Wombo Combo

[MK Kilmarnock]

((Jerry Fury continued from The Scarlet Garden))

Finally, he could stop running.

The docks were less than ideal a hiding place, Jerry decided. He was briefly thinking about stowing away in what looked to be some sort of supply building underneath the helipad, but there was some sort of ruckus going on in there and he wasn't having any of that shit. The goal was to avoid Trav, but he'd rather not end up in front of Alvaro or anybody else like that, any real big name. Trav hadn't actually killed anybody, yet.

Of course, that was all set to change the moment he got his hands on Jerry, but hey. That was for the Jerry of tomorrow to worry about. Right now, Trav was probably past the creepy old chapel-looking building and back towards the asylum, where there were lots of hiding spaces to look for poor ol' Jerry Fury.

Jerry chuckled to himself, kicking some pebbles across the rocks. Smooth sailing from here on out, eh?

...

Yeah, this was too easy.

[Deamon]

Jerry hadn't been hard to find. Trav had just followed all the yelling.

((Travis Lynch continued from What if I told you...))

Trav's lungs burned from the duration of the run but it was a good sensation. He hadn't been able to fully exert himself during his time on the island so the run had been good for him. Sadly the circumstances made everything worse. All Trav could think about was how guilty Jerry was.

Then he saw him, standing on the shoreline. Trav dropped his pack off his shoulder and increased his pace, breaking into a full sprint.

Jerry had killed Toby, shown no remorse and then tried to run from it. The games were over.

His footsteps were loud as some of the rocks shifted. Jerry turned to see him and Trav saw his eyes widen like a deer in the headlights. He tried to back up but soon his feet found the water. Trav dropped down as he got close and slammed his shoulder into Jerry's gut, wrapping his arms around his legs. With a grunt of effort Trav lifted Jerry up and carried him further into the water before slamming him down in the surf with all of his weight.

[MK Kilmarnock]

While he had plenty of time to think 'gee, this certainly is going to suck,' that probably just made things worse. The freight train that was Trav barreled into Jerry before his body could figure out if it wanted to fake to the left and then jump to the right or vice versa. He managed to fake in either direction but never actually MOVED either way, unless you count backwards and into the ocean.

"Fuuuuuaaablugblugblug!" Jerry managed to scream out before the waves crossed over his face, cutting him off. The stinging saltwater washed up his nose and in his mouth. He hacked and he sputtered to force the water from his throat, hoarse groans of pain and exertion as he struggled with the larger boy atop him. He shouted half-choked obscenities and flailed from his inferior position, soaked sneakers digging through wet sand by the heel. Even if he had to push himself deeper into the ocean, that was still a direction and, as Jerry was sure of, movement in any direction was better than staying under Trav.

Pressing his elbows into the beach, the loamy mass of sand gave way enough for a palm of one hand, the knuckles of the other to get under Trav. Jerry still couldn't push him straight off, but maybe if he strained with both feet and his hips to turn his body, it was possible to turn Trav to the side. He already knew Trav was excellent at pulling off a ground-n'-pound. They were already at the ground. Jerry REALLY didn't want to feel that second part without being able to properly cover his face.

[Deamon]

Trav felt the ice cold wave crash over his head and face as well as the taste of salt in his mouth. He guessed he had finally made it to the ocean. Unfortunately he had no real time to enjoy that as Jerry was squirming underneath him.

All things considered the landing off the takedown had gone better than expected. Jerry hadn't managed to shoot or stab him which meant Trav had time to work, he didn't know for how long that would be the case or how well Jerry would be able to defend himself but he in a perfect world Jerry wouldn't get that chance. They weren't sparring and Trav wasn't being nice, this was a real fight. Jerry was trying to base up and push himself out from under him. Trav leaned back for a split-second as another wave crashed into his face and felt Jerry turning. Trav obliged and crossed his right leg across Jerry's body, fluidly passing straight over into side control.

He pressed the forearm of his left arm into the side of Jerry's face and used his right hand to hold the back of Jerry's leg. Then he started slamming knees into Jerry's gut.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Full-blown panic mode had set in. The ocean spray made it hard to open his eyes, even without something striking him sharply in the gut over and over and over again. Jerry exhaled and lost the ability to breathe in again, gasping for air through a closed throat and a mouth that was locked open. His face alternately pressed itself into the soggy beach sand and lifted away in short jerks in a vain effort to keep the various holes in his face free of water.

