If I ever acquire wisdom, I suppose I'll be wise enough to know what to do with it

[almostinhuman]

(Nadine Flores continued from Go for Broke)

When Nadine barged into the room, she had a set of expectations for what she'd see. Rhonda and Shoshanna shot and dying, their killer - Seo-yun? - standing over their bodies, maybe some other dead kids who'd had the misfortune to come to the banquet hall at just the wrong moment. What she hadn't expected was her friends to be gone, the room to be partially on fire, and Seo-yun bloody and shaken on the floor, being tended to by some other girl who didn't seem to be doing much better. She particularly didn't expect Seo-yun to have, like, any allies at all; the announcements made her seem the lone wolf sort.

A small part of her was relieved to see Sho and Rhonda had gotten away, and even fought back pretty well, from the looks of it. The rest of her was too focused on just how badly she'd stepped in it by rushing into place. Both girls were toting guns, and from what little she knew of her, Seo-yun was particularly trigger happy; even in her injured state, Nadine didn't trust her chances against her. Running back out would probably get her shot, now that they knew she was here. It might even lure them out to everyone still outside, which she didn't need on her conscience.

With little other recourse, she swiftly hit the floor. The scattered and upturned tables dotting the room obscured her view of the others - and hopefully their view of her - but it was an extremely temporary solution to the very serious danger she'd put herself in. She was gonna need to think of something, fast.

[Maraoone]

((Matias Juarez continues from Go For Broke))

Back when he'd been with his ex, Matias had actually gotten into gaming for a bit. Like, his family had never been rich enough to afford a computer that could run anything more intensive than a fuckin' calculator, so when his boyfriend let him borrow his computer, he took to it and got, like, kinda invested in it for a bit. SOTF Champions especially.

As it turned out he was kinda bad at games. Which, like, understandable given the lack of access to games for most of his childhood, but still pretty fucking depressing, not gonna lie.

The issue was that he could never wait, really. Like, if the nexus is on the other side of the map, and we're here on THIS side of the map, then why stay here? Why not just, like, rush over there as soon as possible? In hindsight that was a stupid strategy that got him killed more often than not, but doing anything else just felt too boring, really. And, like, if you were gonna die, it'd be better to die trying than to die holed up in a corner, yeah?

And, like, he'd been thinking this over during the few seconds it took to run from the pool back to the banquet hall. Like, yes, dying was now a hell of a lot more literal than he wanted it to be, and no, he didn't really plan on dying at all, but, like... he had numbers. Nadine was with him, he was pretty sure Ashanti would follow soon, maybe the other girl whose name he still couldn't remember would come. Like, he could just waltz in there, glove-gun the two to death, maybe a few extra hits with the baton if necessary, and that would be that. There were enough distractions that he could manage, probably. And there were all those people they'd left behind who were probably taking care of things just fine, yeah?

Right?

So, he burst in, water still dripping from his clothes and shit, right after Nadine, and for some reason shit was burning? And half the tables were flipped over, and most of the people were gone, and it was just Seo-yun being treated for some face wound by the other girl who'd been shooting at them? What the fuck?

And for a few moments, it seemed that everyone had been just as stunned as him by this spectacle, given how, like, no one did anything for a bit.

Then the girl tripped over on the floor like a fucking idiot because he couldn't really rely on anyone, could he?

And, like, the mental calculus he did in his brain told him that there'd be one, two people behind him coming shortly, that the klutz in front of him would be a pretty big distraction, and that Seo-yun and chandelier girl were in a pretty bad state, and he wasn't, so...

So, he pulled back his gloved fist and began running towards Seo-yun.

[VoltTurtle]

Of course they were back. Just as Mandy got the bandages nice and tight, of course the others would be coming.

Seo-yun leapt back to her feet in an instant, a fresh burst of adrenaline surging through her veins. Fighting wasn't a good idea, but unfortunately for her, she didn't have a choice at this point. Once more it was do or die, and she wasn't going to die here. She was Seo-yun, and she was better than them.

Her head swiveled in the direction of Matias. Between the smoke filling the room, the blood, and the tears that were still filling her vision, it was awfully hard for her to see. Just looking around sent a fresh stab of pain through her now-brutalized eye socket. If there was ever a time to attack her, now would be it. Yet, there were two things that Matias didn't seem to take into account as he charged towards her.

