Blue Moon

[Spindarene]

Lily felt cold as she stared at the bat. Her first thought was that the producers had given it to Zoe as her designated weapon, but she didn’t think that they gave out duplicates. How then had Zoe ended up with Lily's bat?

She found it highly unlikely that Dougie had given it to her. Zoe and Dougie hadn't seemed particularly close at school, and Dougie wouldn't give up his only defense to someone he didn’t know. It was possible that Zoe had taken it while Dougie was sleeping. While that was still worrisome, there was more probability that Dougie was unhurt. The third possibility was that Zoe had somehow incapacitated Dougie and then robbed him. Lily’s stomach tightened at the thought. She didn’t see any blood on the bat or on Zoe, but that didn’t really mean anything. There were plenty of other ways to hurt someone. She was determined not to think about the fourth possibility.

Normally Lily wouldn’t have believed that someone like Zoe was capable of overpowering Dougie. Now that Zoe had the bat however, Lily didn’t know what to think.

She barely listened as Michael spoke. When he finished she nodded at him, then turned her focus back to Zoe.

Michael hadn't mentioned anything about Dougie or the bat. Since she and Dougie had only separated a couple hours ago, Michael must have met up with Zoe recently. Either that or he was hiding something.

Logically, Lily knew that she had no reason to trust Michael. They barely knew each other, and were on opposing teams. However, he was the first person to be nice to her here, and was the one who had proposed teaming up in the first place. Michael knew how important finding Dougie had been to her, so she thought that he would have said something if he'd seen him.

Eying Zoe’s face, Lily spoke.

"How did you get that bat?"

[Ohm]

Michael was talking about Valeire, he found her after Gene had done his work, it was funny in a morbid way, her and Lukas saving Gene  resulted in a nutcase running around pogoing people to death and a freaking goliath running around with a claymore killing people. Her attention was back on the girl, she was asking where they got the bat, it made her remember what happened at the boardwalk, she grimaced at the memory.

"We found it over at the boardwalk, someone had left it there so we took it." Zoe didn't feel bad about lying to her about the bat, if it meant keeping the damn thing, she was not going to lose yet another weapon.

"By the way, watch out for Anzu, she tried to strangle me back there." As she was saying this one of her hands were feeling the sides of her neck, there were probably marks now, Zoe would make Anzu pay for that.

"Why'd you wanna know?"

[Wham Yubeesling]

Lily nodded at Michael, and turned towards the bat again. He thinked she listened? He wasn't sure. Her nodding wasn't very indictive of a proper response, so whether she actually listened or whether she was just going along with it and noting what he was saying was up in the air for everyone except her.

She then asked where Zoe got the bat. He grimiced internally. He knew that Lily was onto them, and he doubted that Zoe was able to make a convincing enough lie that could make Lily believe that they weren't violent assholes who stole Dougie's bat.

But, to Michael's surprise, she was actually able to pull a lie off, and have it not sound like total bullcrap. However, it wasn't convincing enough. It relied on the fact that Dougie would randomly drop the bat and that his “attacker” wouldn't take it for themselves, not unless he and Zoe were the agressors. He doubted that Lily was an idiot, and would probably note the flaws in the lie. Lily was a potential ally, here, and Michael didn't want her to run because she found out that both of them were evil.

So, he was presented with two options. He could, A. Say nothing, and hope that Lily didn't notice the flaws in his plan.

Or he could B. Put the blame on Zoe, and make himself seem like a more trustworthy person.

It didn't take long for Michael to realize that one choice was better than the other.

“She found the bat before she found me. If she happened to attack you and steal your bat, then I apologize on her behalf; but I thought that it should be known that I had no part in this.”

[Spindarene]

Lily stared at the pair with a mixture of anger and fear.

Zoe's story had been weak, but Lily might have believed it if Michael hadn't chimed in. He was trying to put the blame on Zoe, but had made the mistake of saying that Zoe must have attacked Lily when moments before she had asked how Zoe had gotten the bat. If he really didn't know what happened he would have been confused, possibly asking what had happened instead of making something up. Lily had been wrong about him.

