[Mission] Fury and Fear

[Fluffy Lynx]

SPOILER: Click to show

Mission #61 ★
You've been exposed to some sort of gas or Devil Fruit power that causes the person to experience their worst fears for 24 to 48 hours. Survive through the fear that plagues your own mind if you can or succumb to the darkness!


Mission #73
You've become lost and confused either by yourself or with a small group of people while in the woods. Find your way out and back to civilization. But for some reason all the wildlife in the woods seems to be targeting you? Try to make it back without a big piece of you missing!


Mission #140
Combine any two missions that aren't Island specific and complete them both in under 50 posts for a special reward based on how creative your take on it was!

WORD COUNT: 1016

TAGGED: @lynx

TAGGED:

Transport wasn't always the easiest thing to acquire when you had gained yourself the kind of reputation that had been clinging to Amelia LeSorange Delacreux lately. Stealing from pirates, doing combat with the marines, starting pirate crews, betraying a family of nobles. In short, Amy had seen a fair bit of action lately. So when she had wanted to move onwards with her life, looking for ways to improve her own strenght and competency without relying solely on her crew, it had unfortunately meant relying on other means of transportation. Namely, a crew of no-name good-for-nothing pirates. All it had taken to get on board, was giving them a fake name and decent payment. Afterall, regardless of the trouble Amy had gotten herself into recently, the fact remained that there weren't enough who had seen her face or taken immediate interest, that she could be identified through looks alone. Much like a stowaway, the beginning of the girls travels with this braindead had begun with her essentially being kept under deck, in essentially a large closet. For most, this would've been torture. For Amy though, with her ability to shift into a much smaller form, she managed to live within a closet much better than most individuals would.

The journey that they embarked on however, wasn't one that'd take only a day. The girl would be under deck for weeks before they would reach their destination. So eventually, members of the crew itself had started taking more interest in her pressence. Allowing her basic tasks such as cleaning and scrubbing the deck, assisting in the kitchen and providing much needed hygiene and medical care to the crew, she was soon becoming relatively well liked amongst them. Disallowing them from seeing her fairy form, it was something she maintained within the small closet alone. Having gotten herself a blanket and a few other items to grant her some comfort, Amy had made a small home for herself within the closet. Where she had will, she would find a way. As times progressed, she was soon allowed to leave the lower deck whenever she pleased, and whenever they docked to acquire resources or other materials, she was allowed to leave the ship entirely. They would even wait for her to return. The more time passed, the nicer she was treated. There were even a couple of the pirates that had gotten this bright idea that Amy would make a neat permanent addition to the ship, something that she definitely wasn't interested in, although it wasn't something that she openly shared her opinion on.

Since Amy had first stepped on the boat, little more than two weeks had passed. The crew wasn't heading for her destination in a direct line, so she was forced to deal with the large amount of additional time it took to visit multiple locations. Though, she wasn't one to squander her time. While under deck, she had gotten herself a set of needles and a pillow. It was a concept that she had thought of multiple times, but needles were often used in healing arts. Acupuncture and pressure points wasn't completely foreign to her, although not something that she had actively practiced. To grow stronger, she needed more skills that she could utilise to protect herself and her crew. Holding a larger needle between two fingers, she flicked her hand to send the needle flying. It rotated awkwardly in the air and hit the needle-pillow sideways, dropping onto the floor of the ship with a metallic noise. It would take a lot of practice to be able to toss needles accurately. Time was, fortunately for her, something that she on this journey had plenty of. So whenever there was nothing else that needed to be done, Amy could be found under deck, seemingly tossing the needles at the pillow in boredom. It went a lot deeper than that though, and she was dedicated to improving. So over a couple of days, she had tossed more than two-thousand needles at the pillow. Still, though, they didn't actually get to penetrate into the pillow. There were several hundred hours more to go...

On one fateful night, as Amy was sleeping in her fairy form within the closet, tucked tightly and warmly underneath a corner of her blanket, there was someone else within her storage room. Before she knew it, a hand had grabbed her tightly. Squeezing her just enough that she couldn't call for help due to the pressure on her lungs, she was struggling to get free, to no much avail. Forcefully , she felt herself pushed into some sort of cool container. Looking around in confusion, she only barely managed to identify that she had been entrapped within a bottle. Whoever had captured her, was placing the bottle within their pocket, and soon, all Amy could see was darkness. Utter and complete darkness. From this darkness however, she could hear noise spreading on the deck. The pirate crew that she had been travelling with was riling up for some reason. There was something going on, and with how quickly she had found herself in a dire situation, it likely wasn't something good. As her captor moved around, she was being carelessly shook around within the bottle. Cursing under her breath, she really wasn't content with what was going on.

[Shinku]

The boy awoke to complete darkness. At first he wasn’t even sure if he had really opened his eyes, it was so dark, but a fast series of repeatedly squinting and opening his eyes, proved that there was either no source of light to stimulate his optic nerve or that he had gone blind for some reason. Cold metal on all sides confined his movements, creating a sense of being buried alive that almost immediately led to a rising panic inside the young man. The fear would have raised his hackles, but since he was already hanging upside down, the pink messy hair was affected by the gravity’s pull and pointed away from his head anyway. Kyou’s stomach started to revolt and the sick feeling of nausea was only surpassed by the hammering headache inside his skull.
Just where was he? And what had happened?
For a moment, Kyou couldn’t recall at all, but then slowly and painfully the memories started to surface again…

Sometime earlier

The ship had been looking almost eerily deserted. The crew had gone to sleep and only one man had been placed as a guard to keep an eye out for enemies and upcoming storms. The tip of his cigarette was a glowing dot of red and beneath the shining moonlight the pirate’s silhouette was clearly outlined as he stood there, leaning relaxed against the railing and peacefully indulging in his addiction.
The wind was blowing strongly but the sails had been rolled-up tightly and the ship had been anchored to keep it from moving with the tides. The island with its big looming mountain was a black mass in the background, but the soothing sounds of the waves against the ship’s hull was softening most of the ominous vibe that radiated from the land.

Slowly, as to not make any sounds, Kyou pulled the oar through the water, angling his little rowing boat so it would approach the ship from the blind spot of the lookout.
With the grapnel he had prepared beforehand, the young man climbed up to the ship. Steps were heading in his direction, maybe the guard had heard the faint sound that the grappling hook had made and came to check, but luck had been on Kyou’s side for once and the young man had been able to hide behind the enormous cannon that stood just next to the spot he had climbed up on. The pirate, still holding his cigarette between two fingers, circled around the big weapon, but the pink-haired Bounty Hunter, made sure to time his steps accordingly in order to stay out of sight. Obviously contended with finding nothing at all even though he had checked on both sides of the cannon, the pirate walked on, heading for the bow and Kyou emerged from his hiding spot and went back to the railing to properly tie the rope to it. His little boat was attached to the other end of the rope and for a non-swimmer like him, losing it was the worst thing that could happen.

After a moment of consideration, the young man reached inside his bag and pulled “Lettuce” out of it. The middle-sized snail was equipped with the technology to take photos and Kyou took a picture of the cannon next to him. It was an imposing weapon and much bigger than the normal kind. Its body was fixed to rails that lead around the ship and the cannon’s muzzle was large enough for a small man to hide inside.
The pirates had not only one but two of this monsters and while they were impressive enough, they probably weren’t what Kyou was looking for.
His mission had been rather vague to begin with and when his employers had mentioned that it was Inari who had redirected them to him, a wisp of his hair stood on end and agitatedly moved back and forth in alarm. He should have known it was the tricky merchant when they had asked around for Kyoukichi, hardly anyone else ever called him that, and yet he had still accepted the task they had given him. Kyou needed the money and it had seemed an easy enough request and after all it didn’t involve any fighting unless he messed it up big time.
A pirate crew was supposedly doing strange experiments around Death Island and all he had to do was find out what exactly those experiments included. Kyou would get the information and someone else would then deal with the pirates.
Easy enough, right! Right??

