walkswithheroes | Saturday.

After the night he had, Alistair remembered exactly why he didn't miss a lot of things about where he used to be. He was tense and sore, and if he didn't think it'd mean they'd be stuck there for the rest of their existence on this island, he'd taken his sword to the game in front of them all long ago. Wearily, his gaze fell on the man he'd come to know was named Dean.

"I think it's your turn," he said, holding out the dice for him to take. "Try to be a little luckier than I was."

"Lucky me," said Dean, trying not to look as beatdown as he felt, still aching welts from the vines rising against his arm when he held it out for the dice.

Mouth set in a grim line, Dean rolled, taking a deep breath as the dice struck the board with two ominous thunks. In the center, mist rolled and parted, and Dean read the words as they appeared.

"'A hunter from the darkest wild makes you feel just like a child'. Well." Dean sat back and grinned at them all. "It's not monkeys."

Edited 2011-01-25 04:05 (UTC)

"Sounds a little worse than monkeys," Britta said, shaking her head. She still had trouble accepting this was real, but they'd had more than enough proof. All she could do now was play along, already listening instinctively for some sign that something was coming for them. "What's that mean, like... we'll become children? Or is someone going to hunt us?" That sounded so absurd, she just about believed it.

Yeah, there was nothing about that that made Trixa feel good. Either option could be disastrous in the middle of a jungle, tired, hungry, frustrated, people made mistakes like that. Checking the gun, she turned away from the group.

"Heads up, eyes open, guys. We can't afford to get surprised anymore."

"I really don't want to become a kid again," Fred says, imagining how difficult it'll be to run on tiny legs. And there's no guarantee that their clothes will shrink too, meaning they'll be stuck in giant shoes and ill-fitting clothes, trying to run from monkeys and vines and anything else that the game happens to throw at them. Though, maybe if they use leaves to pad out their shoes, they'll at least fit half-way decently.

Midway through her train of thought, however, Fred lifts her head suddenly, eyes wide. Either she's hearing things, or there's someone else nearby.

"Did anyone else hear that?"

"Well, at least it only says hunter and not hunters. What can one do?" Alistair piped up, the nervous edge to his voice evident. Who could have thought monkeys and vines could do so much damage?

Either way, Alistair stood from where he'd been stooping over the game board, pulling out his sword. While he hadn't heard what Fred was hearing, apparently Duncan did, as the hound was up and tensed up, ears perked forward.

"Yes, please, let's jinx us all from the very start," remarks Adelle, having by far exceeded her personal quote of excitement at this point. She rubs at her temples with both hands, ears peeled for the slightest of sounds that might suggest trouble. To think that only last night she was suggesting they stay, because after all, they were only monkeys. She could kick herself, if not for the sneaking suspicion that this hunter, whomever or whatever it turns out to be, will be doing enough of that already.

Her eyes dart upward, off toward the trees, then back to Fred. "I heard it, too."

"It's all right, guys," said Dean, standing, "If anybody knows hunters..."

But the words died in his mouth as the sounds intensified, tiny rustles coalescing to a single point in the brush, and then a face appeared, more dear and longed for than any Dean had lost over the years.

The word puffed into the empty space between them as if punched. "Dad?"

But John Winchester only smiled, rifle balanced against his shoulder, and there was so much Dean should say, so much he should be doing - standing straighter, shaking his hand, welcoming him home - and then his father's lips parted. "You miserable coward," he drawled, so familiar and yet not. "You tired of runnin', huh? Finally gonna face me like a man?"

Dean's mouth opened and hung there, as paralyzed as the rest of him when the hunter's hands came up, aiming the gun with a deadly ease Dean knew all too well.

Edited 2011-01-25 05:31 (UTC)

There was a split second in which Britta was too stunned to move and then it was over. Before she knew what she was doing, instead of running away, she dove toward Dean. Shoving him hard out of the way as the shot rang out, she stumbled over her own feet. This was so dumb, this was incredibly dumb, but she wasn't going to just stand there while he let himself get shot. "Run," she screamed, grabbing his arm as she took her own advice, "run." It didn't make any difference whose father this was; she wasn't going to stay put and get shot.

