Ergo War generated a random number between
60 and 150 ...
98!
Ergo War
Enduring Guildsman
Offline
Posted: Thu May 18, 2017 8:08 pm
Peace awoke with a start to the sound of footsteps on the mountain nearby. They came from the direction of the clearing where she'd been carving her name into the mountain, and after a few minutes she heard some voices belonging to a fairly casual, braggadocious group of young men, accompanied by maybe one or two women of similar nature. Peace peeked out of her sleeping pit to assess the situation and counted up the silhouettes that she could make out against the sky, lightening as it was as dawn came on. She saw about a dozen of them, maybe slightly under. They appeared to be checking out her handiwork, but not in an appreciative way; no, one of them was taking a leak on it, and another was starting to tag it with what appeared to be spray paint.
This was terrible. These ne'er-do-wells were not only disrespecting all of her hard work they looked like they intended to set up shop in her territory. She didn't really understand who they were or why they'd decided to ignore her declaration of ownership, but this had to stop. She climbed out of her pit and stomped her way up to the clearing. She kicked the nearest person in the back of the knee, but slightly misjudged the distance due to the time of day and ended up barely grazing them with her foot. They yelped in surprise--as though she hadn't been plenty noisy, she scoffed silently--and managed to elbow her straight in the forehead. While she was regaining her footing, they tried to grab her and push her to the ground, but she managed to wrestle them down and landed a solid hit to the gut. That was one of almost a dozen down.
Attracted to the sound of a fight like moths to the flame, half of the remaining group charged her. Two of them tried to hold her still while the others wailed on her, but Peace managed to dig her feet in and halt their advance. While that did little to protect her from their comrades, it did give her the leverage to take them out of commission for a while. The one on her right managed to hold her arm steady enough to avoid getting a punch to the solar plexus, but the one on her left was not so lucky and ended up a crumpled heap on the ground. She swung her now-freed left hand wildly toward one of the other attackers and managed to graze their nose, which bent weirdly. Next she tried to swing it for her other captor, but whiffed horribly and ended up with both of her arms in their custody, all while three people were taking turns punching and kicking her. Their attacks were starting to get annoying, as was the person holding her arms. She had to get rid of that one first.
In perhaps the smartest idea she would have all day, Peace grabbed the guy's arms and charged him straight into a tree. He slammed into it hard, at which point she got enough freedom of movement to punch each of his arms. He fell to the ground screaming, which freed her up to take on her other attackers. After exchanging a few blows--she was holding back, after all, since they appeared to just be normal people--she managed to get a clean hit off on one of their jaws, smacked another in the gut, and swapped headshots with the last one, an exchange that she naturally won.
That left the other half of the group. Rightfully intimidated by her might, they decided to skip the pleasantries and produced a number of small arms, ranging from knives to--in one case--a small caliber handgun. She immediately went after the one with the gun and shattered their hand with a solid punch before they could react. Then, as they opened their mouth to scream, she planted her other fist squarely in their teeth and laid them out with a headbutt. Four to go.
One of them rushed her with a knife as their weapon, a threat she responded to fairly succinctly by punching straight through the cheap blade and into them. The last two foes opted to take a ranged approach and started chucking rocks and other debris at her while running away. She returned the favor for one of them, opting to chuck the gun at them. It hit them square in the face and caused them to fall into her sleeping pit. She charged the other one down, having the upper hand in a chase despite the darkness due to her familiarity with the terrain. They took a tumble and she landed a solid dropkick on them, immediately knocking them out. To finish up the job, she returned to her sleeping pit and dragged the last remaining combatant out kicking and screaming.
Then, just as she was about to deal with that last person, she felt very heavy. She sank to her knees and let the person go, who then cried out to someone they called "Weight Lifter". Peace thought it was an odd name, but didn't press the issue. Then it became even stranger when she saw the person the moniker belonged to: a thin teenage girl who looked like she'd never even lifted a weight in her life. Well, Peace wasn't going to have any of that. She tried to reach toward the girl--who was now taunting her barely a foot away--but could hardly lift her arm more than a few inches. It wasn't that it was heavy, though, but it felt like her clothes were being actively dragged downward.