Leaving behind the cannons he sneaked to a trap door in the middle of the deck. Somewhere down there would be a storage room and it was likely enough that it would hold some clues as to what the pirates were up to.
Slowly he opened the door, listened for a moment for any sounds that would indicate that someone was still up and around before he climbed down the ladder and made his way through the empty corridor.
All ships were constructed more or less the same so he soon reached the room he had been looking for and ignited a candle. The light would give away his presence more easily, but without light he would not be able to see a single thing, which would make information gathering nearly impossible.
Curiously Kyou looked around. In an instant his face turned pale as his cold green eyes spotted the piled-up boxes full of explosives and thinking fast the boy blew out the candle. Small as the flame had been, in such an environment it might prove deadly.
So… what had he found? Big cannons and enough pyrotechnic material to make them go BOOM, but nothing that really could count as new or experimental. His employees would have to be content with that, cause Kyou was not going to sneak into the Captain’s room for more information. The boy wanted to get out and away from this swimming powder keg as soon as possible.
Before something bad happened.

Like a fight breaking out…

Deep down in the ship’s body as he was, Kyou could still hear the many footsteps hurrying around the ship as well as a very distinctive sound of cannons, someone else’s cannons, which probably meant that this ship was under attack.
Not caring about being seen or not, the pink-haired man ran up to the deck. Most members of the crew had already gathered there and were trying to ready the ship for a counterattack. In the confusion, no one really seemed to notice the intruder. The attack of the enemy was too serious and no one focused on anything else. Kyou emerged from the trapdoor just in time to see a cannon ball miss the ship by inches, landing in the water next to it where it produces a sound of splintering wood.
Wait- Wood?
With panic, Kyou realized that his little boat had been completely destroyed by the hit and he couldn’t see any lifeboats, since none of the pirates seemed to have bothered to equip the ship with this usual means of escaping.
Frozen on the spot from the shock as he was, his body didn’t react in time to dodge the pirate that had run straight at him. The man must have been as distracted as he was, for he collided with Kyou and the two of them felt down to the ground.
The man started to curse and Kyou, out of reflex, was about to hand him back the container that had somehow fallen into his hands during the collision, when something that wasn’t a cannon ball hit the deck and filled the air with half-transparent but horribly smelling gas.
It was no use to stop breathing for his lunges were already filled with whatever it was. Dozens of splashes indicated that the crew had abandoned the ship by jumping into the water, an action that was out of the question for the Devil Fruit cursed man.
A “SHHHMMMMM” sound alerted him to the big iron ball flying through the air and with an action that was borne more by instinct than by thinking, the young man jumped into the cannon, hoping it would protect him.

Back to the present

The ship must have exploded, but Kyou could not remember what had happened after that. Weakly he moved his legs, though the tiny space didn’t leave him much room for it. Nothing happened and Kyou started to kick harder against the metal and somehow the weapon, probably already on the verge of toppling, felt to the ground with a big thud.
“Ouch!”
Kyou’s poor body took another hit from the fall, but at least there was now a lot of blinding light, coming from the opening, now that it wasn’t facing the ground anymore. Sometime while he had been lying unconscious, dawn must have arrived.
Awkwardly the pink-haired boy climbed out and looked around dizzily.
Trees… lots of trees… fern and climbing plants… but mostly some very large trees… a jungle.
Trees were a good sign. They were mostly friendly and had only tried to kill him on rare occasions.
Something rolled around on the ground. It was a small glass container with a plastic lid that had holes in it. The object previously trapped inside Kyou’s clothing must have gotten loose as he climbed out.
With cautious curiosity the young man picked it up. A little woman was visible through the transparent glass.
“What?”

[Fluffy Lynx]

WORD COUNT: 712

TAGGED: @lynx

TAGGED:

The whole series of unpleasant events were occuring like pearls attached to string. First there had been a hand grasping her harshly, and before she could react, she had been within a bottle. Then there had been the thunder of cannons in the distance, quickly followed by screaming and general panic. Whoever had captured her in this bottle was attempting to flee rapidly, and she was being shook around like discount soda, ready to pop at absolutely any point. The nauseating feeling was overpowering as she was struggling not to throw up within her tiny prison. Eventually, during some sort of leap, she was tossed harshly against the side of the bottle, hitting her head and almost knocking herself out. Now at the bottom of the glass, she was only vaguely aware of what was going on around her. They were being bombed, likely by the marines, and it wasn't going too well for the pirate crew. In fact, it was going so poorly that the captain had ordered everyone to flee from the ship. The man who had captured her had picked up the bottle that was her prison, likely intent on throwing her into the water or something of the like. Either case, at that same moment, a cannonball impacted the side of the pirate ship, heading straight into the ammunition storage, lighting it all up in one big blast that made the ship explode into a thousand pieces of wooden debris. This explosion sent the bottle flying off, rotating wildly with the fairy helplessly trapped inside it. 

Without any sense of direction with everything spinning spinning around, the tiny creature was left to the mercy of fate. Fate, as it were, had a cruel sense of humor, because even after the full fledged drywash that Amy had gotten from the exploding ship, the bottle was still intact when she reached the shore. Finding herself trapped within the bottle still, it was lying on the side in the sand. Although the movements had stopped, the girls world was still spinning around in every which direction. At first, she was just lying there, flat on her face, attempting to hold onto the bottle so she wouldn't slide off. A few moments later, she realised that the world was merely continuing to spin because she remained dizzy. From there, she slowly regained her composure over several minutes, climbing to the top of the bottle in a desperate attempt to push the lid of it off. It wasn't functioning very well, as the lid refused to budge even an inch against her tiny frame. So, she had another idea. Run against the side of the bottle and make it roll into a rock. Perhaps then it would at the least shatter, right? Just as she did that however, a shadow blocked out the sun. Before she could even contemplate what it might be, her world once again spun and turned as the bottle was picked up. Ending up at the bottom of the bottle, awkwardly lying sideways, with her hair an absolute mess and the bottle seemingly slowly filling with an endless amount of rose-petals from her hair, she looked at the person who could now be considered her captor.

..."...Thank god, I thought I would be stuck in this bottle forever. Come now, hurry up and let me out of here, I think I have to vomit.." The fairy attempted, nuddging her tiny hands against the bottle so that he'd be aware that she was trying to contact him, just in case he wasn't capable of hearing what she said for whatever reason. It was about then that it dawned upon her. This guy wasn't part of the pirate crew that she had been travelling with. So exactly who was he?.. Perhaps she could convince him that the pirates had held her captive and that he was her rescuer? Options were forming inside her head as she gestured towards the lid of the bottle. It was clear that she was rather desperate to get out of this prison.

[Shinku]

Inside the fat bottle the boy had picked up from the sandy ground was the smallest woman Kyou had ever seen. She was gesticulating with her thin arms, her little hands looking very delicate and fragile as they waved through the air. A pair of shimmering transparent and yet colorful wings were growing out of her back, marking her as something inhuman, more than the reduced size had done.

Faint and distorted as her voice was coming through the holes in the bottle’s lid, it was still audible enough to understand her without the accompanying gestures and the only reason why the pink-haired boy didn’t follow her request for freedom was the nagging distrust inside his head.
His paranoia was showing him a very vivid picture show of what could go wrong if he released an unknown creature into the world and especially into the part of the world he was currently in.

Just the thought made him nauseas, until a part of his half-subconscious thinking pointed out that his stomach wasn’t revolting because of the pictures but because of the smell of the gas, that still hung to him like a shirt wet from perspiration stuck to a sweating body.
A strong scent like that was likely to attract predators and with deeply frowning brows, Kyou’s cold green eyes peered out from under the dirty pink hair, zigzagging over the landscape in an unorganized search for enemies.
The beach was deserted and neither ship was in sight, though there were pieces of wood swimming in the water or lying in the sand, likely washed up by the waves. The forest was green and it was impossible to say if there was anything hiding behind the lush ferns or big trees which were lightly swaying under the strong winds that blew over the island.

Kyou forced himself to breathe slowly in order to calm his nerves, telling himself that it was only because the girl had mentioned being sick that his stomach was acting up like that. And yet he couldn’t quite shake off the feeling, that something big and full of sharp claws would run out of the jungle to have him as an early-morning snack.

