked up to the sky, watching the clouds drift lazily by. Man. This really did fucking suck. He’d thought getting his arm broken and cutting all of his seasons short was bad enough. Hell, he’d joked around a few times with his friends about how ‘at least now nothing worse could happen’.

Turns out, Murphy was a dick, and his law could eat an ass, because lo and behold, here he was, up shit ocean without a boat. Ordered to kill or be killed. No escape until only one person remained. This year just kept on kicking his ass like some sort of… perpetual… ass kicking machine.

Wow, fucking sick simile there Roy, they might as well name you best journalist of the year with that.

Roy looked back down at his new belongings. His eyes kept on shifting back to his assigned weapon. Pros: He had been given a gun, which was, y’know, badass. Cons: It looked like a tube of fucking lipstick, which was less badass. Not that there was anything wrong with dudes wearing lipstick, hell, if they could do that and look good in the process then more power to ‘em. Just Roy wasn’t one of those dudes. You got it?

Anyway.

Pros: It really looked like a tube of lipstick. Like, really fucking really. It’d be like taking candy from a ‘Free Samples of Candy’ tray to tell somebody that he’d just been given lipstick as his weapon and for them to believe it. Cons: Well…

He’d been given a gun. That was the biggest con. The sheer bizarre sensation of holding an actual gun in his hand had managed to briefly override his terror and confusion, because, seriously, a gun? A straight up James Bond spy gun? You couldn’t seriously say that wasn’t badass.

It was only when he remembered that the people he’d be shooting would be his classmates that the idea had lost all its lustre.

Roy looked down at his things one last time, before scooping them up as best he could with one arm, and shovelling them back into his bag; all bar the lipstick gun, which went into his pocket. He couldn’t sit around and mope all day – well, he absolutely could, but he was pretty sure that if he was stuck listening to his own thoughts for any longer then he’d go utterly insane. It was high time for him to get up, and go and…

Uh…

Roy had utterly no idea what to do. There were so many ideas barraging his mind. Should he find people? Try and figure out where the hell they were? Try and find some way to escape this island?

Eventually he settled on just wandering around the mess hall, and seeing where that took him.

It didn’t take long before Roy found something. A person, standing in the doorway of the mess hall, staring inside with their back facing him. Roy strode towards him, clearing his throat so the figure knew he was being approached, before greeting him with the traditional welcome of the citizens of Denton.

“’Sup. This fucking sucks, huh?”

[Courtography]

(Enter Dan Liu)

Dan Liu had been awake for a little while. He hadn't woken up anywhere of note, besides it being an island acquired by terrorists for the purpose of killing a group of high schoolers. He'd walked for a bit. Sitting around wouldn't help the situation, and his back felt stiff. He had to walk around.

And those minutes of walking helped him clarify a few things. The first. A few of them were almost definitely going to die. Kids would freak out, and even though he didn't, some of them had guns. He'd heard the gunfire. So he needed to stay away from panicky kids with guns. That would be hard, but no impossible. And then he'd wait. The Navy or the Marines or whoever would show up soon. Terrorists may have been able to get away with kidnapping a class a few years ago when no one was expecting it. But now? Now national security had probably been keeping an eye out and would show up in a couple days. Three tops.

So his first goal with that was to find some shelter, and then he'd wait. It would be boring, but given the circumstances, boring beat the hell out of the other possibility.

The building coming into view as he walked would do.

And some guys that he recognized, but couldn't quite identify from his angle were at the doorway.

"Hell of a morning, am I right?"

[Maraoone]

So. There were a couple possibilities here. One was that this was the island that the terrorists dumped the previous class, and Badass Johnny was just hearing echoes of the past. Ghost teenagers firing their ghost bullets. Spooky.

Another was that the gunfight had simply ended, without anyone taking a hit. Or maybe someone was just playing with their new little toy. Actually, yeah, that seemed more likely. Ghost bullets were stupid. Stupid thought.