Peace endured several minutes' worth of taunts there on the ground, trying to think of a way out of this bind. She couldn't lift her arm enough to swat at Weight Lifter, but occasionally it felt like she was suddenly lighter for a second. That probably meant the weight had a time limit on it, but she was having trouble getting the timing down. It took her almost twenty minutes to actually get it right, but the punch she launched toward her taunter missed terribly, soaring wildly off course as the weight returned. What she did manage to do, though, was grab the girl's wrist. Peace's iron grip held fast as the weight snapped her arm downward, dragging the girl with her. The two of them collided and collapsed in a heap. All of a sudden, Weight Lifter also couldn't get up for the life of her, at least not until the time limit passed; after that, though, Peace managed to pin her to the ground.
Three sets of footsteps were approaching. Peace looked toward the source of the sound and saw the last remaining combatant flanked by the two police officers from the nearby outpost. Things quickly swung in Peace's favor without her having to speak when they noticed Weight Lifter, who was apparently wanted for vandalism, assault, and a few other crimes. Apparently she would use her power to hold people still while she beat them up or trashed their homes or businesses in front of them. For good measure, Peace knocked her out before handing her over along with the rest of her squad.
After getting paid for her hard work, Peace spent the rest of the day relaxing for the most part. She did a bit more work on her letters and righted what the gang had wronged, then waded into the river and caught fish by hand for dinner. She had a lot of fun with the latter, as she would punch the fish to stun them and then grab them when they floated to the surface. It was an enjoyable little game. After eating, she promptly went to bed.
Peace was honestly kind of surprised how good the weather had been. While it was gray out, there was little wind--that had all passed overnight--and there was almost no rain. To top it all off, she remembered it was Thursday, so she shouldn't do anything to get too dirty before heading to her martial arts class. Instead, she made a day out of hunting down various small animals, making a point of doing so far from the mountain she'd been inhabiting. Starting in the morning, she trekked out almost two hours into the wilderness and prowled the area for any unsuspecting critters she could eat. She managed to catch a small rabbit, but as that wouldn't be enough to fill her up, she also scavenged up some berries on the way back. After preparing the rabbit and eating the berries, she noticed the sun was starting to get low, so she stoked a fire and set her catchings to roast in the coals while she washed her arms and feet in the river and headed to class.
Accalia was lounging about underneath and old oak tree when her phone buzzed with an incoming call. With her me time now interrupted she sighed before looking at the incoming number. One of her pack. "Where are? I'll come to you and teach the little s**t some respect." She was pissed to put it lightly. They had their territory for a reason and she knew that the Wardens wouldn't worry about anybody who was in it anyway. Their treaty stood, and so that b*****d Stephen better have something good to offer up.
Philipwn
Sorry for the wait, got caught up with some things
Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 5:26 am
Gilgamesh frowned... Where was he... a surprisingly good question. He'd never really thought about his location in terms of anything other than his territory before. It was unlikely, however that "the southern edge of my territory" would be an acceptable answer here... what to do. Ah! Of course, this phone he was using, it had mapping programs and whatnot in it. Gilgamesh didn't know whether to smile at his solution, or be embarrassed that it took him that long to think of it. Regardless, he quickly found his GPS coordinates in the phone and rattled them off to Accalia.
"And once you get there look for the tallest tree at the bottom of the hill. We're spending some quality time underneath it. And don't worry, our friend here-" here Gilgamesh stepped on Stephen's spine again, eliciting another shriek of pain "isn't going anywhere. I'm fairly certain I broke his spine, and tumbling down the hill didn't do that particular injury any favors. I'll see you soon."
His call placed, Gilgamesh once again tied Stephen to a tree, much tighter this time, and settled in to wait in one of the branches above him. This was going to be interesting, he found himself smiling in anticipation as he waited.
The woman supposed it couldn't be helped. Asserting dominance and control of their territory was essential to maintaining their way of life. With that in mind she quickly transformed into a wolf state and climbed to her feet. Without much effort she was off and running through the wilderness. It wouldn't be terribly long before she arrived at the location provided by Gil. Her nostrils sniffed the air in what could probably be said to be an act of intimidation. The wolf was large and it could probably easily devour the captured man with ease. However instead of remaining that way, she merely shifted back to normal. "That the ******** class="spoiler-wrapper spoiler-hidden">
Philipwn
Posted: Sun May 21, 2017 8:01 pm
Gilgamesh smiled as the wolf approached. Truthfully, he wasn't entirely able to suppress the primal fear in the presence of such a large predator. Sometimes he thought the more primitive part of his brain was more active than it was for other people, especially since his trigger event. Regardless, he wasn't about to let any of that fear show. Especially not in his own territory in front of one of the few people he held some amount of respect for. And damn sure not in front of the whining piece of garbage behind him. He'd put quite a bit of work into his reputation recently, and it wouldn't do to ruin that now.