She didn't know what to do. The more appealing option was to turn around and walk away. She looked at their bandanas, reminding herself that it was two against one, and that they had managed to overpower someone larger and stronger than her.

What kept her from leaving was the knowledge that whatever had happened, whatever they'd done, was her fault. She was the one who had left. She’d thought it would make things easier and it had done the opposite.

She stayed silent for a minute, eyes darting between the two of them before finally settling on Zoe.

“What did you do?” she growled.

[Ohm]

Of course the first person they meet after robbing Dougie is someone who knows Dougie, the audience were probably having a laugh at them for this.

She wasn't convinced and demanded answers, so Zoe obliged.

"You want to know? Alright, we took this from Dougie, he decided to play hero and stop us from getting supplies, so we took care of him."

"Now." Zoe stood up, both her hands were gripping the bat now, her eyes were fixed on the girl "What are you going to do about it?" She felt a grin spread on her face, after spending the last few days doing pacifist bullshit and being attacked, being the one with the upper hand felt good.

[Wham Yubeesling]

Well, that didn't go according to plan.

Lily had seen through his lie, and now she was angry. In hindsight, his lie was pretty weak and he should have stayed silent, but that didn't matter now. What did matter was that Lily was potentially going to leave as an enemy, and for some reason Michael didn't like that.

Zoe then antagonized her, said that they had both killed Dougie and she was next. While  killing her would be a good way to progress both of them through the game, something felt wrong to Michael, and for whatever reason, he felt as he needed to tell her the truth.

Then, without thinking, he said:

"Well, by took care of him, we mean "took his bat and ran away". Unless Zoe did something to him while I was here eating, I can say for a fact that Dougie is uninjured."

[Spindarene]

Lily’s heart pounded and her hands shook as she stared at Zoe. She and Michael had attacked Dougie, and from the sound of it, Zoe had done something bad to him; Michael’s little addendum to Zoe’s statement didn’t have much credibility. Now Zoe was threatening her.

Lily’s hands curled into fists, and for a moment all she wanted to do was slam them into the other girl’s face. For a few seconds she stood there, imagining her knuckles smashing into Zoe’s mouth or her nails digging into skin while the other girl screamed. Her right hand twitched but she didn’t raise it. The moment passed, and she came back to reality.

Lily wasn’t a fighter. When she was a child and other kids bullied her at school, instead of fighting back she ran crying to a teacher. As she got older she learned how to fight with words, but had never used physical violence.

Zoe was taller than her, more athletic, and clearly knew how to fight. Lily was no match for her, and didn’t have the courage to even try.

She clenched her jaw and stared at the ground, fighting back tears. After a moment she looked up again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you two?”

[Ohm]

"What's wrong with us? Are you really that surprised that we're aiming to win, that's the whole fucking point!"

Zoe felt herself get angrier every second this girl was talking, she could feel it, she was looking down on them for doing what they were supposed to do to survive, the only reason she didn't attack her was because she and Michael were friends and he probably wouldn't like that, though if she tries anything...

"I think you better leave now, before I slam my bat into your head!" They wouldn't gain anything from killing her yet, it would probably piss off Dougie enough to get him to do something against them, especially since it was done with his weapon.

[Wham Yubeesling]

Lily, judging from the way she reacted, didn't believe him at all, even though he was telling the truth this time. He didn't blame her, though. He had lied to her before and there wasn't any reason he wasn't doing it again. It was kinda like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, in a way. Boy Michael had said things about Dougie too many times (well, in this case it was once), and Shepard Lily didn't want that anymore.

He considered what might have happened if he had told the truth to her straight away. Maybe they still could be allies.

No, that wouldn't have worked. If he had said that she would have been out the door by now. Lying would have been the better choice, if he had done that, and chosen the right words, Lily could have ended up as a puppet of the two.

