The Worst Kind of Tribute

[Aura]

This guy is setting off all of Rhonda's creep alarms. He didn't need to be talking as much as he was, and he didn't need to be saying the things he was. His mouth was like a shovel that was digging straight down, and Rhonda didn't want any part of where he was going next. Sighing, she got off her knees and got to her feet, picking up her shotgun as she did so. She assumed her usual grip on it and aimed it firmly in the new guy's direction. No time for caution now. She needed to send a message.

"I've heard enough." She said, keeping her gun trained on the guy. "You're creeping me out, and I don't want you in here while I'm working." She glanced for just a moment in Ivan's direction, intending for him to support her in this endeavor. "Now get the fuck out of here."

Her voice was stern, but her nerves were waning. She was sick of having run-ins with these creeps. FItz and his buddies, Seo-yun, and whoever this guy was. She was in no mood do deal with any of it, and she never had been. The sooner he was gone, the sooner she could get back to working on the collars. That was the important thing.

[Applesintime]

This was the second time Gregory had had a gun pointed at him this night. Normally, you'd be all scared and shit when you got a gun pointed at you, but after surviving the previous encounter, there was a certain cocky voice in his head that told him, he could survive this one too. Get the gun out of her hands, blast Ivan and Rhonda, two more kills under his belt. His kills. Not somebody else's that he had the fortune to steal from them in the last few hours before their target died, but solely of his own making.

The cabin was cramped. Ivan to his left, Rhonda right in front of him, and Vasily's body and a noose hanging in the background an unsettling backdrop. He could just barrel for the gun, try and get it from her grip, but he didn't know how, like, ready she was to fire and it'd suck if he died in some shitty boat. There was the chair, if he could get to it. Smack her with it, knock her down, grab the gun, blam blam, two kills. But nothing ever went to plan in SOTF. Nothing ever went to plan, that was rule 1. You can plan out everything in detail, know how everything's gonna go down, and then you get ganked by some dude with a rifle who you didn't notice shooting you from a couple hundred feet away. That was the beauty of it.

"Alright, g-geez! No need to point a gun at me, bro." Gregory affected that sort of nervous tone, raising his hands a little, a ploy to get them into position if he wanted to try and grab the gun.

There was a brief second of peace; Ivan observing, Rhonda aiming, and Gregory thinking. Pull the knife? No, he'd just get shot. Same for the bolas. He had to take the gun out of play, preferably have it, before he could do anything. There weren't many ways to do that while keeping the element of surprise, which was probably the second-most important thing apart from, you know, the gun.

He made a split-second decision, throwing himself forwards and grabbing for the gun, trying to wrench it to the side to avoid the chance of a blast going through him and making sure it went to either the wall or Ivan instead. He was Gregory fucking Miller, and he was gonna have these two dead before they even knew it. Show Ritzy he wasn't just a fucking killstealer, but a bona fide player.

[The Honeless Beard]

Ivan watched Gregory move and reacted, shifting to his right on an intercept course as the bee boy slammed into Rhonda, one arm twisting the gun on his side of things, Rhonda's grip still on it. Rhonda's elbow came up to catch Gregory in the face and Ivan jumped forwards.

The shotgun was the big threat in the room - enough force to kill all three of them if they allowed it - so Ivan grabbed it with both hands, heaving it free of Rhonda's grip to free her up in the melee. The force of it sent him stumbling back, his grip fumbling as he turned towards the cabin wall, righting his grip on the gun.

[Aura]

Rhonda's eyes flew open in shock as Gregory lunged forward, the recklessness of which caught her off guard. That shocking action combined with her usual hesitation towards lethal force meant that he was able to get his hand on her gun, grabbing and pulling it in an attempt to get it out of her hands. That was a worst-case scenario, since what was happening now was only proving her assumption that this guy was a creep who wanted to kill them correct. She couldn't let him get the gun, and if he did, then she had to make sure that he couldn't use it.

When he yanked on the gun, Rhonda decided to use that to her advantage. She let herself be pulled forward, and she used that momentum to swing an elbow straight into Gregory's face. She was looking to bust his nose, or at least do enough damage to scare him off. The gun was out of her hands now, but it wasn't in Gregory's possession. He was wrestling with Ivan over control of it.

Rhonda was positive that Ivan could take Gregory in a straight fight, as could she. She and Ivan were both taller and more muscular than him, but she didn't want to take the risk of something going wrong. If Gregory did somehow get the gun, then she wasn't going to give him any room to shoot. She moved in to grapple her skinny adversary and get him away from the weapon that had fast become the prize to fight for.

[Applesintime]

Oh man, this had went from bad to worse. Ivan had the gun now, having ripped it from his grasp, and was now looking at the wall for some reason - dude, how did you get like, three kills when you did shit like this? Coulda made it a fourth (not that Gregory wanted that) but no, just turn around like it's the Blair Witch coming at you. Whatever. And of course, the elbow hurt like a bitch - Gregory could feel something trickling down from his nose AGAIN. This was the fourth fucking time. Oh, he was pissed. Stupid fucking bitch thinks she can fight back, try and kill him? No. He was gonna have her name besides his on the list, that's for sure.

