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"Zeta Four."

Her voice was almost swallowed up by the wind as she ran past him, urging him to follow her in a dual attack against the monster horse, not bothering to look back to see if he followed. She was already lifting her mace as she ran, using the momentum of her body to swing it high, ready to deal another blow to a foe who looked not only foreboding, but impossible to defeat. It had been a suicide mission -- she could see it now, in the rational part of her mind: the cell phone's messages were designed to weed out the ones with a lust for blood. The strong and murderous and stupid and brave would die, those who would not provide any entertainment or new information, whose brains were too warped beyond imagine for this 'experiment', and the meek would survive, and would be forced to kill each other. It sounded like some perverse sport.

The attack, however, was cut short. Swinging her mace hard into the sand to prevent the attack she was about to commit, she half skidded in the sand, stumbling a few steps as she slowed, straightening as she stopped. The proposition coaxed her to lift her masked face towards the monster, peering at him before turning back to where the others had gathered, slowly heading towards them and plucking her mace out of the sand as she walked by, her calm having returned.

"I agree."

Zeta Eight's voice didn't lift above her normal tone or range as she spoke up in response to Alpha One, whom had somehow become the one she conceded to follow -- a rather notable accomplishment, all things considered. She offered no rational, listening with a stony silence as they mentioned their opinions, her mask shifting to face the speaker as they all piped up. It lingered on Zeta Four as his voice wavered, protesting to a sacrifice, but it was gone with the next speaker, not revealing her feelings on the matter beyond her agreement. She did, however, take a moment to focus her attention on Alpha Five, her hand tightening on her mace a little threateningly.

Zeta Six backed near Zeta Ten as he heard the great beast speak. "It talks?!" He hadn't been that surprised yet, but to have the monsters here talk? His mind was reeling so hard he nearly fell, but regained himself and stood near the girl who had nearly took his head off earlier with a missed bullet. A death, already? He looked at the mixed bodies of orange and red facing the creature.

Would they attack anyone? Would they turn on the other team? Was one death worth the 20 plus more standing in the vicinity? He sighed slowly. Yes. But who would be the first? His team, he trusted them enough... if all 12 worked together they get out, but would they honor that, honor their fellow Zeta?

"Straws are pointless." he muttered. "Do you really expect people to be civil in a survival setting?!" He shook his head. "Anyone could get close enough for someone to slice them up if we all bunch up to take straws."

He finished his thought and moved further to Ten's die, standing near her, with bated breath, watching through his eye holes. He was prepared to move if it was necessary. He could only hope that Zeta Ten would be with him and the team.

"Just kill the damn beast if you have to."

A-Two lurked behind A-Seven, her hands still shaking - she had been entirely ineffectual in the battle, having dropped her weapon in terror at the first sight of the beast. Which... kind of disgusted her, honestly. She couldn't remember anything, like the rest of them... but the person she had once been was that weak in comparison to the rest?

Her fists clenched at her sides. She didn't want to die here. "Like, what if the straws pick you, A-One? Are you still going to be, like, okay with that then?"

Z5 jumped falling back and nearly hitting himself with his mace once again when the monster spoke. He paled under his mask. Murder? Kill someone else just to get out alive? That... that was insane. The creature showed no signs of joking.

He felt sick as he lurched to his feet. They had to group up...twenty against one and murder someone. What sick twisted place was this? The pain on his cheek had long dashed any hopes of this being one ******** up dream. It was real and that dread was growing by the moment.

Sticks sounded good but...even then if someone cheated... There was no doubt that someone here was willing to kill another in the blink of an eye. They'd been ready to blow each others' heads off from the start. He didn't want to be a solider anymore. He wanted to... figure out where home was and hide there but he doubted the horse would let any of them escape. It didn't even flinch when it was hit.

Someone was going to die. It didn't matter what anyone said or did. Someone would die. Panic began to rise somewhere deep inside of him. Not him. He couldn't die. He couldn't just die because some stupid horse made them. Suspicion went from member to member as he backed up. One of them could just forget the plan and lash out.

His fingers twitched as he picked his mace carefully off the ground. He stumbled forward behaving like he was going to get sick. Zeta Seven had been causing trouble. He'd been picking fights. He was even told to watch him.

It stood to reason... he was the weak link. He stood behind him, shaking as he lifted up his mace. No one was going to get anywhere. No one was going to get anywhere until someone struck. Otherwise the monster would just fry them all and call it done.

He looked up at his leader slowly. The weak link could go. Right? His presence was asking, begging for an order.

Zeta Ten kept a close eye on Zeta Six, listening to his rationale, agreeing that a talking horse was wrong. It wanted a death, one death out of all of them, and they were already talking about trying to find a civil way of handling it.

"I don't think drawing straws would be a bad idea, in any situation where a life isn't on the line." She looked at Zeta Six again, then at the giant pony. "Fighting it doesn't seem to be working, but no one would willingly sacrifice themselves because they got the short straw, would they?"

There had to be another way around this, the only problem was nothing they had done so far had worked and none of them had anything besides what they carried. "Unless someone willingly sacrifices themselves to this, I don't want any part of it," she decided, though not loudly enough for anyone besides Z Six to hear her.

Expectedly, A7 found the method of drawing straws to be fair. None of them had any huge problems with each other, yet - which means any of them could be a liability. Or a valuable asset.

As A1 answered A2's question, A7 felt a surge of pride. Now that was a leader. He quickly straightened up, though he managed to slowly push both A2 and A10 behind him, as if keeping them out of sight might save them from being chosen.

"Straws is fair. There's nothing personal about it. Since we don't know each other personally, it's the only way. Besides, whoever gets chosen doesn't need to go along with it. I can assure you, there are enough of us willing to finish the job when it needs to be done."

Behind his mask, a-4 frowned something fierce at the horse's demand, and then at the discussion of holding a lottery of sorts to see who gets to die. He's pretty sure there's a story about that sort of thing somewhere...probably a right depressing one at that. "Now see here, you lot, there's only one pendant right? Well, don't take this personally, but I'd be dicked in the knob to just cark it so a bunch of balmy chuffers can fight over who gets a bit of important flim-flam." He harrumphed a bit and crossed his arms, "Damned uncivilized."