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 Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2016 7:37 pm
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 5:21 pm
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A dare. Frossa's words hung in her spongeclots, sickly sweet as the cakes and treats that filled her belly, a reminder of the start of her night. Kisses and cake, and now this. A perfect chance to prove herself. Armed with only her trusted nutritionblock knife and her lusus ambling at her side, Cerise made the trek into the woods with glee. How hard would it be? The criminals were probably shackled, scared, and dumb. After all, they got caught. Frossa was silly for thinking this would be a challenge. She scrambled along the edge of the trees, listening. She just had to find one, and she'd prove it to Frossa she could do anything! She wouldn't be squicked out by anything, and wouldn't deny any challenge Frossa would throw at her. An alarm sounded, loud and piercing through the otherwise quiet night, not too far from where she was skulking around in the woods. That was her cue! Cerise prodded her lusus gently with her foot, rousing her back into moving forward. She pulled her knife out, eyes scanning the forest for movement, waiting for the telltale sound of a wanton criminal trying to flee her way. They'd be in for a nasty surprise when a small redblood took them down, wouldn't they? And Frossa would be so impressed with her. Or maybe she wouldn't, but it didn't matter to her. Now, she didn't have a plan, and since when did she ever? The plan was find a criminal, kill them, and drag the body back to Frossa's hive to rub it in her face. Maybe literally! Cerise grinned. She'd figure out the details as she went along, just like always.
"Hey Caima, you think you can be a little useful and help me sniff out a dirty criminal!" she whispered to her lusus, who offered a soft snuffling noise as she planted her snout directly into the grass, lapping up almost frozen dew. "Hehehe, silly Ma, you gotta sniff the air!" She knelt down, and listened again. She could hear distant whooping and loud footfalls from somewhere. She closed her eyes, concentrating. The hunters? Probably should be avoided, right? Would they want a young redblood trailing them? They would be way more bloodthirsty than she was In fact, she hardly felt any bloodlust at all! Was that strange? Behind her, she heard a tree branch snap. There! "Come on, Ma, we gotta go!"She walks through the forest briskly, holding her knife out. Oh, now that she thought about it, she should have sharpened it before she left. It wasn't terribly sharp, poorly managed like most of her nutritionblock equipment. She only used it to cut meat, and it did it well enough. But would a dull blade slow her down when it was important? "Ick, I might have to really hit hard if I want to kill someone, Caima," she whined quietly, her lusus opening her mouth eagerly. She didn't want to do work! She just wanted it to happen, and be easy. Effort was annoying. With a sigh, Cerise peered behind a tree, and saw someone. Finally, she thought. She had to have been outside for almost half an hour now, just looking! The troll just ahead was walking slowly. They looked like an older teenager, or maybe a young adult. Cerise couldn't see their eyes from here, but they had long, thin hair, some haphazardly pulled up in a ponytail. Or maybe it had been in a ponytail, and then removed a little? Didn't matter. They were low on the spectrum it looked like, something between red and orange, and darkly colored. She could see their blood on their face and shirt. They weren't shackled, as she had previously thought, though maybe they had managed to remove it or something? That also made this a little harder than originally anticipated. The other troll rested their hand against the tree and looked around. It was now or never! They'd run away if she didn't take this chance. Cerise bolted from behind her tree and ran at the other troll as fast as she could, knife held high so she could bring down as much force necessary. They were too startled to move for just enough, and Cerise managed to plunge her knife into this troll's shoulder and pull it out quickly. The blood that came out was actually teal, not reddish-brown like she thought. Weird! "Ehehehe, got you!" she said cheerfully, as they started to yell in surprise. "What the ********> The troll's eyes weren't colored, now that she was close to them, and they attempted to push her away and sputtered incredulously. "A h-hunter?"
"Nope!" she replied, and slashed her knife at their gut. They cringed hard and pulled back, causing her to miss her next swing. Oh no! They'd get away! They were holding their side with one hand and reaching for a long stick from their back. Was this dumb criminal gonna try to fight her off with a stick? She frowned, before it dawned on her this was probably a hunter, if they had a weapon too. Or maybe some rando who lived in the woods. Did it still count for her challenge? she wondered briefly.
She didn't get to think about that much before the other troll hit her hard with the stick, knocking her to the ground and making her drop her knife. She held her face for a second, and looked up to see them running away. Oops. She'd have to be more careful and get an actual criminal next time. Also, she was pretty lucky they ran off and didn't just kill her there. She must have spooked them good! Cerise giggled at that, and saw her lusus with her knife, staring vacantly at the trees. "Caima! Come here, give me that! I need to find a real criminal to stab, not just some idiot hunter with a stick," she said, and tugged her knife out of her lusus' mouth and wiped it clean on the wet grass. She'd need to be more clever if she really wanted to actually kill someone and not end up mince meat. With a sigh, she got back to her feet, dusting off her skirt. Don't get confused for a criminal.