She grabbed him, and Gregory stumbled back, towards the door of the cabin. Rhonda had a hold of his left arm, one that he couldn't break, but his right arm was free. An idea came to mind. She was way more close to him now, and was probably more focused on like, trying to get him away from the gun so Ivan could ventilate him rather than kill him, so if he was lucky and quick... Gregory fumbled for his knife, pressing the sheath's button and yanking the knife out to slash at Rhonda's throat in one smooth motion.

Thanks, Cory.

[Aura]

When Rhonda was engaged in her wrestling training, her instructors had taught her a few holds. Not for actual combat purposes, but instead to make them look painful and effective to a crowd. Rhonda remembered those lessons and promptly ignored all of the parts about safety, grabbing Greg's arm and yanking it in a painful direction. Her aim was to keep him from using it, and using the leverage from the hold to inflict some real damage if she had to. And if this guy kept acting the way he had been, then she was pretty sure that might have to come to pass.

Rhonda was so focused on wrestling his left arm down, that she didn't see what his right was doing until it lunged at her. She saw his arm reach up, and his hand lash out near her face, and she was only able to register the glint of a knife just a moment before a searing pain ripped through her neck, accompanied by a pained grunt on her part.

She stumbled back, slapping her hand over her neck where a fresh wound had just been opened. However, this attempt to stem the bleeding had no effect. Greg's knife had opened an artery, and as a result her neck was now spewing blood freely, even through her fingers. Panic set in as quickly as her body started to lose energy, and she took another step back before falling backwards to the ground, still fruitlessly trying to stop her blood from escaping.

[The Honeless Beard]

When Ivan got the shotgun grip under control, he whirled to face the two and-

A splash of blood arced through the air, originating from Rhonda's throat, rotating in the light and splattering against his cheek.

One hand pumped the shotgun, the other's fingers squeezing around the trigger as a round erupted in the enclosed space - too high, much too high to hit home. Over the din and his one bad ear, he couldn't hear himself screaming.

[Applesintime]

When Gregory watched Survival of the Fittest, deaths and killing and all that wasn't his favourite part of the show. Sure, it was important for what he really wanted to see, the drama and character development and all that, but he wasn't the kinda person who sat down to watch a kill feed. If it was on the feed, though, he'd watch it, because it was an essential part of SOTF. He was no gorehound, but there sure were a lot of people who were. Watching Rhonda stagger back, blood pouring from her throat, though, was a whole different thing. There was a lot of difference between killing someone yourself and watching someone kill another person on the TV. The smell of blood, for one. The shuddering of his hands, for another.

This was his kill, and his alone. Cory had been stolen, and it wasn't anything like this. It wasn't so horrifying, because it wasn't just like this. Wasn't so graphic. This was his kill, and it was disturbing, disgusting, terrifying. He told himself that he'd feel better when he got his own kill, Gregory had told himself as he left the scene of Cory's murder. He had felt sick, and he had felt wrong, and he had managed to convince himself that it was because of how unsatisfying it was. But now, faced with the truth, faced with what killing was like when it wasn't viewed from the comfort of a couch with a bag of fresh honeycomb, he didn't feel satisfied. He just felt horrified.

Something churned in his stomach, and he took a step backwards, free hand reaching out in vain, knowing that he had to do something, that he couldn't just leave her, but he had to leave her because Ivan had a shotgun. And then the aforementioned shotgun roared, and Gregory ducked as a shower of paint chips and splinters rained down on him like candy from a piñata. Ivan had missed. And he probably wasn't gonna miss again.

In the time between Ivan pumping the shotgun, Gregory turned and burst out the door, slamming it shut behind him. There were two people; a guy with a katana, and a girl a little further down the jetty reloading her submachine gun. "RUN!" Hopefully, that would distract him, because he didn't wanna be caught in a fight between two people with guns. To the left was another sailboat, a junky old one, and Gregory's feet carried him that way, towards the bow. He couldn't go down the jetty, they might kill him, and so he had to jump for it.

Coming closer to the edge of the boat, he jumped, and there were a few moments in the air where Gregory's heart sunk, that he thought he wasn't going to make it, but he just cleared the back of the boat and crumpled into the floor, knife skidding across the boat. Pushing himself to his feet and grabbing it as he went by, he entered the jetty from that boat and ran until he was sure that a bullet or a shotgun blast wouldn't end up in his back.

((Gregory Miller continued in You Don't Load a Gun, Close Your Eyes And Shoot))

[Skraal]

((Not exactly sure what the post order is now, but I gotta cut in to avoid inactivity))

And just like that, everything went to hell.

Luciano stood by the cabin door, his body frozen as the argument rapidly turned violent. Sounds of a scuffle emanated from inside its thin walls, quickly giving way to noises that could only have been made by a person in intense pain. With every passing second, it was becoming more and more obvious that at least one of the people he had been eavesdropping on wasn't going to make it out of this alive.

