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An Army

Chel having only daggers, reaching her targets was hard. It seemed like every time she reached forward to slice one, it was already falling and dissipating. Then she realized that no, it wasn't coincidence at all.

"Monkey!"

Aly gave a victorious holler from the trees.

HP: 28/50
DMG: 0
Tally: 12
Mob HP: 30

An Army

Jack encountered the same problem and cursed under his breath as someone else stole his kills. (He swore Wren winked at him in passing when it was her turn to piss him off.) Owain pointed out a silver lining: at least this was a lot easier to deal with than the time with Lex and Abbi, right? Think of it as a warm up.

Except warm ups meant something worse was on the horizon, the Lifer pointed out. No, the true silver lining was that he'd have the perfect excuse to take his meal away from everyone else at the end of this; for once, sucking worked to his advantage.


HP: 20
Damage: 2
Tally: 10
Mob HP: 3

oh god

jack, chel, wren, aly, jerome, emil, serah

An Army

Chel just threw her daggers down. "Oh come on! Mario Kart wasn't enough?" But the exasperation in her voice was easily masked by gentle amusement. "You got ******** 61 a*****e." Chel didn't go back on her word. Fifty points was fifty points.

Aly and Serah were slowly slithering out of their trees, and Emil and Jerome were slowly slinking over too. Now everyone was covered in blue blood and disappointment thanks to Jack.

"17!" Aly pointed out, raising her hand.

"15," Serah responded sourly.

Jerome looked at his hands and admitted, "Only 11 ..."

"16," was Emil's cheeky response.

"Though I guess we could always make Jordan and Talia take the ground for not bein' here ..."

It was oddly Serah that responded somewhat mirthfully, "That's cheating."

Chel took the opportunity to kick off her shoes on the rock and said, "You guys up for a pool party?" Regardless of if anyone joined her, she intended to dip in the water anyways. She was tired of the blue substance all over her clothes. She left her pants on, but the shirt came off so as to better wash it in the water. By the time she was knee deep her teeth were chattering, but she was determined to wash her shirt and jacket at least. The camp wasn't too far away and Tenebrae assured her the threat of hypothermia was less than 10 percent.

"Just d-do it all at once!" At some point Aly had joined her and dunked herself under the water before running out and shouting about how cold it was. Chel had to snort at her enthusiasm, at least.

An Army

Wren was quickly going from sexy science babe to talks too much nerd stuff babe.

Chel knew there was no hope for her jacket, so she did her best to wring it out and lay it over a rock. Her shirt was rung out as best she could, and eventually placed on a rock as well.

"Okay ... here goes nothing," she muttered before sticking her entire face into the water. She came out gasping and wiping the blood off her face before doing it again. "s**t it's so cold." But Chel looked happy enough.

Jerome waved at everyone and began walking back on his own. Emil had already mysteriously disappeared (nobody really minded though), while Serah hung around to very carefully scrub her clothing without actually entering the water. While Chel was annoyed by Wren's chattering, Serah seemed all too happy to talk the history of the land. That's what she had done on the way up the mountainside anyways.

Which left Chel to sit on the bank and make idle talk with Jack. "I'm glad you're here," she said quietly, only enough for him to hear. "I missed ya." Which made the second time Chel had told Jack she'd missed him with no favor returned.

Aly began walking back towards the walkway, but Chel noticed she was off-kilter. It garnered enough of her interest to stand up. "Oy pigtails, you okay?"

"Ah- fine! Fine!"

"You sprained yerself comin' down from the tree again didn't you."

"... I think so."

Chel sighed, rolling her eyes and looking back at Jack. "She reminds me of Abbi, y'know?"

Then Chel gathered up her clothing and hobbled over to Aly, intending to offer the girl a ride. "C'mon, can't have you walkin' back on yer busted s**t." Chel bent down and Aly climbed onto her back, awkwardly avoiding touching the bra straps or anything remotely boob. "Hold my stuff at least, ya freeloader," she grumbled, but not without warmth while holding her wet clothing up. Again Chel looked back to Jack. "Comin'?"

Domestic

Chel's clothes now dangled from a clothesline Emil had made back at the camp. She'd set Aly down with a "don't move" and went into her tent to grab her last remaining clean shirt. She didn't have any other clean jackets though, which meant she was wearing a bundle of jackets with dry, crusted blood on them here and there. Chel didn't mind but she also didn't have a choice- it was nearing the middle of winter and it was cold in China. They had heaters sure, but there was only so much you could do without electricity.


When she emerged from the tent, Talia announced that she wanted a fire and that it was Jerome's turn to get firewood, when no in fact it was not. When the two butted heads, Jordan sent them both to get the wood, problem solved.

Chel took to bandaging Aly, a task that was two clicks too uncomfortable now that Jack was around, because it just made her think of all the times she had bandaged Jack or he had bandaged her. Her bracelet began beeping partway through as if to remind her.

It seemed like everything had grown strange now that Jack was here. She'd been enjoying her time quite a bit, and it wasn't to say she didn't still enjoy it with Jack's presence, but now she felt like she was in an awkward limbo and didn't know where to put herself. Of course she wanted to spend time with Jack, but it almost felt like the setting was both too professional and too relaxed to approach him. Combined with his broody nature, she didn't know where to start.

She didn't ignore him (she continuously snuck glances) so much as she avoided him for most of the night because she wasn't sure where he wanted her to be. Did he want friendly normal Chel? Did he want standoffish co-workers? She didn't know, so she volunteered to get the firewood, she volunteered for perimeter guard, she volunteered to help Emil load the runics for tomorrow-

Until dinner came when it was unavoidable. They were having more MREs- surprise!- but now it at least came with a nice fire.

"This chair feels so nice," Aly taunted.

"Yeah, yeah," Chel said at Aly's feet. She had grown somewhat attached to the girl. "Eat it up pigtails." The group laughed at Chel's expense, but leaning against Jerome she didn't feel quite so lonely. She looked up at Jack and Wren, and asked, "So you guys got any scary stories?" The whole group seemed to lean in vicariously. It was actually kind of cute how every hunter was excitably interested. "We ran out on the fourth day I think."

Domestic

Chel set down her finished dinner, standing up and stretching herself out a bit, pulling up her pants and altogether adjusting herself for a long story.

"Nothin' too gorey," she warned. "s**t ain't scary if you just describe it's insides. You gotta build suspense." She let Wren begin her story while Chel gathered up her MRE bags and shoved them into one of the trashbags they'd set up.

Instead of sitting down at Aly's feet again, Chel nudged the side of Jack's head with her hand, leaning over him and draping some of her pink hair onto his shoulders. "You gotta tell us if she's lyin' too."