Man Proposes, God Disposes

[Deblod100]

Somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, one captain would guide two ships on a voyage in an act of Arctic exploration to explore for the Northwest Passage.

The expedition that was led by Captain Sir John Franklin ended in a disaster and was deemed lost.

Roughly two decades later, a painting was made that would depict the aftermath of Franklin's failed expedition.

Deemed the saddest of "membra disjecta", or Latin for scattered fragments, by critic William Michael Rossetti, the painting was reportedly seen as a bad omen from a urban legend that started at its permanent residence in Royal Holloway, University of London.

The painting showed an image of humanity and civilization being defeated by the forces of nature, red in both teeth and claws.

177 years later, another doomed expedition of good intentions would take place in a separate world that has already fell victim to the elements of nature, given life by mockeries of God's creations.

[+] Man Proposes, God Disposes

(Chevy Gallagher continued from Elsewhere Palace)

It was a cold afternoon and the sun was going down the horizon, on the verge of setting.

It was chilly. Chevy shuddered from the wind that he thought he heard howling.

The group was on route back to the town that Chevy woke up in. He was remembering about Reinette. Where she tried to...

No. There was only both Chevy and his brothers in-arms Kowalski. Him and Carl were going to make things better with the rest of the group.

He could use some encouragement. Chevy decided to use man who he would read and based his theses off of, Sun Tzu.

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. - Sun Tzu 10.25

How about what would his idol, George Lucas, say? Well... he could confirm with Chevy that the Star Wars prequels were only of flawed execution for the first and second film, but the third one was obviously great.

"We're almost at the town!" Chevy yelled towards the group, though it was mostly him following Carl's lead. Chevy was using his PDA more for checking the map on where they were going, so they could try to find a place to rest after checking the armory.

[ItzToxie]

Carl should have felt cautiously optimistic about their chances. They'd doubled their numbers and then some since last night, but they still weren't properly equipped for this. Sure, Charlie and Chevy were down to clown and blast some monsters, but neither of them were equipped physically for it. Lucas and Elizabeth were better equipped, but they weren't in the mindset for fighting, even if Lucas was he'd be incapable.

This was too risky. Carl had that gut feeling again that something awful was about to happen. They weren't ready for this. They couldn't just go to the armory just yet. Even if they could pull this off, and blow the spider death bear sky high, there'd be losses. It wouldn't be worth it.

"Hey Chev; let's do a rain check on the armory..."


"Let's just-" He remembered what happened to Reinette.

"Let's just search the area for more of our classmates and move on. We need better gear before we're ready for this."

[Salic]

"He's right, you know," Elizabeth piped up, kicking at the snow and toeing a rock with her boot. They'd wandered from the airstrip a while ago, and now they'd arrived at the village, determined to hunt down the wicked beasts and save their college friendos once and for all. Well, Chevy was determined. Elizabeth knew for certain that she was not, and now even Carl wanted to save it for their rainy day fund. She wasn't sure how Charlotte felt, but if Carl was against it, then she'd probably turn as well.

Elizabeth had been doing her absolute level best to not look at the all-too familiar brick building that she'd accidentally laid eyes upon when they first got here. It wasn't like she was repulsed or horrified by the building, she just didn't want to look at it. It was uncomfortable and inconvenient to look at, especially considering what was inside.

Daniella's corpse flashed through her mind, and she wondered if it was still there or if the beast that was chilling in the town had dragged it off somewhere. A feeling of both morbid curiosity and disgust starting rising in her gut. Bleh. Well... even her body was monster food, at least she hadn't been alive while it happened. Elizabeth had spared her from that ignoble fate. Yeah. Yeah, that was what she needed to do. She needed to milk that fact for all it was worth.

[Jilly]

"Getting cold feet?" Lucas said from somewhere, his expression blank as he fought to keep from smirking.

[Applesintime]

((Charlie Vandermeyer continued from Elsewhere Palace))

"I mean, we've got frag grenades, right? Lucas got them, and if that thing's sleeping in the armory, all you'd have to do is toss one in and let the secondaries take it out." Charlie piped up with her take on things. She was kinda conflicted. On one hand, she very much welcomed not looking right into the beast's maw and marching right into its den to get eaten. On the other hand, she was impatient to do something. Anything. And while rescuing people and getting more supplies was something, it didn't feel like enough.

But at the same time, did Charlie want their lifes to rely on what looked like a glue gun without a gluestick and a handful of fragmentation grenades? She had the flares, and while they could be of use somewhere down the line, you couldn't defend yourself from the Chimera with one of those. And... she could toss the disk at it like that one scene from Shaun of the Dead?

God, how she wished she had even a fraction of the shit that she'd got to look at and play with during the summer boot camps. Just one Tomahawk. Pretty please. Or one of the F-35s she got to look at in her first summer while she got to see all the parts of the Navy to see which part she wanted to go to (it was always gonna be submarines). Or, uhh... Charlie couldn't really think of any shit from the surface ships that would be useful, unless the Chimera learned how to fly.

Fuck.

She's jinxed it.

It's gonna fly now.