Trixa had the opposite reaction, instead of away, while he was focused on Dean, she headed towards, gun raised, finger on the trigger and ready to pull. This? This she could handle, this was someone she could fight. This was not crazy attacking plants or screaming running primates. He was a predator? Well, so was she.

"Drop it, buddy. You're outnumbered."

Let the others run, she could stay and take care of this.

Fred jumps to her feet as soon as the hunter walks through the trees. Maybe it's been a long time now since she was in Pylea, hiding in caves and keeping away from Pylea's own brand of hunter, but not sticking around when someone's pointing a gun is mostly just plain old common sense.

"Really, really bad idea!" she calls out to Trixa, reaching out to grab the nearest person to try and drag them along. They need to go. They need to find cover. Fred hopes there's some kind of cave nearby, maybe. Or a system of them. She has a lot of experience with that, at least.

"We need to go!"

Edited 2011-01-25 05:59 (UTC)

Alistair had been about to go help - a one-on-one confrontation didn't go well when the other person apparently was insane - but instead felt Fred's hand clench his sleeve and tug him hard toward the direction everyone was running.

"He-ey!" he exclaimed, though it was the only protest. Logic won out, and Alistair knew he would be able to do little against the kind of weapon the man had. He stumbled after her, Duncan at his heels. If he couldn't help with this new danger, he at least knew he could keep an eye out for any returning one.

Dean ran, one clumsy, lurching footfall after the other, Britta's fist in his sleeve and dragging him along. That hadn't been a warning shot. His father never bothered. That was a kill shot, and the only reason he wasn't dead was because Britta had shoved him out of the way.

"S'not really him," he muttered, low and desperate even to his own ears, but it might as well have been someone else talking for all that he could stop it. "Just the game, it's - it's like this in the movie. It's not him."

And even so Dean wanted to turn on his heel, to run as fast and as hard back to where Trixa stood, to save her, maybe, but to save him first.

"It's not him," Britta agreed, though she didn't really know what he was talking about and it came out breathless with the effort of yet more running. His father, she thought, and god, she'd thought her relationship with her dad was fucked up. At least he'd never tried to kill her, not even as the projection of some bizarre board game. She glanced back over her shoulder. "The game. Someone grab the game!" They had to keep playing or they would never get out of this. Figuring everything else out could wait until their collective daddy issues weren't armed and dangerous.

That she happens to be the one of them standing closest to the box should come as no surprise to Adelle — it only figures, really — but she still can't quite believe what she's doing, even as she runs in the wrong direction, closer to their latest assailant in hopes of retrieving the game. After all that she has survived, she will be quite remiss if it's a deadly board game that finally takes her out, but she has little intention of letting that happen. Going back for the game might go against her every instinct, but once the box is tucked firmly under her arm, that instinct washes over in full, and she darts after the others as fast as she can. "Got it!" She calls after them, and then, as if anyone needs reminding, "Keep running!"

Goddammit. Trixa swore and followed after the group. Running was not going to make this guy go away, only make it harder for them to fight. She held back, enough to cover their rears, but kept the group in sight.

"Find a place we can protect!"

"There!" Fred shouts, pointing to a cluster of trees ahead. More trees means more cover, and it'll be more difficult for him to get a clear shot at any one of them.

When they get further away, they can worry about covering their tracks; doubling backwards to confuse the trail, making false trails. Though, just running isn't likely to help the situation all that much at all.

Somehow, they're going to have to slow him down.

Alistair ignored the sting of a branch smacking into his face as he followed Fred into the treeline. Trees were good. Very good. Unless it meant him tripping over tree roots, which he was making very sure not to do when a seemingly homicidal man was chasing after them.

They couldn't run forever. He just hoped someone came up with a plan before it came to their limits.

Running steadily behind the rest, game tightly in hand (it could be their only hope, after all), Adelle has no intention of slowing down until she hears the next shot fired. This, unlike barbaric monkeys and bloodthirsty vines, is something familiar, something she has dealt with before. Men with guns might frighten her, send her running like any sane person in the opposite direction, but they don't intimidate her. But there is nothing nostalgic or poetic about being shot, and she enjoys it even less this second time around, when the pain radiates so quickly from her shoulder to the rest of her body that her knees buckle at once. "Stop," she shouts at whomever happens to be nearest, although there is a definite chance the word comes out no more than a gasp.