And then someone cleared their throat, and Badass Johnny totally did not yelp an octave higher than he would've preferred. Yeah, no, he shouted a nice, low, deep shout in manly shock. Yeah, that's what he did.

He turned and saw Roy. He smiled. This morning wasn't turning out so bad. Well, sure, people were shooting their guns already and they were all on Death Island™, but hey, the Great Big Football Reunion was already underway.

"Hey, man!" He patted Roy on the back with a little more force than usual, to sorta compensate for the high-pitched yelp that totally did not happen. And then, he considered Roy's next statement, and his smile faded a bit because, well, it was true. So, he looked back into the building for a bit, nodded, and said, "Yup. Sure does."

And then a third guy came in, and Johnny bit his tongue to keep himself from not yelping again. Said almost the same thing. Well, not really the same thing, but same sentiment. It echoed. That was the proper literary term, right? Echoed? Or paralleled? God, he was a writer, he should know this stuff. Echoed. Let's just settle for that. That'll work.

So, his statement echoed. He looked behind him and saw Dan Liu. Runner, basketball player, swell guy. And a parallel statement (OK, he knew he settled on 'echoed' earlier, but now that he thought about it, 'parallel' just fit more) deserved a parallel answer. "Yeah, talk about it."

And then he drifted back to the mess hall, and the ghost bullets. What happened? There didn't seem to be any bodies, or anyone screaming for help. Or maybe it was because they couldn't scream for help. Held captive, or too injured to speak. He needed to hurry. Get it on with. Or no, he needed to be careful. Didn't wanna get captured too. That would be an anticlimax. Or a climax too, now that he thought about it. But not one he wanted to get involved with. No, he needed to be cautious. Play it cool.

So, he decided to play detective, tried to figure out what happened. He didn't have the hat or trench coat for it, but he could think like one. And that's what counted.

"So, you guys heard those gunshots? Know what happened here?"

[Pippi]

Oh, shit, it was Johnny! Man, out of everyone in his class he could have bumped into, he was pretty glad it was Johnny. The guy was…

Hmm. Well. Actually.

Roy had some serious opinions about Johnny. Most notably, that he would always be called Johnny, as far as Roy was concerned, and absolutely 100% never Badass Johnny. Listen, it was a cool nickname! One might even venture so far as to say it was badass! Just not when you yourself referred to yourself with that nickname. Like, hey, Roy would have loved to be known as Roy “God of Sex and Football”; it was a fuckin’ great nickname, and one that was completely deserved. But if he went around introducing himself to other people as that, then people would think he was a total big-headed tool.

Point was, nicknames had to be earned, and yelping like your balls hadn’t dropped yet definitely did not earn you the moniker of ‘Badass’.

Still though, all that aside, Roy considered Johnny a friend. He was on the football team and a total bro; friendly and chill and all that. Roy grinned and, with his free arm, returned Johnny’s sturdy pat on the back with a friendly punch on the arm.

Then all of a sudden, it was a crowd. He craned his neck round to look at the newcomer, giving a welcoming nod when he saw it was another friendly face. Dan was another athlete, which made him a-okay in Roy’s book, even if he did play the wrong sports (although Roy was certain he’d ace basketball if he went for it full time).

He nodded again and made a couple of short noises of agreement, before he finally took a look inside the mess hall. It didn’t look too different from the cafeteria back at school, honestly. Just with a lot more dust, and a lot less food. And people. Roy scratched under his bandana. There was something real depressing about the room, the more he looked at it. It was just so fucking empty. So lifeless for a place that was supposed to be filled with chatter and noise.

Then Johnny mentioned gunshots, and Roy’s head snapped round to face him, expression briefly locked in one of utter confusion.

“Uh…”

Gunshots? What the fuck, there’d been shooting already? He hadn’t heard shit! He’d woken up right outside this building, how come he hadn-

Oh. Y’know, that was probably what had woken him up. The gunshots. Yeah, they’d probably do that.

Roy ran his fingers through his hair, and tried to regain his composure.