This was nothing like how he felt Trav before. It was a dreadful feeling, to feel that during their last altercation in the gym, that Trav possibly wasn't giving it his all. To think that the guy who had driven him face-first into the mat with a kick that powerful wasn't even taking the fight seriously...

No. No, that wasn't it.

Trav wouldn't let him up. He was abusing the element of surprise, that was hardly a fair start. Trav was cheating. Everybody was cheating except Jerry.

Well, fine. Fuck it. If Jerry had to cheat to win, to win to live, then he was gonna do just that. He thrashed his head to get the best angle he could and sunk his teeth into the flesh underneath Trav's arm, just under his ulna.

[Deamon]

"Motherfucker!" Trav yelled as he pulled his left arm back instinctively.

His right hand released Jerry's leg as Trav turned his body and punched Jerry straight in the side of the head. He felt a warmer liquid run down his left arm where Jerry had drawn blood.

The bite stung as the water washed over it, snapping Trav back into focus making sure he didn't lose himself to the red mist that had threatened to descend. Instead he just punched Jerry in the head again and was greeted with a loud pop as one of his fingers was dislocated or broken he didn't know which.

Luckily adrenaline had taken over and Trav didn't immediately register it. He just switched to using his elbow, and aiming for Jerry's nose.

[MK Kilmarnock]

He had let go, so the desired effect had been achieved. Jerry lifted his head to get it free from the flowing tide... and earned a punch to the temple for his troubles, sending the back of his skull snapping back down to the sand where it bounced, smooshing more dirt into the curls of his hair.

He scrambled on the backs of his elbows, kicking in order to create space and drive himself back, though a spare panicked shot at Trav's shins wouldn't hurt. He curled upward, trying to get his legs back under him. Apparently, Trav wasn't having any of that either, because another shot caught Jerry dangerously close to the temple.

He let out a pained whimper. He couldn't scream anymore -- his trip across the island screaming the whole way pushed his throat to its limit. The struggle and the waves had stolen more air from him than he would care to admit. He couldn't breathe properly anymore. That's why his chances of beating Trav were next to nothing, because he had to go and start a fight over Noodle's stupid mistake. Noodle was wrong. She attacked him! Trav attacked him! He wasn't the one at fault!

"Stop, stop," Jerry babbled, trying to crawl on his hands and knees. He stood up and turned. Too slow to raise his hand.

Trav's elbow crashed flatly into Jerry's nose. There was a pop, a cold sting, and that plugged sensation that let him know the faucets would soon be rushing. He lurched to his feet as if on a delay, stumbling back with flailing arms before his feet could no longer keep up, flopping him across the shore like a soccer player in the world series. He couldn't beat Travis. As far as this being a fight, everything was over. If he didn't do something fast, NOW, he was dead.

Jerry felt the heavy weight in his left pocket and knew what he had to do.

Trav was already bearing down on him when the boy desperately clawed the handle of the gun from his pocket. Something had caught on the interior fabric of his pocket and there was no time to dislodge it, so he simply tugged as hard as he could to rip it wide and free his savior. The sight of the gun caused Trav to hesitate in his approach, but each of them knew that the pause was only temporary. Further delay, and Trav got shot. Further delay on Jerry's end, and he could have the gun wrestled away from him. Then it truly would be all over. Jerry opened one blurry eye and pulled the trigger.

It wouldn't budge.

The safety. The safety! Titballs, the safety!

"Waitwaitwait!" Jerry yelled, smashing two fingertips against the side of the gun. Trav wasn't too keen on waiting.

The trigger pulled twice. Each of those times, the gun did its job.

[Deamon]

One moment of hesitation was all it took for Jerry to be able shoot.

Two bullets, one in the chest and one in the gut. It was the worst pain Trav had ever experienced. A burning pain from a cut turned up to eleven. He stumbled back and for a moment it looked like he was going to be able to stay standing. But then he fell, his aching legs unable to hold his body up. The sea waves lapped up around his legs, which would have mattered if he wasn't dying.

Trav stared up at the sky as he thought about Toby and Cass. He knew he didn't have long, breathing was becoming increasingly difficult so he guessed Jerry had hit a lung. So in the end he had managed to not be there to make sure Toby was safe and now he was going to leave Cass alone on the island.

Good job.

