Re: The Fatal Conflict! (GBS2G7) (Round 1: Everybody's Dead!)
10-15-2010, 03:17 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
The lights in the hardware store were out, and when Scott appeared, his ears still ringing from the pharmacy's explosion, he barely managed to avoid knocking half the shelves down.
The bit of calm he'd managed to scrape together by meeting himself was gone. Something had just exploded, and odds were good that it hadn't just been a random occurrence. It had to have been the work of one of the other contestants- he had no idea who, but he had no intention of finding out. He just wanted to find a hole to crawl into and hide, and a dark, shadowy hardware store seemed like the place to do it. It probably wouldn't be too hard to fashion some sort of weapon out of the stuff around here; primitive as the supplies were, they would probably be enough. People killed each other well enough before his time, after all.
He'd only been rummaging around for a minute or so when something else exploded. It sounded a bit more distant than the pharmacy had, and Scott had the benefit of bring inside a fairly sturdy structure. It certainly startled him, but this close to arrival, it took a lot to make him jump again.
Of course, the voice booming in his ears and informing him that there was a massive meteor on its way down was hardly calming either.
---
He'd hardly leaned down to start eavesdropping when the same ultimatum of disappointment he'd heard once before flooded his ears. Alright, he thought, mostly ignoring the Redeemer's speech, I'm caught up. There are two of me right now, and the other one's in my past. I've covered the last little bit fairly thoroughly, and it's safe to say that once I'm done talking with the Zachs, I'll be all sorted out. Of course, this means that there aren't any more of me coming from further ahead, which suggests that I won't be around for much longer. He shuddered. Hopefully that just means we've moved on to the next round somewhere else.
Stepping deliberately away from that train of thought, he checked his watch. He had somewhere to be, anyway.
---
Okay, a meteor. That's fine. It's not the end of the world. Well, I guess it is, but that's not the point. Once one of those nutjobs finally kills one of the other ones, we should be gone, and we won't have to worry- He froze, listening. Someone was coming.
"...still don't see the point of hiding out somewhere. It's not like being inside is going to protect us."
"It'll protect us from them, not the meteor. They've got their own things to work out, and we can just wait for one of them to finally take one of the others out."
"We're going to have to fight someone else eventually, you know. Assuming we don't want to just roll over and die right now."
Scott, peering through the rack of pipes he was currently hiding behind, didn't see Simphonia drift around the outside edge of the store. His attention was far too focused on identifying Zach and Zom as "the bisected guy. A ghost and a zombie. What was his name again?"
Idly setting a display of wind-chimes clanging away, the music-ghost managed to startle Scott into knocking over the pipe display, sending an assortment of lengths and diameters of plastic piping rolling across the floor and generally causing a fair bit of racket. Naturally, this drew the attention of Zach and Zom and ruined any element of surprise Scott may have been hoping to have. Cursing, he grabbed up the nearest length and held it out in front of him.
"Alright, stay back," he said, the piping's wildly shaking end betraying exactly how confident he was.
"Ah," Zom sighed, "now it all makes sense."
Scott frowned. "What makes sense?"
"Nothing, nothing," Zom replied, smiling a bit.
Scott continued frowning, the piping still moving back and forth. He really wasn't focused too much on what they were saying, mostly on the fact that they were likely to gnaw on him or... possess him, maybe. Something like that, he assumed.
Zach sighed. "Look, we're not interested in hurting you. We talked to you earlier, and-"
"-And we had a lovely conversation." Scott came in through the back, his strides quick and purposeful. His past self, still nervous and suspicious, began to speak, but he cut him off. "The capital of Paraguay was the P, nimrod, but this isn't the time for passcodes."
"Alright," the early Scott said, "that checks out, but do you seriously want me to believe that we talk to these two in a civilized manner?"
"Yes, in fact. Zach and Zom are perfectly reasonable beings, and neither us nor them were violent when we talked. Right, guys?"
"Er, yeah." The other pair were both a bit flustered. "Wait, so- you already talked to us?"
"Right," the appropriate Scott replied, glancing down at his watch. "He hasn't had that conversation yet, but I have."
"Doesn't that get awkward," Zach asked, "talking to yourself like that?"
Zom snorted. "You're seriously asking that? We've barely been split for any time at all and already we're snarking back and forth."
"It gets easier," the early Scott said, lowering the tube a bit. "After a while, you realize that, since the only person you can really trust is yourself, you've got a completely trustworthy person hanging around."
The aforementioned trust was demonstrated quite clearly when his later self blasted the air horn he'd just found, startling him enough that, coupled with the continuous baseline stress from meeting Zach and Zom for the first time, was enough to send him jumping through time.
"Of course, trust to do what is best is not always the same as trust to do what's expected. Sometimes you have to do unpleasant things to yourself."
"Uh...huh. I guess."
There was a bit of an awkward silence, broken by Simphonia giving them all a bit of a start by impersonating the air horn and giving her tinkling little giggle.
After a few deep, slow breaths, Scott said, "Anyway, we should probably do something about the big meteor. As likely it is that the others are going to kill one another before it hits, I'd really rather not count on it."