For one, she still had one good ear.

For two, she still had a fucking shotgun.

She raised the gun towards the hazy shape of the boy, in the vague direction of his footsteps.

Yet another roar of thunder tore through the banquet hall.

[Maraoone]

In his defense, it was a reasonable assumption that someone would've been behind to, like, watch out for him, catch sight of either of the two reaching for a gun. Maybe if Ashanti had followed behind a bit closer, or if Nadine had pulled him down.

In his defense, given how often he'd watched this show, the fight scenes especially, you'd think that he would've caught the hand raising in time to retreat, or dodge at the very least. Like, come on, he played soccer, he had good reflexes, right?

In his defense...

In hindsight, running right towards two people with guns was a really, really fucking stupid idea. And Matias would've been laughing, to be honest, if he weren't the punchline, if he weren't the one whose thigh was currently being torn apart by a bullet. But oh well.

Momentum stolen from him, directed elsewhere, he ended up crashing right into the floor, face-first.

[almostinhuman]

Not that Nadine had been, y'know, thinking when she rolled on into the banquet hall, but she especially hadn't been thinking that she was gonna be followed. Like, it was a plainly suicidal thing she'd just done, and she was lucky she hadn't been blown away immediately. Clearly, no one would be stupid enough to follow her example, right? Especially not either of the kids who'd just been in this room and knew far better than she did what they were facing. They particularly couldn't be dumb enough to come in fists-swinging, thinking they were somehow gonna reach Seo-yun before either she or her friend shot them down. You'd have to be a real moron to do something like that.

It turns out the boy from earlier - who was now face-down on the floor, bleeding from the leg - was exactly that kind of moron.

Nadine stayed put, hoping the boy would stay still as well. She still had no exit strategy better than either "stay hidden and hope Seo-yun goes away" or "run back out the door and hope she doesn't shoot." Neither option was attractive when she thought she was alone, but now she had a wounded kid to deal with, so running was pretty much off the table. Their best bet at this point was that Seo-yun and her buddy thought they'd killed him, hadn't actually seen Nadine enter, and decided to finally leave.

[Brackie]

((Ashanti Baker returned from Go For Broke))

Ashanti may have been mute, but she wasn't blind, even if the large conga line of people heading back into the room with lethal competition had her at the caboose.

She didn't know what would change from the two rooms, especially since her and Matias had only left the ballroom minutes ago, but whatever Ashanti expected to see, flames were not anywhere near the top of the list. But there they were. There were no extra bodies there, at least from what Ashanti could tell, but there was a wounded threat and Noname Girlything in the centre of it.

And then Matias ran for them.

She was bound by her choices, that much Ashanti had control over.

But when she saw him go down, there was something there that couldn't be held.

Because when Matias, the boy who had gotten to know the worst of her mettle from the past days, fell before her, Ashanti forgot she was a competitor, and all of her promises turned to mist and Ashanti let out a long, shrill scream.

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy was almost surprised when the others returned to the room, charging in from the pool area. She'd pretty much just assumed they were running away for good. There were some new faces, some familiar, but there wasn't time to sort it all out.

She was also surprised by her reaction. Just as Seo-yun raised the shotgun to point at the charging boy, so too did Mandy raise and point the revolver. In sync, two fingers pulled two triggers, but while Seo-yun's weapon belched lead and smoke, Mandy's didn't do anything at all. Her lips pressed very tightly together as she drew back the hammer a moment later, pointed it vaguely at where the boy had fallen—because Seo-yun had things under control again, lost eye or no—and pulled the trigger once more.

Mandy wished she was surprised when still nothing happened. Because, right, she'd already shot all the bullets earlier when they were chasing Rhonda and Shoshanna away. The gun was useless, now, aside from scaring people, and they wouldn't be very scared if they noticed Mandy clicking the trigger like it was a toy.

Then again, they might not notice that because it was hard to pay much mind to anything with the room wreathed in flames and choking smoke. Certainly Mandy couldn't tell who even all was here, let alone how bad the boy was hurt.