He coughed as he tried to draw in a breathy but failed. His vision was starting to fade and there didn't seem to be much time left. Still he thought that at least there were worse ways to die than contemplating your own failures. Self-reflection wasn't much use to him anymore though.

At least he had met Cass. That was the one good thing. Maybe the only good thing that had happened since he woke up...and he had been in the sea he guessed. That was pretty cool too.

B015 - Travis Lynch: Deceased
67 Students Remain

[MK Kilmarnock]

Click. Click. Click.

Three dry pulls of the trigger and Jerry finally realized that there were no longer any bullets in the chamber. His wrist felt numb from the sudden kick of the weapon, but that couldn't have been right. It had felt nothing like he thought, like a cannon going off in his hand, something maybe more accurately represented by a .44 or some other crazy handcannon. But, all the same, it was a solid enough pop that it scared him into pulling the trigger again and again.

Until Trav finally fell with only two holes in him. Jerry shivered, stared, shook and pondered if maybe, just maybe, he should nudge Trav's body with his foot to make sure he was dead. Just to be sure.

He hadn't the energy nor the bravery to attempt it. If Trav snapped to life, like something straight out of a horror movie, Jerry's heart would have burst out of his chest then and there and exploded, as if the kidnappers had implanted a bomb deep down inside his guts rather than haphazardly strapped one to his neck. His face was a wreck and poured blood down his lips. His temples weren't faring much better. His head was pounding, his ears ringing from both injury and gunshots.

Jerry collapsed onto his back on the beach and, for a while, all he could do was pant.

"I won... I won..." he breathed. He could breathe easier, now. There was a start.

[Privyet†]

((Matt Moradi continued from here.))

Matt was lost. Not in the literal sense, like he didn't have an idea of where he was - he guessed he was just sort of lost in general. He just had no idea what to fucking do, because Jerry had killed another person. Travis. The guy he'd been looking for, at least up until yesterday. Dead.

Shot him. Must've been at least.. 8 times. However many bullets that gun had in it. He saw it all. He'd been trailing behind Trav and Cass, the same way a hyena trails behind a lion - waiting to swoop in and pick up the scraps when the real predator had finished. He stood there, staring. Trav was dead. Jerry was finished. Done. It was time for him to come in.

He started walking forward, even though he didn't think that this could end well. Slowly, he approached Jerry, a look of.. nonchalance, mostly, on his face. Trav was dead, deader than dead. Sure, it was regrettable he had to die, but a lot of people were going to have to die. Who was he to complain about that? To him, anyone who tried to play the "hero" just wasn't that smart. It wasn't right to revel in murder, sure, but the nature of the game was killing.

So who was he to complain? If anything, he should feel glad. That was how he justified it. That was how he stopped himself from thinking too much on it.

"Jerry, uh.." Had to play pragmatic. Be the voice of reason. "That was loud. We gotta get out of here."

[MK Kilmarnock]

"S... Sup, bro."

Jerry looked up at Matt through one reddened eye. He groaned and pulled his spine up off the ground, but remained sitting there, soaked and dirty on the shore. The wind cut right through his shirt now.

"Why do we have to get out of here?"

[Privyet†]

"Yeah, hi." mumbled Matt. He looked around, eyes darting nervously. He wondered if he had always been this paranoid, or if it was this fucking island.

"You just shot someone. Gunshots are loud, Jerry, and we need to hide somewhere.. uh, in case someone comes looking."

He just remembered.

Cass.

Fuck.

[dmboogie]

((So. That was what the end of a life sounded like.))

Two sharp cracks, followed by the silence of bleeding out cold and alone.

-

As their increasingly ridiculous pursuit across the island went on, Cass had slowly begun to lag behind Trav. Never enough to lose sight of him completely, but enough that when Trav finally cornered Jerry and ran off in a berserker's charge; Cass was forced to take a moment to stand still and catch their breath, wishing that they'd had the foresight to supplement their years of biking with some old-fashioned jogging.

When they finally got close enough to see the fight, it had already ended; a forgone conclusion. Trav had both more skill and the moral high ground. Cass watched numbly as Trav relentlessly continued to beat Jerry, even as the murderer helplessly babbled for mercy. They found no satisfaction in this pathetic scene, no solace in the pain of a fellow stupid, terrified kid. But, this wasn't for their benefit, was it? It hadn't been Cass's friend that Jerry had killed, after all.