"Yyeah-" Gil was angered again here by an involuntary reaction; a squeaking of his voice. Damn being fifteen. "Um, yes. This is the guy. He had another with him, paying for his services, but I was a little bit rougher with him. I broke that toy thoroughly enough I had to put it back in the box. He was a murderer though, so maybe the Wardens can be relied upon to do something right for once and take care of him for us."
Gilgamesh leapt from the tree, landing next to Accalia, facing Stephen. Mostly recovered from his earlier fear and pubescent episode, he tilted his hat to look into his eyes and adopted his best intimidating expression.
"What would you like to do with him? I'm all for teaching the idiot a lesson, but his power might be helpful. Tracks people's footsteps for the past several days. Might be more useful to keep him."
Gilgamesh's look darkened as his smile widened and he tipped his hat to look into Stephen's eyes.
"not necessarily keep him happy or even keep him healthy, but keep him."
Naomi Tenkou
Philipwn
Offline
Ergo War generated a random number between
60 and 150 ...
140!
Ergo War
Enduring Guildsman
Offline
Posted: Sun May 21, 2017 10:58 pm
Peace sat quietly next to her campfire after a long morning of gathering food and water. The hunting was practically nonexistent that day, so she had resorted to eating only the various fruits and berries she could carry back to her camp. It was frustrating not having meat, but she had to deal with it. While the day was warm, the breeze was much colder than was usually tolerable, so she found herself sitting in front of the fire for warmth even though the sunlight warmed her skin considerably. It was then, as she huddled in front of the campfire and chewed through a particularly squelchy piece of fruit, that she heard several pairs of footsteps approaching.
What lumbered through the trees shocked Peace considerably. It was a small group of city folk, no doubt about it, but they were carrying two coolers with two sets of antlers and deer pelts tied on top. Their leader was a rough-looking young lady who couldn't have been older than twenty, armored with a hardened leather cuirass, arm guards, and leg guards. Her hair was long and tied back, and a scar that ran from her lips down to her right shoulder showed that she had seen some terrible action in her time. She halted at the edge of Peace's camp and introduced herself as Razor.
Razor was trying to start up a gang of her own and had heard of a mysterious woman who had taken out several low-ranking members in some of the gangs in her area of the city. That woman, she determined, was the very same one who lived on the mountain that now read "PEACE". When she determined Peace could not communicate--which she did faster than any other city dweller she'd encountered--she began to refer to her as "Peace" and jumped straight to the point: Razor wanted the opportunity to fight Peace, with a prize of two deers' worth of pelts, antlers, and meat, as well as the bounty on Razor's head. If Razor won, she would leave with only the prestige afforded by beating a small-time pain in the sides of the other gangs. Oh, and her squad would be providing her with backup, but they would be unarmed.
Peace pretended to think about the proposition before she accepted. Truthfully, the only things in her head were visions of delicious venison dishes served on a pelt tablecloth. She had fought plenty of people recently, so she wasn't too worried.
Razor took up a post on one side of the mountaintop well away from the engraving Peace had been doing, with Peace on the other side of the mountaintop and Razor's five-person posse in between them. Razor timed out the beginning of the match, at which point only one of her lackeys charged Peace. The rest fanned out around her, leaving a path straight between the mountain dweller and the challenger. Peace took out that first attacker in one hit, but was caught off guard when another one jumped on her back and held her arms still. At this point, another charged in and punched her in the cheek as hard as they could, resulting in little more than a jerking of her head. Nevertheless, they had effectively neutered her capacity to attack until she broke free of the one on her back. With a tremendous stomp, she pivoted on one foot and jumped backward into the attacker, slamming into them with the one on her back. The three of them fell into a heap on the ground, at which point she wrestled free of the one on her back, grabbed them by the shirt and belt, and hurled them into another approaching attacker. Those two went for a tumble down the side of the mountain, eventually coming to a sudden stop against a boulder.