Dean reeled like he was the one that'd been shot, but he wasn't, no pain and no blood anywhere, but someone had been, because John Winchester didn't miss. Turning on his heel, he wrenched his sleeve from Britta's death grip and caught Adelle just as she went down, slinging her into his arms and up and running again in the space of only two ragged breaths.

"Over here!" he shouted, because while the break hadn't been good for Adelle, it'd been good for something, giving Dean just enough time to see a cropping of rocks that weren't quite a cave near the trees, but near enough. If John was hunting them, he wouldn't stop, but he wouldn't rush into dark, protected ground without a plan, either. "Run in here!"

The force with which Dean pulled away sent Britta stumbling off course, but she recovered fast enough to follow his lead. As much as she preferred to be the one doling out her opinion, this was no time for protesting for protest's sake. She was stubborn and she could be foolish, she knew that, but she wasn't going to die for it. The most she did was to ask, "What if there's no other way out? He could follow us in. Or wait for us." They were out of food, thanks to that first attack, low on supplies, and this guy didn't seem like he was prepared to stop until he had them, Adelle's injury stark proof of that.

Trixa stayed outside, glad that for once she wasn't wearing her signature red and concealed herself as she started to keep watch.

"We need to get rid of this guy. How bad is Adelle hurt?"

Her mind went to work, trying to match terrain to traps to the man's height and weight. There were only so many options with their limited supplies, but she thought she could manage something if she just had some time.

Fred is shaken more than she wants to admit. She should be used to all of this. Back home they'd fought vampires and demons and all kinds of evil, and this is just one guy. Just one guy with a gun. Still, it's all Fred's fault. She'd been the one to bring everyone here, and she'd been the one to roll the dice. It's her fault that Adelle's been shot.

There's a moment where Fred can't think straight. Where the thoughts are racing through her head too fast to decide what to do first. They're trapped in a cave, and she knows caves. But they can't stay in there forever. They have to keep playing the game, only Adelle's been shot.

It takes all of those thoughts racing through her mind first before Fred fully realizes what's just happened, and she immediately goes to check the other woman's wound. Thankfully, it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and Fred digs through her pack for a spare shirt to stop any bleeding.

"She's gonna be okay," Fred says, "But she's going to need a real bandage on this."

Alistair had never seen a wound from a gun. It seemed like it was akin to being shot by an arrow, with no way to pull it out with any sort of ease. It was another time when he found himself wishing Wynne was here - wishing the good sort of magic was available. He was sure it'd be able to fix even this.

"Is there a way to cover it temporarily?" Alistair suggested, because he certainly had none on him. "This is just a guess, but I think that person out there isn't the type to politely wait until we gather ourselves."

"It's fine," Adelle is quick to argue, never one to accept pity — or even sympathy — well. It isn't the first time that she has been shot (and considering what occurred before she left Los Angeles, it may not be the last). This wound, fortunately, is far less severe than her first, and in less compromising a location as well. The pain is intense, enough so that her own train of thought becomes nearly elusive, for some time — in fact, she almost doesn't register the fact that it's Whiskey's doppelganger who kneels close to examine the injury — but it's one with which she is familiar. Unlike the vast majority of that which they have been faced with until now, this is something Adelle knows how to deal with, and at the very least she can find some relief in that.

"A spare shirt, if you've got one, to cover the wound," she requests from no one in particular.

"Do you one better," said Dean, reaching into his pack for the first aid kit he'd brought. It was less foresight and more Rollie's insistence, but damn was Dean ever grateful for it now. Happily, it looked like the bullet had gone clean through, and without better tools or Rollie's help, Dean didn't dare do more than clean and bandage it. He passed the small cleaning wipe to Fred. "Wipe it down with this," he said, "I'll be right back."

Standing, he moved quickly to where Trixa stood watch, lowering his voice and feeling his stomach sink to match. "Listen, uh. Trixa, if it comes to it." He looked between her gun and his own. "Let me do it, okay?"

