Hit 'Em Up

[The Honeless Beard]

Ivan blinked, and he was hauling ass after Mandy, tenga clutched in his hands as a shattering came from behind him, the direction of the banquet hall. His strides became long, loping things, bag strap cutting into his sunburnt shoulder and chest, thumping against his hip. He was aware he was limping, but he couldn't recall why.

wracking sobs across his body, the feeling of a closet on all sides of him, the gentle tipping of the house boat on the waves, thinking five more minutes, five more minutes

Mandy had shot at them, the last of the Selkies plus an interloper. Mandy was now a respect.

He grit his teeth as she ducked into the captain's quarters, attempted to slam the door shut in front of him, but he dropped his shoulder and blew it off of its hinges, slipping on his own blood and linoleum as he sailed into the room, slamming a shoulder into her shoulder as the door ping-ponged between them, whapping their heads in turn.

When Ivan hit the deck, the door was on top of him, splinters of the frame hailing down all around them as he shoved at the wood, glanced around for her, and lunged.

[MurderWeasel]

((Mandy Gross continued from Hotline Miami))

There hadn't been much intent behind Mandy's destination. Maybe she was guided by some subconscious association with safety, with the place she had forged both of her partnerships. Then again, this was also the location of quite possibly her most terrifying and agonizing experience yet.

It didn't matter. Mandy went stumbling into the captain's quarters, battered by the door that had been cleanly removed from its frame, windmilling her arms and somehow keeping her balance as she felt the floor change from tile to carpet through the parts of her footwear that had worn thin and ragged.

Ivan went down, and there was a moment when Mandy stopped and turned and looked at him, gun halfway raised, and couldn't decide whether to attempt the shot or take advantage and build more distance. She was helping the others by drawing one of the biggest threats away. That was her primary role right now. Finishing him would be a bonus, but Mandy had found no success at any point when relying on guns.

The split second she spent vacillating turned out to be one she couldn't spare, and suddenly Ivan was lunging for her again, and any thought of shooting vanished as she jerked away, feeling the poke of fingers touching but failing to establish grasp. She stumbled and let it turn into a dart to the left, closing in on the horrible bed.

Strangely, her breathing was steady. The panic was in full force, but with nobody else to actively worry about, Mandy had slipped into a state akin to when she went on her runs—a state most of her classmates hadn't really seen her in. She was fast. The pack and the baggy onesie were slowing her down, and Ivan had longer legs, but Mandy was fresher and she knew these rooms. She was aware of the shrapnel shards hiding in the carpet, knew where the back exit was in the next room, remembered where it ended up. She just had to figure a way to bring that all into play.

She dived onto the bed, rolled awkwardly over the mattress, and hit the ground on the other side hard, scrambling to her feet again.

[The Honeless Beard]

Barreling towards Mandy, Ivan shoulder charged the bed, gripping the mattress with both hands and heaving it at her as it flipped upwards and awkwardly flapped onto her with a grunting, heaving lift. Even now he skidded, his purchase marred by bloody feet and burning lungs.

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy didn't see that one coming.

The mattress crashed into her, heavy and stifling, the sheets and pillows falling onto and over her as the weight and momentum of it slammed her into a bookshelf against the wall. She gave a muffled shriek as one of the shelves banged her in the ribs. A paperweight or something was jabbing her in the armpit. Her face was pressed up against the cool glass of a picture frame.

There was no time to think. Mandy had enough room to wiggle her arms around, and she pressed the muzzle of the gun into the mattress and fired twice through it, blind, before slamming her body the other way.

She meant to push it free and then run through the door, but put too much force into it and went along for the ride, falling on top of the mess, letting out a grunt as her chest came down on a pillow.

[The Honeless Beard]

Ivan popped open tenga as the mattress flew into Mandy, shook the shells loose out of the shotgun, and was reaching to load it with fresh ones when two cracks of thunder erupted out of the mattress - too high, too wide, but close enough for him to hit the dirt and abandon the act of reloading.