[Help_U]

((continued from the dormitories))

Drops of iridescent red blood accompanied three sets of paw-prints in the snow, leading from the Dormitories to the Armory.

The creature knew enough to right itself as it fell; it had learned that instinct from past prey. The instinct did not match its form, however, and Chimera nonetheless had found itself hitting the ground hard. Adrenaline coursing through its body, it felt little from the impact.

After distancing itself from the building and the dangerous human, it had attempted to reach its den. The dark, thick-walled cave promised some measure of safety and sustenance while it tended to its injuries. The human's spines remained embedded in its hide, forcing it to keep a limb off of the ground lest it agitate the slowly-closing wound any further.

Eventually, it knew it had to stop. Forcing itself to move kept the wounds bleeding. Where once instinct might have pushed it to continue to safety, the new thoughts slowly emerging within it implored a pause.

Nestling itself next to a boardwalk, the Chimera sat down in the snow and began to attend to its wounds. Craning its neck down to the patch of ragged flesh on its side, its dexterous tongues emerged and began to slowly probe for foreign bodies. Once found, it turned and spat the shards of lead and copper onto the snow.

Throughout the process, it occasionally whimpered, only moderately able to suppress the pain of the ordeal.

[Deblod100]

"We're not getting cold feet and Charlie's right. We can blow it up with a grenade. These prototypes. We only need to blow them up." Chevy didn't want to hear Luca be such a buzzkill. They were going to do this. They were all going to survive this. No one was going to die on his watch. Carl knew that, too.

No one was-

Chevy eyed the snowy ground and immediately stopped.

"Guys, wait! Look down there." Chevy noticed them.

He saw the footprints in the snow. He can see the specks of blood among them.

Oh shit..

It wasn't until he heard something. Something that was nestled next to a boardwalk. Something that he realized was close to the group that they thought.

When they all heard the noise and looked towards the source, there was a deathly silence when Chevy saw it.

It was real.

It looked wrong.

It didn't look like a bear.

Chevy didn't even know if it was once a bear.

It was something horrid.

Chevy's flight and fight reaction kicked in.

No sudden movements. They all needed to get the hell out of here, before it noticed them. The thing was only whimpering.

[ItzToxie]

Lucas was making it harder to feel bad about Carl almost laughing at him tripping around in the snow, or reaquiring one of his grenades he'd lost. He didn't trust his gut feeling before with Reinette and it cost her life. He had it bad this time. He knew what it was. His eyes caught something before his brain did. They shouldn't be here.

" I'm not going to risk our lives for no reason. Yeah, you could say cold feet. Between all of us we only got one piece of modern weaponry in the form of a pistol, then we got whatever the fuck flintlock hot glue gun Elizabeth has, and your grenades, which I'm pretty positive you're not too keen on sharing. Yeah, I think we can hold back until we find someone who's got some decent weapo-"

Carl's brain caught up to his eyes. The red colored oil slick, and the mound of 'snow' it came from. He wasn't gonna kill an actual bear with his pistol, let alone that. He drew anyways and aimed. He remembered the video, that thing was faster than them.

"No. Sudden. Movements." Carl whispered with emphasis. "Stay slow, stay deliberate, stay quiet." He kept his aim on the creature as he crept forward, putting himself between the beast and the people he was supposed to protect.

"Stay behind me, we are leaving."

[Salic]

"What the fuck is that?"

Elizabeth had no idea what she was looking at. It must have been the monster, right? The one that killed the professors? There was such a huge disconnect between seeing in the beast on a screen versus seeing it in the real world. Especially when there was a very real possibility that she'd get mauled and torn apart by the thing.

Fuck.

This was a mistake. It was a mistake to go with them. No. No no no no.

Following Carl's advice, she crouched down and quietly stalked away from the creature, staying behind him as she did her best to not make any noise or sudden movements.

[Jilly]

The copper stench and inhuman sounds abruptly shut Lucas up right as he was about to say something, the words catching in his throat like a strainer.

Something grabbed onto his shoulder and pushed down firmly before grabbing his arm and beckoning him away behind Carl's voice. Lucas just complied and followed along with no resistance.

[Applesintime]

Oh jeez! Oh shit! Oh fuck! It was the Chimera, and all of a sudden Charlie didn't feel like blowing it up or throwing a disk at it or doing absolutely anything other than getting the hell away from it. Fight or flight instinct, baby! And flight had won a hundred zillion times over. Especially now that thing wasn't sleeping, it was just kinda licking its wounds - it did warm Charlie's heart that it was able to bleed and that somebody had decided to shoot at it - but Charlie still thought it was better to run away and get the drop on it later. Also, when they had better guns and something other than old Soviet pistols, frags and the glue gun.

Nodding at Carl's words, Charlie dropped down low, following behind the group. They'd trained her well enough to not start panicking at the slightest thing going wrong, so she was as calm as the ocean. Well, the ocean on a good day anyway.

"What are we gonna do now? Back off and try somewhere else?"

As calm and cool and cute as she was, Charlie still didn't wanna be in the same area as the man-eating Resident Evil monster in case it decided to wake up and become a woman-eating monster as well. Would kill the vibe and also Charlie.