The one who had punched her was still intent on ruining her day, it seemed. They grabbed her ankle and pulled, thereby setting her off-balance. It was then that she felt a prickling sensation on her stomach. When she looked down, she saw a shallow slash mark, but before she could think about it much, the assailant at her feet had grabbed her other ankle and was holding her in place while the only remaining members of Razor's posse ran up for a tackle. Peace, forgoing any fancy counters, simply punched the tacklers, stopping them in their tracks and winding them badly enough for a second attack to knock them out cold. It was all remarkably symmetric, though she didn't realize as much. The one at her feet got a fist to the arm for his trouble, then a heel to the face.
Another wound opened up, this time running the length of Peace's calf. It was deeper than the previous one and caused her to lose her footing and slip. As she collected herself, she saw a brief flash of light collide with and scatter across her arm. She looked toward the source and saw only Razor looking through her interwoven fingers at Peace. Peace picked herself up and raised a hand toward her opponent just in time for another flash of light to hit her hand and disperse into sparks. She wasn't sure what was happening, but next thing she knew, a new wound had opened up on her heretofore uninjured leg. Her clothes remained intact, but she could feel the sting of a wound under them.
Not knowing what to do, Peace charged. A shard of pain buried itself in her fist as she wound up to punch Razor in the gut, but she let her fist fly nonetheless. It collided with the armor with a heavy thud, sending Razor sliding backward. That wasn't the end of it, though, and Peace soon felt a new wound opening on her stomach. She charged again, this time feeling a slash of pain across her chest, but once again managing to land a solid punch. This time, Razor was brought to her knees, gasping for air and dry heaving from the force of the impact. She surrendered.
Peace had won the day, though she had a few injuries to show for it. None of them were particularly deep, but she cleaned and dressed the major ones nonetheless while Razor gathered up her posse and waited. The visitors averted their eyes and stared off into the middle distance when Peace started to treat her chest wound, despite the fact that she wasn't angled to show them anything even if she were to completely remove her top. After all that was said and done, she claimed her reward. Razor even offered to pay Peace for letting her lackeys go, evidently expecting she would turn down the offer and looking mildly upset when that didn't happen. The police were getting used to seeing Peace come out of the forest with someone in tow, but usually the person wasn't so well-behaved. Things got sorted out rather quickly with them and she was granted the bounty in short order. Afterward, she plodded back up to her camp and started to cook up some of her hard-won meat with a deer pelt wrapped around her torso for warmth.
A light rain graced the earth with its life-giving moisture. No one had come to bother Peace all day, which meant she had been extraordinarily productive and the integrity of her poncho hadn't been compromised by combat. By lunchtime she had finished stabilizing the outlines of her letters and had moved on to scouting out locations with large quantities of rocks. She'd need a lot of gravel to fill up her letters, so she had to smash a lot of very large rocks into much smaller rocks to be efficient about it. She managed to find a fairly large boulder overlooking a cliff on a mountain only a few miles away from her campsite, and while transporting the rock would be a pain, she didn't really mind the extra work. After lunch, she jogged over to that magnificent boulder and gradually dug out the ground around it until she could easily roll it free. It hit the ground with a satisfying crack that sounded like breaking pottery, bursting into hundreds of shards. She then used the bark from a fallen tree to create a makeshift sled, which she used to drag the gravel back toward her camp. She wound up deciding to create a pile at the bottom of her mountain just to save time.
It was after a couple hours of hard labor that she remembered she had her martial arts class to attend, and in a panic she grabbed her things and ran off toward the city, hoping to make it on time.
"PEACE" carved into mountainside. "PEACE" Stabilization: 100%. Gravel Creation: 31%.
Ergo War
Enduring Guildsman
Offline
Ergo War
Enduring Guildsman
Offline
Posted: Mon May 22, 2017 8:46 pm
Peace slowly meandered back up to her camp after her class, her poncho flapping wildly in the fierce winds ripping through the mountainside. Her meal that evening was a stick of venison that she'd left to cook in her campfire while she shored up the walls of her pit sleeping area. It was getting colder out, so she tied her deer pelts around herself for warmth, one about her shoulders and head like a shawl and the other around her waist. They helped tremendously, especially with the poncho keeping her dry and shielding her from some of the wind. As soon as she ate, she went to bed.