Her chest was getting tight, and it wasn't just the fumes. The smoldering pack she'd thrashed her way clear of was suddenly a lot more than an obstacle to her immediate safety. It was, after all, full of all her stuff, including the box of bullets for the revolver (and her clothes and first aid gear, but those were sort of secondary at the moment). It wasn't burning as fast as the rest of the room, but flames still danced on it. Trusted with important resources, Mandy had yet again screwed up and now their lives were at risk because of that.

No more. Mandy could feel the freeze coming on, but she wouldn't let it get her this time. Instead, she did the first thing that came to mind, and broke into a sprint back for the bag.

"I'm getting the stuff," she yelled to Seo-yun. She could barely hear her own words even inside her head. "We need to go."

Unfortunately, while her first impulse had carried her into peril, it had not offered any particular insight when it came to actually retrieving the bag, which remained on fire. So instead of freezing by Seo-yun's side, Mandy froze a dozen feet away, arms outstretched uselessly, one clasping the empty gun, tears rolling down her cheeks as she coughed and blinked and whipped her head side to side trying to figure out what to do.

And right then was when Mandy got one last surprise as the emergency sprinklers finally kicked in.

All along the length of the hall came a series of popping sounds, and suddenly the room was flooded from above with a deluge of brackish water, pelting down in waves on flames and combatants alike, as Mandy shrieked and shrieked.

[VoltTurtle]

The recoil from the shotgun rattled Seo-yun's bones, almost knocking her off balance. Acrid smoke burned in her nostrils, a harsh, high-pitched buzzing in her ear. Stagnant water battered her from above, as the sprinklers roared to life. She had gone throughmany worst experiences of her life in these last few days. This one had to take the cake, however.

She blinked, briefly clearing the tears from her one remaining eye. For a moment, she got a look at Matias. His thigh more closely resembled raw hamburger than human flesh. If that didn't kill him, something else certainly would. All the better, too, since she didn't want to be here anymore. Mandy seemed to agree, the first sensible idea she'd had since they got involved in this train wreck, so it was about time.

"Okay", she shouted back to her companion. "Follow me."

Her legs wobbled as she gunned it for the exit. Her chest felt heavy as it heaved and strained for breath. Her head felt light, like she could topple over at any moment. Whatever surge of energy she had gotten from her second-wind was gone now. She had to leave, there was no other choice in the matter.

The barrel of the gun was raised one last time, in the vague direction of Ashanti's screams. Another shot ripped through it just before Seo-yun dove into the corridors. She stumbled, pushing against the wall to keep herself balanced, only to run, full-pelt, away from this place.

((In her haste, she didn't check to make sure Mandy had been following her.))

[MurderWeasel]

"Right," Mandy sputtered in response to whatever Seo-yun had said.

Between the aftershock of the gunfire, the continuing hissing of the sprinklers raining down upon her, and the general chaos, it was a miracle she could even make out her friend's voice. Asking for comprehension was too much. But it was okay, right? This was a distraction, a cover for their escape, and it also made it a lot easier for Mandy to accomplish her goal because, unpleasant and disorienting as the deluge of foul-smelling water was, it had at least extinguished the pack and largely neutralized the smoke.

She was soaked, miserable, scared, but there was still a feeling of triumph as she reached down, grabbed one of the straps with her free hand, hoisted the pack, and then spun to run after Seo-yun. She had eyes only for those two goals.

This was why it was such a surprise when everything suddenly went wrong.

Mandy took two steps, but then her momentum was arrested as something caught the pack and tugged it back, hard. She hadn't been paying good enough attention, hadn't considered the possibility of something going wrong like this, and so, again, Mandy froze for a moment.

That was all it took. Another sharp pull brought her reeling back in the direction she'd just come from like a yo-yo, and before she could even get a good look at what she was dealing with, someone caught her and slammed her into a nearby table, sending it over onto its side and knocking the breath entirely out of her.

[Brackie]

As Ashanti stood over the girl's crumpled form, she could only really think in the realities of what had happened.

She'd screamed, possibly breaking her vow of silence from a certain point of view.

Matias was on the floor, status unknown.

Seo-yun had shot at her again, missing because of the fact she seemed to have impaired eyesight.