“Uh, gunshots, yeah, uh, no clue. Woke up outside this place; guess that knockout shit must have hit me hard, cause I was way too groggy to come check things out til now.”

Nice, fucking pulled that save out of the bag.

“You think there’s anyone still inside? I mean, good place to hide out in, right?”

[Courtography]

It was a relief that Dan had come across guys who weren't bad at all. Roy the football player who bragged a lot, although really, who didn't brag a bit when they were good at something. And then there was Johnny with the face who managed to be pretty cool despite it.

Dan walked closer to where he could see the other guy's faces. These guys wouldn't hurt him. His legs were tense and he paced while they talked. He didn't want to sit still right now even if holing up and just waiting was probably the smartest choice. Those assholes had knocked him out for how long? Nah, he had to at least walk.

And that's when Johnny said it. The gunshots had been there. Dan had probably gone the other way if he had realized that. "Uhh." He was dumbfounded. Why would Johnny come there if he knew the gunshots had been there? Was he trying to be, well, trying to be some sort of badass?

"You're the first guys I've seen. Good luck huh?" Hopefully good luck, assuming Johnny's plan wasn't to run towards any and all gunfire. Roy had the right idea, hide out and wait. It wasn't heroic, but heroism was best left to the professionals. If someone tried to rob the clerk at a gas station Dan wouldn't start a fight there either.

"Sounds like a good deal to me, Roy."

Someone had to speak up to support reason in case Johnny had other ideas.

[Maraoone]

OK, so, basically, no one knew anything. Good talk.

Well, then, just an extra challenge that Badass Johnny would have no problem conquering. No biggie. Although, to be honest, the detective stuff was something more up Daniel's alley. Looking at the details, figuring out their plan of entry and exit, basically thinking up all the possible ways they could avoid getting murdered. Johnny's thing was more about swimming across rivers, vanquishing their foe, actually avoiding getting murdered. But, he wasn't here. Two halves separated from each other. Probably across the island. Hopefully in a similar situation, with two swell allies who weren't up to murdering shenanigans and whatnot.

Hopefully.

He shook his head. Daniel would be fine. Like, he just said, or thought, really, Daniel knew his stuff. He could definitely manage a few days without Badass Johnny, and vice versa.

And he had more immediate matters to attend to. Like the gunshots that only Badass Johnny heard. You know, you'd think that gunshots would attract more attention, be more memorable. But apparently not. Ah, one of the many mysteries this island held.

Both Roy and Dan were down for checking out the mess hall, which was great, but hiding out? Doing nothing? He knew this island had many anomalies, what with friends shooting each other and silent gunshots and all, but he couldn't recall many battles where doing nothing proved to be the right choice. But, maybe he was being too skittish about this. Too reckless. They did just wake up, and they did need to think of a game plan. Just rushing into battle would get him killed, and that would probably be the worst story ever told. That's a tragedy if he ever heard of one, the sidekick warrior dead before even meeting up with the tactician. Plus, the gunshots. Someone might still be inside, either bleeding or waiting.

God, he had to hurry.

He faced Dan. "Heh, yeah. Same here." Then, he looked at Roy. "And, regarding this place," he said as he gestured towards the mess hall, "well, I haven't heard anything for a while, and I've been at the entrance, so probably. Still, we better make sure." And with that, he walked inside.

[Pippi]

Well, hey, that was a little more in the realms of ‘badass’! Walking right into a building you were almost certain still had people in it, people who had just been doing their best Annie Oakley impressions no less, yeah, that was pretty badass. Some people would probably push that along one step to ‘stupidity,’ but fuck them, this was Johnny’s time to shine.

Okay, all right, fine, the only reason Roy hadn’t said anything to stop Johnny was because he had the weird little lipstick gun thingy in his pocket, right at arm’s reach as a ‘just in case’ precaution, but still! Badass!

Roy stole a glance at Dan, gave him a quick ol’ shrug of the shoulders, then took off after Johnny, keeping his good arm free at all times, ready to dive into his jacket pocket at the first sight of Axey McShootsalot.