Britta felt like she might be sick. Somehow they had walked right into a horror movie from the Nineties and all they could do was keep playing. That it was her turn next hadn't escaped her notice, but how could they possibly roll again when that guy was out there? Standing by the side, she leaned back against the rock and closed her eyes, pushing her hair back. She should have offered to help somehow, she knew that, but there wasn't anything she could do, anything she was good at, and she wanted suddenly to stay far away, as if by distancing herself from the group, she could keep herself separate from everything happening, keep it from happening to her.

Trixa gave dean a look of disbelief. Who was Dean kidding? That man was trying to kill them, she wasn't gonna just... wait for him, if she had the chance to take him out first. "Not a promise I'm gonna make."

Pointing at the group, and the bleeding Adelle, she kept her voice low. "I get that you know him somehow, but the only thing I'm invested in is keeping them alive and that means getting rid of him somehow. If I have to shoot him, I'll do it, unless you've got a better idea."

Fred finds a spare shirt in her pack just as Dean pulls out a First Aid kit, then immediately stuffs it back inside, feeling a little worthless at the moment. She should have thought to bring one. Of course, Fred hadn't anticipated they'd be running from their lives from monkeys and vines and some kind of hunter.

She takes the wipe from Dean, and immediately sets to work cleaning Adelle's wound as best she can. She's no doctor, but she's seen enough injuries back home that she knows how to do this, at least.

When Dean stood up to leave, Fred frowned. "Wait. Where are you going? We all need to stick together."

Though, she knew that under circumstances not involving having to play a board game in order to escape an island, splitting up likely would have been a good idea.

Alistair was similarly against the sudden prospect of splitting up. It seemed they wouldn't be leaving until they finished the game. They wouldn't finish the game if someone went off and got themselves hurt.

"I agree," he voiced, looking at everyone. "You'd be painting a target on yourself if you went alone."

Given everything that was happening to them, and by extension to her, Adelle probably should have been paying closer attention to the discussion. The steady rush of pain, however, coupled with the most blood loss she had experience in some time kept her mind's ability to focus at a minimum. At the moment, she could only concentrate on Fred, who was at work cleaning her wound, and on how much she resembled her former Active.

"Have you much experience with medicine?" She asked the girl, trying her best to disguise a wince on contact.

Dean was tired to the bone and far removed from the life he'd known at home, but it came back to him swiftly, that defiant rumble in his chest that accompanied the need to turn the hunter into the hunted, even if it wore his father's face. It was a game, a deadly one, but it wasn't a demon, wasn't Azazel this time, bleeding Dean out while wearing his father's skin, and he could do this, live through this. They all could.

"It's my father," he said simply, and even were it not, Dean had rolled the turn. It was his responsibility, and if Trixa didn't agree, well. He'd just have to get there first. "We need to keep playing," he said louder. "That's the only way this ends."

"I guess that means I'm up," Britta said. She hesitated, though, as she made her way over to where the game lay, then shook her head, even as she picked up the dice. She didn't want to do this, didn't want to see what else could be unleashed on them, but she was in the game now. Hate that though she might, there wasn't really any choice.

"Is she going to be okay?" She nodded to Adelle. "I mean, if we need to run, we need to be ready to carry her."

"We can't play and run." Trixa ran her fingers through her wild hair in frustration, looking at the group. They were tired, scared and hurt and weren't in any condition to be running.

"It won't be Dean's turn for awhile, how about he and I go distract his- the hunter and the rest of you can work the game?"

"Not much, but enough to get this right. You're going to be fine," Fred says, answering Adelle. Fred's had a few close calls, but she's never been shot herself. Axes and arrows and claws and fangs are more of a threat back home, so it's nothing short of strange for Fred to have to deal with something like this. Gunshots are never as clean as they seem; bullets twist and burn and tear, so it's never as clean as it seems. She knows all the science of it, but dealing with it firsthand is another matter entirely.

"She's going to be fine." She's trying to keep her hands from shaking as she sets about bandaging the wound as best she can. As much as Fred doesn't want to admit it, Dean and Trixa are right. They can't keep playing while he's out there, and they can't run and play at the same time. They have to get this done as fast as they can if they hope to survive it.

Alistair was not the kind of person who did the planning in situations like this. He almost offered to help, but knew someone had to stay behind as the last resort if they failed. He didn't like the idea of unleashing something else while that person was out there, but there wasn't much of a choice.