And when she saw the other girl set to follow the killer out the door, something came over her, and now she stood over her, double bagged and feeling just as empty. She'd closed the distance, grabbed the other side of the bag, and thrown. One of them had size on their side, the other was a crumpled napkin swan from Islands' Noodle Box.

Just like that she started trying to process why she'd done what she had - there wasn't a clear roadmap from cause to effect the same way there was when Ashanti had taken the opportunity to push Marion's killer into the pool. She'd just...acted, without thinking.

There wasn't much else she could do now but think, though. If this girl was travelling with Seo-yun, then Seo-yun would notice she was missing, then Seo-yun would come back. Seo-yun would come back, see what had happened to the boring girl and subsequently make the lives of Ashanti, possibly-alive-Matias and Nadine much less boring. She sure as fuck didn't want that for herself, she definitely didn't want that for Matias if he was still around and not just existant in Ashanti's head where she thought about how alive he was, and as much as she wanted to make up a reason for it to happen to Nadine, the only immediate vengeance she wanted on that girl right now was an unleash of her own anger, not someone to whom none of them ever mattered.

So Ashanti did what any normal person would do in a hell of their own making, reached to the girl on the floor, and manhandled the travelling companion of the biggest killer on the mass of floating boats out a completely different yet near door in that massive ballroom, because why not do a flip when you've already fallen out of the plane?

((Ashanti Baker continued elsewhere))

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy tried to struggle, at least a little. She squirmed, pulled, wriggled, but with no success. She was tired and hurt and weak, her energy spent and her confidence shaken, and she was breathing so fast things were starting to go black at the edges again. She was, miraculously, still gripping the revolver, but the arm holding it was pinned to the side of her body by the other girl, and it was just as useless and empty as it had been a minute ago besides.

Probably the smart choice would've been to go limp and force her abductor to drag her bodily from the room, but that level of thought was beyond Mandy's current capacity. So she stumbled, trying and failing to break loose, as she was herded out of the room and away from the only comfort and safety she'd known since waking.

((Mandy Gross continued in No Bel Canto))

[almostinhuman]

As gunfire and screaming continued to tear through the air, the sprinklers finally came on to combat the rapidly-growing fire. The onslaught of water from above sent chills up Nadine's spine. Even having already been drenched by her little dip in the pool, this water felt particularly nasty. The outfit she was wearing was already four different kinds of ruined before this, so this just seemed like yet more salt in the wound.

At least it seemed to drive the Seo-yun and her friend off. And the girl who'd shoved her in the pool, for that matter. They all seemed to have charged out different doors in the massive room. Nadine didn't really see who went where, though; her attention was focused on the boy who'd charged in after her. He'd scarcely budged since Seo-yun shot him, even when the sprinklers flipped on. She couldn't tell if he'd died yet or not, but if he was still alive it probably wouldn't be for very long without help.

Great. Another thing she got to feel responsible for. As if she didn't have enough shit to deal with.

Mercifully, the sprinklers stopped dumping their tepid load into the room, leaving it still smoking but no longer actively burning. She shuffled over to her injured new companion, getting a closer look at him and his leg wound. This close she could tell he was still alive, however barely. It was immediately obvious the wound was bad, but with him face-down it was hard to tell exactly how bad.

She dug around in her pack for the first-aid kit; it was missing some key contents thanks to last night, but it'd still be enough for now. She set it aside, opened and ready for what needed to happen next. With an exhausted sigh, she rolled him over, bracing for the explosive reaction that was likely to follow.

[Maraoone]

Foul, long-stagnated water sprinkled onto Matias' prone form from the ceiling, and never mind the fact that he was soaking wet already, the fact that this was happening to him on top of everything else was, it was just fucking humiliating, just rubbing salt into the wound. Quite literally too, he realized, as he sensed a light stinging on top of the fiery agony emanating from the gash in his thigh.

He hadn't moved all that while because for one, like, he had been making one fucking stupid decision after another, like, fucking hell. And, like, if he were in Seo-yun's position and he saw even the slightest tremble from one of his victims, he'd double tap just like that. So, if he could make one, just one, smart choice for today at least, it would be to not move. And so he didn't, despite all the screaming and table-smashing and sprinkler-spraying going on around him

Also, there'd been this unfamiliar scream, and for a moment, Matias thought that yet another person had walked in on this fucking clown car of a room. But then he realized that there was exactly one person's voice in all this time that he hadn't heard, and when that thought came to him, it came to him along with the urge to just, like, never move again and sink into the ground.