B069 Axey didn’t exactly have a lot of places to hide, though. The view inside the mess hall didn’t change too much from the doorway, just that there was more of it. A big, open room, with pretty much no hidey holes or winding corridors or conveniently places bales of hay to hide in. Just even more rows of metal lunch tables, bolted to the floor. Good luck trying to hide using one of those, unless you were some Mission Impossible wannabe, tying yourself to the underside of the table.

…

Fuck, weirder bullshit had happened before.

Roy made a grumbly noise, and began to walk up the first row of tables, glancing underneath each one as he passed it. There was always something chilling out under there; cobwebs, crumpled drink cans, empty cigarette packets, a frog (neat), rusty nails and screws. No people to be found so far.

But there were a lot of shell casings dotted around the place, and that pretty much signed and sealed Johnny’s belief that there’d been a shoot-out in here. Or at least, someone with a gun, who wasn’t afraid to use it. And both of those options were fucking shit, if they were still hiding somewhere in here.

Roy felt the kiss of death – the weapon, thank fuck, not the reaper himself standing behind him and rummaging in his pockets because ‘hey man you can’t take it with you, might as well give your stuff to old grimy here’ – jostle in his pocket, and his pace slowed down to a standstill. Man. He reaaaally hoped that his lipstick gun wasn’t the only thing keeping them all safe. Like, yeah, sure, he knew how to fire a rifle, and he sure as hell wasn’t gonna lose a gun duel to anyone else in the class.

But firing an Actual Gun was a lot different than trying to shoot with a fucking tube of Ruby Blitz Lipstick.

“Yo, guys?” Roy asked, trying to both keep his voice down and make sure that Dan and Johnny heard him okay. “What’d you two get for your weapons ‘n shit?”

[Courtography]

And then they decided that checking out the mess hall was a great idea. That would hopefully be fine. As long as no one had died in there it would be fine. If someone had, well, Dan didn't want to think about it. Some of his classmates were pretty dumb, but hopefully no one was dumb enough to actually kill someone this quickly. They'd be getting out of there pretty soon.

The inside was how you might expect an abandoned mess hall to look, for the most part. Chairs and tables everywhere, dust and other filth. He didn't like it though. He wasn't a neat freak or anything, but he at least kept his room somewhat clean, and his mom would never have let more than a few specks of dust accumulate in their dining room.

The part that wasn't how he expected were the bullet casings scattered around. So the gunfire had definitely been inside. But there was no blood, that was something of a relief. Maybe someone was just a complete idiot and liked to shoot their gun. After all if they were rescued soon, when would the people with crazy guns get to shoot them again?

His weapon?

"I uh, got a soda, probably off brand."

He'd never heard of it before, maybe it was foreign.

[Maraoone]

He was wrong. About someone being inside. Because no one was inside. And that was a good thing, really, Badass Johnny being wrong was a good thing. If only it worked like that for a lot of other things, like his Geography test. God, if getting most of the state capitals wrong had been a good thing before, then Johnny would've been utterly blessed. Oh well.

He was right about gunshots being fired here, though. The windows were broken, and... gold nuggets littered the floor. They were rich! Actually, he wasn't sure what use gold would do on this island, but still, gold. He bent down to pick up one of them and actually no they were bullet casings. Right. Yeah that was obvious. He hadn't seen these in a while. He hadn't seem them since-

He dropped it. His fingers reached for his left cheek, dragged themselves across it. Sandpaper.



So, gold nuggets it was, then! And riches didn't really have much use here, so better to just leave them alone. Untouched. Actually, now that he thought about it, this was a crime scene he was walking in. Although, thankfully, probably one of the less serious crimes since there didn't appear to be any blood dripping the floor. Maybe illegal possession of weapons? Public disturbance? He wasn't sure if this island could really be counted as public, but then again, didn't look like anyone lived here to make it private.