Posted: Mon May 22, 2017 9:13 pm
The rains of the previous day served as the harbingers of cooler temperatures. Peace woke up feeling a chill in the air, but it was nowhere near the severity of the cold snap that had nearly frozen her to her core earlier that month. When she climbed out of her sleeping pit, she found that the wind had calmed and the rain had stopped, but also quickly realized she had gotten up well before dawn due to the cold, so she stoked a roaring fire to keep warm and leaned back against the fallen trees that fenced in her camp. She fell in and out of sleep until late morning, when she finally awoke fully, ate breakfast, and headed out into the wilderness in search of more boulders to break apart.
Her morning excursion wasn't fruitful, but in the afternoon she found a particularly rocky mountain with a sharp downward drop on one side. By about the time she would usually eat dinner, she had dug out a particularly large boulder and was trying to get it rolling. It took her four attempts before she managed to get the rock rolling, but when she did, a considerable amount of the mountain started to shift and fall away. Realizing almost immediately that she'd caused a minor landslide, Peace sprinted in the opposite direction and barely managed to escape being dragged down with the boulders. On the plus side, she had managed to create more than enough gravel; on the downside, she now had to dig it out before transporting it. With a heavy sigh, she made the trek back to camp, ate yet another meal of venison, and went to sleep next to a crackling fire.
Ergo War generated a random number between
100 and 200 ...
161!
Ergo War
Enduring Guildsman
Offline
Posted: Tue May 23, 2017 6:31 pm
There was something incredibly off about the campsite that chilly Monday morning. Peace couldn't quite place what it was, but it felt like she was being watched even though she couldn't find anyone or anything in the vicinity. Perhaps it was the freezing cold temperatures making her paranoid, or maybe the continued beatings she'd been taking were wearing on her. She huddled around her campfire with a mouthful of venison painted with some smashed strawberries, wondering how she'd transport gravel to the letters she'd carved into the mountainside.
Then she heard someone's voice. Then another person's. They were getting closer. She braced for impact, but only saw two teenage kids high off their own bravado as they swaggered up toward her campsite. One of them nudged the other, said something about her that she couldn't quite hear, then started picking a fight, saying he was going to burn down her forest or something like that if she didn't let them kill her. Peace was, of course, confused by the proposition, since the kids didn't look like they were strong enough to do anything to her and she was pretty unclear as to their motivation. As she pondered the situation, she realized one of them was counting down for some reason. When that one reached zero, the other one jumped forward and slugged her right in the cheek. Curiously, it felt like a fairly normal punch for someone of their size and stature, which meant that they had probably hit super hard. She swung back, but the other one pulled the puncher out of the way, the latter sneering as it happened. Well, she got the puncher with her next punch, after which she managed to get a glancing blow on the other one. For as much bravado as they'd put off earlier, they sure went down easy enough, Peace silently remarked.
She hauled them down to the police outpost without too much difficulty, where she learned that these two punk kids had been picking fights with parahumans, with one of them using precognitive abilities to plan out the fight and the other wielding attacks that ignored parahuman defenses. Well, that's the gist of what they said, anyway. One of them went into way too much detail for her to comprehend it all, but she was at least mostly sure that's how it worked.
After that light workout, she spent the rest of the day hauling gravel to keep warm, adding it to her pile at the bottom of the mountain. She was starting to wonder how everyone kept finding her on her mountain, especially since it wasn't like she had a permanent address or anything. That, she guessed, would be the subject of an investigation at a later date.
Truly, the invention of the cooler had been revolutionary. The dang thing was a box that latched shut to keep out varmints, a functionality Peace had been sorely lacking. If only the people who'd delivered it to her hadn't been reprehensible louts only looking for a fight, she might have had to thank them. It was thanks to that piece of innovative technology that she was able to haul gravel in peace.
Once again she fashioned a sled to haul the rock, but this time she used the hollowed-out inside of a fallen tree. Naturally, she'd had to cut it down to a length where she could feasibly drag it, but luckily for her much of it had already started rotting away, making that a relatively simple task. After hauling her rocks to her campsite, she started dumping them into the letters and slightly pressing them into the mud from the day's rain so they wouldn't move around quite so much.