[Help_U]

The tongues retracted into Chimera’s maw, as it looked up at the group. Eyes scanned between them. Hints of expression appeared on its face, as it regarded their presence.

Slowly, it turned back onto its feet, moving with as much caution as they did. It spoke, initially repeating their words, in their voices.

“Cold feet? Back off? Quiet?”

Mimicry, at first. Yet it was starting to learn, from the flesh of the others. These sounds had meaning. It was beginning to apprehend the significance of their words. Mimicry gave way to an amalgam of voices, melding slowly into a voice of its own.

“Quiet - what the fuck is that? No sudden movements? Is this quiet? No.”

It stepped forward, testing the distance between them. Hearing them speak to one another, the Chimera began to piece together disparate information, capacity it hadn’t yet explored. Something about the interaction brought it out from under base instinct. The interaction was slow, deliberate, and there was enough space to observe how they communicated. This tool allowed them to know what it was to know. To abstract concepts. To adapt.

As if dazed, the Chimera paused, and its main set of eyes looked away. Its senses adapted, and something deeper. Forcing a pause in the same manner it had forced it to stay and tend to its wounds.

“We are…”

This adaptation was more significant than any of the others, and yet it was incomplete.

Meaning lay within the humans. This process had to continue. It would learn, and surpass them.

The Chimera turned, and looked at the nearest human. It - he- stood between the Chimera and the others. Staring directly into its eyes, it spoke in its own voice once again.

“No. You. Are. Slow.”

Its words were stilted, for it had never created any of its own before. It narrowed its main set of eyes as it spoke. The meaning, it felt, was clear.

“What. Are. You. Gonna. Do. Now?”

Intellect taunted them - Instinct did not wait for a response.

The Chimera watched the fear in their eyes for a moment, before promptly giving chase.

[ItzToxie]

Carl cocked it's head once it saw them. Too late. Carl punched out, keeping his gun drawn on the creature as it skulked closer. It was shot, it was bleeding, it was hurt. That Predator quote came to mind. If only they had the gear Arnie's crew had to boost their chances beyond just willpower; Carl wouldn't mind having Old Painless in his hands right about now, or even just his 240.

The thing spoke. Mimicry. Nature had mimicry all the time- fucking parrots mimicked people-

No.


No, it fucking spoke. It was speaking to them- Carl locked eyes with the beast.

If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. If it bleeds, we can kill it-

“No. You. Are. Slow.”


Today's the day.



Gunnery Sergeant Kowalski took a single step back. Barked only a single order, though there was a shakiness even he couldn't hide.

"RETREAT!"

Weapons hot.


Carl stood his ground, firing bullet after bullet. Controlled pair into failure to stop into another controlled pair. That thing was closing fast and Carl only had a single bullet left in the chamber.

He dove to the side.

[Deblod100]

It can talk. It can talk!

Chevy stayed behind Carl. They were going to get the hell outta here. They were going to run away, go upstairs in one of the dorms, then hide out until that THING stops chasing them.

Carl had that pistol aimed at the beast. Until the creature spoke again.

It sounded wrong. It had a voice on its own. IT CAN THINK.

Carl yelled out loud to retreat, when the Chimera charged forward towards the group.

Chevy immediately scrambled away, trying to break the line of sight of that demonic polar bear. He was thinking of booking it towards the town square. Maybe the others can follow him. He didn't what happened to Carl or Lucas, but if they didn't get away soon, they could get themselves killed.

Chevy thought he heard some muffled rushed footsteps in the snow behind him. Someone was behind him, following him.

He could get out of here and make sure the others regrouped. Everything was going to be-

BANG

Chevy heard the sound of a gunshot close by him, as pain immediately filled his leg. He tumbled onto the snowy ground, clutching his leg.

Someone. Someone shot him!

"Who the fuck?!" He jerked his head around to look for who shot him, while he was a sitting duck.

[Salic]

The person who saw him rushed by his side, silently thanking whatever deity kept her aim true. Her shitty pistol's inaccuracy and single bullet meant that she only had one chance, but she took the shot and scored nothing but net. If she wasn't already running away as fast as she could, she'd have breathed a sigh of relief.

Elizabeth sped past Chevy, her face betraying nothing except for her exertion and adrenaline rush. She had no time to dwell on the fact that the creature could fucking talk. She had no time to dwell on the fact that she'd just shot her ex-boyfriend and sentenced him to death. Facts were useless things unless they contributed to directly to her well-being in a positive way. Anything else could and would be ignored until she was out of this mess.

Fuck these people. Fuck their stupid plan. If they actually thought they were going to take down that fucking beast, they deserved whatever they got. Elizabeth wasn't going to go along with it. Joining the group in the first place was a mistake. Maybe if she was lucky, they'd all be dead soon and she'd never have to see them again. Then she wouldn't have to explain the gunshot and where she had gone.

She ducked through the alleyway she'd left Chevy in, hoping to get the hell away from this stupid village as fast as she could manage. Hopefully nothing else would show up and block her path. She had enough shit to deal with already.