[center][h3][color=cyan]π•Šπ•’π•Ÿπ••π•–π•£ π•ƒπ• π•£π•£π•’π•šπ•Ÿπ•–[/color] [color=662d91]π•‚π•¦π•€π•’π•£π•š 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕨𝕠𝕣π•₯𝕙[/color] [color=8493ca]β„‚π•™π•£π•šπ•€π•₯π•žπ•’π•€ ℍ𝕒𝕝𝕧𝕠𝕀π•₯[/color][/h3][/center] [center][img]http://i65.tinypic.com/28hztyw.png[/img][img]http://i68.tinypic.com/33p7a8k.png[/img][img]http://i63.tinypic.com/2h84geb.jpg[/img][/center] [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center] [hr][center][color=silver]ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕒π•₯π•šπ• π•Ÿ ℙ𝕠𝕀π•₯ / / [@RedDusk][@Piercing Light][@January][/color][/center][hr][hr][center][color=silver]π•Šπ•–π•‘π•₯. πŸ›, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / β„‚π•£π•šπ•žπ•–π•Ÿ ℂ𝕦𝕝𝕑𝕒𝕖 πŸ™ / / ℕ𝕠𝕣π•₯π•™π•–π•£π•Ÿ 𝕆𝕦π•₯π•€π•œπ•šπ•£π•₯𝕀 / / πŸšπŸ™πŸšπŸ[/color][/center][hr] [center][h1][color=red]β“„[/color][/h1][/center] Christmas had barely put the large jacket on and eeked out a [color=8493ca]"Thank you"[/color] in response when the shotgun rang out again, the noise still disorienting and painfully loud. Another sudden spray of glitter glimmered into view as the witch's orb broke and he covered his face again, hearing only a terrifying screech before the sense of calm vanished. He stopped breathing for a few seconds as Lawrence's power flickered off. It hurt to even think as panic and fear flooded out every conscious thought, threatening a stomachache and dizziness as adrenaline shot through him. The sight of the looming eye and its heel, poised to strike, drove home the sense of sheer terror that was the constant background noise throughout Christmas's life, the emotion one he would never, ever grow used to. He finally managed to breathe in. And screamed. The mad scramble that followed after had him scraping at the dirt and grass with his hands as he bolted, the loose jacket hanging off one shoulder while panic drove him as far and as fast as he could run. He was only looking at the relative safety of the trucks when he stumbled over Sander's legs, toppling forward across Sander's calves with another loud cry. The fall snapped him out of his mindless panic. Christmas breathed rapidly as he hastily crawled off of Sander, trying to gather himself while the iron taste of blood in his mouth reminded him of the requirements behind Sander's power. He had bitten the inside of his cheek in the fall, scraping his chin and hands as well. The pain pooled together with the stings and cuts from the glitter, and Christmas remembered that he was bleeding from too many small injuries to count, including the searing pain in his right eye. He would have panicked again, but the sight of Sander lying on the ground cleared out a small haven of sanity in the flood of fear threatening to drown him once more. [color=8493ca]"San-Sander...?"[/color] Christmas called out, afraid to touch his roommate again in case he made any injuries worse, especially after falling all over Sander a moment ago. [hr] Sander overestimated his strength. The blood did that. It made him feel powerful, even when pitched against impossible odds such as these monstrosities. His recklessness had its price. He was keenly aware of the monster’s mutated limbs moving. He saw it rose and moved with his improved perception, the motion clear and predictable. But he was too slow. He couldn’t move out of the way in time. A wet crunch heralded sickening pain as the blow launched him through the air. He went tumbling through the landscape, then finally left sprawling on his back on the ground. His lungs burnt, but each breath only served to send lances of pain through his side. After a few minutes of struggling, he finally settled for quick, shallow gasps of air. Leaning on his good side, he tried to pull himself up, but his first attempt ended in painful failure as his right arm was too slippery with the blood still leaking from Kusari’s knife wound. Just as he was bracing himself for the second attempt, something hit his legs hard. He groaned, instinctively curled in onto himself, which only served to aggravate his cracked ribs. A quick look at his feet erased his fear. No monsters were gnawing at his lower half. It was just Christmas. The blond boy called out his name, but he only responded with a barely audible grunt. Seeing as he could barely form words without feeling like retching his guts out, he raised a bloody arm, motioning Christmas to get closer. Christmas struggled between his instinctive desire to flee again at the sight of Sander's bloody hand beckoning him closer and the conscious desire to help his injured roommate. He hesitated long enough that he seriously considered just running for the trucks. Fear of the consequences won out in the end and he crawled forward tentatively, guilt mixing with his shame that he hadn't been able to help immediately. [color=8493ca]"I--uh..."