Absorbed in the image of his own doom, it seemed to him for a moment as if the bottle was starting to fill itself with blood. Startled the boy nearly dropped the bottle together with the girl, but years of experience allowed him to control the impulse. He still winced, but the glass remained safely in his hands. With squinting eyes the young man gave the “blood” a closer inspection and to his surprise it turned out to be a flood of mini-sized flower petals!

How curious.

He shifted his attention back to the winged woman, trying to figure out what she was. Female, yeah, no doubt about that, even though she conveyed the image of being a very frail being, which didn’t fit at all with Kyou’s mental picture of women. Having grown up with a sister that was so much stronger and courageous than him and meeting more of such difficult-to-deal-with women over the years of his life, “Fragile” was not a word he easily connected with the female species, no matter how much the books he read told him otherwise.
Aside from the wings and body height she was looking completely humanoid – at least right now.
The common language made her easy to understand and it was hard to stay alerted enough to keep himself from simply opening her prison as his unobserved subconscious mind might have done. Keeping up his wariness wasn’t easy.
She was so small and helplessly trapped in her bottle, what harm could she possible do to him? The answer was obviously: A LOT.
Just because something was cute and small, didn’t make it any less dangerous and Kyou had enough experiences with both Devil Fruits and special varieties of local animals to know that size was a bad criterion for picking or not picking a fight with them. Or have them pick a fight with you.

“Who are you?” the frowning boy asked her in his husky voice. “And WHAT are you?”
Normally he had a lot more trouble in keeping his paranoid wariness in check. It constantly chatted to him and told him to be mistrustful of people and it worried him a great deal that his instincts told him to trust in the little woman. Trust wasn’t good. It leaded to mistakes in judgement as well as betrayal. To think it came so easily to him now just outright frightened him.
“You can’t start trusting her, you don’t even know her. Didn’t you learn your lesson by now? Keep her in the bottle and don’t let her out or you’ll be in trouble!”
Over and over the thoughts jumped through his head. They had done so for many years now and Kyou knew the arguments by heart and usually followed them faithfully, even though he knew that he was borderline paranoid.
For him to abandon his usual ways… something wasn’t right here. Maybe the winged woman had some special powers that made him feel that way? If that was the case he had to be extra careful.
“I’m not letting you out.” He informed her. “There’s no way I can trust you.”
If the woman could really influence his thoughts, then she was more dangerous than any tiger hiding in the woods.

[Fluffy Lynx]

WORD COUNT: 816

TAGGED: @lynx

TAGGED:

Bothered by the petals, she was starting to clearly rummage about within the bottle, trying to somehow find a weak spot in the glass to get herself out. Knocking away at it, being incredibly grumpy, clearly frustrated, before simply giving up on the whole venture. There wasn't a way that she, with what she currently had available, could break her way out. Obviously, she had some mechanical gear on her that could be used for the deed should it ever become neccesary, but as long as this buffoon was carrying and holding her, she was more likely to get shaken about within the bottle than having the time required to break the glass. Frustrating, absolutely frustrating. On top of that, the other was asking her some of the dumbest questions that she had ever heard. Perhaps reading a book every once in a while, or actually opening ones eyes would do a ton of good. "My name is Amy, and I'm a forest fairy. What else would I be? Don't you read fairy tales?" The girl responded shortly, slowly getting up to stand at her full height within the bottle. The shimmering wings were clearly visible, and with her size, it'd be hard not to believe that she was telling the truth in this situation. "I got caught by those pesky pirates, to be sold at a market for potions. Please, let me out, I can hardly breathe in here!" Really turning up the charm and the act, Amy was squirming around inside the bottle, pretending that she was dropping dead onto the rose-petals. Eyes closed and seeming very, very miserable. When that endeavour ended with this buffoon noting that there was absolutely no way that he could trust her, she almost immediately sat up to start letting him know exactly how dumb that notion was.

"So exactly what do you plan to do with me then, huh?! I bet you this island is filled with dangerous things just waiting to eat you, and if you won't let me help you, I hope you get eaten!" In many ways the fairy was acting relatively childish. Knocking away at the glass, Amy soon found herself to be exhausted. Panting for air, she sat down into the pile of rose-petals. Fortunately for her, they were far more comfortable to sit around in than the glass bottom had been. Now that she had calmed down quite a bit, and somewhat accepted that for the next time her fate was to be trapped within a bottle, her senses opened up to noticing everything else around them. It was here at the bottom that a strange smell occured to her. What was that? Perking her tiny nose and sniffing, she looked around. It wasn't an unpleasant smell on its own. In fact, it was quite an enjoyable scent. It was a scent quite akin to vanilla. Subtle, hidden, yet faintly there, just above the scent of roses. "Do you smell something? It smells kind of strange.. A little sweet, maybe?" Amy spoke from within her prison, as she looked around to try and locate what could be causing this scent. In the immediate vicinity, she couldn't see anything that would warrant it. Though, out of the corner of her eyes at the far end of the beach, she could've sworn she saw something. It had been for a brief moment, and a good thirty-or-so meters away, but it had appeared like something was looking at the two of them from beyond the rocks. It sent an immediate shiver down her spine, and her eyes were now wide openly staring in that direction. The pressence of something else.. It had startled her, and she had gotten the sensation that they definitely weren't alone on the island. Additionally, she had gotten the sensation that they by all means needed to stay away from that thing. The girl's fruit was often messing with her emotions, but she had, for the most part, come to trust her instincts in this regard.

"..I really think we should get going. If you won't let me out, at least get me out of here. For some reason this beach is giving me the absolute creeps." The tiny fairy shuddered. Whatever that had been, she had seen it too briefly to make out any proper details. "..There was someone or something watching us." Amy spoke, while keeping her eyes in the direction where she had seen something. From the sheer amount of seriousness her voice suddenly held, and how she was refusing to take her eyes off of the direction, it should be quite clear to her newfound partner that she wasn't pulling off a lie. There was legitimately something that had startled the fairy, and now, her only interest was getting out of there as soon as they possibly could.

[Shinku]

In his younger years, fairy tales had been one of the boy’s favorite sort of stories and yet Kyou was reluctant to accept that the being he had caught (okay… it wasn’t him who had caught her, but now she was in his possession, so that counted) was indeed a fairy. The fair folk was from the realm of legends and should not appear in broad daylight just like that.
But just in case, the pink haired boy tried to recall what he knew about fairies.
The books had been very inconsistent about them, sometimes describing them as cute and little and very helpful and friendly magical beings who liked to be your fairy godmothers if you were a poor ill-fated girl, while in other books they were painted as alluring and beautiful but evil or at least if not evil in their intent then harmful to humans by them giving no thoughts to their action’s consequences. The second kind of books had been a lot darker, filled with desires, murder and blood and more realism than the first set of books. It was the sort you usually didn’t hand to little kids unless you liked to hear them screaming in their nightmares.
While both sort of books agreed over the fairy’s pleasant appearance, that was hardly of any help. The important part would be to decide if the thing in his hands was dangerous or not. Maybe it was the easiest as well as the safest option to just assume her a danger.
But seeing her struggling inside the bottle, looking so miserable and pitiful she managed to lacerate even his cold, distrustful heart while his guts feeling nudged him to trust her.

It almost made him panic. His guts never did that?! Never! They were there to feel queasy and give him the feeling like he was about to throw up in the face of danger! Making him inclined to get along with someone, was unheard of!

And then it struck him like a scorching hot frying pan swung by an angry housewife.
It was GLAMOUR!
This had to be it! The fairy was using glamour on him in order to manipulate him. It was a magic which was attributed to the evil fairies who used that sort of enchantment on people to get their way. To think that the woman already had him under her power wasn’t a good sign and Kyou’s mind frantically searched for a solution to this problem.

As if she had read his thoughts, the fairy dropped her act at once, revealing her ugly side and sending cold shivers over Kyou’s back as he imagined the possibility of her being a mind reader.
No. She probably had seen his eyes looking into the living green and deducted from it that he was afraid of the animals which lived inside. One didn’t have to be a clairvoyant to make that observation and enemy or not it was too much of a possibility to outright disregard what she had said and so he answered her when she next asked him.

“A smell? Maybe it’s from that gas they were attacking me with?” he offered, grabbing his dirty shirt with his free hand, bringing the cloth up to his nose to sniff at it. But he had been wearing it for too long already and couldn’t distinguish any parts of the smell’s compounds. All Kyou could say was that it smelled even more penetrative than his own sweat which being the sweat of a teenager, was hardly subtle.