Still, they had no desire to watch Trav become a murderer in front of their eyes; for both of their sakes. Even if Trav was somehow unaffected by beating a former friend to death with his bare hands, Cass wasn't sure if they would be able to look him in the eye afterwards without involuntarily flinching from the memory, be able to truly feel at home around him again. Jerry's wretched life wasn't worth any sacrifice. Cass stepped forward to call out for him to stop-

Two sharp cracks. Trav fell.

The waves rolled over him, still moving but not for much longer, for already there was blood coloring the water they had dreamed to reach in more innocent days, but already he was growing still and even though he could have been saved in the real world, here there could be nothing done but holding his hand and watching him die and even that was made impossible by a simple matter of time and distance, too far, too late to save yet another mighty Goliath dragged to hell by a coward's missile, granted to him by mere dumb luck and circumstance that ended just as many lives as they saved, miracles that just happened to kill the right people, and it wasn't news to anyone that the universe was cold and uncaring but a familiar gaping wound could still cripple you, and though he wasn't the first or the dearest death he had been the most vibrant, real face in their mind, and even though they weren't stupid some small part of them could still think "they never saw the body" for names number one and two, but Trav had been shot down under a clear sun and even though his killer was still lurking, still dangerous, as every day passed another reason to continue clinging to life for anything more than sheer momentum was lost in the island's decaying grasp, and Cass had both of their packs, now; unarmed and stunned and so very alone-

Thought after thought after thought screamed for attention in Cass's mind, shock and despair and a dispassionate noting of how pretty the red waves looked and

It was too much.

Cass took a few shuffling steps forward, towards Trav. Then they fell to their knees and broke down crying, retreating into themself and shutting out the world around them.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Well, looks like it's a little late for that."

Jerry sat with his knees tucked half of the way to his chest, with his forearms resting just before the knee on each leg with his hands loosely bent inward. 'Pleased' was not one word to describe how he felt about Cass having caught up to be a spectator. Having said that, it was a pleasant relief to see that Cass's reaction to the big battle on the beach was less 'Brooklyn Rage' and more 'Seattle Melancholy'.

"Shit, man. This is just what I need." His nose was blocked up chock full of blood and snot and sand and seawater, and Jerry had the idea of looking tough by pressing his nose against the side of it while blowing. Upon approaching step one of this grandiose gesture that would make Steven Segal say 'woah buddy we got a badass up in here,' the center of Jerry's face erupted into several ripples of pain, like a white-hot finish nail had been driven through his septum. He pulled his hand away quicker than one could summarize Jerry's offense in the struggle prior to pulling his gun and vaulted to his feet.

He grunted before saying anything, wiping at his nose and upper lip with his wrist a few times. "Gun's all yours now, Matt," Jerry said bitingly. "It's out of bullets."

Perhaps it was the throbbing in his temples, but Jerry remained acutely aware of the threats his surrounding posed and, right now, Cass was number one on that list. The pistol he bamboozled Ass-ka out of had blown its load, but he still had his trusty switchblade. Something with longer reach would be a little helpful, but if Cass had something on 'em, Jerry would have to be careful in squeezing it out of them.

Unfortunately, Trav forced him to tip his hand there. Crapbaskets.

[Privyet†]

He glanced back at Trav's body - dead. He wasn't going to miraculously come back to life, that was certain, but he almost felt like it should've taken more to kill him. This was the man they'd been looking for, after all. Trav, the man, the myth, the soaked, bullet riddled corpse. So this was how someone's life could end, huh? All their trials, tribulations, and so on just leading up to this moment. Weird, painful, sudden. Kind of humorous, really, since Jerry did it. Toby didn't deserve it, as far as he was concerned, but this Trav guy's killing was definitely self-defense. So Jerry wasn't the most eloquent speaker, or maybe he just didn't think he could justify Toby's death and Trav decided to try and pick a fight with him because of that?

That was on Jerry, not on him.

He glanced back at Cass. She had decided to break down in tears and not really do much of anything. Great! No one else had to die today, at least not where he could see it. Been on Shitpiss island for five days and she was shedding tears over a prick like Travis. He kind of wanted to slap her and say 'get it together', but he felt like that'd just be a waste of time. She'd get over it. He slowly walked over to Trav's corpse, staring down at it. Yeah, still dead. Poor fucker just picked a fight with the wrong guy, he guessed.

"To the victor, uh, go the spoils, I guess. You want his stuff, Jerry?"

Kind of humorous. Yeah, that was this whole situation. A joke. A big joke.