----
Cerise wasn't the fastest troll, or the strongest, or even the smartest. She could be clever sometimes, in flashes of random genius. This however, was not one of those times. She'd bolted through the woods, trying to cover more ground and find someone, when her foot got caught in a rope snare, pulling her into a tree to leave her dangling upside down. She'd suppressed a scream, thankfully, but if there were traps, there was probably a hunter nearby who would come to check it. "Damn it," she muttered, sawing at the rope with her knife. Below, Caima was chewing on the tree and letting loose a high pitch whine. Cerise grit her teeth and hissed to her lusus. "You need to be quiet!"
The redblood cut through the rope, and dropped unceremoniously to the ground with a thud. Behind her, she heard gunshots. Lots of them. Someone was close! Her pumpbiscuit was pounding in excitement, and she shook off the rope from her foot. Okay, it was time to be serious! Cerise couldn't hold back a wide grin though, and followed the sound of the gunshots. She was tired of avoiding them. If they were there, it was probably because that's where all the dangerous criminals were!
She paused. If there was a lot of them like she thought because of all the gunshots, she'd be heavily disadvantaged with just her knife. Her eyes darted around the forest. She didn't see anyone coming yet, and Caima was keeping watch! The redblood was crouched, petting the small swampbeast lusus on the head, when she saw it. A plant with a small white flowers, in the space between two trees, distinct to her in a way that it wouldn't be to others. Cerise had a budding interest in toxicology and the poisons of Alternia, and of course she had a growing business she had to protect so she hadn't gotten the chance to really play around with it. She reached forward, pulling the plant out of the ground. Alternian hemlock. Poisonous to eat obviously, with an alkaloid toxin in it that caused mild paralysis of the respiratory system when it got in the bloodstream. It could give her just the edge she'd need!
Cerise placed the plant in her skirt and carefully crushed it between the fabric folds, running her knife along the inside to coat it with the plant's juices. She scraped the rest of the plant off of the dark stain on her skirt and made a mental note to try and avoid letting Caima eat her clothing later. Another gunshot sounded, and she spotted a troll running not 20 grubnuggets from her. Finally, this time she found a real criminal. She huffed and ran after them, Caima shuffling behind her. They looked a bit injured, but if that made it easier for her it wasn't her fault. As she got closer, she saw this troll was an adult for sure, yellowblooded. Bleeding heavily from gunshot wounds in the leg. Short hair, scruffy face and tired eyes. Not very muscular, somewhat on the skinny side. Her new target.
She tackled him to the ground with an oomph, and used her weight to keep the adult troll pinned down. He thrashed and grabbed at her hair and hands, surprisingly still energetic. "Hey, just stay still for a couple seconds, okay?" she said and laughed cheerfully. Caima skittered over and started chewing on the yellowblood's arm aggressively. "I just need to kill you real quick, so stop moving so much," Cerise said, pushing her knife down into her victim's chest cavity, having quite some difficulty as he struggled to push it away. "Get off! Go away!" the yellowblood spat, an annoying raspy voice, writhing like his life depended on it. His face was all sweaty and gross, and he was missing some teeth. She made a face at him and elbowed his stomach, which made the yellowblood jerk suddenly. She quickly slid the knife down, slicing him across the chest. Finally getting purchase, she raised her knife again and slammed it down, stabbing him again and finding it surprisingly easy. Kind of like cutting through hunks of meat, she supposed.
"Stop! S-stop!" the yellowblood cried in his whiny raspy voice. "I'll give you anything, please, j-just let me go!" Big yellow tears welled up in his eyes. He was starting to struggle a lot less now, weakening from the blood loss and exhaustion. "You're not a hunter right...? So you can just l-let me go..." He was rambling, begging. Super gross! And like Cerise was really going to give up here just because he asked? "It's too late! You're going to die, silly," she said with an eyeroll. "Because I'm killing you? Just shut up and die, okay? You're really annoying."
Suddenly, the yellowblood started flailing again, his arms grasping wildly to hold onto anything - pulling on her hair and scratching her face, before he finally grabbed Cerise by the neck. His fingers squeezed tightly, surprising her. She started to choke, unable to breathe now, pulling on his fingers with one hand and plunging her knife repeatedly into his arm with the other. She didn't expect him to fight so hard for his stupid life. She stabbed him harder and harder as her head felt light from the lack of oxygen. Die, die, die, she thought, and as soon as she did his fingers relaxed, and now the yellowblood was choking, clawing at his own throat as he foamed at the mouth. The poison! She grinned, giddy at finally winning. She did it! She stared at the dying troll's face, eyes rolling into the back of his head as his twitching became more random. Cerise got off of him, wiping blood off of her face, when she heard another gunshot behind her.