He had planned to ask her more about the guys who had captured her, hoping for some valuable information, but her sudden alert made him prick up his ears instead. Without letting go of his shirt looked at the fairy woman before turning his eyes to the direction she was looking.
It wasn’t easy to do without turning his head, but his peripheral vision was wide enough to cover that direction and Kyou didn’t want to give any sign that he had noticed something.
Only… there was nothing to notice. Whatever the little woman had seen… It was gone.

An ominous feeling was raising his hackles and reluctantly the young man retreated back to the forest. No matter how nasty animals could be, they only hunted you if you trespassed into their territory or if you looked like tasty food. Humans on the other hand could kill you out of sheer malice and if it was up to him, he would choose to not be killed at all, by neither human nor animal. And yet the pirates as well as their unknown attackers seemed to be the bigger thread.

“Stay quiet.” He whispered to her in the hope that she wouldn’t alert any enemies.

But no more than a few steps did he manage to make, before the world turned upside down again.
It was the sort of thing that men later tell to their grandchildren, should they have any, in a big and long-winded story about how they managed to dodge the beast at the last possible moment by sensing the vibration of the ground.
Kyou who was not planning to have any grandchildren at all, would not have told this story to anyone, because the simple truth is that stumbling over your own two feet is embarrassing to admit to.

The bottle with the fairy rolled out of his hands, but Kyou was too focused on the monster to bother about her. The worm-like animal had appeared right out of the earthy ground and had the teenager not tripped at that same moment, the sharp fangs would have struck home into the soft flesh of Kyou’s calf. Without losing even one second, the pink-haired boy jumped back on his feet. Considering the size of the worm, it was easily around ten meters long, he might have lost even more than just part of his leg.
With a hissing sound that fitted better to a snake than an earthworm, the mouth of the beast turned around and darted forward. Adrenalin rushing through his body, the young man drew his sword and hit the worm on the head with the wooden weapon, but the beast only shook the head and resumed its attack. And as if that wasn’t enough already, two more of these snake-worm hybrids appeared. They were easily double the size of the first one and probably just as hungry for they joined the hunt at once and attacked aggressively.
With his heart throbbing painfully from fear, Kyou danced around his foes, dealing out strikes where he could or dodging when he couldn’t, yet somehow he had a hard time keeping up with them.
Finally he decided that he had no other chance but to free the little woman for her help.
“You’re going to die, this is seriously bad.” He thought, still feeling wary of his decision, but with no other idea at hand.
With a half-desperate jump over one snake and a swift run over the grassy field he managed to reach the bottle and picked it up. With a fluid motion he pulled off the lid, when suddenly he noticed how strange it was.
The bottle, big as it was, had a narrow bottleneck and it seemed impossible that the fairy could get out that way unless she could shrink her size even more.
It was like those ships in a bottle.
Maybe someone had built the woman inside the bottle, adding her arms and legs as a finishing touch only when she was inside in order to get her in? But that was stupid! You couldn’t build people. Could you?

The stinky worms didn’t gave him any more time to think about it, for the beasts were fast, almost as fast as him and he had to start dodging again, this time with the bottle in hand. Spinning and turning, jumping and ducking the pink-haired man kept himself save and in one piece while he tried to retreat to the jungle behind him, hoping that the many roots would prevent the animals from vanishing underground and attack out of nowhere.
Like now when the third snake dug itself out of the ground just in front of him, while the other two approached over ground from behind. Kyou threw himself down to the earth and into a full windmill, his usual counterattack against multiple enemies, though the size of the worms made it hard to repel them effectively.

It gave him enough time to take another look at the bottle and this time he simply screwed off the bottom as he noticed the mechanism he had missed at first.
Blood red petals spilled out and over his hand and gave him a pang of panic, which luckily subdued fast this time.
“Now you can help. Any plan?” he asked the battered looking woman, though his eyes stayed fixed on his foes.

[Fluffy Lynx]

WORD COUNT: 808

TAGGED: @lynx

TAGGED:

The Fairy was, naturally, doing nothing magical or otherwise to win this buffoon over to her side. No, the hammering at the glass, the miserable look, was legitimately how she felt about being trapped in a bottle. In fact, who wouldn't feel incrdibly on edge while trapped inside a glass prison of such a small size? At the very least she could peer through the glass and get an idea of their surroundings. It made her feel much more comfortable, and a lot less claustrophobic, even if the glass bottle was a prison to her. For a while there was silence, as the other, her male captor, seemed very thoughtful as he was likely analysing the situation. The tiny fairy could almost see the wheels turning within him. It was the type that she appreciated the least. Overly cautious, without much spine to him, unable to make a decision and simply stick with it, consulting his feelings and all of that crap. It didn't seem like he wanted to let her go. The fact that he soon after began replying to her concerns in regards to a strange smell solidified this notion. "You were attacked by a gas?!" Amy almost shouted at him from her miniature prison. Being attacked with a gas to the point where you figured your clothes might still have a lingering smell of it, couldn't be a good thing. "What kind of gas? Is something happening? Let me out of here for the love of..! Uugh!" Frustrated she kicked at the side of the glass bottle, hard enough that she stubbed a toe, resulting in her hopping around within the glass bottle in pain. It wasn't till she sat back down that she had noticed their new friend in the far distance.

Fortunately for Amy, her captor was cautious enough to heed her warning, which meant that shortly after they were moving away from the creature that she had seen in the far distance, into the forest to find a temporary hiding spot while they considered their options for getting off of this rotten island. Drawing a small sigh of relief, there was some fortune to the misfortune. Not everything bad had to come at once, right? Except, from within her tiny bottle, she could sense a feeling. An omnious feeling of something being out of place. There was an instinct within her that told her to seek the trees, upwards. Almost at the exact same moment, her still un-named captor tripped and dropped the botlte, as a demon worm from hell emerged from the ground to strike at him. Amy, within the bottle, was being tossed around helplessly as the contraption rolled around on the ground until slamming against a tree. It was enough to make a deep white line as the glass had taken damage. Unfortunately for Amy, being tossed around inside said glass had left her utterly dazed and motionsick. Trying to stand up only had her slipping and dropping into her own petals. Not many steps away, the boy was desperately trying to fend for himself against these worms. While he had avoided getting eaten so far, he wasn't exactly inflicting any lasting damage either.

A logical choice he then followed. When one evil was likely worse than the other, you gave in to the better chances of survival. A coward's way out, yet a way that in this particular situation benefitted Amy. Except, when he poured the contents of the bottle out onto his hands, that came with an extremely disoriented fairy. Even while sitting in his hand, she seemed to be involuntarily tilting to the side from a lack of balance. Being tossed around inside a bottle wasn't good for anyone, certainly. The girl who had formerly been on the verge of puking could now almost not hold it back anymore. Stuttering softly, she remained in his hand, hoping he would take her with him rather than use her as bait. "R-run." Was the only thing she managed to murmur before leaning her head out over the side of his hand and expelling any and all food she had recently had from her stomach. This was horrible in every way. Though, now at least, she had a chance at recovering from vertigo and sickness. Being free also meant she could soon defend herself, they just needed to last a little longer. Question was if he was willing to now protect her. Afterall, he was the one who had caused the vertigo.

[Shinku]

Run… yes. That was a plan the pink-haired coward could whole-heartedly agree with. Had the bottle with the fairy not slipped out of his fingers, the teen would likely have been miles away by now. And yet escaping wasn’t easy then your opponents could dig through the ground and appear unexpectedly to block your path. And unfortunately the fairy didn’t seem to be able to provide much help and was rather making things difficult for Kyou who couldn’t use jerky movements or the lady would tumble down from his palm.

Gentle, as to not hurt the winged woman, the boy’s finger closed around her tiny body, holding her softly and yet with enough strength to keep her in his hand no matter how much he moved around. And he had to move or the worms would eat them both.
His attackers were unremittingly continuing their pursuit and didn’t gave Kyou the time to worry about the little things, like someone small and fair puking out her stomach contents over his badly scratched fingers. But most of the wounds were already some days old and had built a scab, so the danger of getting an infection was not as high as it would otherwise be and there was always the time to clean it later, first they had to get away.