He rolled onto his back, then his eyes went wide as his vision was filled with the underside of the mattress, giving him time to roll onto his stomach before it came crashing down on his back, Mandy landing on top of it.

Grunting out, he grabbed tenga with one hand and turned, using the butt of it to swing towards Mandy's legs, trying to do any amount of damage from his severely disadvantaged position.

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy yelped again as the backside of the gun pummeled her lower legs. Due to the awkward position, the strikes didn't have much force behind them, and her Uggs were thick enough to partially cushion those that did connect with her feet and shins. There was a much louder smack, however, when the gun slammed into her leg below the knee but above the boots, and Mandy felt tears spring into her eyes.

She thrashed her feet, retaliating with unaimed, unpracticed kicks; when one of her stomps brought her foot into contact with the gun, the thinner sole meant that she came away from it with the ball of her right foot stinging. She grunted, growled in frustration, and lashed out with her hands, punching the mattress ineffectually as it bucked.

As she flailed, her eyes darted around the room, focusing on anything but the boy struggling beneath her. The bathroom door hung open, taunting, and she for the briefest moment entertained the idea of luring Ivan into it and locking him up, but no way would he be so accommodating as to take a relaxed shower while she slowly secured the door. But strewn around it were the drawers and thick encyclopedia volumes that had helped keep her prisoner. It was something.

Springing off the mattress, Mandy swapped the gun to her left hand as she took quick strides, hopping over an empty drawer, then scooping up a hardcover and hurling it behind her, the pages fluttering as it tumbled ungainly end over end.

[The Honeless Beard]

As soon as her weight was off of the mattress, Ivan pulled himself free, lunging at her booted feet and catching nothing but air and a stepped on wrist for his trouble. Growling out a curse, he leapt to his feet, knocking the mattress off of the boxspring again in his haste.

Mandy was bolting towards the bathroom door, and Ivan gave chase, tenga wielded like a club as he ran. Suddenly, Mandy whirled and an encyclopedia spiraled towards him, the letters SA -> SO imprinted above his left eyebrow in a jagged cut that matched the F proudly taking up real estate.

Wordlessly, he dropped to the long carpet she was running on, grabbed two fistfulls, and heaved, hoping to send her to the ground again. The ground is where size mattered most, and she could hopefully stop fucking throwing things.

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy was leaning over to scoop up the next volume when suddenly the ground was moving under her. The carpet went backwards just as she shifted her weight forwards, and her eyes went wide as the abrupt tug put way more spin into her movement than she'd expected. Instinctively, she curled her head in, and executed the sort of roll she hadn't done since gym class in elementary school.

The relative success of that maneuver was maybe a third of what stunned her coming out of it. The rest was that her hands tightened up and one was still holding the gun and so she shot the floor, her hand jerking but maintaining her death grip on the weapon. The bullet ricocheted off the deck and blew a hole in the table she and Ashanti had stared each other down across.

Blinking, Mandy sat for a moment with her legs out in front of her, looking into the room ahead. To one side was the chair where Fisk had sat and watched her, to the other, the door Verity had entered through. In the middle was the door to the balcony, open, light from the lowering sun streaming through.

Still shaken, she started to pull herself up, ready to sprint for it.

[The Honeless Beard]

As Mandy got into a sprinters position, Ivan too rose up, tossing the runner aside as he did. Her gaze was locked on the open door to his right, fteshly fired gun still in her hand, his right ear ringing from the gunfire that had embedded itself in the cabin floor.

Instead of throwing something, Ivan lunged into her way, shoulder to shoulder with her in a textbook bodycheck that sent them both crashing back towards the floor.

Ivan gained his feet again first, towering over her.

"The Respects?" he said, finally loading fresh shells into Tenga.

"Really?"

[MurderWeasel]

The impact of Ivan slamming into Mandy took half of her breath away, and the floor stole the remainder. It wasn't as sharply painful as Amy's kick had been, but the accumulation of bruises and batterings was making everything she did hurt now. She half expected Ivan to fully pin her down, grab her neck and squeeze until her eyeballs popped out of her head, but instead he let up.

