SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

((Okay, light GMing, all approved. End of this post, everyone has scattered and vacated thread. Up to you guys to fill in the blanks on what happened :0))

It was done. The message was out. Roland breathed a sigh of relief. No collars had exploded, the group was alive and well. He'd come through.

Easy parts all done. And now...

Now... he couldn't think of anything. He looked over at the others, watching as they realized what they'd accomplished. He wanted to clap, to run and pat Isabel on the back, as out of character as that was. They'd succeeded where countless others had failed. It'd be just one more step until Danya and vengeance.

Not for putting me on this hell hole. For them. All of them. We didn't waver. We stood up and we faced him down. For... Robert. Especially him. It... It shouldn't have gone down like that.

The thought troubled him, and he rubbed his brow, trying to keep himself from frowning. Doubt had begun to leak into his mind, since the encounter. Alex had finished him off right quick- and now he was dead as well. But Robert had attacked Kitty. He'd seen it, and for that the boy had to die. So why the guilt? It didn't make any sense. Admitting that there was a better way was a step in the wrong direction. If anything Roland needed to be cold now. A cold calculated killer, protecting the group from players, terrorists, all the way up until Danya. He wasn't the leader, but he'd been given a job. And despite his grumbling he'd serve his purpose.

"Good game everyone." He said, chuckling to himself, relief obvious in his words. "Good game."

Roland turned to Isabel, "So what d-"

His words trailed off, dying in his throat. Movement. Three figures, towards the campsite. Things seemed to slow down. The trumpet fell from his hands. He lunged for his knife just as soon as a boy he recognized as Naoko Raidon raised his weapon. Someone close by was swearing. Everyone was moving, already up and on their feet. He closed his hand around the knife, locking eyes with the trio.

That's not fair.

That's really not fair.

Raidon began to fire.

((Roland Harte continues in The Dead Flag Blues ))
((Isabel Guerra continues in The Man Your Man Could Smell Like ))
((Dave Morrison continues in In Honesty, We Didn't Plan This Far ))
((Leila Langford continues in In Honesty, We Didn't Plan This Far ))
((Helen Wilson continues in In Honesty, We Didn't Plan This Far ))
((Kitty Gittschall continues In Honesty, We Didn't Plan This Far ))
((Winnie Clark continues in Something Left To Save))

((Naoko Raidon continues in The Dead Flag Blues ))
((Julian Avery continues in The Dead Flag Blues ))
((Mizore Soryu continues in The Dead Flag Blues ))

It was foggy in here, foggy and full of bird-chirps, mist rising from the water as the night padded in. Tonight was soft, gradual, lovely. She had taken more rests than she needed to. The route through the swamp was hard, uneven, slow-moving--Julian had picked it. This meant either Julian Avery was an idiot, or he wanted their quest to kill Maxwell Lombardi to succeed as little as she did.

A copse of trees. The trees were full of birds here. Funny how an island full of corpse could be full of so much more life. An abandoned land, wasteland, could grow into an ecosystem. Something beautiful from a land of death.

Make it be so.

The trees were thick. This was worrisome. She'd wrapped her leg as tight as possible and taken four of Julian's painkillers before leaving--cutting off the circulation to the leg was probably shit in the long run, nevermind the possibly-too-large quantities of ibuprofen, but for now she just wanted to move.

She pulled her leg out of a tangle of undergrowth--and heard sounds.

"Guys..." she murmured.

Too soft. No one heard. And then they emerged, and Mizore practically fell into the lap of a yet-as-unnamed Spanish girl.

This was startling. Open your mouth. Talk before someone does something stupid.

The glint of metal. The glint of a knife.

Fuck--

She knew what happened next.

Fuck, he's seen it.

Raidon had pulled a gun. A shot. At any of them? Oh Naoko, you don't do warning shots--

Grab the gun. She needed to grab the gun. Her leg was weak. She grabbed for Raidon, got caught, and fell, and Raidon was running, running from knife boy my love the serial killer, I will not keep making excuses for you and Julian was nowhere to be seen, and the others, the group with the trumpet, were scattering like the birds in the trees, well-fed and disturbed.

No. The students, her schoolmates, they weren't well-fed. They looked like skeletons, tattered clothes, windblown scarecrows.

The ground smelled rich. Moss and loam and swamp-gas, witch-oil that would light up at night, that she could stir with her finger.

Her leg hurt again.

I have to get away from him.

Birds close to her now, curious about the girl laying down at the edge of the copse of trees. Raidon, Julian, scattered. Shouts nearby.

You don't give warning shots, do you?

A pacifist, lost on the island of death.

I can't just do nothing. Even now. I can't just do nothing.

Sunset.

(Mizore Soryu continued in The Dead Flag Blues)

Chaos followed the bullet he unleashed. He took two quick steps backwards, eyes flickering here and there, careful for anyone who might attack him, anyone who might--

They scattered, spread out into the swamp, and by the time he was sure he wasn't about to get flanked Roland was taking off and Raidon no longer had a clear shot. He cursed, stepped away from Soryu, and headed out after him.

He was not looking to build his arsenal, nor was he looking to kill him out of fear. Before they had time to exchange a word, before they had time to walk away, Roland Harte had gone for his weapon. He had explained this to Soryu, with the deaths of Victoria Logan and Jacob Charles; there was no time for diplomacy here.

He had a mission--hunt down Maxwell Lombardi, keep Mizore Soryu from dying in front of him, and stay alive at all costs. These did not necessarily include killing--he did not want to kill anymore than he absolutely had to. But they were essential parts of his mission, and he was not going to be compromised by one upstart sonofabitch looking to put him away with a knife.

You went after me without hesitation. You don't get a second chance.

Naoko Raidon is travelling with two people--the last person he cares about on this island who he suspects is slowly growing to hate him, and the witness to his first kill. He has found no sign of Maxwell Lombardi. He feels the careful calm he'd gained only through the most strenuous effort fleeing him more quickly than he can hold onto it. He wants to find Max and end this; he doesn't want to have to think about what comes next, about whether he hunts or just wanders, hoping to hold onto himself.

Roland had attacked without warning. And that made Roland a threat he could not ignore.

(Naoko Raidon continued in The Dead Flag Blues)