You Don’t Load a Gun, Close Your Eyes And Shoot

[ItzToxie]

Fisk smiled.

"Knew it."

[Applesintime]

OK, this was all sorta interesting, but, like, Gregory didn't care. This was the longest three minutes in the world, sitting there, half-paralysed by fear that these guys are going to find you, that you're gonna fuck up somehow and get yourself killed, that you might not do anything, waste that egg-timer and have nothing to show for it, not even Stokes' body being let down. But he had to believe. Listening to stories of betrayal and being mad at Ivan and Rhonda. Guess, heh, guess he solved that little problem for them. It wasn't a funny joke, and it didn't make him laugh, but it stopped him from crying and that was important.

It felt like a millenia. But eventually the egg timer went off, with a quiet little ringing; at least, quiet to Gregory, but probably louder for those inside the restaurant themselves. Quickly as he could, Gregory moved past the front door, hoping nobody noticed him, and over to Stokes' body. He'd just wait a little. Until he knew if they were coming for him or not.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“That ob-”

You ever feel like you’re an NPC in a stealth game? You know, like, you’re in a conversation, the other person said something, and now you have to go through your head so you can say the thing you need to say to try and make some progress in your plotline, and then some random dude in the room over threw a coin and suddenly all sense of purpose has been interrupted as your brain and body force you to focus on checking out what that sudden new noise was?

That was Verity.

“Uh-” She looked through the wall. In the vague direction of where the ringing was coming from. “That’s-...”

[ItzToxie]

“Ivan’s here.”

James was dead. Sofia was dead.


Who’s left?

Yeah.

Fisk gripped his machine gun. His breath rattled. Though he did his best not to show it, for the first time in a long time, Fisk felt fear.

[Applesintime]

As soon as the dim humming of the egg timer erupted, Gregory moved quickly. Gripping his knife in one hand, he looked up, followed the rope all the way to where it was tied, a little support column or whatever near the bottom of the entrance. The knife was, admittedly, not designed for sawing, but it was sharp and so Gregory was able to hack through the rope with ease. And then Stokes plumped down with a faint squelching noise, and Gregory cringed for just a moment before awkwardly sheathing his knife and running around to the other side of the restaurant's exterior. They'd be tied up in the other side, with the egg timer, and so he wanted to hear them find that someone had cut her down. He wanted someone to see that he could do something good. Not just murder.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Right.”

No time to breathe. No time to pause.

“Let’s go.”

She got up. Went down the stairs. Kept careful as she and Fisk moved out the corridor, out to the main room, and:

“Wait-”

She stopped. Looked the other way, to catch the thing that’d appeared in the corner of her eye. A corpse that’d been hung up the last time she’d seen it, just twenty minutes ago. A part of the picture that was now different.

Evidence that someone was here, potentially right now.

She looked at Fisk, pointed at Stokes, and holsted Timothy’s gun in her hand as she took a silent step towards the front entrance of the restaurant.

[ItzToxie]

Fisk swiveled his gun to and fro from the noise and to Stokes. This fucking guy... He’s playing with them. Little horror movie monster. Thinks he’s fucking Jason back from the dead at Camp Crystal Lake. Back for revenge.

Like a fucking EC comics character. Crypt Keeper planning his puns right now. Ha.

Ha ha.

Ha.


Fisk laughed too.

“Yeah, wait.”

Stokes was on the ground now. “Let it come to us. We’re what it wants. We walk to it, we walk through it’s territory.” Ivan was just a man, yet Fisk had doubts. He killed him. But Ivan killed everyone else, he came back. Man don’t do that.

Things do. Things don’t die when you kill them, but-

“It still bleeds. It comes to us, and we blast it. Nothing’s immune to bullets.” Thought of Predator. Did that make Fisk Arnie?

Or Billy?

“If it bleeds we can waste it.”

Fisk clicked another quiet rasp of a chuckle.

[Applesintime]

Alright. They had seen the body. Gregory remained quiet, one hand on the sheath, ready to pull the knife out if he needed to - although, at the moment, he didn't particularly want to - and another was in his backpack, ready to throw the bolas if he needed to. This had been a mistake. Why had he decided to like, piss off two people, one of whom probably had a gun judging by Stokes' corpse? Just to cut it down and like, make himself feel better? He didn't wanna die, and that in itself was probably kinda selfish because, like, he had killed two people, and they probably didn't wanna die, even if Cory was gonna die anyway.

Fisk was quoting Predator. He seemed awfully paranoid. Maybe Ivan had like, attacked him at some point? From what he had gathered Ivan was like, attacking a certain group of people, so maybe like, Fisk and his friends had done something to him and that's why Ivan was so pissed at them? Whatever. It didn't, like, seem like something he needed to worry about, not when he was gonna get ganked by Fisk and his friend.