With a swing of his sword, Kyou deflected a worm and backed away, wishing – and not for the first time – that he had a weapon that could cut. Wooden swords had some advantages that normal swords didn’t have, but if you wanted to get rid of an enemy for good, then having an edge was definitely preferable.
Unknown to the boy the inability to cut through flesh was something that was saving him a lot of trouble, for the snake-worms had the special ability to regenerate into two separate creatures if slayed in half. But not knowing this, the boy cursed his fate, and with an intensity that was strong enough it should have been able to move boulders.

“Tsk…”

The tree worms were trying to surround him now each cutting off one possible escape direction, their head raised high and their teeth showing. They were looking down on him as if he was some lowly creature that should have no right to resist them so vehemently.

“Hold on tight.” Kyou told the fairy and before she could protest he pushed the woman down his shirt. It tickled a bit to have her that close against his skin, but it wasn’t worse enough to distract him. Having both hands free now, he grabbed the hilt of his sword with both of them, tensed his muscles, ready to defend himself until his last breath.
“Wind gust.” He whispered and slashed with his sword through the air slightly above the ground in front of him, creating a cloud of dirt and dust.
Covered by the dust cloud he jumped up in the air and just at the same time a fourth beast-worm darted out of the ground below him. The little shield of dirt had not thrown the creatures off mark at all, their vision not being the main sense they relied upon for finding their prey.
“Oi! That shoe was nearly brand-new!” Kyou complained to the worm below him, while planting his foot into the face of a second worm that had tried to pick him out of midair. With a strong push he changed his trajectory and made a backward flip out of the circle of fiends that had surrounded him.
Still in flight he let his muscles relax, only to bring them back to full tension at the same moment his feet touched the ground.
With nearly soru-like speed, the teen made a simple dash forward, leaving the bewildered creatures behind. In almost a moment he was well inside the forest and nearly crashed into a tree.
His dashes weren’t a very precise thing and the missing shoe had dropped the accuracy as well.
Only with a last moment spin, the coward managed to prevent a collision and though his bleeding leg protested against the violent treatment, Kyou didn’t stop to pause but continued running through the forest at high speed. It wasn’t the soru-like speed of the dash. This technique that resembled that of the Marines so closely on the outside had a totally different basic that made it happen and if overused would tire him out way too fast.
But he was a coward. Even his normal running speed surpassed that of a normal human and after a while he couldn’t hear the worms following them anymore, though maybe that had more to do with the ground than his speed. The forest was thick here and the ground was covered with hundreds of roots which undoubtedly made it hard for the worms to follow, as the creatures preferred to move underground.

Just to be sure, the teenage boy chose a harmless-looking tree, tucked his sword into his belt and started to climb it, getting as far away from the ground as possible. The coward was no fan of tree-climbing, but considering the situation he still found it a good idea.
Different sorts of vines were growing around the trees and gave good footing, and yet Kyou was about half up when he slipped on a leave and dropped for two meters before managing to grab a limb.
“…”
It was the sort of situation, people tended to shoot a glance below them and Kyou was no different. Hanging about thirty meters about the ground made his stomach flutter, but strangely enough he managed to keep back the panic. Swinging one leg up, the pink-haired man managed to climb the limb and get a good seating on it.
The trees around here grew about sixty if not even seventy meters tall, but after the nasty fall, the teen decided that he was likely high enough. It was time to catch his breath and tend his wounds. None of them were too serious and yet he was losing blood from the shallow gash on his leg.

“Phew… You all right Fairy-san?” he asked. Only the susurration of the forest answered him. Had he lost her during his flight? Or was she just too shaken up to answer.
“Are you dead?”
For a moment, his hands clutching the tree limb looked red as if he had actually squashed the woman in his grip. Pale and faintly shaking, Kyou lifted one hand and looked down on it. There were still some bits of tiny tiny food sticking on the back of his hand, but otherwise it was clean. There was no blood on it, he had only imagined it.
“Murderer… you killed her. She asked for your help and you simply killed her.” A voice inside his head insisted against all contrary evidence. Desperately he started to shake his T-shirt in the hope that the winged woman would drop out of it.
“Please…”
Somewhere above his head, someone seemed to be laughing at him.

SPOILER: Click to show

Sorry for pushing Amy around so much. Since you had her so helpless at the end of your post, I figured she might need some more time recovering before she could actually kick ass.
If I went too far or cut off your possible reactions, then tell me and I'll edit my post. You weren't around to ask while I was writing it.

Also, I think the laughing Kyou hears at the end are likely the monkeys living in the trees. Just an option. 

[Fluffy Lynx]

WORD COUNT: 816

TAGGED: @lynx

TAGGED:

When the other heeded her warning and started quickly moving around, with at least some resemblance of combat experience, it seemed that the tiny fairy had simply been pulled along for a horrible rollercoaster ride. The boy's fingers locked around her to keep her tight. It was fortunate in the sense that she wouldn't have had the time to gather her senses quite enough to begin flying. The vertigo was simply far too strong for her to make sense of much of anything, and with the world spinning, she still couldn't quite gather her thoughts to come up with any proper plans. When he did a quick movement to block the incoming assault of the worm-beasts, it finally exceeded what she was capable of handling. Incapable of properly breathing, incapable of containing herself, a convulsion went through her body. Just as he might've predicted, the tiny fairy barfed all over his fingers. Unable to move her hands as they were locked underneath his fingers, her face was getting rather purple at the immediate lack of air. Just when she started walking the knife's edge between concious and unconcious, his grip was loosened around her. Spluttering, gasping for air, she was coughing lowly. The tiny fairy was completely limb when he essentially tossed her inside his shirt. Somewhat like a rag-doll, she was tumbling around inside his shirt, clashing against skin, then swinging against fabric, getting soaked in his sweat. For a being so tiny, the stench and sticky sensation was quite overpowering. Tumbling further down through his shirt, she soon passed his naval, narrowly getting herself stuck by the rim of his pants, so she did not fall out of the shirt and down to the killer-murder-psycho worms. While her companion had a physical battle with something that he could immediately see, she was fighting a mental battle to stay focussed. The girl knew that if she forcefully lost conciousness, she would likely revert from her tiny fairy form. If that happened, without warning, it was highly likely that her companion would be taken completely by surprise. Surprise wasn't something he needed, because aside from the overwhelming stench of his sweat, she could also smell something more sour. Blood.

What happened on the outside was only visible to the fairy by the shape of shadows that were darkened silhouettes whenever the sun illuminated the surroundings enough to give her some perspective from within the shirt. It wasn't much to go on, and surpressing the need to puke and pass out, she had enough on her hands. When the boy finally found himself climbing up a tree, she was struggling to lift the shirt. The sweat had made it incredibly heavy for her. So while his actions and movements were rather awkward, she was struggling in her own right. Alas, when he finally realised he needed to undo his shirt to let her out, it came in the form of shaking. Was this guy an absolute idiot?! Once again she was tumbling through the air, this time completely soaked in his sweat, her wings incapable of flight. The girl had soaked so much sweat that her hair appeared wet enough that one might think she had taken a shower. Disgusting. The scent reminded her mostly of a mix of... Gutters, rats, death?
While to him it may have been only several drops of sweat, to her it was literally a downpour. Being stuck inside a t-shirt that litterally stuck to his sweating body certainly wasn't beneficial either. After her little air-launch, the fairy landed with a thud on the branch he had situated himself on. At first she wasn't moving, or speaking.. It seemed that she was hardly breathing. Then came the coughing, as her hands ran over her face, trying to get this digusting, nasty sweat off of her. The girls mouth opening as she began spitting furiously, clearly the god-awful taste was with her too.. Then the wings started beating, flapping, and in many regards she must've looked exactly like you'd see a fly a take a trip down the sink. 