"We need to decide what to do quickly," he said instead, which he knew was the extent of his input. Dean seemed to know who was chasing him better than all of them combined, he wasn't going to deny his plan had merit. Seating himself next to the blonde girl - Britta, he remembered her name was - he shot her a sympathetic look when he noticed her hesitating. "We'll deal with anything that happens, whatever you roll."

It wasn't exactly as comforting a statement as he hoped it would be, but the sentiment was still there.

"I can walk just fine, thank you," protested Adelle, shooting a none-too-friendly glare in Britta's direction, albeit one aimed not at the girl herself but the suggestion as a whole. She had been shot in the abdomen before and remained on foot, perfectly fine to walk and in heels nonetheless. Perhaps it was mere stubbornness, but she would have to be in far worse shape to even considering allowing herself to be carried. Being the only one among them to get hit had bruised her ego enough already.

"Just roll," said Dean, too short and too rough, but with his eyes blazing into the darkness beyond their shelter, he couldn't keep the desperation from his voice. Adele was bleeding and in pain, and in spite of all his training to do better than a hunter's patch up job, he still couldn't help her, not without proper lighting and a table.

"Goddammit," he muttered. "I think we're better off guarding the perimeter," he told Trixa. "If we finish the game, he goes away." And then no one had to shoot his father.

"Okay, I'm doing it," Britta announced. If Adelle was going to be alright and the others had a plan, there was no point in holding them up any further, though she dreaded finding out what would happen next. Closing her eyes, shoulders set back, she nodded once and shook them, letting the dice clatter to the board. Huffing out a breath, cheeked puffed out, she leaned in to read the message within the swirling smoke.

"In the jungle you must wait until the dice read five or eight," she said. "What does that even —" Before she could finish her question, she was gone.

Trixa fixed Dean with a glare. She got it, really, she did. It was the Dean's father, he didn't want to fight his old man, but sitting still wasn't in Trixa's vocabulary. "Watching the perimeter means we're still letting him come here - We need time, we need to lead him - SHIT! What the hell was that?"

To be honest, seeing Britta just... disappear made a chill go down Trixa's spine. That? Was probably not a good sign. Which meant things were getting worse, not better.

"Screw this. Winchester, I'm going, you in or out?" She needed to do something, not just sit here and wait for something else bad to happen.

Watching Britta disappear definitely wasn't something Fred thought she'd see, even after they realized the board game was evil and could make monkeys and people's homicidal fathers appear out of nowhere. Her eyes are wide, expression a little more frantic than it'd been before.

"But what about Britta? What jungle?" Fred asks, because the very last thing she wants is to roll her own turn and disappear to some other dimension or jungle or wherever.

Alistair had been as startled as everyone else was when Britta disappeared. That this board had that kind of power - power he was sure he'd never even seen an abomination pull off - was more than unsettling. What was worse was the sudden declaration that people were leaving.

"Didn't you read what it said?" he protested - especially to Dean, who was part of the game - because he certainly was not going to leave the woman behind to die. Besides, he knew any attempt to not play would likely just result in them not getting anywhere. "You'll be sentencing her to a jungle that likely has all sorts of unfriendly things in it if you leave now. Someone needs to roll a five or eight - the sooner, the better, is my guess."

It was difficult to harbor any sense of relief at being excluded from those playing the game when it was quite evident that harm's way had not limited itself merely to those rolling the dice. Why they were still arguing about this, however, eluded Adelle, and player or not, she had no intention of keeping her thoughts herself. No one else had, thus far, and she had the advantage of being right.

"In the time it's taken you all to weigh the odds, we could have rolled eight fives and five eights," she remarked shortly after Alistair had finished.

"Then roll," Dean repeated, one foot already out of the cave. "Please." They needed to get Britta back from wherever she'd been sent, and to beat the game before Dean was forced to shoot his father.

"C'mon," he said, brushing Trixa's shoulder on his way out.

"We'll be back before it's his turn."

Trixa called the reassurance back over her shoulder as she turned to follow Dean, gun in hand and pointed down and away from him. This would be tricky, but hopefully the two of them could draw the hunter away.

"We need to set a trap."

Saturday.

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