Fishing the little bottle of rum out of his bag, Gregory drank it and threw it into the ocean. It sort of hurt going down, but if he was gonna die he didn't wanna die without trying alcohol, right? Sammy always talked about how, like, a good bottle of whiskey would put hairs on your chest and make you taller, and while he didn't give Gregory any because he was too young, the idea of growing taller was appealing to him. Still, if he was taller, he'd have been shot by Amy and that wouldn't be good.

A small vein of courage welled up in his chest. He wasn't gonna die to Fisk and his stupid gun. He was gonna live.

[Wham Yubeesling]

“Okay.”

She stayed in cover. Waited for the other person to come.

She stayed in cover. Waited for the other person to come.

She stayed in cover. Waited for the other person to come.

…

…

…

She waited for the other person to come.

She waited for the other person to come.

…

She gave Fisk a look.

[ItzToxie]

Noise in the kitchen. Front door. Noise in the kitchen. Front door. Noise in the kitchen. Front door.

When did Stokes hit the ground?

Front door?


Front door.

He planted his feet, and hipfired a volley out the front door, shattering glass and splintering wood as he zizgagged rounds through the doorway.

[Applesintime]

Gregory wasn't expecting someone to shoot through the front door. At least his yelp was (mostly) covered by the sounds of shattering glass, wood splintering and cracking and y'know, the gunfire sounds. Alright, so Fisk or his friend had like... something automatic. SOTF gave out a lot of different weapons and he was no gun nut, so he couldn't tell you what it was, but it sounded almost like a drill or a paper shredder operating or something. Like, if Gregory looked inside the restaurant, he'd see workmen with a bunch of drills and shit, not Fisk and his machine gun.

Maybe it was time to go. There wasn't, like, much else he could do unless he wanted to get shot, and getting shot wasn't on his bucket list. So, Gregory made his move, creeping around the back of the restaurant, and stopping when he realised that like, the back door of the restaurant was half=open, and he could get a good look at the inside. There was Fisk, of course, holding something that looked like a fucked-up tommy gun, and then another girl that he didn't know. She had a Glock. Gregory was aware that he couldn't stay long, because one of them might turn around and see him, and then it'd be game over. It was like, playing as the protagonist of one of those stealth games, where you had to sneak around and stay out of the way of the monsters or you'd be eaten or something.

Still, he wanted to know as much about the people who'd killed Stokes as he could. Just so he could stay the fuck out of their way.

[ItzToxie]

“Come out motherfucker!”

The volley of gunfire stopped. He rested the machine gun on his shoulder. “Keep playing games, I’ll hang you up with Stokes, but you’d know all about that one huh?”

“I’m gonna torture you when I get my hands on you, Ivan, or one of his shitbird friends or whoever you are! I get a hold of you, there’s nothing but a world of pain waiting!”

He stepped closer to the front door, towards Stokes, and who’d ever be dumb enough to stay there. Maybe he could catch them running.

“Better show yourself and I might make it quick for both of us, but if I have to find you I’m gonna take my fucking time. I know what I’m gonna do to you too!”

Yeah. He had plans. He was gonna go down in history one way or another. It it meant disgusting the audience the way he was disgusted finding his friends, so be it.

[Applesintime]

Alright. Fisk was making random threats. It was probably time to go. So turning around, Gregory-

Gregory, of course, stepped on glass, making a quite audible crunching sound.

Fuck.

[Wham Yubeesling]

Everything was so terrifying.

The two of them had just been talking, what had felt like less than minute ago. Verity had listened to Fisk open up and had been able to think, just for a second, that he was at least maybe a bit more than the Joker, but then the next everything had gone stealth game and now they were gunfighting? It was all so much, and it was all too much to do anything about it. Her gun was in her hands but she wasn’t lifting it. She was just lifting it up. Looking around. Pretending she was trying to look out for-

The shape, by the back entrance, that had just frozen up.

“Over there!” she hissed, pointing towards the door.

[ItzToxie]

Fisk swiveled on his feet pointing his gun at the now revealed individual. “Freeze motherfucker! Show me your hands!” Fisk shouted. Wasn’t Ivan. Fisk didn’t know if he were disappointed or relieved.

Make a fool of me, eh? Fisk smiled, relaxing.

Probably disappointed, in all honesty.

Fisk wordlessly stepped over, gun chicken winged under his arm as he kept the barrel trailed at Gregory. He stepped about a good six or seven paces away from him. Fisk’s free arm pointed behind him.

“Were you the one who cut down our ‘decoration’?” He asked. The real question to ask was if he was alone, but they’d get there.