...It took a good few moments of agonising suffering before she regained enough control over the vertigo and the desire to throw up everything, including her organs, before she spoke to him again. When she did, it was in the most unpleasant, pained voice one could imagine. It was shaking and breaking up, yet filled to the brim with fury. "...S-so this is how..." Gasping for air, she was turning and twisting, trying to get in a position where she could sit up. "..y-you plan on treating me, a-after keeping me locked up..?" Slowly getting to her feet, she was quivering furiously, several times almost getting to her feet before being forced back on her knees... "...A-are you trying to f*cking kill me you idiot?!" The last bit was shouted at him when she had finally stood up. Exerting her own fury though, took more energy than she had. Immediately tipping backwards, the fairy ended up sitting on her bum once again. Flapping her wings, she was clearly trying to dry herself  up and get a good sense of balance again. For if she didn't, the next time they'd have to flee, the whole situation would likely repeat itself.

...but even as angry as she was with him, and as much as she wanted to give him a long, hard lecture about how to treat a lady, there was a looming shadow on this island. A looming shadow that she had seen in the distance by the beach. It could still be out there. At this moment it could be getting closer. Although she wasn't sure exactly what it was, she knew one thing. It had death written all over it. So rather than further lecturing her possibly only chance at survival, she bit her tongue and fought through her situation like a warrior. Fear was, at this point, overpowering her fury.

[Shinku]

“You’re alive!” Relieved about the reappearance of the fairy, the pink haired boy couldn’t help but stupidly state the obvious.
His body relaxed, the tense shoulders lost some of their stiffness and Kyou’s breathing slowed down and became more regular, and yet he didn’t release his grip on the t-shirt but sat dumbfounded on his branch as if he had forgotten what he was doing.

But the relief of seeing the Fairy Girl alive and healthy was only short lasting. Her accusing words felt like iron fingers closing around his heart, like his own were closing around the dirty shirt. He had stopped shaking the garment but his knuckles had turned white from the intensity in which he held the fingers closed around the cloth.
It stung painfully, her words hitting a soft spot. Hidden away and closed off deep inside the pink-haired boy it was still not forgotten enough to be dead to the outside world.
But then anger rose with a burning flame of rage and pushed the cold fingers away.
“What do you mean? Kill you? I just saved your lazy a*s princess!” Kyou snapped at her.
“Never expect thanks for anything, especially not for helping people out.” He thought, feeling grumpy and hurt because of her ungratefulness.

The laughing from before rang out again and something hit Kyou on the head. Deeply frowning the young man looked up and when he spotted the gang of monkeys dancing on the branches above him, their howls of laughter grew even louder and they made faces at him, mocking the pinkhead with glee and delight. One of Kyou’s eyebrows trembled with suppressed anger, but the more the monkeys got at him, the more fun they seemed to have and the more they increased their efforts to torment him.
With one arm held protectively over his head, the other one clinging to the branch for a better hold, Kyou shielded himself against the rotten fruits, little broken off branches and the mushrooms that the monkey were throwing down on them. None of it was really a problem for Kyou because the stuff wasn’t thrown with enough strength to make him lose his balance, but the hail of greenery was still very annoying. Even in his nightmares he’d never dreamed about being hailed like that.
“Ouch ouch ouch ouch… Stop that, you apes!”
That only got more laughter out of them and one of the younger monkeys boldly swung itself down and landed on the thick branch Kyou and his fairy companion were sitting on. Under the shouted encouragement of its friends the animal started to drum on its chest before it turned around and demonstratively presented its shiny red backside to them. Provocative as that move was, Kyou was bound to notice that the creature had a very sharp looking sickle-shaped claw at the end of its tail. The natural grown weapon at the end of the monkey’s a—backside dampened the boy’s anger quite a bit.

“…”

Silently he stood up, making himself ready to climb down again. No mockery could be so bad that it pushed him to answer with violence, especially not when the opponent had razor-sharp claws and shiny pointed teeth.
If the fairy woman wanted to exchange words or worse with the group of dancing apes, she was completely entitled to do so. Considering how she had given him a mouthful just for saving her, she probably had a lot to say about the rude monkeys.
Kyou gave her one last look – the coward had no intention on sticking together with a troublesome person as her – and had to admit that the tiny girl looked rather battered and that it was likely at least partly his fault.
“Better than being dead though. So she has no reason to complain that much.”

Kyou was already with one leg on a lower limb, carefully feeling his way down, when the monkey came closer – maybe angered by the ignorance the human was treating him with. Jumping up and down as if it were on the ground and not thirty feet up on a tree, it approached them.
Suddenly all the mischievous behavior vanished and turned into aggression. With a fast sweep of his clawed hand the monkey set on to turn Kyou’s face into red mush.
Surprised by the unexpected attack the pink-haired boy raised his leg for a kick. So high above the ground he was too afraid to let go of the trunk and since the leg had been in a downward motion already, it didn’t take much to pull it back up again. Before he kick never connected with the animal though, his last remaining shoe freed itself from his foot and hit the monkey’s face with a loud “bwok” sound.
The attacking monkey froze and the others stopped cheering and snickering. It was the proverbial “the quiet before the storm” and Kyou knew it wouldn’t last longer than a heartbeat.

“Uh… uh…”

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}I've been thinking that while the gas has us seeing our worst fears, it might have a different effect on the animals of the island. Maybe it's the reason they turn aggressive and attack us? Though.. this being "Death Island" they probably don't even need a reason like that...

[Fluffy Lynx]

WORD COUNT: 1011

TAGGED: @lynx

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Sitting there, now on her knees, combatting her internal disgust, her stomach wasn't agreeing much with her, and once again, the tiny girl threw up. This time however, there was no food. It was nothing but the most horrendous stomach acid. Shivering and shuddering, it was clear that she was suffering. The feeling of being stalked, left to your own devices and the torture of an imbecilic little boy, the Captain was now crying to herself. There was something wrong in all of this, normally she wasn't one to get attacked by her emotions, but the hopelessness of the situation was unbearable. The anger from before had disappeared, her shoulders had dropped. There wasn't much fight left in the tiny fairy at all. The wings were still beating though, and by the moment the sweat dried or was tossed off of her. "...You captured me, wettened my wings, and now you're leaving. Can I ask a favor of you, before you go?" The girls voice was broken between each and every word. Coughing lowly, she was trying to clear the vomit out of her throat so that she could speak clearly, but even still, she sounded close to mute. That, and the sentence she was trying to say was so far from her regular personality that it gave her trouble even attempting to pronounce it. "I--... If you're going to let me die here anyway, please, just end my suffering. I don't want my end dragged out, especially now that I cannot defend myself.. I have pictures of my family on my person, I'd appreciate it if you'd let them know." There was no sarcasm to be detected in her voice at all. The girl was literally telling Kyou that, if he left her there, defenseless and incapable of flight, it'd be the same as giving her the death sentence. Thats about the time where the monkeys started throwing a hissyfit from the trees above them. The monkeys had always been around, somewhat laughing at their misery from a distance, following with interest at they had several close encounters with the death that resided on this island. Now however, there was nothing interesting going on, and much like spectators to a stageplay, they started booing, shouting, and tossing things. For Kyou a simple rotten fruit wouldn't be much of trouble. It'd mostly just be annoying. For someone the size of a thumb however, a direct hit could be potentially lethal. Even so, she wasn't moving.

The only reason why she endured the onslaught was that the monkeys didn't exactly have great aim when just flinging things in flurries. Several of the fruits were narrowly missing her, by mere milimetres. Looking to Kyou, the boy was trying to defend himself. The result would've been hilarious, if it wasn't for the fact that he may have just sentenced himself to being torn apart by the monkeys. Hanging loosely in the air, she knew that if she didn't do anything, he'd probably be killed. Even if he was a complete nuisance, he was also the only one who could get word out to the world if Amy was to fall here. The monkeys were slowly realising just what had happened, and the cheering quickly turned into shouting, screaming. Clapping her hands together, although her wings weren't completely dry, utilising her dust was about the best idea she could come up with. It was draining her spirit to utilise her abilities like this, especially when so exhausted. Even so, as she flapped her wings more rapidly, a sparkling yellow cloud started to grow with her as the centre. Since the moneys weren't exactly people, nor exceptionally strong, her power was more potent against them. The monkeys who were closest to the fairy quickly dropped their shouting. They hadn't the intelligence to figure out what was going on, but they knew that something was wrong. First they lost strength in their arms, and grasping onto the branches seemed to be taxing. Several of them simply plummeted down the trees like ragged dolls. Amy was cutting the amount of possible pursuers down, giving Kyou somewhat of a fighting chance. However, the one monkey whom Kyou had so deliberately offended wasn't going down without a fight. The determination to fight was more than what Amy's dust could extinguish. Twirling around itself, the tail smacked against the Fairy's tiny frame, narrowly missing the sharpened spear-like head, hitting her bluntly rather than cutting her into pieces. Sent whirling backwards, the fairy impacted against the tree just besides Kyou. Immediately afterwards, as if losing balance, that monkey too tilted to the side and plumetted towards the forest ground. Hopefully Kyou would realise that staying away from the yellow dust would be to his benefit.

