I see a ship in the harbour

[Pippi]

It was taking him an awful long time to take her hand. She was starting to think that he was planning on using his own for more nefarious purposes. And once that idea wormed its way into her brain, it burrowed in deep. Suddenly she was seeing pistols in trouser pockets, knives furrowed away down the sides of boots, a length of wire to garrote her at arm’s reach.

Her arm did waver, aye. But she kept it held out, and she kept standing where she was, even as Heath oh-so encouragingly dropped that he felt like they were being steered towards a Lord of the Flies-type dealio. Could be the worst, and final, decision of her life, she knew. But on the bright side, at least she was finally using the balls that God had been so generous to gift her.

Field Guide didn’t see eye-to-eye on her point of view, that it made no sense to load them out with weapons heavy enough to take down a whole army if all they were intended to be hunting was each other. Not exactly any skin off of her nose, though. She was pretty damn certain she was right, and she wasn’t about to take him to task for his point of view. Still though. That ideology, that the monsters had been let loose to run riot and demonstrate their own powers, and that bringing them down to rest wasn’t the goal but a potential final act of martyrdom?

That was… good information. Important information. For the future. Her future.

Finally, the gesture was reciprocated, the handshake completed. It was cold and clammy, a dead-fish handshake if she’d ever experienced one, despite how firm the grip was. The sensation was decidedly unpleasant, but the meaning behind it was less so. They were partners, now. For however long that may be.

“Um. Well. I, um…”

You know, she really hadn’t considered taking the fight right to their captors until this moment. It made a sorta, kinda, bit of a logical sense, on a surface level. She guessed. Like she’d said before, they’d been given weapons designed to wipe out tanks and platoons of cannon fodder. The airstrip was off limits to them, sure, but a rocket propelled grenade followed no such boundaries. They, all of them together, had the tools to show that they weren’t just gonna take Janus-Heyes’ orders lying down. One crack in the armour was all it took for an arrow to slip through.

Yeah. Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe when their one, single missile left a crater in Sycamore’s little hidey-hole, they could celebrate for a split-second, before mortar fire rained down on their heads and blew them to bits. Nah, that kind of thing might have been up Heath’s alley, but certainly not her own, thanks a lot.

“Look, um, I don’t think I’m gonna. Um. Feel comfortable doing, um, much. With those creatures running amok, um, still. Let’s, um. Let’s bring ‘em down. I’m game for a little monster hunting, if, um. You are as well.”

Kay flicked her cigarette to the ground - sure, the water in this pen was already filled to the brim with rusted metal and scattered plastic, but she wasn’t about to show such disrespect to the ocean when it had given her so much love - and stomped it out as she strode over it, back across to her gear once more.

“You, um. Got a preference? For which one we target first? Sounds, um, like you’ve had way more experience of them. Than I have. You probably know which one we’re. Um. Geared up. To take on best.”

She scratched behind her neck - hell, where had that spot come from? - and chewed at her lip for a moment.

“And, um, hey. Um. Don’t sweat it. If you say anything, um. Cuckoo. I mean, I can’t get through a single sentence without, um, stumbling. Over my words. So um. Maybe we should communicate with, um, interpretive dance. Or something.”

She knelt down to shuffle the flamethrower back onto her body. The piping and wires were still bulky and awkward to strap to her back, the petrol tanks still heavy as shit. And, really, thank god for that.

The moment that this weapon felt like a second skin would be a real sad day indeed.

[NoLife42069]

Heath always enjoyed it when you could see the gears turning in someone's head. It was kind of like a reminder that these other people around you could think. He saw so much from people that there were times he had to remind himself, that yes they, despite evidence are also capable of thought.

"I always intended to play real-life monster hunter... Somehow it's moderately less dangerous than hunting our captors."

Heath thought about telling his new partner about his gun. There were risks involved, but he would also rather not have to explain why he had it when he inevitably had to pull it out. He was taken out of his thoughts when he was asked about hunting. "Well first off, the biomechanical worm is out. It's something of a hive mind and I doubt we could even begin to deal damage to it without more than two people." Heath began counting on his fingers.

"Next would be the polar bear thing, frankly Chimera is the perfect name for it. I'm 90 percent sure from the information given that it's some rapidly evolving mutant thing. That yell on the first day? I think that was it, like... I'm not certain on this, but I'm pretty sure it's hunting us for more information and I'm worried that any failures on our part will just make it stronger..." Heath paused as he looked up. "It truly is the Apex Predator."