The feeling was that he broke her, basically. Like, it had been important to her, to not speak. Enough so that she hadn't even let herself cry after her friend died. They get nothing, that was the first thing she'd told him when they first met. And now they had something. And, like, it was his fault, kinda? And it just felt pretty shitty and his leg felt pretty shitty so, like, he was fine with staying still for a moment longer.

But of course he couldn't be afforded rest because he wasn't allowed to have nice things.

"FUCK."

Nadine rolled him over, on the side that was wounded too. He curled his hands into the soggy carpet, growled a bit.

"Fuck me that hurts. God."

He, like, gave himself a moment or two. Just to let the muscle-tearing pain in his leg subside a tiny bit. And once that was done, he propped himself up on his arms and swiveled his head around, assessed the damage.

It was a lot emptier, for one. Given all the gunshots and screaming and shit a few moments ago, all the ear-ringingly loud noise, he'd been expecting, like, at least a body or two. Or, at least someone other than Nadine in the room with him. Wasn't the other girl from the pool supposed to follow along?

Weren't Seo-yun and her companion supposed to be here?

Wasn't Ashanti supposed to be here?

Using a nearby chair as support, he pushed himself up on his left leg, tried to take another step, but his right leg just buckled beneath him and he faceplanted into the ground again and everything hurt again.

He didn't bother turning his head this time. Just, like, wanted, deserved to stay on the ground for a few more moments. So, face in the ground, voice muffled, he asked one question.

"Nadine? Where'd Ashanti go?"

[almostinhuman]

Well, he was much more lucid than she'd expected. She'd been prepped for agonized screaming, but not so much for growled swearing. That was probably a good sign for his chances at survival, actually. What probably wasn't such a great sign was him moving around so much and falling down again; he was probably agitating the injury even more than she already had by rolling him over. He was on the ground in exactly the same position as before, and she still had the same inexact view of how bad his injuries were.

He asked where his friend - Ashanti - was. She at least had a name for her now, though she still didn't have his. That he knew her own name was a bit of a surprise, but then again it probably shouldn't be. It was probably weirder that she recognized so few of her classmates than it was that a lot of them recognized her.

"I don't know, honestly. She'd already left by the time I realized Seo-yun and her friend were gone."

Frankly, she wasn't super concerned with what happened to Ashanti; the girl hadn't made a very good first impression, and far as Nadine could tell, Seo-yun hadn't hurt her. Her priority was ensuring the boy she was talking to didn't bleed to death.

"I'm gonna need you face up again. I can't bandage your leg if you've got the wound pressed into the carpet."

[Maraoone]

"...she left? But- we were. She was... huh."

Teammates. They were teammates. And, like, she needed Matias to talk with other people and stuff. And he needed an ally by his side. And, like, now she'd just left. Or had been taken. He didn't know, he hadn't seen any of it, and neither had Nadine apparently. And, what really fucked with him was that the answer was just a few footsteps away. All he had to do was just get up and run after wherever those screams had gone, and he'd know whether she'd been taken or if she'd tired of his ass or something like that.

But, well.

"Give me a moment."

He pushed himself onto his side, the non-wounded side this time. Bit down on his tongue, muffled his own scream. And then he was face up.

His jeans were ripped, like most of the jeans he owned, so he didn't need to roll up the legs to see the mess of blood and flesh in his thigh. He only really needed a second's glimpse to confirm that he wouldn't be walking on this for a while, not without support.

"I'm a fuckin' idiot," he mumbled to himself.

He stayed silent for a bit after that, while Nadine got to work unrolling the gauze, pressing pads against his wound. Hurt like a bitch but, like, she was doing him, this relative stranger, a service trying to get him better, so the least he could do was not scream in her ear. So, he waited, nails pressing into the floor, teeth clenched, second after second of pain passing by. And, it was starting to get all excruciating and awkward and boring, somehow, and the only thing he had to pass the time was, like, thinking about what happened to Ashanti, and that was really setting him on edge, so he decided to make some small talk. Just for a change of pace.

"What were you guys up to before this all happened, by the way?"