[/color] he held out a shaking left hand, small drops of blood falling near Sander's face. The craving flared, cutting through the haze of pain. On closer inspection, the blond boy was bleeding, and the way he reached for Sander, it was almost like he was offering. And Sander was not about to turn him down. Whatever resolve he had, Sander left it behind in the truck. He caught Christmas’ hand, the wound on his right arm made his grip far weaker than it could have been, but with his enhanced strength, it was enough. [color=cyan]β€œNo take backs”[/color]- He smiled wryly as his tongue darted out to lap up a drop of blood that landed on his lips. This was the first time someone had used Christmas's healing power. The sensation was like a light current through his body and he shuddered as the magic activated, wrapping them both in a translucent, glass-like veil of slowly shifting mist. His power began knitting together Sander's injuries at a snail's pace from the drop alone. Once Sander had been given a taste, it was always hard to stop. After all, he needed Christmas’ blood. They needed him to fight, and he couldn’t do that on his back with a few broken ribs. He needed to heal. He needed this. His thumb dug into the open wound on the blond boy’s arm, eliciting sharp cries of pain from his terrified roommate, before pulling it toward him. He latched on to the cut and began drinking. As the pain on his left side lessened, he lifted his good arm and held onto the front of Christmas’ shirt. Pain was something Christmas was used to, but the raw, searing sensation of someone digging into his injuries was on an entirely different level. He bit his trembling lower lip as Sander drank, unsuccessfully trying to stymie the tears and whimpers. His body reflexively struggled and tried to pull away, but Sander's grip on his shirt held him firmly in place. The same familiar warmth fluttered in Sander's chest so many times before, but he still came undone so easily in its presence. Christmas’ squirming pulled on the wound on his arm, to which Sander responded with an annoyed grunt and pushed at the blond boy with his good arm, flipping them over. He dug a knee in the boy’s stomach, effectively pinning him place. [color=8493ca]"San--"[/color] Christmas had started to protest when the world tilted sideways and he found the wind knocked out of him with a heavy weight pressing onto his stomach. He coughed out the rest of his sentence with no intelligible effect, trembling while Sander towered over him, still drinking from the wound on his hand. That lurking panic gripped him again, and Christmas's struggling grew more frantic to no avail. A pale hand gripped the hair on top of Sander's head, and another wielding a knife edged against the back of his neck. [color=662d91]"Let him go, Sander. I am not going to tell you again."[/color] Kusari spoke, her low voice right next to his ear. She had fully recovered a few moments ago, and of all the things she was expecting to see as she ran to the battlefield, this was the worst case scenario. She had hoped Sander would have eliminated at least one enemy, but here he was injured and about to suck Christmas dry. She was perfectly calm on the surface, looking as if the explosions and screams all around didn't faze her. It was a front to say the least, but false courage was just as good as the real thing as long as it got the job done, right? She knew what she was doing looked bad, but she wasn't quite in the mood to beat around the bush. If Sander couldn't control himself he would get them all killed. Cold metal was a stark contrast against Sander’s feverish skin. He hissed as the sharp edge pressed against his bare skin, body tensed and on full alert, Christmas’ bleeding wrist forgotten. Moments after the threat left Kusari’s mouth, Sander twisted in her grip with the strength and speed that couldn’t belong to a lanky teenage boy, throwing his elbow backward in a strike. Kusari was half expecting Sander to respond with violence, he'd just done it to her after all. Sander was lucky the sudden movement hadn't caused her to slice his throat by mistake. She let go of his head, and blocked the elbow using her arms. He was certainly stronger now, as she was easily sent backwards. She planted her feet, just barely allowing her to skid to a stop. Her arms were nearly numb and were throbbing in pain, thankfully her ability was already healing the damage. [color=662d91]"You dense motherfucker."[/color] She growled, her visage the very picture of wrath. [color=662d91]"Look around you, this is a battlefield! We don't have time to deal with your dumbass addiction. While you're over here thinking of yourself, one of us has already died!"[/color] Kusari pointed towards the blue team. While she was running to help her own group she had heard Padma's horrifying screams as her life was snuffed out. She would be hearing that in her nightmares, she knew it. For whatever idiotic reason she believed they could make it out of this with no casualties. That was clearly naive. She was frustrated, she was angry, but worst of all she felt helpless. It seemed the only thing her body was good for was taking abuse. [color=662d91]"I'm not going to take this anymore, I'm going to fight. You better do the same or I'm going to shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be tasting rubber for a week!"