Also, if this was a crime scene, then any evidence, like those conspicuous gold nuggets strewn about, shouldn't have been touched. Contamination of data and all, or something like that. Ugh, this was elementary. Daniel would know this, really. He played detective a lot more than Badass Johnny did. He'd get to him though. He would. He had to.

Roy asked about their weapons. Apparently, Dan had some soda. His words almost got caught in his throat because isn't asking about weapons a bit sketch? Like, what if Roy had some AK-47 in his back pocket, and just wanted to make sure that no one could stop him?

OK, maybe not an AK-47, but the point still stands.

That was stupid, however. Getting all suspicious about Roy, really, although thinking about hidden AK-47's was also stupid, but not trusting his own friend was worse. He looked fine, didn't seem to have snapped. Making mountains out of mole hills here.

"Uhh, I have this thing," Badass Johnny said as he rummaged through his bag. He eventually pulled out the can. "It's a spray can of liquid nitrogen. Very misty." He considered pulling the trigger just to show it off, but firing your weapon at your classmates, no matter how harmless, was probably not the best way to make or keep friends.

So far, between them, they had ice breath and soda. He kinda hoped Roy had something better. They were three people. If Roy had a dud also, then, well, the odds really weren't in their favor. Then again, the odds had decided that they should be dumped on this island, so they never were in their favor in the first place, but still.

"You, Roy, what'd you get?"

Dan had gotten his attention with the soda. Johnny had looked through his bag earlier in the day, and the food the terrorists had given was decidedly not gourmet food, unless you considered bread, granola bars, crackers, and water to be that. If you did, well, you probably lived a very hard life, and Badass Johnny felt sorry for you.

So, he looked at Dan.

"Also, that soda of yours. Is it still cold?"

[Pippi]

Yeah, sheesh, go fucking figure. Between the three of them, they had scanned the room with something resembling thoroughness. Turned out there wasn’t anyone hiding under, behind, next to, on top of, or anywhere in the vague vicinity of, the tables. Nobody trying to be all Sam Splinter, tying themselves to the bottom of a table. Roy was almost – and this was a super fucking huge almost, alright? – disappointed. For all their caution and derring-do and Super Fucking Badassery, they could have at least found some loner who’d forgotten that The Safety was a thing.

Wait, no, the guy’s name was Cell Sam, from the game series Splinter Fisher. That was it.

Wait no hang on fuck

Roy clicked his teeth, ran his hand through his hair and under his bandana (fucking gross, by the way, had he really been sweating this much already?), and looked at the ‘’’weapons’’’ of his two buddies. Alright, maybe it was a really fucking good thing there hadn’t been anybody in here. A can of weird looking soda, probably some gross flavour like ‘Beetroot and Tapioca”? A can of what looked like fucking dry ice? Man. He guessed his teeny little lipstick gun really was their best line of defence. The liquid nitrogen could probably do some damage if someone answered ‘yes’ to the question ‘Hey buddy, do you mind awfully if we stick this against your arm for about half an hour and wait for part of it to freeze.’ And as for the soda…

At least the can was kinda heavy? That’d almost be as good as a bullet if you threw it, right?

Johnny seemed to have other plans with the soda, though. Roy frowned at his question. Normally he would be all over scoring a free drink, especially cause his throat was fuckin’ parched right now, and water only tasted good if you’d been actually working out or shit like that. But he had… doubts about this one. “Moxie,” really? What kinda dumbass name was that?

“You sure you wanna crack that open, bro?” Roy asked, stepping forwards to take a better look at the soda. “I mean, those terrorist fuckheads gave it to you. Could be poisoned for all we know. Could be, like… a can of… carbonated arsenic. Or something.”

Roy pulled an unattractive face, then dug into his pocket and pulled out the lipstick gun.

“If it is, then that’s our best shot at a weapon, ‘cause all they gave me was this thing. Tube of fucking lipstick. 'Ruby Blitz' colour, apparently. Like, come the fuck on, nobody wants to see me wearing this! Least, I fucking hope not.”