The lights in the hardware store were out, and when Scott appeared, his ears still ringing from the pharmacy's explosion, he barely managed to avoid knocking half the shelves down.
The bit of calm he'd managed to scrape together by meeting himself was gone. Something had just exploded, and odds were good that it hadn't just been a random occurrence. It had to have been the work of one of the other contestants- he had no idea who, but he had no intention of finding out. He just wanted to find a hole to crawl into and hide, and a dark, shadowy hardware store seemed like the place to do it. It probably wouldn't be too hard to fashion some sort of weapon out of the stuff around here; primitive as the supplies were, they would probably be enough. People killed each other well enough before his time, after all.
He'd only been rummaging around for a minute or so when something else exploded. It sounded a bit more distant than the pharmacy had, and Scott had the benefit of bring inside a fairly sturdy structure. It certainly startled him, but this close to arrival, it took a lot to make him jump again.
Of course, the voice booming in his ears and informing him that there was a massive meteor on its way down was hardly calming either.
---
He'd hardly leaned down to start eavesdropping when the same ultimatum of disappointment he'd heard once before flooded his ears. Alright, he thought, mostly ignoring the Redeemer's speech, I'm caught up. There are two of me right now, and the other one's in my past. I've covered the last little bit fairly thoroughly, and it's safe to say that once I'm done talking with the Zachs, I'll be all sorted out. Of course, this means that there aren't any more of me coming from further ahead, which suggests that I won't be around for much longer. He shuddered. Hopefully that just means we've moved on to the next round somewhere else.
Stepping deliberately away from that train of thought, he checked his watch. He had somewhere to be, anyway.
---
Okay, a meteor. That's fine. It's not the end of the world. Well, I guess it is, but that's not the point. Once one of those nutjobs finally kills one of the other ones, we should be gone, and we won't have to worry- He froze, listening. Someone was coming.
"...still don't see the point of hiding out somewhere. It's not like being inside is going to protect us."
"It'll protect us from them, not the meteor. They've got their own things to work out, and we can just wait for one of them to finally take one of the others out."
"We're going to have to fight someone else eventually, you know. Assuming we don't want to just roll over and die right now."
Scott, peering through the rack of pipes he was currently hiding behind, didn't see Simphonia drift around the outside edge of the store. His attention was far too focused on identifying Zach and Zom as "the bisected guy. A ghost and a zombie. What was his name again?"
Idly setting a display of wind-chimes clanging away, the music-ghost managed to startle Scott into knocking over the pipe display, sending an assortment of lengths and diameters of plastic piping rolling across the floor and generally causing a fair bit of racket. Naturally, this drew the attention of Zach and Zom and ruined any element of surprise Scott may have been hoping to have. Cursing, he grabbed up the nearest length and held it out in front of him.
"Alright, stay back," he said, the piping's wildly shaking end betraying exactly how confident he was.
"Ah," Zom sighed, "now it all makes sense."
Scott frowned. "What makes sense?"
"Nothing, nothing," Zom replied, smiling a bit.
Scott continued frowning, the piping still moving back and forth. He really wasn't focused too much on what they were saying, mostly on the fact that they were likely to gnaw on him or... possess him, maybe. Something like that, he assumed.
Zach sighed. "Look, we're not interested in hurting you. We talked to you earlier, and-"
"-And we had a lovely conversation." Scott came in through the back, his strides quick and purposeful. His past self, still nervous and suspicious, began to speak, but he cut him off. "The capital of Paraguay was the P, nimrod, but this isn't the time for passcodes."
"Alright," the early Scott said, "that checks out, but do you seriously want me to believe that we talk to these two in a civilized manner?"
"Yes, in fact. Zach and Zom are perfectly reasonable beings, and neither us nor them were violent when we talked. Right, guys?"
"Er, yeah." The other pair were both a bit flustered. "Wait, so- you already talked to us?"
"Right," the appropriate Scott replied, glancing down at his watch. "He hasn't had that conversation yet, but I have."
"Doesn't that get awkward," Zach asked, "talking to yourself like that?"
Zom snorted. "You're seriously asking that? We've barely been split for any time at all and already we're snarking back and forth."
"It gets easier," the early Scott said, lowering the tube a bit. "After a while, you realize that, since the only person you can really trust is yourself, you've got a completely trustworthy person hanging around."
The aforementioned trust was demonstrated quite clearly when his later self blasted the air horn he'd just found, startling him enough that, coupled with the continuous baseline stress from meeting Zach and Zom for the first time, was enough to send him jumping through time.
"Of course, trust to do what is best is not always the same as trust to do what's expected. Sometimes you have to do unpleasant things to yourself."
"Uh...huh. I guess."
There was a bit of an awkward silence, broken by Simphonia giving them all a bit of a start by impersonating the air horn and giving her tinkling little giggle.
After a few deep, slow breaths, Scott said, "Anyway, we should probably do something about the big meteor. As likely it is that the others are going to kill one another before it hits, I'd really rather not count on it."