Heath shook his head. "Regardless, our only real option is those bald pale bastards. They're tough for sure, but underneath it all, they are still human." Heath paused as he began to pace in a small circle. "And by that I mean they aren't immune to rockets and being dismembered. And while I hate to help Janus-Hayes in anything, a bit of research could help." Heath looked at the flamethrower. "I'm saying, try burning them..."

Heath paused and a small smile formed on his lips. "Yes, that would be fun, wouldn't it? Though it would definitely be a bit inconvenient."

Heath perked up, a bit. "Ah, if you want to lighten your load a bit, just give me what you feel the least confident using. I'd rather not have my new ally in this hell hole die because of blowback or recoil. Though if you don't quite feel comfortable giving it to me that's fine as well."

[Pippi]

Yeah, lad. Sure would be awful to see your newfound ally rocked backwards by the force of their own weapon, smashed into a wall, and ripped to shreds by an abomination that went against the laws of God and man. Unimaginable, really. Sorta thing that lingered in your mind for as long as you drew breath, and without even the common decency to be quiet about it.

It was a good thing that she wasn’t looking directly at him as he spoke. She couldn’t say for certain exactly what her face looked like right at this moment, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t a beacon of positive thought. And not just cause she’d been sent back in time to that moment in her and Like-the-City’s not-so-safehouse.

‘Fun’? What exactly about this whole thing was fun? Was it the freezing cold, sapping their strength and piercing right to the bone? Was it the crushing loneliness, the knowledge that they’d been dumped as far away from humanity as possible so nobody would ever find their rotten, bloated corpses? The creatures that had been unleashed solely to annihilate them? The humans who had been ordered to do the same? Was the constant pang of hunger fun? Did the fact that their every move was being observed spark joy? Or did he think it would be a blast - you could take that pun as intended if you so wished - to wrap your shaking finger around the trigger and aim with bloodshot eyes at a monstrosity out of some warped fever dream, knowing that whether you hit or missed, the ground would be soaked in gore, and that you could only hope that if it ended up being yours that you wouldn’t live long enough to feel it splatter underneath you?

Would it be cathartic to eradicate one of these beats, and stand over its smoldering corpse as you lived to see another day? Sure would be. But never ‘fun’. There was no bravery in finding enjoyment in what they were doing. Only insanity.

There was only one thing Kay could take any measure of pleasure from. Oh, the ocean. Her one true constant. Her rock. Her lighthouse.

She wasn’t exactly peachy keen on handing over either of her weapons, either. Agree to Field-Squared’s request, and she would be handing over some of her wall-to-wall armaments. Refuse, and a hefty chunk of that trust she’d been working to build up, a powerful weapon in its own rights, would no doubt get wiped out in the blink of an eye. In the end, though, it was a decently easy choice to make. She could live with just the one heavy weapon on her person; wasn’t like she could fire off both simultaneously, now, could she? Whenever they did face down their pale nemeses, they’d both need to be running at full power. And, if the chips were down, and the worst did come to the worst, well…

“Um. Okay. Um. Sure, you can grab, um, the thing. Rocket launcher. That’d be best. I think. Careful, it’s, um, heavier. Than it looks.”

… Better to be the one holding a full tank of gas, than an explosive tube with one shot remaining.

“Right. Well. Um. Sounds like we’ve got our, um. Target, then. If everything you’ve said, um, is right, then. Then yeah. You can be as strong as durable and tough as you like. That’ll stop a punch. Or, um. A knife wound. An inferno? Maybe not so, um, much.”

Kay took a deep, shuddering breath, angling herself towards the exit of the submarine pen, keeping Heath in her peripheral vision all the while.

“So. Um. Let's get a wiggle on, then. If we’re gonna try and, um. Get this done. We should be the ones to. Move first, and, um…”

She stumbled over her words into silence. She looked at the ground. Looked at Heath. Took a long, lingering stare over the ocean.

She’d be back some day.

((Kay Poultier continued in tomorrow will only get worse))

[NoLife42069]

Heath could see the trepidation on Kay's face. "Look you don't-" but before he could finish the rocket launcher was offered to him. "oh."

She wasn't kidding it was much heavier, he had never held one before so truly feeling the heft was different. "Not sure how the bastards would react to fire, but I'm certain that a rocket would reduce them to atoms. That said I think it's best we use this on the Chimera or those worms. No clue how many shots we got but they need to count."

This was it, after two days of aimless wandering, a plan. Heath felt his heart thump in his chest, a mixture of excitement and fear of equal parts.

"Yeah, we are burning daylight and I'm certain they won't stay in the same spot."

Heath looked down at the used cig and smiled sadly. "Clearly, something has gone wrong..."

Heath began to move once more.

((Heath Redfield continued in tomorrow will only get worse))