He tightly clenched the handle of his sword as he remained still, sweat leaking in a torrent down the back of his neck. This was what he had wanted, right? He was going to wait until a fight broke out, and then rush in and stab the survivor before they could react. All the pieces were in place, the opportunity handed to him on a metaphorical silver platter.

So why wasn't his body moving?

The whole situation just felt so... unreal, almost as if he were watching from behind a movie screen rather than through his own eyes. He felt a strange floating feeling, like he was somehow outside of his body, the sights and sounds of the scene on the boat obscured from him by a thick fog. The almost deafening pounding of a heartbeat echoed through his ears - one that after a few seconds he realized as his own. The rhythmic thumping drowned out the rest of the scene, beginning to occupy nearly all of his attention.

Each thud pulled him further out of his surroundings, his vision even beginning to blur as his focus slipped even further, his mind retreating further back into the corner of his skull. Every passing second felt almost unbearably slow, pulling him as a passenger through the moment, becoming vaguely aware of a set of teeth loudly grinding against each other, teeth that almost certainly didn't feel like they were his. Something deep inside of him gave off the sensation of the pressure which he knew heralded an outburst of crying, but even had he wanted to, no tears would have come.

After what seemed like an eternity, the unmistakable boom of a shotgun blast cut through the night air, followed by the most horrible screams that he had ever heard in his life. A boy burst through the cabin door, shouting for him to run. At the sound of the order, Luciano's body moved on autopilot carrying him off of the boat and into the welcoming darkness beyond the jetty.

((Luciano Ascencio continued in It All Fades Away))

[Aura]

Rhonda had never wanted any of this.

That day when SOTF's goons showed up at school, she just wanted to go down to the gym and learn a few things from her coaches. Then probably hang out and chat with the other trainees for a bit before going home to eat pizza with her dad. Then she would go back to regular school life until she got a job at a mechanic or a car detailing shop while she finished her training and started wrestling on the indy circuit. Maybe she'd even hit it big and go nationwide, maybe head to Japan and compete with the joshis. There were a lot of options that she liked to consider.

But instead she got kidnapped and wound up on SOTF. That gave her new goals. The first was not to play their game, and she did her best to adhere to that ideal. She was tempted, particularly when it came to Giselle, Fisk, and Seo-yun, and although she slipped once, she tried her hardest not to fall. Her second goal was to survive and escape. She took every step she could, and tried to do it right. She found a group with a common goal, and she worked with them as best she could. She stuck with their plan as they lost members, lost leaders, and even when she was left on her own.

She wanted to believe that she could make it out, that she could beat the game. She didn't want SOTF to break her spirit, to turn her into someone she knew she wasn't. She wanted her life back.

And she tried. She tried damn hard.

CK10- Rhonda Rollins: Deceased
32 Students Remain

[Spindarene]

Amanda could hear the voices coming from the cabin getting louder and more angry. Her fingers fumbled with the gun as she tried to reload it as fast as possible. As she started to slide the loaded clip back into the gun, she heard a gunshot go off inside the cabin, followed by agonized screams. Amanda jumped and almost dropped the clip, but managed to slide it into her gun right as a boy came tearing out of the cabin, yelling at the boy with the sword to run. She saw him take off, and felt a deep distress well up inside her as he fled, leaving her behind.

Frantically, Amanda grabbed her gun and her bag and ran after him.

((Amanda Brooks continued elsewhere))

[The Honeless Beard]

The barrel of the shotgun gently smoked as Ivan let it slump, the gaping maw at the end of it gently resting on the floor and leaving a soft scorch mark in the plastic-linoleum of the cabin. Without a word, he knelt, touching Rhonda's forehead with his right palm, fingers gently curling over the crown of her head.

Rhonda wanted to escape. Rhonda had been hurt by the same people he'd been hurt by, and rejected the cycle of violence and mayhem to focus on creating a new way - a better way. She didn't appear close, but the fact that she'd tried said more about her character than success or failure. There was a moment, when both of their heads were bent over the journal, that he'd felt a pull to break his objective. The second time she'd tugged at him hard enough to force him to stop and consider, the second time they'd been together with a dead Respect beside him.

He touched her hair once, slid her eyelids closed, his thumb skating too far and brushing against bare eyeball briefly. He winced at the contact, wiped his thumb on his shirt, and shuffled to her bag.

The box of shells was easily transferred into his own, and he popped open the shotgun to shake out his expended casing, loaded a fresh shell into the gun. Snapped it closed with a satisfying chack.

"Okay," Ivan said, "Rhonda wouldn't want me to do this, I don't think. Emmy wouldn't, neither. But you and I have a score to settle, now."

[Lilith]

There was a party on Thursday, and she was gonna’ go as Alice.

But first, she had a few loose ends to snip.

“I know you're out there. Hello, hell............. o?”

[The Honeless Beard]

Ivan nodded at the weapon, shifted his grip so he was holding the top of it. He shrugged once to re settle his bag on his shoulder, and then headed back out into the world, leaving Rhonda behind with more of his sins.

((Continued elsewhere))