"Gherf...!" The fairy spat out a handful of blood shortly after having hit the tree. Amy's lungs and stomach pressured from the impact, her vision blurry. Kyou could see how she was desperately clinging to the tree, the pain was reminding her that she wasn't dead yet. Nails and fingers were dug into the bark, trying to hang on so that she wouldn't fall. The pain was making her feel like there was still hope. Shuddering, shivering, quivering from the pain and stress, she was gasping for air. As if stuck to the tree for a moment, she was just hanging there, suspended in the air. Gravity was pulling away at her, and her grip was loosening. Unless Kyou did something, she would fall to the ground again, this time defenseless from having attempted to rescue his lazy princess ass. Failing her grip, she'd begin her descent into the maw of the jungle.

[Shinku]

Wa-wa-wa-wah... this is bad… what does she want me to do? Squash her like a fly? Cut her head off? I don’t have anything sharp to begin with… wait, that’s not the point here. Has that girl completely lost her mind?! Why should I care... just why should I care… And if she has a picture of her family in her pocket, doesn’t that mean the pic is as small as a – as a- , well very small. She’s tinny herself so the picture must be even smaller… how the hell would I even be able to find it?! I’m sure I would lose it on the spot. And wait… she said she’s caring it on her person, how does she want me to take it? Can’t she just hand it over?! Does she realize that she practically asked me to search her for it? Like a… body search… yuck… bloody woman…

This and other thoughts passed through Kyou’s head and clashed with the portion of his mind which wanted to focus on the immediate threat presented by the monkeys. Coming up with a decent strategy of survival while someone practically begged to be killed by you, was harder than he liked. It didn’t help that his thoughts were going in circles without coming to any useful conclusion.
How could one even do that? Normally people asked for help. They’d ask you to save them. As much as he hated that, at least he knew how to react to that. A NO usually did the trick. But being asked to end their suffering that was… well actually … there was no reason why a “no” shouldn’t solve this situation either…

“No.” He told her.
“Jump down if you want to die…”
Wait, would her weight even be enough to kill her? Even if she jumped from this high up? Weren’t bugs able to survive a drop as such, and she was pretty bug-ish, bugging him all the time with complains and requests and her way of begging things of him was very ARRGGGGGGGGGG she was driving him nuts!
“Or bite off your tongue and make sure it suffocates you.” That at least would keep her from talking more nonsense. Anger was boiling inside him and his usual indifferent nature was pushed aside by a strong wish for survival.
“I have no intention to TAKE THAT YOU STUPID MONKEY!!! help you, so go and end your life yourself. I for my part want to live and I have no time for those who don’t.”


And besides, for someone who wishes to die, she’s doing pretty well against those monkeys, he thought as one monkey after the other, felt to the ground.
Women are really indecisive, why can they never decide what they really want?! If she wants to die she should just stop fighting. I have no clue how she’s doing it but it’s better if I don’t get too close to that fairy glimmer of hers. Unlike her if I fall down I certainly won’t survive it…

But as fast as the woman’s vigor had risen so fast it seemed to leave her again. Kyou watched as the monkey sent her flying. He would have reached out to catch her as she slapped against the tree, but his foothold was too uncertain to risk taking off a hand.

“Aww hell…”
With a strong pull Kyou climbed back up to the branch and punched away one of the monkeys which had tried to close in on the falling Fairy. With a swift grasp he picked the woman out of the air and put her back on the branch between himself and the trunk. It wasn’t that he wanted to help her, but with a considerable amount of enemies down on the ground, following them to the floor level didn’t seem such good decision anymore.

Keeping close to the trunk, Kyou drew his sword and planted it into the face of an onrushing monkey, while steading himself by keeping his right hand pressed against the tree for balance. Planting his feet carefully as to not stand on the woman by accident, the pink-haired man took a fighting stance.
Two more monkeys dropped onto the branch he was standing on, but as soon as they passed through the yellow fairy dust, their movements became less focused and Kyou defeated them with ease. It was the one from above that escaped his notice. Letting itself hang down from an upper branch, the creature sliced Kyou’s sword arm with its razor-sharp tail.
“Guhh…”
Blood started flowing out of the cut wound, but the boy ignored the pain and grabbed the tail with his unhurt arm, pulling on the monkey with his whole weight. The animal screamed, but had to let go of its hold. It tumbled down like the others and both boy and fairy were left alone in the jungle’s rustling leafage.


“Traitor.”

A whisper, it was faint, almost inaudible, and yet the pink-haired man could have sworn that he heard her say the word. The already pale complexion paled even further and the boy nearly lost his grip. His head was spinning, not with words or logic this time, nor even with some pent-up anger, but with feelings that went much deeper than that.
It was as if a key had been turned around. Somewhere deep inside him, a long forgotten – no, not forgotten but sealed away – memory, shrugged of the chains and struggled to the surface, no longer content with being locked away in the unconscious parts of his mind. It had fought for the longest time and now it was finally strong enough to dominate the place. It did so with a violent slap of recollection.

Pictures passed in front of Kyou’s eyes. Images of days long gone. And a word, always the same word, over and over again… traitor…
The voices all had different feelings to them, anger, sadness, lack of comprehension,… but they were convicting him all the same.
It wasn’t fair. He had done nothing to deserve it. And yet no one had cared to listen.
With a trembling arm the boy wiped away the tears from his face, but only managed to smear it with blood from his cut. He hadn’t even realized that he was crying. Rivers of snot ran down his chin, no matter how much he tried to sniff it back. It didn’t really matter.
With a murderous gaze he turned to the Fairy Girl. His husky voice was filled with cold rage and he had to press the words out through his half clenched teeth which gave them an additional hissing sound. For years it hadn’t contained such odium.
“Do not ever call me that again or I swear by whatever gods are listening, that I’ll turn your life into bloody hell.”

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}We said that we can't hear or see each other's hallucinations, so Amy will have no clue why he's angry. Poor her.
Also.. I wasn't sure if I should have him tell her which word not to use, or leave it open like that, which will confuse her even more. Tell me what works better for you, it's easy to change.

[Fluffy Lynx]

WORD COUNT: 1251

TAGGED: @lynx

TAGGED:

The save from Kyou was in many ways fortunate, and some ways unfortunate. Lying there on the branch in her tiny form, somewhat incapable of processing what was going on, a short status check went through her mind. Every limb was currently accounted for, that was good. Vision was still functioning, although slightly blurry from the lack of oxygen. The scent of blood and bark, the taste of sticky blood. Still alive, and still with enough power left in her body to pick herself up. Pressing against the branch to get on her knees, it seemed strangely impossible. It had become extraordinarily hard to breathe all of a sudden. It felt as if everything within her chest was pressing down towards the centre, making every breath harder and harder to take. The taste of blood was overpowering every other sense. The voice that spoke within her head, was none other than her own. Why am I struggling so hard to survive? All living ever offered me was pain and suffering. It is time for me to let go. The wings were slowly retracting themselves, as her size grew incredibly quickly. The girl's form was reverting to the way it had originally been, as the fairy slowly transformed into a human. A young human girl, no less. Several of the fruits characteristics, such as the change to her eyes and the petals in her hair remained - but it wasn't till now that it was really obvious that she was, in fact, human. Even he hates me. There is nothing left here. Just fall into the silence, be free of the pain. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, before leaning herself slightly to the side, preparing to drop off the branch and down into certain death. However, something did not agree with itself. Grasping the branch with both of her hands, she coughed lowly, as a stray drop of blood traversed down her chin. Two voices, each speaking in her tone, each sounding like her thoughts, were speaking at the same time within her mind. Why am I about to give up? I am going to become a goddess of this world! Why am I holding on? I should just let it end...