After filling up a solid third of the letters, Peace remembered she had martial arts practice that day, and so took an early lunch and cleaned herself in the river to relax. It was a decision she regretted due to the cool temperatures, but she didn't want to be turned away at the door again. Afterward, she headed toward the city for her class.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Gil. Something he said was most likely the cause, though if she were angry or upset with him it would wait until the present company was dealt with. Pack business was always handled after outside ears were gone. Wasn't good to look disjointed in front of outsiders. Still the boy's catch was a good one, if it acquiesced to a new position in life. Stepping up to the man on the ground she uncaringly put a heavy boot on his arm while staring down at him. "So tell me, you gonna work from the bottom and maybe become something or are ya gonna become worm food?" In essence the man had two choices, become the lowest of the low and join their way of life, or she'd kill him here and now. Either way, it didn't matter to matter to her.
Philipwn
Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 9:33 am
Gilgamesh managed to keep the menacing mask over his face as Accalia talked to Stephen. He was still able to generally keep up with the conversation: Accalia was threatening the man, but offering him a reprieve. The man was clearly terrified at this point, and began blubbering something about doing whatever she wanted, begging for his life, etc, etc. the typical coward's response. Gilgamesh was too distracted to pay any heed to the man's actual wording.
That look Accalia had given him right before rounding on his captive... It had not been a pleasant one to experience, especially given the fear he was already fighting of her wolf form. She was clearly unhappy with some aspect of this situation, but Gil couldn't figure out what that aspect was. He was thus distracted from Stephen's pleas by replaying recent events in his head, looking for the problem and hoping he wasn't the cause of it. He was face to face with an example of what happened when someone raised Accalia's ire, and dearly wished to avoid seeing it from the perspective Stephen was currently occupying. What had he done?
Accalia and Stephen were still talking, but they looked to be almost finished, and Gil still hadn't figured out his misstep. He thought that the likely candidates were not presenting her with the other trespasser as well- which would be ideal because it was easily fixed, he wasn't going anywhere soon, or that she didn't like him offering suggestions on what to do with the one he had presented to her. Still, without being absolutely sure what he'd done, it was probably better to wait for her to broach the topic than to preemptively apologize. Apologizing for the wrong thing could worsen his situation. So, resolved to wait for his leader to provide clarity and take his licks if he needed to, Gilgamesh again turned his attention to Stephen and Accalia. It appeared Stephen had taken Accalia's offer, but was now complaining about the state of his legs. Gilgamesh felt that this was a very ungrateful stance to take, given that he felt both he and Accalia were within their rights to do much worse to the man, but given the results of the last time he spoke up about the subject, elected to bite his tongue.
Naomi Tenkou
Philipwn
Offline
Ergo War generated a random number between
100 and 200 ...
127!
Ergo War
Enduring Guildsman
Offline
Posted: Wed May 24, 2017 1:10 pm
Peace strolled back toward her territory, tired and achy from her workout and in desperate need of a bath, but almost turned around when she saw fresh tire tracks headed toward her campsite. In her experience it was always best to avoid confrontations with vehicles, as even someone with her defensive abilities wouldn't come out unscathed. Still, she figured there was no way the car could've gotten far on its own, so if there was trouble she could just flee someplace it couldn't drive. She followed the tracks diligently while wondering if there was any way she could put off a fight until after she had rested. That hope was, of course, dashed as soon as she found the vehicle in question.
Parked in a clearing she hadn't seen before was a large truck with large audio amps in its bed. The amps' shapes were reminiscent of the retro stylings that she'd sometimes seen in old movies, but the shape of the speakers were much sleeker and more refined. Several large wires ran out of the truck and through the forest toward destinations she did not know, nor did she particularly care to find out at the moment. Peace was more concerned with the two people sitting on the truck's hood, both of whom were wearing industrial strength sound-canceling headphones and one of whom was also covered head to toe in dirt in a way that even the homeless Peace thought was probably uncomfortable. They were facing toward her campsite when she approached, almost as though they were waiting for her to come down off the mountain. They were definitely surprised to see her when she approached from the opposite direction, and oddly told her to just move along, that she didn't want to be there when all the "fun" got started.