[/color] Kusari was finished yelling at Sander, she turned around and sprinted towards the two targets she believed she could easily handle, the dogs. Her first victim would be the dog trying to attack Emma, Kusari blindsided it from the side, sending a kick straight to the throat. She then leaped onto the dog, and jammed the knife into where its jugular should be, twisting the knife and yanking it out sideways. A spray of white blood splattered her, and the dog stopped moving. Her eyes locked onto the last dog. [color=662d91]"Oh I didn't forget about you!"[/color] She nearly tripped over the corpse of the dog as she gained momentum, there was an odd feeling in the back of her head as she realized something. These things couldn't kill her, so she could simply keep throwing herself at them until she won. As long as she wasn't disabled somehow anyway. Hearing her yell, the dog turned around and lashed out with it's tongue. [color=662d91]"W-what?"[/color] Kusari tripped forward as a wave of pain welled up in her right leg. As she fell onto her back she saw that her leg was barely hanging onto her body, it had basically been cut off. [color=662d91]"M-my leg... that's... My leg? Huh?"[/color] Kusari's teeth chattered as tears began forming in her eyes. She was no longer able to keep up her facade of courage. She let out a scream of pain, only to then have the dog run towards her and jump onto her. She tried to fight it off with her arms, but couldn't stop it from digging tearing into her throat with its razor-sharp tongue. The screaming was replaced by manic gurgling as blood poured from the wound. She gripped her knife so tightly her nails dug into her skin, and she began stabbing the dog over and over, aimlessly puncturing it. The dog eventually fell over, dead, and Kusari was left grasping at her throat to hold in her blood. Breathing was impossible as well, so her head began to feel light headed. Yet she didn't pass out, her throat managed to heal just enough to allow her to stay awake, unfortunately. The pain was intense, between the stinging in her throat and her severed leg she was in agony. She had gotten full of herself. Perhaps throwing herself at monsters wasn't such a smart idea after all. [hr] Sander's weight on his stomach was not helping Christmas's already shallow breathing as the wide-eyed terror set in again when he fully realized Sander [i]might kill him.[/i] He hyperventilated, sobs and gasps alternating as his breaths came too fast for him to control. The pain from his arm was almost forgotten in his renewed dread at the sensation of overbearing pressure holding him down. This was ice-cold fear and a reminder of nightmares that sank like lead to the pit of his stomach, making him want to vomit. He wanted to run, hide, [i]escape[/i]. Christmas scrabbled at the ground, unable to free himself from Sander's strength while incoherent noises slipped from his mouth in breathless bursts between desperate gasps for air. Meanwhile, Kusari’s words registered to Sander, but it hardly looked that way from the outside. Sander simply held her gaze quietly, first with wild eyes and clenched jaws, but then his expression mellowed. His crimson eyes just looked weary, as if Kusari’s rant was something he had heard too many times before. He might as well have. Once she was gone though, he looked at her retreating back, mumbling: β€œ[color=cyan]If only all of us had the luxury of choice…[/color]” A soft whimper brought him back to his immediate surroundings, and he regarded the bleeding body beneath him. His left arm was still holding onto a fistful of the blond boy’s shirt, something Sander quickly rectified. He let go, the line of his jaws hardened again as he hastily grabbed the loose sleeve of Christmas' jacket and began wrapping it around the boy’s bleeding wrist. With that done, he grabbed Christmas’ good hand and forced it on top of the makeshift bandage. β€œ[color=cyan]Don’t let go.[/color]”-His voice cracked a little as he let out the breath he had been holding. Christmas didn't seem to hear him, tear-blind eyes staring at some terror that was neither here nor there as he continued sobbing between quick, uneven breaths. But there was nothing to be done about that now. There was no time. Immediately afterward, he scrambled to his feet and stepped away from Christmas as the smaller boy turned to his side and immediately pulled his knees up to his chest, breathing like a fish on land even after Sander got off. Christmas's right hand gouged the ground as he dug his fingers into the dirt while his "bandaged" left hand curled instinctively against his chest. Common courtesy demanded that he help the poor boy up, but Sander didn’t trust himself to stop once he got started again. He could tell that he was soon reaching that point of no return in the course of his blood high, where his limbs ached for violence and his blood boiled at the slightest provocation. At least his ribs no longer rattled with every breath, though he did just now notice the mist of light that surrounded his body. He spared a few moments for the blond boy, his expression pulled into a grimace, jaws twitching with unsaid words. In the end, he chose silence, as he had so many times before.