Yeah, yeah, sue him, he was awful and terrible and all that. Lying to two people he considered friends, and out here, allies. But there were a lot of good reasons for him to keep this close to his chest. You had to be careful as tits around guns. You respect them, they’ll respect you back, and will be much less likely to blow up in your face. You get complacent around a gun, you start making mistakes, and as soon as you start making mistakes, just one of those could send you to kingdom freakin’ come. Remaining as cautious as possible out here? Yeah, that seemed like the surefire way to surviving. Besides, maybe it would be best to keep a trump card up their sleeve. The element of surprise and all that shit, and what would be more surprising than Roy’s weapon? Less lipbalm, more embalm… ing fluid.

Y’know, cause it was actually a gun, and if people got shot by it they’d… they’d die, and embalming fluid was what you…

Alright, fuck off, you try coming up with a better lipstick-gun related pun on the fly.

“So, uh, all that in mind,” Roy said, tucking the definitely very safe and harmless lipstick back into his pocket. “You wanna mosey around in there?”

Roy pointed his thumb at the kitchen area of the mess hall.

“We might not have any decent weapons, but who needs ‘em when we’ve got these gu-THIS gun?”

Roy flexed his good arm and raised his left eyebrow. Aw, yeah. That was cool.

[Courtography]

Dan made a face.

"It's warm, and shit, who wants to drink warm soda?" He definitely didn't, and even though it probably wasn't poisoned he wasn't going to drink it until he felt like he really needed more to drink because warm soda was the worst. Almost as bad as room temperature coffee or wet nachos.

Dan snickered at Roy's weapon. "You checked the color of it? That's pretty gay, dude." What a laugh, giving Roy lipstick. It was like the terrorists went out of their way to give it to the 2nd most unlikely person on the island to ever wear lipstick. The most unlikely being Dan of course.

Check out the kitchen? Terrorists probably wouldn't have left much of anything in there for them, but they might as well check.

"Yeah okay, just don't get too close behind me, alright?" He wasn't letting the lipstick thing so soon. It was just too funny.

[Maraoone]

Right. So, lipstick, soda, and liquid nitrogen. Hmm. Maybe the lipstick could work for a disguise? And maybe the liquid nitrogen could be like a smoke screen? And then, the soda could be for if you get real thirsty and need a nice refreshing swig of Brand X™? Fuck if he knew. Badass Johnny was no MacGyver. What he did know was that things looked pretty dire if someone decided to come around and reenact Halloween or something. Not like anyone in this school would do that- but wait the gunshots. Right. Shit.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance.

And then, the soda being poison and stuff? Like, yeah, that was within the realm of possibility, but wasn't that rather cruel? Like, all he wanted was a taste of Brand X and he'd get a taste of death instead? Like, dude. Not cool. Then again, putting kids on this island in general was rather cruel, but Badass Johnny liked to believe that Lady Luck didn't hate them that much.

So, yeah, looking around the kitchen for stuff would be nice. Not like he planned on using anything, he wouldn't let the terrorists take that from him, but he couldn't really rely on his face to scare off the bad guys. He needed props to complete the role, you know?

He laughed a bit at Roy's joke, and then blew air out his nose at Dan's. Like, that type of humor wasn't really his thing, you know, but it wasn't any use pointing that out now. No need to die on this hill. Or to die at all, really. No need.

"I'd be up for checking out the kitchen, yeah," he said to Roy.

Then, he looked at Dan. "Like, I don't, but I hear liquid nitrogen's pretty cold, so maybe I could give it a spray?" There were more pressing matters, yeah, but just its presence was starting to make Badass Johnny salivate a bit. Like, where else could you find a fresh can of soda?

[Pippi]

Was there a word that was, like, a combination of ‘pissed-off’, ‘indignant’, and ‘actually-kinda-amused-but-begrudgingly-and-trying-real-fuckin’-hard-not-to-show-it’? If there wasn’t, there really should be, because it pretty accurately described Roy’s facial expression right now, directed, uh, directly at Dan. First off, dude? Low hanging fruit. Oh, a dude with lipstick, that’s pretty gay, yeah, he could have thought of that in his sleep.