Right, well, that meant they had no idea who she was. Whatever they were there for, it probably wasn't to mess with her, she figured. That was a nice change of pace from all the conflicts she'd been dealing with recently. She got their attention again and motioned for them to drive off. They looked confused, then the dirty one asked her what her name was. In response, she pointed toward the mountain. The two on the car looked at each other for a moment, then busted out laughing, saying things about how it was just hilarious that she was making a monument and not the government, and so on and so forth. They then apologized to an indignant-looking Peace and explained they were against further expansion of the city, so they were planning on disrupting whatever construction was going on. Peace sighed, shrugged, and started plodding her way up to her camp, too tired to deal with stupid city idiots. That was when she heard the amps on the truck fire up.
A horrendously loud sound shook the mountainside, sending her scampering away like a startled animal. When she looked back, she saw the two of them laughing inaudibly on the front hood of the truck, their headphones still in place. She could hardly think with all the noise, so she ran off even farther into the forest, hoping that once she was farther away she'd be able to think. The strange thing was, though, that the sound didn't seem to dissipate in intensity. She ran and ran, but just as soon as the sound started to fade it picked up again. She wondered if she was being stalked and stopped to look around. Sure enough, the noise started growing in intensity.
Peace was never very good at thinking, but that just meant that when she wasn't able to think she functioned almost the same as normal. Her education had been meager, and one of the most useful things she'd ever learned was that weaving sticks and leaves together with mud made for a pretty nice wall. Heck, she'd even used it to reinforce her letters. That stuff just did not move once it dried out. This time, however, she really wished she better understood electronics, as she was pretty sure there was something fishy about how those trees lumbered through the forest with speakers in their trunks. They were slowly chasing her with the speakers like she was a vermin that needed to be removed from the area. It wasn't like she knew the lay of the land better, either, so she couldn't shake off her pursuers; after all, no one knew a forest better than a tree, or so she thought.
So she charged at the nearest tree she could find. She was way too tired to drag this conflict out, so she had to deal with it in the most effective way she knew how: with her fists. Of course, that hope was dashed when she realized even she would get hurt if she tried to punch through a tree that was trying to beat her up. She could try to chop it down if it stopped moving, but that was a dicey proposition.
She ducked under the tree's huge, slow punch and immediately regretted it. The speaker in its trunk blared mere feet away from her, making her instinctively cringe. Given the option of fight or flight when she was within striking distance, she chose to punch the daylights out of the speaker. That certainly shut it up, but the unpleasant tingling that came as a result of the electrical circuitry was less than ideal. And then the tree caught fire. So now she was running from an angry burning tree.
Low on options and stamina, she opted to just run back to the truck. She figured she'd get them to leave somehow, maybe by trying to drive, and then go take a nap and regroup. This really was the worst day she'd had in a while, and it wasn't letting up until the end. At least if Gil had been there, he'd have been able to kick the damnable plants into oblivion.
She sprinted into the clearing where the truck sat, followed by a flaming tree with a shattered speaker in its trunk. Before the two on the truck could fully process the situation, she punched the dirty one in the gut and dragged the other to the ground and headbutted him into submission. All at once the tree collapsed, but the noise continued. A small voice in the back of Peace's head was trying to tell her she wanted to get them to leave, but unfortunately for the guy being headbutted, she couldn't hear that voice very well at the moment. Eventually he pulled a switch out of his pocket and flipped it between hits, at which point the speakers powered down. She hit him again for good measure, then destroyed the switch and threw him into the truck. She also tossed the dirty one into the truck, slamming the doors shut at about the time the cops started rolling up at the edge of her territory. Faced with the prospect of having the police invade her territory en masse--even if there were only a few--Peace opted to instead take the criminals to them. She opened up the truck again, then dragged the two unconscious people inside it all the way out to the edge of the forest, where she presented them to the cops and then motioned that there was a vehicle up ahead. One of the cops came with her to remove the vehicle after taking some pictures and rounding up the few speakers that were in the area. The burning tree provided light enough for them to see while doing as much, but the drizzling rain slowly put it out.
Peace was spent. After getting payment for turning over the aggressors, she didn't stick around for their life story and walked straight up to her campsite. There, she stoked a fire and fell asleep next to it in her poncho.