Still, what's done was done, and it didn't seem that she was going to be his ally again any time soon.

That didn't mean that he could still tell the truth. Even though it was likely that she was going to assume he lied again, he may as well be honest with her.

“I want to live, and to do that, I'm willing to do anything.”

He shuddered when he said that. He still didn't like the thought of having to kill Lily, or someone else he knew, despite the fact that he needed to do so at one point. He wasn't afraid to let that be known.

[Spindarene]

Lily glared at Michael with her fists tight and her eyes full of tears. Everything that he’d said at the beginning about staying together and being stronger as a group was a lie. She didn’t know if that had always been the case, but she knew that whatever camaraderie or loyalty they’d shared was now gone.

After a moment she turned to Zoe, speaking furiously through clenched teeth.

"If you did anything to Dougie, if he’s--if you--" She stopped because it was an empty threat. Whatever Zoe had done, Lily wasn’t strong or brave enough to retaliate. The pink bat caught her eye; the bat that had been hers, that Dougie had taken to protect her. The bat that Zoe was now threatening her with.

Lily suddenly felt cold. Her eyes darted between Zoe and Michael as fear replaced her anger.

She stared at them as she stepped backwards, her hand fumbling for the doorknob. Once she found it, she shoved the door open and ran outside.

((Lily Ashburg continued in They Say Time Heals Everything))

[Ohm]

Zoe's grip on the bat relaxed after the girl had left, she looked over at Michael and wondered how he was going to take one of his friends running out on him, but she figured he would be alright, if the talk they had earlier had taken some effect.

"That went well." She said as she sat back down at her original spot, her sight was back on the front door, with Michael's friend having barged in and out without problem, she realised  they were lucky it was just her and that she was unnarmed, if she had a gun the whole thing could have gone different.

"We need to find something for you to use, the net's all out useless at this point."

[Wham Yubeesling]

She had left.

Michael was considering the possibilities, wondering what went wrong, and wondering what he could have done to stop the situation from turning this way. Maybe he could have kept Zoe's lie where it was, maybe he could have told Zoe that the bat was Lily's and she could have hid it or something. Maybe telling the truth immediately would have actually made her stay rather than leqve like he thought she would.

Wait, why was he thinking about this?

Was it because he had lost his ally, or was it because he had lost his friend?

He didn't know. Both cases had their points. Lily would have made a good ally, considering their partnership earlier, and it might have been easy to manipulate her, to make her do what they wanted.

On the other hand, their alliance earlier in the game was sincere. They both saw someone getting shot in the he head, and they both tried to find Valerie when she had vanished. Who knows, maybe if he hadn't found his team, he would be in this situation right now, he might not have been the manipulator.

Zoe said something, but it was drowned out by his thoughts. It was probably important, and he probably should at least know what it was. He turned, asked a question.

“Pardon?”

[Wham Yubeesling]

((GMing approved))

Time passed. They took shifts sleeping, and they both made sure that no harm came to the other while they were fast asleep. Not that it mattered, anyway. Nobody came at all after Lily had run out and for the most part, both of them were able to sleep peacefully. At 7 AM, both of them were awake, just in time for the crackle of the announcements to come on.

Lukas was dead.

He shot himself, apparently. The announcer attempted to make a pun, but she was cut off.

It was a surprise to both of them. While they had both known that Lukas wasn’t a fan of the game, him committing suicide seemed like an odd jump in his actions. Michael himself had noted that earlier he had seemed fine (barring him leaving his team), and unless it was in response to something else, he wouldn’t have killed himself because of the game, right?

Oh well, it didn’t matter that much. He had lost another potential ally, but it was one that likely wouldn’t have helped him anyway. His gun would have been useful, though.

...

After the announcements had concluded, Michael and Zoe both had something to eat, they then stood up, and left the casino.


((Michael Robinson and Zoe Walker, continued in Red Sun))