Second of all, and this was the big one; Roy wasn’t gay. Probably. Almost definitely, he was pretty much entirely 99% certain. Girls were hot and cute and good, and he’d only stared at another dude’s butt ONCE whilst they were getting changed, and that was just because the guy had a birthmark in the shape of a dick on it. Honest, you could ask anyone else who was there at the time. You couldn't not stare at something like that.

So yeah, Roy wasn’t gay, but he also didn’t have anything against anyone who was. And yeah, that statement usually came with a big ol’ “BUT” afterwards, probably as you were dusting off your fedora collection, but not from him! If you were a guy and you wanted to make out with another guy or whatever, then you just had to tell Roy and he’d be your best damn wingman possible! So long as you told him just what an attractive dude looked like, cause fuck, he didn’t have a clue. Aside from a carbon copy of himself. Heh.

“Yeah? Well, like…” Roy flipped Dan off as he moved towards the kitchen. “Your face is pretty gay, man.”

Nice. That’ll show him.

“They gave me, like, an instruction manual for this thing, and it had the name of the colour written down there, prolly ‘cause they know I don’t know shit about makeup and whatever? Unlike, uh, you and your gay face.”

Wow. Christ. This conversation was dumb, and shit, and probably not the most vital thing to be caring about whilst they were all wearing very fashionable necklaces that could explode if the terrorists decided ‘fuck these three idiots in particular.’

There was a method to Roy’s conversational madness, though. The same method that had convinced him to lie about the lipstick gun. Roy considered himself a pretty smart dude, especially seeing as he spent most of his free time getting smacked in the head. But most other people, his parents and teachers aside, didn’t think of him as much more than just another jock. The sorta guy who struggled to remember that 2+2=4. So maybe… maybe it’d be best if he kept it that way. You underestimated a guy, you put yourself on the back foot from the very start, and there was no better way to underestimate Roy than to consider him someone with more brawn than brain.

I mean, that part was still true, he was ripped as hell, just the brains were still very much there and being put to good use. Unlike some of the other football players adonis he knew.

Roy walked into the kitchen, and expressed his reaction at what he saw succinctly and calmly.

“Jesus fucking dick, the hell happened in here?”

He probably should’ve expected something like this, considering the littered bullet casings and, y’know, completely shattered window dividing the main hall from the kitchen, but still! Christ! It was like they’d walked inside a fuckin’ salt shaker, the amount of holes there were everywhere. Roy wandered over to a rack of pots and pans and grabbed hold of a wok, spinning it by the handle in his good hand.

“No blood, no bodies or anything. Either there was someone here who couldn’t aim for shit, or… I dunno…”

Roy raised the wok up to his face and looked at the other two through the neat bullet hole in the centre.

“Gordon Ramsey finally fuckin’ snapped.”

[Courtography]

Dan was tempted to tell Roy that Roy's mom was pretty gay, but there was a certain point where a joke had to end and that was probably it. Besides, Dan hadn't seen his face since the morning before he was kidnapped. For all he knew the terrorists had drawn a bunch of dicks in a rainbow of colors on his face. That would be pretty damn gay.

Johnny sure had a point though. Cold soda, even if from a weird brand, would be killer right now. "Tell you what, Johnny, if that stuff can make it cold, I'll split it with you." It was a fair trade, Dan thought. And if the soda was bad, then hey, he only had to drink half the can.

Roy's cursing at the sight of the kitchen was no joke, even if his choice to end it with dick made Dan want to call him gay again. But it was ridiculous, the kitchen didn't have swiss cheese. It was swiss cheese. Heck, maybe it had even more holes than swiss cheese.

"Nah, he'd just yell that the kitchen's a piece of shit, right?"

Dan didn't watch a lot of cooking shows.