It was at this exact moment that Amy finally realised what had been going on. There was another voice within her mind, speaking thoughts that she thought were her own! Eyes widened, the dilemma was quickly realised by her. Because if something had been capable of passing off as her own thoughts, exactly how was she meant to tell the difference?! I cannot tell the difference. - Perhaps if I gave it enough thought I could find a solution. - Speak my thoughts out loud! Grasping her head with both of her hands, the ensuing few moments were a plethora of thoughts so diverse and deep that it felt like her mind was going to burst, and with it, her skull break open. Yet, one of these thoughts had been her own, one of these thoughts could silence the others, just had to hang on to it while she could still tell the difference. "I-if I speak aloud, that is what I think." The girl muttered softly. The act of speaking it out aloud was drowning the other thoughts in her head. Repeating the sentence multiple times, she could feel the rest slipping away. "If I speak aloud, that is what I think!" It was an inane muttering, likely to be deemed insane if anyone else had been watching her. Unfortunately, it timed very poorly into what Kyou was rambling about too. 

The break came more quickly than she had imagined. The laughter of a girl, from above her. A girl in a lovely school uniform, sitting with an open umbrella that darkened her face beyond making identification possible. "Well done, well done! He would have been very bored if you had cracked already, miss Delacreux. He likes to play with his food, you see, and the more arrogant the food, the better it tastes." Staring up in disbelief, why would there be a child out in the woods? Was this another trick of some sort, her mind playing games with her?! The girl slowly rose her umbrella, to reveal her face. The girls mouth was stitched tight, her body bloodied and ravaged. The voice coming from seemingly nowhere, the girls mouth not even moving... "Did you truly believe he would let you pretend to be a goddess?.. You've been a naughty girl, Amelia. And he is coming for you." Laughing heartily, Amelia felt it before she saw it. A shadow was looming in the forest, the same shadow that had been there on the beach. It was here for her, it was coming for her! They had to run, they had to get away!

Invigorated by her small victory, she pushed herself up sitting, and from there up standing. Panting deeply, she was still wet with his sweat, and now with her own blood. One of her ribs was pressuring against her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Adrenaline was pumping through her body at a rapid pace. Now that she had decided she wasn't prepared to die, her body responded to her will. Pain was dulled, to the point where all she felt was fear from the looming shadow. Within the woods, the monkeys and the worms would be near impossible to deal with. They had to find a cave, preferably by the waters, so they could camp and communicate about what was happening. 

"...L-lets.. get out of here.." The girl panted, as she grabbed hold of one of the thick vines that grew on the trees. It was practically a natural rope, and also her only means of escape. Pulling it loose enough that she could swing in it, Amelia took a leap of faith, swinging herself to another tree. It wasn't exceptionally fast, but the monkeys seemed more interested in taking care of their wounded allies. Naturally, that reprieve in the action wouldn't last long, and if they were still there when the monkeys decided to return to the warpath, Amelia and Kyou were highly unlikely candidates for the survival award......

[Shinku]

Too angry to even be surprised, Kyou watched as the little fairy transformed into a small woman who paid him just as much attention as the fairy had, which meant: none at all. Instead she was staring into space and ignored him and his demand completely, as if the threat he had used was empty and unimportant. His clenched fist was shaking with suppressed emotion, his breath went erratically and his face flushed and paled and flushed again as he contemplated if he should make himself noticed by planting a fist into her absent-minded face.

Kyou paused for a moment when the woman began to talk to herself. She sounded quite mad and her words didn’t make any sense to Kyou at all.
Or at least he decided that she was mad and that her words weren’t connect to what he had said to her earlier… because if that was her reply to him… if she was trying to tell him that what she spoke out loud… and there was no doubt that she had called him a traitor just before… if that was what she thought of him, he would have to kill her right here right now and without mercy.
To be called a traitor, and by someone who didn’t even knew him, was something Kyou could just not tolerate.
The young man was not lost that deeply in his rage though, to not notice that the fairy woman wasn’t looking at him at all.
Slowly he breathed out and imagined himself closing his eyes in order to focus. In a dangerous environment it was foolish to close ones eyes and yet the image helped him to collect himself.
Right… The girl wasn’t trying to provoke him. She was simply going mad, probably because she was unused to life-threatening situations and couldn’t handle the pressure of it.
In a strange way, her escape into insanity seemed oddly appealing to his own stressed mind.

Slowly he slid his sword into his belt. His emotions were still running wild, but at least his hate had subsided.
Hate… not anger or rage, he realized. That was dangerous. The difference was subtle, but the consequences could be huge. Rage might boil fast and unleash a very destructive power, but hate was… slower… more deeply ingrained… and yet a more internecine ruin than any other feeling.
He would have to be careful to not fall into that trap.

As Kyou succeeded to get back the control over his feelings, the girl seemed to manage so as well. She had stopped her endless repeating mantra and suggested to move on.

Shrugging off the last of his anger the boy grabbed a liana, tugged on it a few times to check if it would hold his weight and then he followed the transformed fairy.
Wind blew into his face and brought tears to his eyes, fear rushed together with his blood through his body and his heart was beating so hard that he could hear it behind his ears.
“Just why did I do that…” he wondered about his stupid act of following her, but it was already too late to stop. Clinging to the vine as if his life depended on it, Kyou flew through the jungle as if he was one of the many cousins of humankind. For a moment his body felt weightless as he reached the final point of the forward motion and then like a pendulum, the liana tried to swing backwards again.
In panic, Kyou waved his hands and tried to grab onto something. His fingers closed around another liana and the backward motion stopped. The cowardly man tried his best to not look down, while he switched from one plant to the other, detaching his legs from one and wrapping them around the other one before letting go of the first liana.
And again his flight through the jungle continued.

Until it stopped…

Abruptly…

As he hit a tree….

“Ouch” His head started to spin and the boy lost grip of his vine. Immediately he started to drop to the ground.

“Uff” A branch beneath him stopped his fall, but only for a second. Half unconscious from the pain, Kyou slipped to the side and dropped off.

“Akh” This time at least he had hit the ground and cold not fall any further. Lucky for him, the travel with the vines had brought him closer to the ground and the thick shrubbery growing there had absorbed enough of the impact for him to survive.

Dazed Kyou shook his head and looked up, only to see a very familiar face. It was one he hadn’t seen in years. It was also one he would never forget.
“Oi oi, if this isn’t our little traitor.” The person in front of Kyou said with a mocking smile.

Kyou’s mind went blank.

In front of him was the man who had single-handedly leaded to the downfall of the Marine squad they both had belonged to. And then he had pushed around the blame so that Kyou would take the fall for him.

All color vanished from Kyou’s face and the boy started to shake uncontrollably.
“Useless as ever but it’s good to see you, little one. What brought you to this lonely island? In hiding because you betrayed someone again?” The man said in a tone that suggested that this was only a casual conversation to him.

Before he knew what he was doing, Kyou had drawn his bokken and attacked. The fairy woman who had accompanied him was forgotten.
Back then, after it had happened, he hadn’t searched for revenge. The boy had been far too tired and emotionally weakened to even think about the person who was responsible for the death and disappearance of his friends. Revenge would not bring his nakama back to life.

But now he was raging with cold hate that could not be stopped, hate that would not die down unless he smashed in that mockingly grinning face.
If he let him get away now, that guy – no, it was time to call that person by his name - Amin Meshullam, - would only push the blame off to Kyou again and Kyou would find himself on the run once more. Losing his teammates had been hard enough, but that everyone believed that it was him who had betrayed the crew had pained him even more. Seeing the eyes of his fellow marines as they watched him pass, each and every of them filled with contempt and animosity against the traitor in their own ranks.
The boy back then had been too numb with shock to fully grasp their hatred, but every time Kyou thought back to that day, the memory pierced through his chest with painful clarity. And now that memory was fueling his hate.

No. He couldn’t let him get away. He could not survive another trial like that. This time Kyou would stop his friend and if he had to kill Meshullam to do so, then he would.