Too close behind. She whipped around, to see an adult greenblood with a shotgun resting on her shoulder. Her face was smug and she leaned her chin into her hand. "Well, well, well, what do I have here?" she said, taking a few steps forward on her long legs. Beside her, the adult had her lusus - some kind of hoofbeast with several legs and a cubic body. It moved like a spider, neighing menacingly. Cerise grinned, not about to be intimidated by some leggy grown up who couldn't even shoot a criminal to death. "Looks like you got a whole lotta nothing," she answered with a laugh, a hand on her chubby cheeks. "I killed this bozo, not you!"
The greenblood frowned at that. "That was my kill, you petulant brat. Who the ******** are you anyway that you're stealing kills from Leaggs Akimbo? I'm not the kind of troll who lets chunky pipsqueaks get away with s**t like this," she said, cocking her gun with one hand. Cerise couldn't hide her smile, and shrugged, knife still in hand. "I'm Cerise. I just had to kill a dude, and he was the easiest one! Go get your own or something, or can you seriously not handle a kid killing one of your super precious criminals?" she said, kicking the yellowblood's corpse. He stopped moving a while ago, which she guessed meant he really was dead. She kind of thought her first time killing someone would be a bit more exciting in the end, but it didn't feel particularly special. The poison thing was pretty neat though! She wondered if Frossa would think it was cool too. But she did it, didn't she? She could do anything, just like she said she could!
Leaggs' face twisted in anger, and she aimed her gun at Cerise. "I'd learn when to shut up if I was you, kid," she said. She didn't like being told what to do, and besides, did she not just see she killed this guy? Cerise charged at Leaggs, knife brandished. She could probably kill another stupid adult easy. She swung a wide arc, slicing the symbol on Leaggs' shirt. The greenblood knocked Cerise on the head hard with the butt of her gun, and grabbed her by the arm. Cerise felt dazed but she wasn't giving up just yet, and stabbed wildly into the adult's arm, before Leaggs let go. Caima was biting the adult's legs, Cerise saw and stifled a giggle. Green blood was spilling down Leaggs' arm and splashing Cerise, and she wondered if there was still poison on her knife, and if it would start to take effect. Her mind was racing with possibilities, what she could do next... Leaggs kicked her, shaking off Caima in the process, and raised her gun again.
She fired down at Cerise's legs messily, watching her fall backward onto the ground in shock. An orange flare blazed in the clear sky and Leaggs put her gun back on her shoulder, giving Cerise another smug smile. "Someone else can deal with you. You're dead dumbass, so be seeing you never!" the greenblood hissed, whistling for her lusus. Cerise gaped as the greenblood left, the pain in her leg hard to comprehend. She wasn't going to die, that was impossible! She couldn't die! And if Leaggs' wasn't a coward she could have killed her too, she thought bitterly. She had trouble thinking straight, so many thoughts in her head leaving just as quickly as they came.
First things first. Cerise looked over at the yellowblood's corpse. It was stiff and weirdly pale, the face contorted in pain, but it was hers now. She earned it! Her legs were surprisingly okay, when she inspected them. They hurt but the bullets were shallow, and most seemed to just graze her, and she watched the blood seep out of the wounds slowly. Seemed like she had s**t aim too. What a loser. Did she think she could kill her?
Cerise got on her knees when she paused. She realized something. She could have died. She had a gun to her face and hands wrapped around her throat, she'd fought with two separate adults (two and half, if she considered that tealblood she stabbed earlier). The yellowblood had leg wounds too, and that was how she managed to catch up with him and take him out. Was that Leaggs' plan? She breathed heavily. The redblood had no idea where she was, the forest was full of both dangerous criminals and hunters alike and she was a lowblood. Don't get confused for a criminal. She clenched her fists, tears welling up in her eyes. That wasn't right. She wouldn't let that happen. She'd stop herself from ever being confused for anything she wasn't, and she'd make sure she never died. Cerise was mortal now, but she remembered a certain glowing woman who said she owed her a favor.
"Caima, help me carry this meatbag," she said, pulling on the yellowblood's arms. Caima obliged, putting her head under the body and wagging her tail excitedly. "No no, just carry. No eating," she said, and felt something strange bubble up inside of her. She giggled, and started to cackle, unable to hold back. "Ehehehe! Frossa might be disappointed by that too, but too bad! He's my corpse!" Cerise was excited. She'd done it!
She'd have quite a story for Frossa when she got back, she thought as she dragged the body through the woods. She'd like to see her beat that.
Hivestuck aaaand 3k words later... done!
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