Mandy rolled over onto her back, scooting herself precious inches further away with her backpack scraping against the ground as she realized the rationale for Ivan's choice: he was reloading.

She had no idea how many bullets she had left. A few, probably? She hadn't been counting back at the banquet hall, but it seemed like she had shot a lot then, and this was a fresh clip.

His question brought her up almost as short as the tackle had.

"Uh," Mandy said, "yeah?"

She rolled her shoulder, showing off the cloth wrapped around it.

"They took me. We're all Blue Team. That's all that's left, after Seo-yun left."

She pushed herself back again, her right hand coming down on something prickly.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Oh yeah," Ivan said, cracking tenga closed with a flick of his wrist, "you're Seo-Yun's girl."

There went that line of questioning. If she could stomach Seo-Yun ganking ten classmates, a little Fisk wouldn't over-season the pot. It was reprehensible, but at least he understood it. Ivan's brow furrowed, head slowly canting to the side as he watched her.

Seemingly making a decision, he levelled both barrels at her.

"Who wrote down Beasley?"

[MurderWeasel]

"Pretty sure it was Stokes."

That felt like a safe bet. Mandy scooted half an inch, but her hands came towards her body more than she moved towards them. She looked Ivan in the face and tried to imagine him in cafeteria lighting again, but it was hard with the blood and the eye and the lack of a shirt. And the gun.

"I didn't know any of them," she said. "I was just lucky and got a good team."

Was she the last Penguin left? She thought so. Stokes, Mariko, Leah, Mandy—they'd all been chosen, and their names had stuck out enough. Mandy knew most of the names.

"I—"

And then she whipped her right arm around and released the projectile she'd chanced upon—a small model of an old sailing ship, mast snapped somehow before she touched it—towards Ivan, letting the momentum spin her into a roll in the same direction.

[The Honeless Beard]

Ivan tilted his body to block, and for a second - just for a second - it was a throwing dagger, golden hilt, razor sharp blade, arcing and spinning towards him. A forearm came up, covering his face-

Wood exploded around it, sending little shards of tree to slice up his face in a hundred tiny cuts. He growled, splinters digging deep into his dark skin, pinpricks of blood forming around them.

Ivan rewarded her with a swift kick to the midsection as she rolled to all fours, the impact chipping one of the few intact toenails he had left. It also sent shards of glass deeper into his feet, making his eyes roll dangerously, growl deepening.

"Stokes, huh?" he panted, "Figured. You're real good at hiding behind people who are better at shit than you."

[MurderWeasel]

Mandy gasped and grunted as the kick connected with her middle, the baggy onesie offering scant cushioning from the blow. The force of Ivan's foot sent her sprawling backwards, her free hand dropping to grasp and rub at the point of impact, where now a dull pain combined with the previous similar yet distinct residual dull pain from the scorching the gun's barrels had given her.

She wanted to just lie there with her face pressed into the carpet and give up. She wanted to yell something, to whine and complain at Ivan, to ask why he was doing this in this particular fashion, why he was taking it all so personally. She wanted to tell him she wasn't, tell him she still thought he was cool and that she was sorry this was how it was happening. She wanted to beg him to just go the other way and forget they'd ever met.

But Seo-yun wouldn't have approved of any of those courses of action so instead Mandy flailed her limbs as she tumbled across the floor, managing to twist and turn and make it to all fours and from there to scramble into a low, lurching run, bolting towards the door and the hope that there might be something better beyond.

[The Honeless Beard]

Mandy booked it for the balcony next, and Ivan nearly squeezed off twin buckshots, but held up. There was nowhere to go over there from what he'd seen - nothing but the cruise ship below.

Ivan eased off the trigger, huffed out an annoyed breath as he closed the distance again, wincing as shards of glass pressed deeper into his feet. Another diseased thing. Another reminder he was dying - was as good as dead.

But Akeno was making it. Fuck him all the way, Akeno would make it out.

"Where are you fucking going," Ivan muttered, nearly a whine. He followed her towards the balcony, shotgun up, ready to fire.